Scholars and Rogues » Nota Bene

Nota Bene #123: Behold the Chickenosaurus

Mike Sheehan — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 01:01:38 +0000

“There ought to be limits to freedom.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “Combine them all in one power-packed meal to gain superpowers!” … “This thing that’s going on with our political process is so destructive, so contrary to what I’m sure the founders intended, that we’ve got to find a solution” … “He’s taking living descendants of the dinosaur and genetically engineering them to reactivate ancestral traits—including teeth, tails, and even hands—to make a ‘Chickenosaurus’” … “A robber breaks into a bank safe and returns home, where he activates a device that conceals his earlier burglary, making it look like he never entered the bank in the first place” … “I you like” … “One can from this postulate that Hitler was related to people whom he despised” … “Courtesy of your friendly neighborhood black hole” … “They all laughed and pointed to their own scars” … “The revolving door between the Fed and the private financial sector is quite significant” … “At this kind of intensity we start to get into unexplored territory as it is an area of physics that we have never been before” … “Have you ever had a bad dream about being chained up in the bottom of a ship?” … “I wonder if in a year I’ll be able to play my guitar very well” … “Maybe the reason the Bleeder can’t act a lick is because he’s been living like a movie character for 35 years” … “The question is not whether the United States will lose its unchallenged global power, but just how precipitous and wrenching the decline will be” … “Vinyl is the people, a CD is The Man” … “It’s very easy for me to see hate in someone’s eyes, and I’ve never seen it here” … “As we gazed into each other’s eyes, Athena encircled my arms with hers, latching on with first dozens, then hundreds of her sensitive, dexterous suckers” … “It is absolutely a feat of engineering, and it will bring science like nobody’s ever expected” … “Just how long has the world’s oldest living thing been on this planet?” … “Hilarious stuff is EVERYWHERE” … “Never a tourist crowd” … “If you want to be a successful advertising exec in a deeply unequal America, start studying up on 20-somethings making over $100,000 a year” … “I wish this would have happened 25 years ago” … “Where did we come from, what are we, and where are we going?” … “They make a living off of our children” … “Have some more champagne, boy” … This issue’s quote was from George Walker Bush (source) … And finally, “You’re far more akin to a whirlpool, a brief, ever-shifting concentration of energy in a vast river that’s been flowing for billions of years.” ∞

Nota Bene is S&R’s long-running (since 2007), periodic compilation of interesting blog posts, bits of news and creative works from around the Net. NB’s complete post history here. Feed your brain.

Nota Bene #122: OWStanding

Mike Sheehan — Thu, 20 Oct 2011 17:26:47 +0000

“When I lie on the beach there naked, which I do sometimes, and I feel the wind coming over me and I see the stars up above and I am looking into this very deep, indescribable night, it is something that escapes my vocabulary to describe. Then I think: ‘God, I have no importance. Whatever I do or don’t do, or what anybody does, is not more important than the grains of sand that I am lying on, or the coconut that I am using for my pillow.’” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “We modeled the controller after the PlayStation because that’s what these Marines have been playing with pretty much all of their lives” … “I think there’s a really good chance you’re going to see this happen” … “Why make it simple, when it can be complicated?” … “There was a lot of misconduct, and it needs to be looked into” … “They offer an insight into what life was like on the atoll, with swimming pool, water sports center and bar” … “Their failure to deal with social and political meltdown has left hundreds of people dead and tortured by political and criminal mafias” … “If we do something bad that happened before, then the same bad thing could happen again” … “They are like secret codes that no human or computer has yet been able to crack” … “In the unlikely event these warriors would board a plane to Rangoon, they would also be deported on arrival—if not shot on sight” … “They were really kind of baffled that I had ethics” … “I asked why I was pushed away and then the next thing you know I was being judo flipped” … “People don’t even like that name used around here” … “The casinos sweep up a huge number of these every night” … “When he said that, it pierced my soul” … “By the time this is over, it will make the Tea Party look like a tea party” … “Don’t hurt your brain looking at these” … “Looters even fired guns at the star on its mast, under the impression it was composed of rubies” … “You’re going to get over everything that annoys you in life” … “The leaders are considered apostles and prophets, gifted by God for this role” … “The coming Lost Decade is a backdrop for a wave of class warfare destined to trigger a historic revolution in American politics, bigger than the ’29 Crash and Great Depression” … “It was a symbol and a symptom of injustice” … “The insanity in Baltimore’s front office continues unabated” … “It is easy to tell if you’re in an Alawite area these days” … “He was answered by a man in a Raider uniform and pads emerging from behind one of the end zones perched astride a large roan horse and wearing a black German army helmet embellished with the Raider logo on each temple” … “He had the decency to treat owning a football team as the apex goal of his life and his players as brothers in arms, rather than a new vector for divesting fans of every last possible cent” … “Policy has consistently tilted to the advantage of the wealthy” … “You admit billions are living in hell, but it’s up to that girl to fix it?” … “We are the 99 percent” … “The heart of the movement is its focus on the inequality of wealth and power” … “The man’s hypocrisy belongs in the Smithsonian” … “The real extremists here are America’s oligarchs, who want to suppress any criticism of the sources of their wealth” … “If we’re lucky, what we are witnessing is the rebirth of the American Dream in a new generation” … This issue’s quote was from Marlon Brando (source) … And finally, “I don’t have a sense of death like I used to.” ∞

Nota Bene #121: Birds of an Ancient Feather

Mike Sheehan — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:29:28 +0000

“Television is an invention whereby you can be entertained in your living room by people you wouldn’t have in your house.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “There’s a queasy sense that they just might be avengers from the deep, repaying all the insults we’ve heaped on the world’s oceans” … “Let’s send Navy SEALs into the Planters compound in the middle of the night to shoot Mr. Peanut” … “The night raids and the drone strikes continue, as though the risk of widespread and intense anger toward the United States in those countries doesn’t make any difference to the policymakers” … “Many of these planets are at the upper end of what we might call Earth-like” … “Turkey’s emergence as a regional power and a champion of freedom and democratic values in the Middle East is incomplete until Ankara musters the strength of its own people by empowering its minorities” … “Lawless capitalism leads to scenes like these” … “The CIA doesn’t have the size or the authority to do some of the things we can do” … “It’s not a ‘drought,’ it’s the new normal” … “We must do our best to document endangered languages before they fall silent” … “I’m still amazed he succeeded in getting them published” … “No one could call suicide a ‘coping strategy,’ but it is one way some people have responded to job loss and debt” … “A democracy is supposed have a progressive tax structure that is in proportion to the means to pay” … “I asked myself whether, one day, I would have the chance to do that” … “Imagine a pill bug weighing over four pounds” … “It’s the worst hell” … “More often than not, scientific discoveries prove to be more spectacular than anything we dare imagine” … “Newsrooms today are anemic and forlorn wastelands” … “No one in America can leave their home, eat a meal, make a phone call or even turn on the lights without paying some sort of a regressive tax that disproportionately affects the poor and working class” … “This never ending quest is in service of our ultimate goal of finding and publishing the Arthur Godfrey Doomsday Message” … “There are forms of teaching that are highly uncreative and where the emphasis on discipline can kill the passion to make art” … “We are witnessing the emergence of a new field of astronomy” … “They decided to do for themselves what their teachers and textbooks had not” … “You get a sense of the global personality of the power system” … “Hearing that their boots may be responsible for spreading a virulent microorganism across the country and around the world is a bit difficult to accept” … “In one castle, the diminutive Rizzuto lay on a medieval rack and asked Pignatano to stretch him” … “This project underlines the importance of maintaining museum collections as well as the role that interested amateurs can play” … “The podium got a little more crowded” … “That’s what you have to do today, because there aren’t enough stars” … “On several important occasions he wrote what appeared to be undiluted truth about the Pakistani state’s deepest dilemmas” … “You sold your souls, and you’re going to continue selling them” … “Being rich is a good thing” … “You’ve picked the wrong people!” … “The feeling that most people have is this can’t be right, this can’t be real” … “In 21st century America, upward redistribution seems to be the guiding principle” … “If you look at how the federal government spends our money, it’s an insurance conglomerate protected by a large, standing army” … “The four universal Fs of evolution are fur, photosynthesis, flight and—mating” … “Can you believe that pompous douchebag tried to tell me that?” … “Biology Prize: Gwynne and Rentz for discovering that a certain kind of beetle mates with a certain kind of Australian beer bottle” … “Just as the world’s spiritual traditions have adapted to the reality that the Earth does not exist at the center of the universe, so too must we now accept, indeed embrace, the fact that we live in a dynamic universe that has been unfolding for billions of years” … This issue’s quote was from David Frost (source)… And finally, “When you grow up, you’re going to be a great writer.” ∞

Nota Bene #120: Crazy Ivan

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:00:38 +0000

“If you can make a woman laugh, you’re seeing the most beautiful thing on God’s earth.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “I concentrated on fish, the Dutch are working on pork, and other people have made some attempts at beef” … “We had better treat them well just in case they should wake up and remind us of all they’ve done for us—or could do to us” … “Not only are we not No. 1—we are among the worst of the worst” … “I knew this was the perfect solution for me” … “Looks like this place has been abandoned for quite some time” … “There’s no shame in enjoying the quiet life” … “Obama is now on the verge of injecting what until recently was the politically toxic and unattainable dream of Wall Street and the American right into the heart and soul of the Democratic party’s platform” … “Coming out about being gay seemed less daunting than coming out about my legal status“/”I want to do it because I don’t want to live in fear any longer” … “From an audio standpoint it’s got everything you need” … “He couldn’t help that music comin’ out; it just came out, he couldn’t have stopped it if he tried” … “It is Jeter’s misfortune to have done all this at a time when exceptional performances are subject to deep suspicion” … “Are you completely erasing us from so essential a part as to how this whole thing came about?” … “This might be the last breath that I can take” … “I have lived long enough to know that problems are far easier to define than solutions” … “The most reliable friends are the ones who know they owe it all to you” … “His heart missed a beat when he caught sight of a stunning tableau of a woman in a pink muslin evening dress” … “Why would anyone exchange their hard-won dollars for Bitcoins?” … “People watch Fox because they want to be lied to” … “As our financial system has increasingly and more overtly dominated the very structure of the country, freedom itself is being commoditized” … “He’s a poet who made a living as an actor” … “WARNING” … “The implications of this discovery are profound” … “We knew we were being watched” … “Investors from the United States believe they have found an exotic new prospect” … “We do not watch bad graphics of two-dimensional characters doing these things” … “I miss perverts in the real world” … “Fran Lebowitz still owns a Checker” … “AUGH YOU OAF” … “No more movies starring Brad Pitt or Bruce Willis, The Rock or that werewolf from the ‘Twilight’ movies” … “I spit on the News of the World‘s grave” … “I’m talking about something that people might shun me for” … “Einstein survives” … “For all his teasing, Del Boy would have died for Rodney” … “I grew up a global orphan” … “Thus began my obsession with bingo” … “One amusing thing is the most competitive, combative bunch I know are poets” … “For a handful of summers, I got to watch the greatest athlete in the world for free” … “What greater meaning, if any, are we to derive from the human journey?” … “Seriously, if you lived in a village called Blubberhouses, or Uckinghall, or—I swear—Wetwang, wouldn’t you change it?” … “The age of Obama has fallen tragically short of fulfilling King’s prophetic legacy” … “All the devils united against me” … “Other images evoked the sadness and uncertainty of what is left behind at the end of an era“/”Atlantis is towed into its hangar at Kennedy Space Center after it landed several hours earlier, ending its final flight for the space shuttle program” … “I got the rare opportunity to view the city from a tiny outdoor ledge that only a handful of people each year are granted access to”/”When people hear this story—they call me crazy“/”It’s good to take a break and look around while you rest”/”It certainly isn’t for the faint-hearted, but this is a totally unique experience“/”Can you imagine what kind of adrenaline is in your blood right now?” … “Doug and his team created thousands of acid-etched brass miniatures lit from below with hundreds of bundles of fiber-optic lights, shot in forced-perspective through layers of smoke to create layers of light refraction, creating depth” … This issue’s quote was from Keanu Reeves (source) … And finally, “His worst crime is that he confused respect with popularity.” ∞

Nota Bene #119: Think! It Ain’t Illegal Yet

Mike Sheehan — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 06:16:23 +0000

“My wife and I were happy for twenty years. Then we met.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “He was a famous figure in Georgian times and he hasn’t been forgotten today, people still lay flowers on his grave” … “By today’s standards that last figure would cash out to about $15 billion” … “It started really well at the beginning—and then I just lost it” … “This week’s tournament will be played through the slums” … “The first film and ‘Empire’ were about story and character, but I could see that George’s priorities were changing” … “Do you not understand what you are doing?!” … “These trees have led some long and fascinating lives” … “The rot set in when the US legal system began recognizing corporations as de facto people” … “To see you lie so easily, I am afraid I had to ask myself: what else are you lying about?” … “The most powerful driver in our industry is the relentless reduction of cost” … “I didn’t think this stuff was cool till six or seven years ago, so I understand it takes time for people to catch up” … “These studies help to explain why America seems more and more unable to deal with reality” … “There is no belt-tightening on the other side of the tracks” … “The melting of Arctic glaciers and ice caps is projected to help raise global sea levels by 35 to 63 inches by 2100″ … “The capacity to think is the only bulwark against any centralized authority that seeks to impose mindless obedience” … “My little girl, although she is only 12 years old, is one of the most skillful players in Europe” … “It was the bad judgment of the elite, not the greediness of the common man, that caused America’s deficit” … “Could it be that Trump is the greatest political mole/troll we’ve ever seen?” … “Our pop culture priests have succeeded in filling the population with shame and nervous self-loathing to the point where they think of anyone who isn’t an employer as a parasite, and anyone who isn’t rich and famous, or trying to be, as a loser” … “There is no hope left for achieving significant reform or restoring our democracy through established mechanisms of power” … “Until someone finds a pile of 160-year-old bones and explorer supplies, though, the tale remains a mystery” … “Nothing good on TV anymore” … “Head of Stone ‘was not a New York or Los Angeles, but it was definitely a Denver or Atlanta‘” … “All of a sudden, this dark cloud appears and he blocks the sun” … “The vital ingredient for revolutionary change is highly educated, unemployable young people whose future depends on regime change for their survival” … “The challenge is that no human can fit inside these channels so the only way to do this exploration is with robots” … “It’s a phenomenon that’s sweeping the world” … “This one on the Moon is extraordinary” … “One can choose between a hotel and a tent of skins” … “I’m Captain Astronomy, here to save the world from its misuses and abuse” … “We are hoping that life may in fact exist on Mars and that it may in fact be related to us” … “It is extremely risky for journalists to report about the country’s military establishment against its will” … “He’s a five-tool insider who can lie, cheat, steal, play golf, change his mind on command and do anything else his lobbyist buddies and campaign contributors require of him to get the job done” … “Advanced civilisations may live safely inside the black hole without being visible from the outside” … “People who are rich have trouble recognising the emotions of others” … “In order to get away with the things that are the most egregiously profitable and destructive, you really have to subordinate the public’s will“/”It’s the classic combination that every visionary leader in America’s history has warned us against” … “If you take yourself seriously, there are other people in the world who are going to take you very seriously” … “Stop being stupid“/”There is nothing illegitimate, nothing wrong, nothing un-American, nothing foreign, nothing mean-spirited, in asserting your rights and power“/”Global capitalism isn’t working for the American middle class” … “Deep in the world’s largest rainforest lies the abandoned remnants of a factory town built by Henry Ford in the 1920s” … “Corporate corruption is out of control for two main reasons” … “Iguanas look like stupid dicks” … “Of all the costs imposed on our society by the top 1 percent, perhaps the greatest is this: the erosion of our sense of identity” … “That’s actually a good question, and one that we didn’t have a reasonable answer to until 1979″ … “What kind of person is so lacking in morals and ethics that he would ruin a person’s life with lies and distortions?” … “Then along came Reagan” … “Often, the most provocative ideas arise after swigs of whiskey” … “Jake has turned the sleepless nights to his advantage—debunking the big bang theory” … “Many of the big banks have turned themselves into immense trading houses whose fortunes depend on their ability to exploit day-to-day movements in the markets” … “After years of research, I have come to a colorful and what could seem, to some, uncomfortable conclusion that God had a wife” … “The songwriting, the lyrics, the dual guitar and unbelievably cool drumming, it’s just magic” … “Whatever happens, science will move on” … “This is a beautiful world” … “I worship the void” … This issue’s quote was from Jacob Cohen, better known as Rodney Dangerfield … And finally, “It could take a whole generation to cancel out the effects of this.” ∞

Nota Bene #118: VOTE!

Mike Sheehan — Tue, 02 Nov 2010 00:00:55 +0000

“I am not fit for this office and should never have been here.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “So what advice do I have for a young aspiring scientist?” … “Bradley Birkenfeld was one of the few Americans who held the keys to the kingdom” … “I understood poverty because I was there” … “We are yet to discover 80% of the world’s marine species” … “What about the hurdy-gurdy, bowed psaltery and bouzouki?” … “It is time for me to break a silence I have observed for over a year, against my better judgment” … “One or two sent a note back that they hadn’t done anything like that for 125 years” … “But the average age is going down even further” … “There seems to be a relative relationship to access and apathy” … “The most troubling revelation in this story is the astonishing weakness of the Federal Reserve and its incompetence as a faithful defender of the public interest” … “Max then changed his goal to ‘all fourteeners by 14‘” … “President Obama has lost the most trusted man in the Hispanic media” … “How do you measure productivity?” … “We bailed out irresponsible banks, but we forgot about everyone else” … “This is a degree of recklessness previously unseen in American jurisprudence” … “If they were not the only Jewish atheist communist family in Liverpool, the Sayles were certainly one of the more eccentric” … “Britain’s most sweeping military review in more than a decade is set to further diminish this nation’s military might” … “This was the most sacred place” … “It seems the curveball plays on our senses as well as our emotions” … “When I got in touch with Hogan, I told him I’d thought he was dead” … “Well, this is a tough little nut to crack”/”Right now we can confidently say that a seven-character password is hopelessly inadequate” … “For all intents and purposes, the first chapter of Obama’s presidency has ended” … “It might end up being one of the biggest political process stories since Watergate” … “I’m an image whose time has come” … “Last weekend a French fry got lodged in my sinus cavity” … “I decided instead of being violent, and going about it the wrong way, I’d put it on a record” … “A breath of fresh air, someone who actually does hold people – including himself – accountable“/”How can any Latino be a member of a political party whose national platform centers on blaming brown immigrants for most of the country’s social and economic ills?” … “The only sharks circling the Gulf waters now are based on land“/”The corruption and greed that are involved in this disaster far exceeds anything that you can wrap your mind around”/”Business as usual is not a viable option” … “Goodbye, Netherlands Antilles” … “The cost of a single ride is expected to be $98,000” … “Clinton nostalgia is dangerous nonsense” … “I don’t know if you know this or not, but everyone around here fucking hates us” … “Before I realised who it was, I thought: ‘My God, what a beautiful woman‘” … “I want to be a good person, not just be known as a great person” … “I’d rather have a real Republican than a fake Democrat” … This issue’s quote was from Warren G. Harding … And finally, “How many 92-year-old blind women make something like that?” ∞

Nota Bene #117: Wake Up!

Mike Sheehan — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 03:10:45 +0000

“Hollywood is so crooked that Mafia gangsters are entirely outclassed and don’t stand a chance. People in Hollywood are smarter. They have more sophisticated knowledge of money and deals and how to steal legally rather than illegally.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “The oddest thing about Michael Muhammad Knight is that his transubstantiated dream of a Muslim punk-rock scene may be one of the least interesting things about him” … “It’s a remarkable achievement” … “Nothing can make up for what I went through” … “Humor is what gets you through everything, and it got him through everything“/”If you want to live, get up and keep going” … “Pearcy and other drifters and homeless people were recruited onto the Green Party ballot by a Republican political operative who freely admits that their candidacies may siphon some support from the Democrats” … “I’ve always had the demanding job of playing myself” … “Under current laws, the government has little or no information about the health risks posed by most of the 80,000 chemicals on the U.S. market today” … “That was Herbert Hoover’s line and it doomed him” … “One must really digest the very magnitude of this decline and its possible implications” … “He drank a bottle a day for four years, which led to cancer of the jaw and an excruciatingly painful death” … “Rick and his husband Terrance hold hands after their wedding ceremony in Washington, D.C.” … “The deal marks the beginning of the end of the Internet as you know it” … “The bug is already causing over $500 million in damages on an annual basis” … “Those are jobs for which Hallmark will come under all kinds of justified legal fire” … “This is insane!” … “They have been dead for eighteen centuries, but they are human beings who are seen in their agony” … “What we all do is art, you know?” … “Let me give you a little fucking lesson (a lesson I happen to know because my fucking uncle was in the sit-down strike that founded the fucking UAW)” … “I was, at that very moment, objectifying myself” … “Archaeologists live on other people’s misfortunes” … “Poor Alexei Sayle, a few years ago he was on the telly and now look at him homeless and drunk at 11:30 in the morning” … “This begs the question: how much are people willing to be for their open brutal sci-fi murder?” … “Wow, that’s unusual—there’s a conversation occurring in which they’re making point and counterpoint and challenging each other” … “Have you ever wondered what Dark Side of the Moon would sound like if Pink Floyd had written it for NES?” … “You just have to accept that part of having wolves is having to kill wolves” … “He hugged children, and one small boy playfully put his fist next to the chin of the former champion” … “It’s great to see him come out of retirement to sell solar panels” … “Not everyone reacted with alarm” … “After too many years of bad science writing, sci-fi movies, and New Age concepts, it’s an idea that stuck firmly in our minds, but it’s absolutely wrong” … “Those CEOs’ combined compensation totaled $598 million, while at the same time, their companies eliminated 531,363 jobs despite reporting a 44 percent average profit increase” … “Seniors who are happily going off to college with all their designer clothes and Ramen noodles and Trapper Keepers and illegal drugs are missing one thing: knowledge” … “We will, however, attempt to rise above this hardship and continue somehow” … “I’ve protested the government’s policies and spoken out and tried to educate people in my community”/”The FBI even managed to secretly search the anti-war members’ personal trash” … “The rationale is contradictory and ignorant of key facts, producing an outcome that lacks basic intellectual credibility” … “Hossein’s case is tragic, puzzling and mind-boggling” … “It’s a pity that the modern Republican Party offers the American people an irrelevant platform of recycled Keynesianism when the old approach is needed more than ever“/”The fact that it was David Stockman scooping me was sort of doubly hard to take” … “The set includes cars built by George Barris, Ed ‘Big Daddy’ Roth, Dean Jeffries, and Carl Casper, among others” … “Katrina didn’t do this“/”I stood next to a man who was desperately trying to lie to himself simply because the alternative was too painful“/”Locals call him ‘Mr. Go‘”/”He’ll get a better night’s sleep back on his home planet” … “Wake up!” … “I am about to write something I never imagined I’d ever write” … “These laws are dangerous, both for citizens of countries like China and citizens of Western democracies” … “If you read that little description and you’re thinking, ‘That sounds like the worst film in history,’ then I’m just letting you know we could never be good friends in real life” … “It’s brought more people together on this planet than all the politicians put together” … “We are thrilled to be working with NASA to offer such a rich archive” … “We just took a little break, but now we’re back“/”I can appreciate what they do and I think that I’ve been okay myself at what I do” … “Now naked power rules, and shows itself in gross class war and cooked-up news shows, court rulings, and police actions that make clear who will be okay tomorrow, and who will not” … “This was hilarious to me because in real life, Eugene can’t stand people mispronouncing his name” … “It was a lot of fun to hang out with him“/”We’re all richer for having had him there all those years to point out the stars and bring the skies to everyone” … “I know an older man who eight years ago this month was committed to committing suicide” … “For literary procrastinators or flakes, this is nothing short of the apocalypse” … “You smoke so much and drink so much and work so much that one day you’re gonna open your mouth and dust is going to come out” … This issue’s quote was from Mario Puzo … And finally, “John would have laughed at that, wouldn’t he?” ∞

Nota Bene #116: Long live Elena Pavlichenko

Mike Sheehan — Sat, 04 Sep 2010 05:00:00 +0000

“I think women rule the world and that no man has ever done anything that a woman either hasn’t allowed him to do or encouraged him to do.” Who said it? The answer is at the end of this post. Now on to the links! … “None of it feels all that special anymore” … “Married at 14, the mother of seven, Kakuben Lalabhai Parmar was well into adulthood before she came face-to-face with a man who was not a close relative” … “We cannot continue to proceed like this” … “We file new complaints every day” … “Researchers found that deleting the appropriately named FucM gene causes masculinization of the mouse brain” … “Kashkari and his colleagues should have the common decency to just SHUT THE FUCK UP” … “My name is not Obama” … “He sat there the whole time and didn’t really care if I was taking photos of him or not” … “When I heard she was alive I was in shock” … “I know there are those who will accuse me of exaggeration when I say this” … “It needs to happen soon or it will be too late” … “At last the 35 voices have been reunited!” … “Ill-advised photos and online chatter are coming back to haunt people months or years after the fact” … “Some were puzzled, many laughed, and a couple were furious” … “How I’m here, talking to you now, I really don’t know” … “Today I quit being a Christian” … “We must mature into the species we are moving towards, one which embodies and embraces new worlds and new ways of life scarcely imagined in the past or even now” … “Many victims are abandoned by their husbands and looked down upon by society” … “189 out of 443 cities suffered from acid rain in the first half of the year” … “This is the only way that we can put an end to the recycling of a failed strategic framework” … “Hello again, Pripyat” … “He told me that he does not cry anymore, but he is still afraid” … “It doesn’t seem like we’re doing too badly, nor that desperation or frustration have been our companions along the way” … “An Afghan girl who fixes potholes waits” … “I’ll go to my grave wishing that I’d been better” … “Perhaps you know William Gottlieb‘s name; perhaps not” … “We’re inside a black hole that exists in another universe” … “I miss being a child” … “My story with photography is quite unusual” … “It’s going to be a lot easier for him now to say who he is” … “If I don’t shut him down, I think we all might be in very serious trouble” … “Each year sharks kill some five to eight humans worldwide; meanwhile we kill a hundred million of them” … “If no one stops them, how long do you think it will take before 4 or 5 mega-corporations effectively control the flow of information in America not only on television but online?” … “That’s the most amazing thing I’d ever heard!” … “Christ, I thought, this is not good, this could be the bloody end right here” … “I hate to say this, but I’m 70 years old and I’ve never had a real job” … “I used to avoid talking about it for fear of being labelled a crank” … This issue’s quote was from Bob Dylan … And finally, “I get to crank it up as loud as I want.” ∞