Category: Best Line of the Day

“In fact, [biomedical researcher Lisa] Hensley did have a date lined up that night, a first date with a man she didn’t know very well. Finally, she phoned him and asked if he wouldn’t mind putting off the date, since she had just had a potential exposure to Ebola virus.

“He was very understanding.”

Richard Preston in his frightening book, The Demon in the Freezer (2002).

Ms. Hensley was fine. The potential exposure had been through an accidental cut in two layers of gloves with children’s scissors (real scissors are not permitted in Level 4 biocontainment).

It’s my first day in the building, I have not taken a single vote, I have not introduced one bill, had not even sat down in my desk, and this very earnest reporter raises his hand and says:

“Senator Obama, what is your place in history?”

I did what you just did, which is laugh out loud. I said, place in history? I thought he was kidding! At that point, I wasn’t even sure the other Senators would save a place for me at the cool kids’ table.

U.S. Senator Barack Obama in commencement address at Knox College

Read the entire Commencement Address. It’s outstanding.

“Flag-burning? We thought we had outsourced that to Pakistan….”

Wonkette

“THESE are the times that try men’s souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. …”

Thomas Paine, The American Crisis, December 1776

(NewMexiKen ran across Paine’s opening line while reading today.)

“We should be eternally vigilant against attempts to check the expression of opinions that we loathe.”

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr.

“Most people, he concluded, were selfish, greedy, unprincipled, venal, utterly irredeemable shit-eaters, but he’d also observed that these same people were highly sensitive to criticism.”

From Empire Falls by Richard Russo.

“The menu was pretentious, the food was pretentious, and the service was pretentious. It was awesome.”

South Knox Bubba on the Ventana Inn Cielo restaurant at Big Sur.

“If you don’t chew gum, swallow, or somehow equalize the pressure, it will occasionally cause discomfort, as anyone who has ever flown with a cold can tell you. But unless you have a blasting cap lodged up your nose, there’s no danger of your head exploding.”

Patrick Smith of Ask the Pilot on the cabin pressure in airliners.

“Bottom line, it’s Jeb’s race to lose. We are, after all, a hereditary monarchy.”

Joel Achenbach at the end of a good blog item about Hilary Clinton and John McCain.

“Justice Clarence Thomas, Justice Antonin Scalia, and Chief Justice William Rehnquist would never have served on the U. S. Supreme Court if this agreement had been in place during their confirmations.”

James C. Dobson, Ph.D., Focus on the Family Action, commenting on the compromise in the U.S. Senate earlier this week.

We can only dream.

“They did some kind of ‘procedure’ on me in the emergency room which involved sticking a TV camera down my throat as well as a pair of vice-grips, a trained duck, and two Navy Seals in a mini-sub.”

Albuquerque blogger Jon Knudsen a week ago after some barbecue lodged in his esophagus. He’s fine.

“I went to a Saab owners convention in the mid-1990s — where there were more gray ponytails than in a herd of Appaloosas …”

Dan Neil

“Worst. List. Ever.

“Lance Armstrong but not Louis?”

Commenter Alan at Political Animal

Neil Armstrong is on the list.

“Recently confined with a case of bulmedia (reading and watching so much of it you start throwing up)…”

Larry Gelbart writing at The Huffington Post

Functional Ambivalent has a great take on The Huffington Post: Pilots Always Suck.

“As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there’s a twilight where everything remains seemingly unchanged, and it is in such twilight that we must be aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness.”

William O. Douglas, quoted at A Voice in the Wilderness.

“[Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens] loves to tell of moving to Washington, and, on a bank application, listing “Justice” as his occupation. The skeptical bank clerk replied, ‘OK, last week, I had a guy who said “Peace”.'”

From an essay on Stevens by a former clerk: In Praise of John Paul Stevens – Newsweek National News – MSNBC.com

“I love the Internet. I used to love card catalogs.”

anonyMoses at The American Street

To which NewMexiKen can only say, “Amen!”

“‘Wind resistance roughly doubles between 55 mph and 70 mph.’ (So I never go more than 55 mph in a 35 mph zone.)”

Found at Andrew Tobias – Money and Other Subjects.

“Anybody who has ever lost a quarter in a Coke machine should be terribly afraid of what we’re probably gonna be forced to vote with.”

Juanita’s: The World’s Most Dangerous Beauty Salon, Inc.

“Have you heard the latest? They’re now saying that Jennifer the runaway bride could be charged for reporting a false crime and could face a year in prison. Gotta be tough on her lawyer if she’s charged. You know trying to convince the judge she’s not a flight risk.”

Jay Leno

Shorter President Bush:

“I can’t kill Social Security right now so I’m going to change it from a program for everyone to a program for poor people, and then we can kill it ten years from now.”

Functional Ambivalent

“The USDA needs to publish a pyramid that just contains four words: STOP BEING A PIG.”

Joel Achenbach, who also has: “My brother’s great line, coming out of restaurant at the Old Faithful Inn, patting his belly: ‘I’m pretty sure they lost money on me at the buffet.'”

“Ratzinger is best known for his years co-starring as the daft-but-lovable Cliff Clavin on the sitcom Cheers. In that role, he pontificated on a wide variety of subjects, which may have helped his career switch from character actor to infallible leader of the world’s Catholics.”

FunctionalAmbivalent

“[A] quiet, dark, air-conditioned house in which I didn’t even recognize loneliness as loneliness, it was so familiar to me.”

Jonathan Franzen in a nice piece in The New Yorker, “Countdown”

“I heard Tom DeLay’s blood was in the water and the sharks were circling him, but unfortunately, it turned out to be a metaphor.”

The Onion | What Do You Think?