October 5, 2016: Diderot and Havel Speak

Ironclad

Most certain prediction of the race: If either Mr. Trump or Mrs. Clinton win, the loser will blame Gary Johnson voters.  

Something about this underwear stinks

I've heard and seen ads for Tommy John underwear. I even went to its website to see if it had any relationship with Tommy John the baseball pitcher. It doesn't, and the founder says there's no trademark violation.

I'm like, fine. You should be free to name your company whatever you want. But if my name was Jerry Rice Wilson and I started a new line of say, socks, would I call my company Jerry Rice?  It strikes me as unseemly to do that. It would be unfair to Jerry Rice the football player and would create confusion among potential customers.



What they don't say

In the competitive auto insurance market, most commercials talk about how much you could save. Liberty Mutual doesn't, so I'm guessing it's more expensive. Instead, it boasts that you are actually insured. I think that's an effective message. 

Unprovoked

Poor, poor us (U.S.). Hacked from all fronts. Russia, North Korea China. Our government would NEVER do that to other countries!!!

Birthday quotes I

"From fanaticism to barbarism is only one step."

"Only a very bad theologian would confuse the certainty that follows revelation with the truths that are revealed. They are entirely different things."

"The arbitrary rule of a just and enlightened prince is always bad. His virtues are the most dangerous and the surest form of seduction: they lull a people imperceptibly into the habit of loving, respecting, and serving his successor, whoever that successor may be, no matter how wicked or stupid."

"Watch out for the fellow who talks about putting things in order! Putting things in order always means getting other people under your control."

- Denis Diderot (5 October 1713 – 31 July 1784)


Birthday quotes II

"If every day a man takes orders in silence from an incompetent superior, if every day he solemnly performs ritual acts which he privately finds ridiculous, if he unhesitatingly gives answers to questionnaires which are contrary to his real opinions and is prepared to deny his own self in public, if he sees no difficulty in feigning sympathy or even affection where, in fact, he feels only indifference or aversion, it still does not mean that he has entirely lost the use of one of the basic human senses, namely, the sense of humiliation."

"Those that say that individuals are not capable of changing anything are only looking for excuses."

"Hope is definitely not the same thing as optimism. It is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out."


"'The law is only one of several imperfect and more or less external ways of defending what is better in life against what is worse. By itself, the law can never create anything better... Establishing respect for the law does not automatically ensure a better life for that, after all, is a job for people and not for laws and institutions."

- Vaclav Havel (5 October 1936 – 18 December 2011)

Birthday Quotes III

"There will always be people who are ahead of the curve, and people who are behind the curve. But knowledge moves the curve."

- Bill James (born October 5, 1949)


Happy Birthday Bob Geldof!


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