"When love is gone, there's always justice.
And when justice is gone, there's always force.
And when force is gone, there's always Mom.
Hi, Mom!"
- Laurie Anderson

***

"It was a lesson he absorbed as a boy from his wealthy and cynical father, who taught him that greed, arrogance and unscrupulousness were the way of the world. At the same time, the precocious young Conrad learned from his passion for history that real heroes were permitted to flout rules designed by the mediocre to shackle them... Even now, Lord Black, confrontational to the last, sees himself as a victim of the 'spite and envy' of others rather than of his own towering ego. This is a gripping cautionary tale that still awaits its denouement." - On Conrad Black. Sounds familiar.

Claiming that tough training is the best welfare you can give your soldiers is like a deserter saying that by deserting he is being loyal to his country because the alternative is to desert his battle post, reveal information to the enemy under interrogation/torture or betraying the country willingly (eg Switching sides); technically correct but grossly misleading given common understanding. [Someone: either side is capable of capture and interrogation, so don't switch sides. downgrade and get a vocation incapable of providing anything useful]

Never let a few good apples taint the barrel! We cannot generalise and conclude that entire groups are praiseworthy just because we have had good experiences with a few of them!

The staff at Hard Rock Cafe have to try the food so if customers ask for their recommendations, or what the food tastes like, they can answer. I don't think all restaurants do this.

One Firefox extension had an "assistant" mode (as opposed to the "advanced" mode). I asked the developer why he didn't just call it "Wizard" (a la MS), and the reply was that "it's easier to translate for many folks plus it's more or less consistent over all languages. Wizard translates in most languages only as that old guy with the wand making evil things."


Some girls were talking about marrying a rich man in the future (and presumably not working). I found this annoying, and not only because of the near impossibility of doing such a thing as a male.

One will probably find that if a woman does not work, her marriage is more stable, since the lack of financial independence means she will have to put up with more from her partner. So conversely, I promote financial independence despite (or even because of) this seemingly deleterious effect (this even discounting my ideological objections to that institution).

What those who lament the modern decline in marriage longevity and occurence do not see is that marriage is not an end to be sought in and of itself, but a means to an end (whatever it may be). For women, the corollary to marrying a woman uglier than you is to marry a man not only nicer than you, but also one poorer than you.