Conservative Conversation and Community
“Much of the social history of the Western world, over the past three decades, has been a history of replacing what worked with what sounded good.” – Thomas Sowell
Sowell made this statement over a decade ago, so it should be updated to four decades, maybe five. And now the fruit of replacing what worked with what sounded good is ripe for harvest.
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The Quote of the Day is the easiest way to start a fun conversation on Ricochet. You don’t have to be intelligent, pithy, or eloquent yourself. You can share a written passage that you find interesting, or even something from a favorite movie. You can present the naked quote, or add your thoughts on how it applies […]
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“My chances of being PM are about as good as the chances of finding Elvis on Mars, or my being reincarnated as an olive.” —Boris Johnson (in 2004) More
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“There’s no such thing as a small life. That’s especially true if that small life is yours.” “Petunia’s story was an example of life’s capacity to go on being one thing, to be it more than it was possible to imagine, and then to be more of the same, only more intensely so. And like […]
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“Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened.” – Winston Churchill
Gee, ya think?
MoreOver a year ago, on August 24, 2018, I volunteered to be a moderator, not knowing what to expect. Much like recently, it was in response to a Blue Yeti request. Moderators were a mysterious group, and I figured at the least I would have interesting stories after I got kicked out. Blue Yeti (View Comment): […]
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The documentary One Child Nation, available on Amazon, makes it clear that death was the logical and very common result of China’s one-child policy, which was in effect from 1979 until 2015. According to the film, the one-child-policy kept 338 million people from joining China’s population. Since 2015, by the immense generosity of the Communist Party of […]
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To an outsider, the most significant innovation in the global warming controversy is the overt reliance that is being placed on models. Back in the days of nuclear winter, computer models were invoked to add weight to a conclusion: “These results are derived with the help of a computer model.” But now, large-scale computer models are seen as generating data in themselves. No longer are models judged by how well they reproduce data from the real world—increasingly, models provide the data. As if they were themselves a reality. – Michael Crichton
Michael Crichton (1942-2009) was famous for books such as The Andromeda Strain, Jurassic Park and its sequel The Lost World, all made into blockbuster movies. He planned on becoming a writer, but after beginning studies in 1960 at Harvard, he submitted an essay by George Orwell under his own name, earning a mark of “B−”. He said, “Now Orwell was a wonderful writer, and if a B-minus was all he could get, I thought I’d better drop English as my major.” So he reluctantly decided to go to Medical School, obtaining an MD in 1969. He grew disenchanted with medicine, which emphasized the interests and reputations of doctors over the interests of patients. He never practiced medicine, but by 1966 he published his first book Odds On under the name John Lange, so that his patients wouldn’t worry that they might be used for his plots.
MoreDecember finished 2019 with full month of Quote of the Day posts, with many making the Main Feed. Start the New Year right by sharing your favorite quote on the Quote of the Day January Signup Sheet. We make it easy to “Start a Conversation” by including tips for finding great quotes. Keep Ricochet active […]
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In studying various problems, one must think well.
Even adults with good behavior
Are still subjected to distraction;
A good man can become wicked;
A modest man can become grand.
Sometimes one might mistake a horse for a donkey,
Take a goose for a duck,
Think a winged bean for a liana,
Keep the lead and toss away the silver,
Mistake engraved copper for gold.
That is why it is worth thinking,
To reason, to smell the air
To identify the flavor, the fragrance
Good or bad,
Delectable and exciting.
King Sri Dharmaraja II of Cambodia (reign 1627-1631)
Sri Dharmaraja II was born in 1601 as Prince Ponhea To to King Jaya Jettha II and his third wife. The prince was privately educated at a very young age. Well versed in Sanskrit, Pali, and Khmer, Ponhea To enjoyed poetry and history. In 1620, he was elected crown prince and heir apparent and commanded his father’s military campaign to reclaim Khmer’s territory back from Siam (Thailand). He was quite successful, but to his father’s great disappointment, he could not take Ayudhya. At the same time, his father betrothed him to his step-sister, Bupphavati (the daughter of his step-mother from her previous marriage). In 1623, Ponhea To was ordained as a monk. He found he rather enjoyed his life as a monk, so much that he announced his decision to spend the rest of his life as such. He was still adamant about his decision even after his father passed away in 1625. The throne was then offered to his uncle Prince Uday (his father’s younger brother), but Uday declined the offer. Instead, Uday acted as his nephew’s regent, hoping Ponhea To would change his decision later. In 1627, Ponhea To finally disrobed and left the monkhood and assumed the throne as Sri Dharmaraja Suryavarman II. But a while back when he was still a monk, his uncle married Bupphavati, his former fiancée.
MoreMore“If peace cannot be maintained with honor, it is no longer peace.” – Lord John Russell
“The left doesn’t fight evil; it fights those who do.” – Dennis Prager
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Yesterday when I was young
The taste of life was sweet as rain upon my tongue
I teased at life as if it were a foolish game
The way the evening breeze may tease a candle flame
The thousand dreams I dreamed, the splendid things I planned
I always built, alas, on weak and shifting sand
I lived by night and shunned the naked light of day
And only now I see how the years ran away
Most of us know what we should expect to find in a dragon’s lair, but, as I said before, Eustace had read only the wrong books. They had a lot to say about exports and imports and governments and drains, but they were weak on dragons.
All the world’s a stage,And all the men and women merely players;They have their exits and their entrances,And one man in his time plays many parts. — As You Like It, Act II, Scene VII These lines are followed by a description of what Shakespeare calls the “seven ages” of life, from helpless infancy to the […]
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“A person who won’t read has no advantage over one who can’t read.” – Mark Twain
I may have some advantages. I have been a reader since first grade, nearly 60 years. Over that period I have been an engineer, a quality-assurance manager, a navigator, a technical writer, and an author. Reading has been the key to all of those careers. My ability to absorb information through the printed word has allowed me to succeed in each of those fields.
More“Only twenty-seven people in Britain can explain why the day after Christmas Day is called Boxing Day, but that doesn’t stop millions from marking it by staying home from work. An intriguing side effect of thus having two consecutive public holidays is that no matter what days of the week they fall on, the British […]
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The Salvation Army Mission Statement
The Salvation Army, an international movement, is an evangelical part of the universal Christian Church. Its message is based on the Bible. Its ministry is motivated by the love of God. Its mission is to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ and to meet human needs in His name without discrimination.
“I remember discussions with Bohr which went through many hours till very late at night and ended almost in despair; and when at the end of the discussion I went alone for a walk in the neighboring park I repeated to myself again and again the question: Can nature possibly be so absurd as it seemed to us in these atomic experiments?” – Werner Heisenberg, Physics and Philosophy (1958)
In 1905, Albert Einstein argued that light behaves not only as a continuous wave but sometimes as an individual particle. This led to the development of Quantum Mechanics in the mid-1920s by Werner Heisenberg, Niels Bohr, Erwin Schrödinger, and others. Einstein questioned parts of the theory with his “God does not play dice with the universe” quote. Even 100 years later, Quantum Mechanics still troubles us with its strange phenomena.
MoreThe Quote of the Day is the easiest way to start a fun conversation on Ricochet. You don’t have to be intelligent, pithy, or eloquent yourself. You can share a written passage that you find interesting, or even something from a favorite movie. You can present the naked quote, or add your thoughts on how it […]
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“It’s discouraging to think how many people are shocked by honesty and how few by deceit.” — Noël Coward
That is the reason American politics is so toxic today. You cannot tell the truth without shocking people, but no one thinks twice when a politician lies. They expect it. (How can you tell a politician is lying? His lips are moving.)
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