Recent kwiples

Wednesday 15th of May 2024

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Communism Communism in Russia simply burned itself out.  It had demanded too much and delivered too little, creating an atmosphere of apathy in which the only pleasures were little ones and the future held no prospects. By the 1980s, even the Soviet elite had lost faith in Communism, as it watched the outside world overtake the country in everything except military expenditures and alcohol consumption. Its self-confidence gone, it put up feeble resistance and, seizing for its own benefit a great deal of state property, accepted the regime's demise with equanimity. Richard Pipes, Communism © 2022 Kwiple.com
Communism … given that acquired characteristics are not heritable, each new generation will bring into the world non-Communist attitudes, among which acquisitiveness is certainly not the least powerful. Communism was ulltimately defeated by its inability to refashion human nature. Richard Pipes, Communism © 2022 Kwiple.com
Corruption  Third World leaders could not be bought; they could only be rented. Cold War adage of much wider applicabiity © 2022 Kwiple.com
Cyber security If it's smart, it's vulnerable.  Hypponen's Law, named after the renowned Finnish cyber security expert, Mikko Hypponen © 2022 Kwiple.com
Elites It is hard for even an engaged citizen to visualise the crisis that wasn't, the agonies that might have been. The result is that otherwise smart people fall for the populist fork: elites are held to be omnipotent when things go wrong and irrelevant in normal times. The Crash?  Their fault. The preceding boom? It fell from  a tree. The Iraq war? Elite hubris. Decades  on end of peace? Would have happened any-  way. A pandemic? Dereliction in high office. No pandemic? The natural order of things. This is what happens when your best and most important work is largely invisible. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 29, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Guns It ain't fun when the rabbit got the gun! Adage  © 2022 Kwiple.com
History History is fond of her grandchildren. Nikolay Chernyshevsky [latecomers profit from efforts of predecessors]  © 2022 Kwiple.com
History If we historians fail to provide a nationally defined history, others less critical and less informed will take over the job for us. Carl Degler, 1986, annual meeting of the American Historical Association  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Kwiplers say Count votes in Congress by: 1. Calculating a Member's Proportional Vote (MPV) for each member, as follows: MPV = SPNP / NLRS where: SPNP = State's Percentage of the National Population NLRS = Number of Legislators Representing the State (in that legislature) 2. Totaling “yes” MPVs and “no” MPVs 3. Passing if total MPV is more than 50 OTHERWISE Abolish the Senate © 2019 Kwiple.com
Leftists If you are seen as left wing and want to be seen as moderate, it is not enough to behave moderately. You must, in vivid ways, go to the right. You must oversteer to end up somewhere in the middle. Nothing less reassures the electorate or even registers with it. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, August 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Monkeypox  It’s not a threat to most of the population. People just have to laugh at it, mock it, and reject it ... It’s another scam. Marjorie Taylor Greene on monkeypox © 2022 Kwiple.com
Monkeypox You have to believe that if monkeypox were spreading largely through heterosexual sex, things would be drastically different. By now, you'd probably be able to get a 'free vax with purchase' at every J. Crew in the country. John Oliver, Last Week Tonight, August 7, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Politics Politics in core Europe and the United States now reflects the pathologies of politics in the lands in between [i.e., Central and Eastern Europe]. Increasingly, all countries in Europe and North America occupy a zone of insecurty between a resurgent Russia and an embattled West. All developed Western countries face a “civilization choice” between a liberal international order fraying at the edges and a brave new world of xenophobic nationalism and great power order, between free markets and rule of law or crony capitalism and oligarchic rule. Mitchell A. Orenstein, The Lands In Between © 2022 Kwiple.com
Post-2020 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,085,414 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,336,180 people — 1 state (California) 2020 population: 39,368,075 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,684,037 people 19,684,037 / 1,336,180 = 14.7, therefore: average 15er's vote is worth nearly 15 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth less than 7% of an average 15er's — 1 state (Wyoming) 2020 population = 582,328, therefore: 1 Senator per 291,164 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 68 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.5% of a Wyomian's  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Public discourse In my own sector, punditry, the man from a high-status country — above all, until now, the US or UK — is invited to explain the world. The man from a low-status country gets to explain his country. The woman from a low-status country is at best invited to explain the situation of women in her country.  Similar dynamics have played out over Ukraine. Traditionally, it was Russians or high-status westerners who got to interpret the country to the world. Even now, Ukrainian views risk being dismissed as partial or emotional. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, July 21, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say If the way to get rid of something awful was for people to laugh at it and mock it,  that woman clearly wouldn’t be in Congress. And yet here we all are. John Oliver responding to Marjorie Taylor Greene's comment about monkeypox that “It’s not a threat to most of the population. People just have to laugh at it, mock it, and reject it ... It's another scam.” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say This is gestapo crap, and it will not stand. Lauren Boebert,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reich wingers say This should scare the livin' daylights out of American citizens.  The way our federal government has gone, it's like what we have thought about the Gestapo and people like that. Rick Scott, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, on the court-ordered search warrant authorizing the FBI to search Trump's Mar-a-Lago home for classified documents that belong in the National Archives [but which Trump undoubtedly viewed as a source of supplemental retirement income] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Similar obituaries were being penned  only two weeks ago as Biden's poll numbers  dropped below even Donald Trump's nadir. Yet here we are. America's oldest president can now boast of a stronger legislative record in less than two years than either Obama or Bill Clinton achieved in eight. It turns out that low expectations are Biden's secret weapon. Joe Biden portrayed by Edward Luce Financial Times, Auguest 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say The FBI, an organization set up to fight organized crime, has become the most powerful organized crime syndicate in the world. We now need to carry the fight against organized crime to its logical conclusion: Shut down the FBI and prosecute this gang of dangerous criminals. Dinesh D'Souza, who Trump pardoned for Trump campaign finance violations,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I talked to a student recently at one of our woke college campuses who said she is required in every class to  introduce herself and to give her pronouns. Well, I'm Ted Cruz, and my pronoun is, kiss my ass. Ted Cruz, July 23, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I was very upset. I never expected anything like that. And when that happened I thought, this is antifa, and no one can convince me it was so-called Trump supporters, and we know there's a lot wrong there, and I cannot wait for a real investigation. Marjorie Tayloer Greene, blaming the January 6 attack on the Capitol on anti-fascists  © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm gonna tell you something: I'm not into conspiracies; I'm not into anti-government rhetoric. This is the first time in my lifetime that I would say I am deathly afraid for Donald Trump. I would not put assassination behind these people. Bernard Kerik, former NYC Police Commissioner,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I'm the least racist person that many of you have ever met by the way. I have no bigotry. I just try to see the world for where it is.  I have no, uh, sort of army to hit back at them. Right? Cuz I'm the young guy in the room and they're not even going after any other young people. The other young people in the White House are total hoes and thots like Cassidy Hutchinson and this Alyssa Farah [Griffin] hoebag who are just terrible. I mean they have no clue what they're saying. They're Bolsheviks so they probably do hate the American Founders and most white people in general. Garrett Ziegler, 6:51 PM – Jul 20, 2022, in 27-minute audio-only livestream after testifying before the House committee investigating the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I've seen enough. The Department of Justice has reached an intolerable state of weaponized politicization. When the Republicans take back the House, we will conduct immediate oversight of this department, follow the facts, and leave no stone unturned. Attorney General Garland, preserve your documents and clear your calendar. Kevin McCarthy, 9:01 PM – Aug 8, 2022, pissed by the FBI's court-ordered search of  Trump's Mar-a-Lago home to retrieve documents belonging in the National Archives, some of which are so secret they cannot be legally described in an unclassified document [“follow the facts” is a cute touch] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say If monkeypox is a sexually transmitted disease, why are kids getting it? Marjorie Taylor Greene, 6:22 PM – Jul 23, 2022, who will hopefully learn through experience that sex is not the only way monkeypox can be transmitted  © 2022 Kwiple.com
 
Trumpists say Short of the nuclear codes being written on these documents in a locked behind closed doors, I just really don't understand how a document could warrant this kind of . . . warrant. Dana Perino, August 11, 2022, during Fox News’ The Five, commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home ta Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com