Clever turns of phrase, special splashes of wit, provocative insight — all in a sentence or two.
A linguistics professor was lecturing to his class one day. “In English,” he said, “A double negative forms a positive. In some languages, though, such as Russian, a double negative is still a negative. However, there is no language wherein a double positive can form a negative.”
A voice from the back of the room piped up, “Yeah, right.”
“He was so narrow minded he could see through a keyhole with both eyes.”
“My fave line from her about the President was: ‘If he was any stupider, he’d have to be watered once a day.'”
Supplied by Theron, commenting at Small tales from the mild, mild west.
“It was the kind of TV that lowers your IQ as surely as being brained with a club.”
Joel Achenbach on last night’s Larry King climate “debate.” Read it all.
“I believe in the Church of Baseball. I’ve tried all the major religions, and most of the minor ones. I’ve worshipped Buddha, Allah, Brahma, Vishnu, Siva, trees, mushrooms, and Isadora Duncan. I know things. For instance, there are 108 beads in a Catholic rosary and there are 108 stitches in a baseball. When I heard that, I gave Jesus a chance. . . .”
Annie Savoy
Pitchers and catchers begin reporting in two weeks.
“Life is too important to devolve into some kind of 1970s miniseries.”
FunctionalAmbivalent discussing Hilary Clinton vs., possibly, Jeb Bush.
[President Bush] concluded with the traditional (since Reagan) introduction of model citizens up in the gallery, including Julie Aigner-Clark, the founder (with her husband, a generous donor to Republican campaigns) of the Baby Einstein Company. The President did not explain how Aigner-Clark, whose business sells “developmental” videos for infants, which the American Academy of Pediatrics has dismissed as at best valueless, exemplifies what he called “the heroic kindness, courage, and self-sacrifice of the American people.” Maybe it was just another Bush SOTU puzzler, like last year’s warning against “human-animal hybrids.” (To be fair, America remains proudly centaur-free.)
“Joe was twenty, with fewer prospects than a box turtle on a four-lane highway.”
Gerri Hirshey, writing in Rolling Stone about Joe Brown, father of James Brown — The Definitive Profile of the Godfather of Soul.
“By the time [Bush’s] gone, this country is going to look like a hotel suite after Van Halen passed through town. We’re going to need to burn the mattresses, pull up the carpeting and start over.”
FunctionalAmbivalent, taking time off from his commenting at NewMexiKen to blog at home.
“For those hoping for real action on global warming and energy policy, the State of the Union address was a downer. There had been hints and hopes that the speech would be a Nixon-goes-to-China moment, with President Bush turning conservationist. But it ended up being more of a Nixon-bombs-Cambodia moment.”
Paul Krugman, who also has this:
“To be sure, at this point Mr. Bush’s people seem less concerned with devising good policy than with finding something, anything, for the president to talk about that doesn’t end with the letter ‘q.'”
“That would be Dionne’s own column—a compare-and-contrast about Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama that is so dry-as-dust, so utterly tedious, that it reads like something David Broder could have written.”
“Blogger. n. Someone with nothing to say writing for someone with nothing to do.”
Tagline for Let the Good Times Roll by Guy Kawasaki. Link is to a nice piece by Kawasaki on how to get a standing ovation (when giving a speech).
“Local TV and radio stations are waxing rhapsodic about more snow coming, wavering over whether they should instill fear and panic, or strut with confidence over a no-show.”
It always seems to NewMexiKen that when it comes to weather warnings, TV stations waver over whether to instill fear OR panic. P.T. Barnum’s heirs, every one.
NBC’s Jay Leno, on [David] Beckham’s magnitude: “To give you an idea of how popular he is, today an L.A. jury awarded him a not-guilty sentence for any future murders.”
“For those of you who don’t have a blog yet, think of one as a large yellow Labrador: friendly, fun, not all that bright, but constantly demanding your attention.”
David Carr in an excellent column about blogging and newspapers.
“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.”
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
Nobel Prize Acceptance Speech
December 10, 1964
Library of Congress
President Bush said, “The situation in Iraq is unacceptable to the American people – and it is unacceptable to me.”
Now that you mention it, you President Bush are unacceptable to me, too.
How resounding was Florida’s 41-14 triumph in the BCS Championship Game on Monday?
The Buckeyes already have been downgraded to merely An Ohio State University.
“Byron surprised Jill with a short birthday trip to New York, where they saw a show and actually had dinner in a restaurant where crayons were not given out with the menus.”
Jill, official oldest daughter of NewMexiKen and now the mother of three sons, in Jill and Byron’s holiday newsletter, 2005.
“Michigan brought its horse-and-buggy offense to the Rose Bowl on Monday and produced what horses-and-buggies usually do. Manure.”
Bill Dwyre, Los Angeles Times, who concludes, after considering Michigan and its three-point loss to Ohio State:
“There are still seven shopping days left before the Jan. 8 national title game, plenty of time to ponder the phrase ‘Florida and the points.'”
[USC defeated Michigan 32-18 in the Rose Bowl.]
“Once our money came in the sober hues of American monumentalism: black, green, ivory. Now it’s decorated like a Ft. Lauderdale shrimp bar.”
Dan Neil on our new funny money.
“But truth is, with the imperiled state of the dollar, the seat of its solvency lies elsewhere, with those who are holding our debt. Our money should have the Great Wall of China on the back.”
“Well, I’m not sure — it’s a success that hasn’t occurred yet. I don’t know that I view that as a failure.”
Frances Fragos Townsend, assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, commenting on CNN on the as yet unoccurred success of capturing Osama bin Laden, as reported by Brad DeLong.
President Bush and first lady Laura Bush were moved to an armored vehicle on their ranch Friday when a tornado warning was issued in central Texas, the White House said.The vehicle was driven to a tornado shelter on the ranch, and the president, Mrs. Bush and their two dogs sat inside until the weather cleared, deputy White House press secretary Scott Stanzel said. They were never moved into the shelter, he said.
Reached for comment, President Bush was quoted as saying, “Dagnabbit I was hopin’ for a ternadah. Them things leave me all kinds of brush that needs clearing.”
Also reached for comment, the troops said, “He’s got an armored vehicle? What the fuck?”
“Ford, during the 1976 Republican presidential primaries: ‘Governor [Ronald] Reagan and I have one thing in common — we both played football. I played for Michigan, he played for Warner Brothers.'”
As reported at Sideline Chatter.
“The answer is that, at least in my recent experience with the nation’s biggest cable company, Comcast, the high-definition DVR it supplies is just awful.”
Walt Mossberg in a discussion of TiVo and DVRs. And Walt doesn’t even live in Albuquerque where, I assure you, Comcast does even less for its customers than seems to be the case in, say, the San Francisco or Washington, D.C. areas.