Amazing Civil War Pictures

http://www.theatlantic.com/infocus/2012/02/the-civil-war-part-1-the-places/100241/

Political One-liners

  • The problem with political jokes is they get elected. ~Henry Cate, VII
  • We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. ~Aesop
  • If we got one-tenth of what was promised to us in political speeches there wouldn’t be any inducement to go to heaven. ~Will Rogers
  • Those who are too smart to engage in politics are punished by being governed by those who are dumber. ~Plato
  • Politicians are the same all over. They promise to build a bridge even where there is no river. ~Nikita Khrushchev
  • When I was a boy I was told that anybody could become President; Now I believe it. ~Clarence Darrow
  • Why pay money to have your family tree traced; go into politics and your opponents will do it for you. ~Unknown
  • Politicians are people who, when they see light at the end of the tunnel, go out and buy some more tunnel. ~John Quinton
  • Politics is the art of getting votes from the poor and campaign funds from the rich, by promising to protect each from the other. ~Oscar Ameringer
  • I offer my opponents a bargain: If they will stop telling lies about us, I will stop telling the truth about them. ~Adlai Stevenson, campaign speech, 1952
  • I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians. ~Charles de Gaulle
  • Politics is supposed to be the second-oldest profession. I have come to realize that it bears a very close resemblance to the first. ~Ronald Reagan
  • Instead of giving a politician the keys to the city, it might be better to change the locks. ~Doug Larson

Very, very cool (pun intended) saltwater freezing

Icy Finger of Death

The War on Boys

Interesting article talking about how young men are losing ground in education, emotional health and jobs

Part 1

Part 2

The Death of Pretty

Well done article talking about how society has pushed “pretty” aside in favor of “hot”.

“Young women today do not seem to aspire to pretty, they prefer to be regarded as hot. Hotness is something altogether different.  When women want to be hot instead of pretty, they must view themselves in a certain way and consequently men view them differently as well.”

“As I said, pretty inspires men’s nobler instincts to protect and defend.  Pretty is cherished. Hotness, on the other hand, is a commodity.  Its value is temporary and must be used.  It is a consumable.”

Salman Khan: Let’s use video to reinvent education

Milton Friedman, Phil Donahue and Greed (1979)

Debt Limit – A Guide to American Federal Debt Made Easy

The Ten Cannots

  • You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
  • You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
  • You cannot help little men by tearing down big men.
  • You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
  • You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
  • You cannot establish sound security on borrowed money.
  • You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
  • You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than you earn.
  • You cannot build character and courage by destroying men’s initiative and independence.
  • You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they can and should do for themselves.

Rev. William John Henry Boetcker, 1916

Socialism in the Classroom

An economics professor at a local college made a statement that he had never failed a single student before, but had recently failed an entire class. That class had insisted that Obama’s socialism worked and that no one would be poor and no one would be rich, a great equalizer.
The professor then said, “OK, we will have an experiment in this class on Obama’s plan”. All grades will be averaged and everyone will receive the same grade so no one will fail and no one will receive an A…. (substituting grades for dollars – something closer to home and more readily understood by all).
After the first test, the grades were averaged and everyone got a B. The students who studied hard were upset and the students who studied little were happy. As the second test rolled around, the students who studied little had studied even less and the ones who studied hard decided they wanted a free ride too so they studied little..
The second test average was a D! No one was happy. When the 3rd test rolled around, the average was an F. As the tests proceeded, the scores never increased as bickering, blame and name-calling all resulted in hard feelings and no one would study for the benefit of anyone else. To their great surprise, ALL FAILED and the professor told them that socialism would also ultimately fail because when the reward is great, the effort to succeed is great, but when government takes all the reward away, no one will try or want to succeed. It could not be any simpler than that.
Remember, there IS a test coming up. The 2012 elections.

These are possibly the 5 best sentences you’ll ever read and all applicable to this experiment:
1. You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity.
2. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving.
3. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else.
4. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it!
5. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation.