Recent kwiples

Thursday 28th of March 2024

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The arts Somehow, 96% of film critics loved Top Gun  like a Catholic priest loves sleepaway camp. Bill Maher, Real Time with Bill Maher, September 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Death Falling life expectancy is the last thing you would expect on a worry list about US national security. Yet when it is dropping as fast as it is in the US — Americans live almost five years less than the wealthy country average — even the Pentagon has to sit up. At 76, Americans now live shorter lives than their peers in China and only a year  longer than the citizens of supposedly benighted Mexico. People in Japan, Italy and Spain, on the other hand, can expect to live to around 84. Your people’s longevity is the ultimate test of a system’s ability to deliver. Yet neither Democrats nor Republicans, presidents or legislators, seem too bothered. Edward Luce, Financial Times, September 8, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Hatred The South has not forgotten the abuses of Sherman's March to the Sea. Nor have they forgiven the Northern authorities for the humiliation of subjugation. The occupied Americans hated the occupying Americans. That hatred endures. Stephen Marche, The Next Civil War  © 2022 Kwiple.com
History It does not follow that, because a mountain appears to take on different shapes from different angles of vision, it has objectively either no shape at all or an infinity of shapes. It does not follow that, because interpretation plays a necessary part in establishing the facts of history, and because no existing interpretation is wholly objective, one interpretation is as good as another, and the facts of history are in principle not amenable to objective interpretation. Edward Hallett Carr, What Is History? © 2022 Kwiple.com
Justice It is time to understand that the logic of remdial justice and universalist justice are complementary and have to move forward in concert, the one supporting the other. Thomas Piketty, A Brief History of Equality © 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
Math Philosophy is written in this grand book — I mean the universe —  which stands continually open to our gaze, but it cannot understood unless one first learns to comprehend the language and  interpret the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and its characters are triangles, circles, and other geometrical figures, without which it is humanly impossible to understand a single word of it; without these, one is wandering about in a dark labyrinth. Galileo Galilei © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political violence The central finding from our surveys is that the risk of pro-Trump political violence is not limited to existing violent groups like the Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, and similar groups for which violence is a core part of their ideology — militant groups that comprise a fringe of 1 percent or less of the US population, accrding to our surveys. Instead, the risk of political violence is connected to a significant minority — nearly 10 times larger than the militant group fringe — within the mainstream of American society that is not fading away. Robert A. Pape, Boston Globe, August 16, 2022 [Survey conducted by Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political violence The image of “wildfires” is apt. The tens of millions of Americans with violent sentiments are like a combustible pile of dry brush in a wildfire season just waiting for a spark to set the pile aflame. Robert A. Pape, Boston Globe, August 16, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political violence In our April survey, about 10 million Democrats agree that the “use of force is is justified to change” US laws and institutions that are “fundamentally unjust” and about 10 million Democrats also agree that “force is justified against the police.” Robert A. Pape, Boston Globe, August 16, 2022 [Survey conducted by Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)] © 2022 Kwiple.com
Political violence  Our surveys have consistently found that between 15 million and 20 million American adults agree that the “use of force is justified” to retore Trump to the presidency and that well over 50 million agree that Joe Biden stole the election and is an illegitimate president. These 18 million with pro-Trump insurrectionist sympathies have dangerous capabilities and training (8 million own guns, 2 million have prior US military service) and near-term organizational growth potential (1 million are a militia member or know one, 6 million support anti-government militias like the Oath Keepers and extremist groups like the Proud Boys). Robert A. Pape, Boston Globe, August 16, 2022 [Survey conducted by Chicago Project on Security and Terrorism (CPOST)] © 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
Race After four years in the US, on both coasts, the sharpest relief since coming home [to Britain] has been the chance to have sustained conversations that do not in some way come back to identity. This is the difference between diversity and cosmopolitanism. The first is a physical fact. The second is an attitude towards it: a sort of insouciance. New York is diverse. London, where people one generation removed from Ireland or Italy won’t think to mention it, is cosmopolitan. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Race Imagine that you are about to be born, not knowing your race.  Where would you choose to make your life? Where will give you a fair crack, without boxing you in to round-the-clock  consciousness of matters of blood and soil? Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, September 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Selfie My company was not unacceptable to the young and careless, as well as to the studious and literary; and as I took a particular pleasure in the company of modest women, I had no reason to be displeased with the reception I met with them. David Hume, "My Own Life," April 18, 1776, 130 days before his death at age 65 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Snapshot Without the queen, how will anyone know how to be British anymore? At the risk of sounding like Maggie Smith’s dowager  Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey,“ she was the last well-behaved person in our coarsening, transactional world. Elizabeth II portrayed by Tina Brown in New York Times, September 9, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Taxes In sum, all the data at our disposal today  suggest that virtually confiscatory tax rates have been an immense historical success.  They have made it possible to greatly reduce the divergences of fortunes and incomes, while at the same time improving the situation of the middle and lower classes, developing the welfare state, and stimulating better economic and social performance overall. Historically, it is the battle for equality and education that has made economic development and human progress possible, and not the veneration of property, stability, and inequality. Thomas Piketty, A Brief History of Equality © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I am never going to stop fighting. I have not yet begun to fight. They will have to kill me first.  Steve Bannon, impersonating Braveheart as he heads into court to be arraigned on charges of defrauding Trumpists out of millions in a build-a-border-wall scheme © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Let’s start rounding up people who participate in pride events. Kelly @kelly_neidert 2:54 PM – Jun 18, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say My name is Leigh Wambsganss, and my pronouns are Bible believer, Jesus lover, gun carrier, and mama bear. Leigh Wambsganss, executive director, Patriot Mobile Action, PAC for Patriot Mobile, "Americas only Christian conservative wireless provider” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say There will be riots in the streets. Lindsey Graham, predicting what will happen if Trump is prosecuted for stealing classified documents © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  They’re going through woke training. Their toxic masculinity is completely not accepted, even though, what are the military for? I would think toxic masculinity would be a No. 1 requirement.  Marjorie Taylor Greene, who suffers from toxic masculinity, on today's military recruits © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say To be white is to be a striver, a crusader, an explorer, and a conqueror. We build, we produce, we go upward, and we recognize the central lie of American race relations. We don't exploit other groups.  We don't gain anything from their presence.  They need us and not the other way around. Richard Spencer © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  We’re not here on this earth to please man — we're here to please God. Leigh Wambsganss, executive director, Patriot Mobile Action, a conservative Christian nationalist group intent on taking over schoolboards everywhere in America © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say With this militant raid on President Trump’s home, we have become Russia. The FBI is the KGB. Michael Caputo, former assistant secretary of public affairs in Trump's Department of Health & Human Services,  commenting on the court-ordered search by the FBI of Trump's home at Mar-a-Lago © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say If I renounce my beliefs, if I agree to stay silent, if I stayed at home and just took it easy, the persecution of Donald Trump would stop immediately, it would stop. But that's not what I will do. I can't do that. [Applause] A much simpler life. I have to save our country. Donald Trump, July 26, 2022, at America First Agenda Summit © 2022 Kwiple.com
Wannabe autocrats say Only the last is run on democratic, not autocratic, principles. Yet who would choose the last as the superior institution? Pat Buchanan, comparing the Marine Corps and corporations like IBM to the federal government  © 2022 Kwiple.com