Links/Favorite Quotes




Defense/Military Issues
www.d-n-i.net Defense and the National Interest, run by Chet Richards, has provocative, informed discussions about the decline of the American military and the changing nature of warfare. Writers include Bill Lind, Richards, and Chuck Spinney. Timely, important, stuff.

globalguerrillas Global Guerillas, written by John Robb, has some great analysis on the changing nature of war and what Robb calls "open-source" warfare.



Favorite Quotes
What are the facts? Again and again and again – what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what “the stars foretell,” avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable “verdict of history” – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!
-– Robert Heinlein, 1907-1988

Truth must be sought for its own sake, its holy, divine greatness.

-- Romano Guardini

He writes the worst English that I have ever encountered. It reminds me of a string of wet sponges; it reminds me of tattered washing on the line; it reminds me of stale bean soup, of college yells, of dogs barking idiotically through endless nights. It is so bad that a sort of grandeur creeps into it. It drags itself out of the dark abysm of pish, and crawls insanely up the topmost pinnacle of posh. It is rumble and bumble. It is flap and doodle. It is balder and dash.

-- H.L. Mencken on U.S. President Warren G. Harding

Write for a friend with a warm sense of humor and an appreciation of simple straightforwardness. Write as if you were actually talking to that friend, but talking with enough leisure to frame your thoughts concisely and interestingly.
-- John Trimble

A popular government without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance, and a people who mean to be their own governors must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives.
-- James Madison, from a letter to W.T. Barry, August 4, 1822

Objectivity? I always have an objective.

-- Jessica Mitford

You may not be able to change the world, but at least you can embarass the guilty.

-- Jessica Mitford

Who writes, fights.

-- Voltaire

The difference between the almost right word & the right word is really a large matter -- it's the difference between the lightning bug and the lightning.

-- Mark Twain, Letter to George Bainton, 10/15/1888

Writing is easy. All you have to do is cross out the wrong words.

-- Mark Twain

There are three things which are real: God, human folly and laughter. The first two are beyond our comprehension, so we must do what we can with the third.
-- Indian epic poem Ramayana

Persistence + determination = courage

-- Sir Harry Evans

I missed 100% of the shots I never took.

--Wayne Gretzky



Interesting Sites
The Texas Observer This feisty bi-weekly is still raking the muck after 50 years in business. It’s still "a journal of free voices" with a Texas-sized helping of attitude.

Doonesbury.com Go here for your daily dose of B.D. and his friends, including Tulsa native Michael Doonesbury.

MonsterBigBand.com The best big band in Austin, TX. These guys are amazing. Count Basie would be proud.



Enron
www.chron.com/enron The Houston Chronicle's website has an up-to-date list of the Enron miscreants, their trial dates and sentences. This site has all of the paper’s stories on Enron, sorted by month. Access is free. It also has many of the important background documents.

http://www.viridianrepository.com/Enron/Enron.htm Irreverent humor at Enron’s expense. Bruce Sterling, the sci-fi author and raconteur, sponsored a contest to come up with the best new Enron logo. This site has all the entrants as well as the winner. For those interested in Sterling’s other rants on global warming, climate change and the possibilities of life in a post-hydrocarbon world, visit www.viridiandesign.org.