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Monday 29th of July 2024

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Aging Age is just a number. It's totally irrelevant unless, of course, you happen to be a bottle of wine. Joan Collins © 2023 Kwiple.com
Astronomy It's time for the human race to enter the solar system. Dan Quayle © 2022 Kwiple.com
Books Books will never completely vanish, just as horses are still around, in equestrian clubs, where they are objects of aesthetic worshop and enjoy a level of care whose technical precision verges upon a science. Maël Renouard, Fragments of an Infinite Memory © 2023 Kwiple.com
Books Owning a book for its beauty is one thing, but owning a book for the information it holds? Why would you? Not when Google has promised to "organize the world's information"  for the price of your advertiing preferences. Gavin Francis, New York Review of Books, September 23, 2021 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Cold War 2.0 A big difference between today’s cold war and the original one is that China is not exporting revolution.  From Cuba to Angola and Korea to Ethiopia, the Soviet Union underwrote leftwing insurgencies worldwide. Edward Luce, Financial Times, March 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Communism  Communism thus did not come to Russia as a result of a popular uprising: it was imposed on her from above by a small minority hiding behind democratic slogans. This salient fact was to determine its course. Richard Pipes, Communism © 2022 Kwiple.com
Communism Communism was not a good idea that went wrong, it was a bad idea. Richard Pipes, Communism © 2022 Kwiple.com
The Constitution of the United States The people made the Constitution, and the people can unmake it. It is the creature of their own will, and lives only by their will. John Marshall, in Cohen v. Virginia [1821] © 2023 Kwiple.com
COVID-19 coronavirus Letting people put others at risk by refusing to wear masks, practice social distancing, or get vaccinated is qualitatively the same as letting individuals use the threat of violence to get what they want; in both cases, government has a crucial role — it constrains destructive individual behavior. Paul Krugman, New York Review of Books, March 10, 2022 © 2020 Kwiple.com
Dead-in-the-heads say The hardest decision I had to make  was whether to erect fences and barricades around the Supreme Court. I had no choice but to go ahead and do it. Chief Justice John Roberts, claiming that ordering fences to be erected around the Supreme Court building after its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade was leaked to the press by one of its members to prevent softening the decision provoked widespread public protest was a harder decision to make than making decisions about what to do about its leakers and members' other ethical lapses, death sentencing, civil or voting or gun rights, healthcare, affirmative action, student loans, gerrymandering, money in politics, etc. © 2023 Kwiple.com
Economists An economist is a person with a Phi Beta Kappa key on one end of his watch chain and no watch on the other. Ronald Reagan © 2023 Kwiple.com
Elites If Rome’s oligarchs could have travelled to the future, they might have learned a trick or two from the US Ivy League. It is hard to think of a better system of elite perpetuation than that practiced by America's top universities. … Of the 31mn Americans aged between 18 and 24, just 68,000 are Ivy League schools  undergraduates — about a fifth of a per cent. Of these, a varying ratio are non-white beneficiaries of affirmative action. Many of those are from privileged black or His[anic backgrounds, as opposed to Chicago's South Side or the wastelands of Detroit. This is the basis on which the Ivy League lays claim to being a deliverer of social change. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 5, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom of the press If the prime role of a free press is to serve as critic of the government, cartooning is often the cutting edge of that criticism. Herb Block, a.k.a. Herblock, four-time Pulitizer Prize winner for editorial cartooning © 2023 Kwiple.com
Freedom of the press No government ought to be without censors: and where the press is free, no one ever will. Thomas Jefferson, letter to George Washington, September 9, 1792 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Government The happiness of society is the end of government. John Adams, Thoughts on Government  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Government It is reasonable to believe that procedural regularity is an important facet of government legitimacy.  But legitimacy is not solely – not even primarily –  a product of the procedures that agencies follow. Legitimacy arises more generally from the perception that government is capable, informed, prompt, responsive, and fair. Mandatory procedures may sometimes advance those values. They can focus agencies on priorities they may have ignored, orient bueaucracies to broader public goals, and improve the quality of agency deliberation. But procedures can also burn agency resources  on senseless paperwork, empower lawyers at the  expense of experts, and frustrate agencies' ability  to act. When procedures impair an agency's  ability  to do its job, they can drain [it] of legitimacy. y Nicholas Bagley, “The Procedure Fetish” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Gun control There are various groups that think you can ban certain kinds of guns. I am not of that mode.  I am in the mode of being deeply concerned. George W. Bush © 2023 Kwiple.com
Gun dealers Last year, Everytown [for Gun Safety] took a count and found there were nearly 78,000 licensed gun dealers in the country. Which, the organization noted, amounts to “more than all the McDonald’s, Burger King, Subway and Wendy’s locations combined.” This doesn’t include, of course, the very large number of people who buy and sell guns without bothering to get licenses. Gail Collins, New York Times, July 12, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Higher education The only change that would qualify as radical in a society that claims to be meritocratic is one that would  boost life chances for the rest. That would mean starting at the beginning of a child’s life with better childcare, good pre-school education, and so on. It would entail dramatically increasing the pipeline of students who might have the chance to win the educational lottery. Until that changes — and unless it becomes America's focus — the current debate is a big red herring. Edward Luce, Financial Times, July 5, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
History History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. Stephen Dedalus in James Joyce's Ulysses © 2023 Kwiple.com
History History speaks. In some form, it can be heard forever. The race-based gaps that first developed centuries ago are echos from the past that still exist today. By all accounts, they are still stark. Katanji Brown Jackson, dissent in Students for Fair Admissions, Inc. v.  Harvard College and University of North Carolina © 2023 Kwiple.com
History [N]ow that we have become very sensitive about Western interpretations of the non-Western past, this temporal feeling of superiority [of the present over the past] applies more to the Western past than it does to the non-Western one.  We more easily accept the existence of eunichs and harems, for example, than of witches. Because they found a place in a non-Western society, eunuchs and harems seem strange to us but they do not reflect badly on our own past.  Witches, in contrast, seem to challenge the very basis of modern historical understanding and have therefore provoked immense controversy as well as many fine historical studies. Lynn Hunt, May 1, 2002, president, American Historical Association, © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing But the fact that a multinational PE [private equity] firm can become the country?s biggest landlord is something that simply doesn?t sit well with a lot of Americans. It illustrates all too starkly how the financial markets seem to exist in in a closed loop of service to themselves. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, February 13, 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing In a typical year,  the country builds more three-car garages than one-bedroom apartments. Dante Ramos, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Housing More square footage is dedicated to parking each car than to housing each person. Henry Grabar, Paved Paradise: How Parking Explains the World © 2023 Kwiple.com
Journalism Your journalist at the worst is an artist in his way: he daubs paint of this kind upon the lily with a professional zeal; the more flagrant (or, to use his own word, arresting) the pigment, the happier is his soul. Like the Babu he is trying all the while  to embellish our poor language, to make it more floriferous, more poetical — like the Babu for example who, reporting his mother’s death, wrote, ‘Regret to inform you, the hand that rocked the cradle has kicked the bucket.’ Arthur Quiller-Couch, "V. Interlude: On Jargon"  © 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
Law The life of the law has not been logic: it has been experience. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. © 2021 Kwiple.com
Liberalism The lesson of this decade so far is that liberalism isn’t tenable without hard power. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 25, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Leadership The statesman's task is to hear  God's footsteps marching through history, and to try and catch on to His coattails as He marches past. Otto von Bismarck © 2021 Kwiple.com
Making money the old-fashioned way Being a bathroom attendant © 2023 Kwiple.com
Making money the old-fashioned way Being a mendicant friar © 2023 Kwiple.com
Making money the old-fashioned way Being a taxidermist © 2023 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Being a lap dancer © 2023 Kwiple.com
Making money the new-fashioned way Being a meal deliveryman © 2023 Kwiple.com
Mexico Poor Mexico, so far from God and so close to the United States. Porfirio Diaz © 2023 Kwiple.com
National security I will say there are specific rules about where to store classified information  and that those need to be stored in a SCIF – a  sensitive compartmented information facility – and in my experience, ballrooms, bathrooms, and bedrooms are not SCIFs. FBI Director Christopher Wray on classified documents at Mar-a-Lago © 2023 Kwiple.com
Oceans Below forty degrees latitude, there is no law. Below fifty degrees, there is no God. Sailors’ adage © 2023 Kwiple.com
Oceans The latest study of the currents or “conveyor belt” that carry warmer water  upwards from the tropics concludes [that] the  Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation  (Amoc) will shut down at some point between 2025 and 2095, with the 2050s most likely. … A collapse of Amoc, which includes the Gulf Stream stretching from Florida to north-western Europe, would produce pronounced cooling across the northern hemisphere, leading to stormier winters and drier summers in Europe.  Conversely, heat would intensify further south,  as less warmth is transferred to temperate  and polar latitudes, and there would be large changes in tropical rainfall and monsoons. Financial Times, July 25, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics The task of a politician is not to inspire. It is to get a plurality of voters to say “Oh, go on then.” Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 21, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Politics Voters want a leader to have definition, yes, but mostly in the negative. I won't raise the basic rate of income tax. I won't borrow to spend. I won't reopen Brexit. Beyond that, politicians should view policy detail as some football coaches view possession of the ball: a liability, a chance to make a mistake. A “positive vision” is not what clinches elections. It is the absence of a scary one.  Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, February 21, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Post-2022 Senate shituation 15 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Wyoming) 2020 population: 40,737,128 Senators: 30 Republicans 1 Senator per 1,357,904 people — 1 state (California) 2022 population: 39,995,077 Senators: 2 Democrats 1 Senator per 19,997,539 people 19,997,539 / 1,357,904 = 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) 2022 population = 579,495, therefore: 1 Senator per 289,748 Wyomians, a Wyomian's vote is worth 69 times a Californian's, a Californian's vote is worth 1.4% of a Wyomian's  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Power  Perhaps a great power’s cultural influence, like an ageing gigolo’s charm, is the last thing to go.  Long after Britain lost its might, there were people in Hong Kong and Zimbabwe moaning about their servants and describing things as “just not cricket” in a way no one in England had done since 1913. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, June 30, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Punt returners say No. Unhappy the land that needs heroes. Galileo responding to Andrea, who said “Unhappy the land that has no heroes,” in Bertolt Brecht's play, The Life of Galileo © 2022 Kwiple.com
Reading If Russians knew how to read, they would write me off. Attributed to Catherine the Great © 2023 Kwiple.com
Regulations The statute, read as written, gives the Secretary broad authority to relieve a national emergency’s effect on borrowers’ ability to repay their student loans. The Secretary did no more than use that lawfully delegated authority. So the majority applies a rule specially crafted to kill significant regulatory action, by requiring Congress to delegate not just clearly but also microspecifically.  Elena Kagan, dissent in Biden v. Nebraska, et. al. © 2023 Kwiple.com
Resisters say [O]ur constitution does not begin with “I the President.” It begins with “We the People.” Gloria Steinem, at the Women's March held on January 21, 2017, the day after Trump's inauguration © 2022 Kwiple.com
Science In turn, the fragmented design of technology reflects its scientific foundation, for science is divided into disciplines that are largely governed by the notion that complex systems can be understood only if they are first broken into their separate component parts. This reductionist bias has also tended to shield basic science from a concern for real-life problems, such as environmental degradation. Barry Commoner, The Closing Circle © 2022 Kwiple.com
Selfie Be social or die! That is my slogan. What is it to me that something universal lives, so long as the individual suffers,  that genius on earth should  live in heaven, while the common herd rolls in the mud? Vissarion Belinsky © 2022 Kwiple.com
Selfie My life mantra is that the solution to most human problems is earplugs, and nothing could induce me to attend the “happy hours” in the canteen. No doubt I am unusually misanthropic, but it turns out that few people meet anybody at a WeWork. Simon Kuper, Financial Times, April 6, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Slavery America freed the slaves in 1863 through the Emancipation Proclamation of Abraham Lincoln,  but gave the slaves no land, and nothing in reality, as a matter of fact, to get started on. At the same time, America was giving away millions of acres of land in the West and the Midwest, which meant that there was a willingness to give the white peasants from  Europe an economic base. And yet, it refused to  give its black peasants from Africa, who came here involantarily in chains, and had worked free for 244 years, any kind of economic base. And so, emancipation for the Negro was really freedom to hunger. It was freedom to the winds and rains of heaven. It was freedom without food to eat or land to cultivate, and therefore it was freedom and famine at the same time. Martin Luther King, Jr. © 2023 Kwiple.com
Slavery  Slavery didn't end in 1865. It just evolved. It turned into decades of terrorism, violence and lynching. Bryan Stevenson, 2017 Tanner Lecture on Human Values, Harvard Univrsity, December 7, 2017 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Snapshot It may be that saying nobody owns you, as Logan so often does, helps dull the reality that very few people claim you. Lara Logan portrayed by Elaina Plott Calabro © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot The kind of politician who would cut down a redwood tree, and then mount the stump and make a speech on conservation. Richard Nixon portrayed by Adlai Stevenson © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot He leaves behind no treatise and few epigrams, much less in translated Sanskrit. But he knew a liberal must learn to walk with, if not the devil, then the brute. Harry Truman portrayed by Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, July 25, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot  I think we see a pretty consistent pattern of him wishing he was a dictator, wishing he could be Putin in America. That’s what's dark to me about it. That's what he really wants. He wants to be a dictator. Donald Trump portrayed by Chris Christie © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot The Defendant Donald Trump portrayed throughout United States of America v. Donald J. Trump © 2023 Kwiple.com
Snapshot If Donald Trump gets up and tells them that, “I didn’t know there’s a moon that circles the earth,” they’d believe it. Trump's supporters portrayed by Michael Steele, former RNC Chair © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social media If you want to know why it's called social media, I’ll tell you why: Because Karl Marx was hired by  Henry Rothschild, by the Rothschild family, to develop a system of social control. So when you see social, it is a form of control — that’s all it is. Social media is a form of controlling us all. Lara Logan © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social media Tapping a "Like" button is not friendship; it's a data point. Adrienne LaFrance, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Social mobility When white Americans tell the Negro to lift himself by his own bootstraps, they don't look at the legacy of slavery and segregation. I believe we ought to do all we can, and seek to lift ourselves by our own bootstraps, but it's a cruel gesture to say to a bootless man that he ought to lift himself by his own bootstraps. And many Negroes, by the thousands and millions, have been left bootless as a result of all these years of oppression and as a result of a society that deliberately made his color a stigma and something worthless and degrading. Martin Luther King, Jr. © 2023 Kwiple.com
Socialism Why the radical intelligentsia, having learned much of the peasant's psychology, nevertheless still expected him to emerge as a selfless socialist, is one of the unexplained mysteries of Russian history. Richard Pipes, Russia Under the Old Regime © 2022 Kwiple.com
Soviet Union There is no Soviet domination of Eastern Europe, and there never will be under a Ford administration. Gerald Ford, October 6, 1976, in a debate with Jimmy Carter © 2023 Kwiple.com
Soviet Union Soviet totalitarianism thus grew out of Marxist seeds planted on the soil of tsarist patrimonialism. Richard Pipes, Communism © 2022 Kwiple.com
State of the union What we've done in our politics is create a situation where we’re electing idiots. And so, I don’t look at it through the lens of, is this what I should do or what I shouldn't do. I look at it through the lens of, how do we elect serious people? And I think electing serious people can't be partisan. ex-congresswoman Liz Cheney © 2023 Kwiple.com
Supreme Court Two recent Supreme Court rulings — one ending affirmative action in university admissions and another vetoing  Joe Biden's student debt forgiveness plan — have been lambasted by progressives as yet more evidence that the judicial branch is wrecking America. But there is a silver lining to almost everything, and I can see one here. The Supreme Court has unwittingly elevated the issue of income inequality, and the need for class-based educational reform in the US. Rana Foroohar, Financial Times, July 17, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Surely you jest I don’t do things wrong. I do things right. I’m a legitimate person.  Donald Trump, echoing mob bosses in films and real life --> © 2023 Kwiple.com
Surveillance Nothing except unionization or new laws would stop an employer from taking all the data it is gathering from sensors and  recordings and using them to more precisely adjust wages, until each worker gets the  lowest wage a which they are willing to work, and all workers live in fear of retaliation. This is no more sci-fi than Facebook and Google serving users individualized content and ads designed to keep us on their services as long as possible, allowing them to sell as many ads as possible. Zephyr Teachout, New York Review of Books, Augsut 18, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Time Tempus Rerum Imperator (Time, the Ruler of All Things) Motto of the Worshipful Company of Clockmakers © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpism  No movement that centres on Palm Beach has a tragic view of life and history. Janan Ganedh,, Financial Times, March 31, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say I have not. I have been on the road. Thank you very much. Joni Ernst, responding to a reporter who asked if she had read the DOJ's 37-count indictment against Trump for mishandling classified documents and participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice  © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say If you want to get to President Trump, you're going to have to go through me, and you're going to have to go through 75 million Americans just like me. And I'm going to tell you, most of us are card-carrying members of the NRA. That's not a threat — that's a public service announcement. Kari Lake, the defeated Republican candidate for Arizona governor in 2022, on the DOJ's indictment of Trump for mishandling classified documents [NOTE: she says “President Trump”, not “former/ex-President Trump”] [NOTE TOO: 4.3 million NRA members are nowhere near most of 75 million Americans] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say In retrospect, it is clear the 2020 election was a grave betrayal of American democracy. Given the facts that have since emerged about that election, no honest person can deny it. Tucker Carlson, on what election officials at all levels of government have called “the most secure in American history” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Personally, no. I do not. I believe life begins at conception. Every life is valuable. And those are my personal beliefs. Philip Gunn, Republican House Speaker in Mississippi, responding to a reporter who asked him on June 24, 2022, just hours after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, whether he thought abortion should be legal in “the case of a 12-year-old girl who was molested by her father or uncle?” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say They [Democrats] are not soft on crime. They’re pro-crime. They want crime. They want crime because they want to take over what you got. They want to control what you have. They want reparations because they think  the people that do the crime are owed that. Bullshit! They are not owed that. Tommy Tuberville © 2022 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  Today is a very sad day in American history. We have never in over two centuries of our nation's history had a new president who launched the entire Department of Justice, the entire machinery of justice on a vendetta to persecute, to attack, to investigate, to indict, to try to throw in jail the former president who, it should be noted, is also currently the leading contender on the Republican side to run against the current president. Ted Cruz, after the DOJ indicted Trump for mishandling classified documents and participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. There is no vaccine and no booster for it. Cosseted in their social media bubbles and comforted within self-selected communities suffering from sameness, the afflicted disguise their hatred for Mr. Trump as a righteous call for justice or a solemn love of democracy and country. So desperate is the incessant cry to “get Trump!” that millions of otherwise pleasant and productive citizens have become naggingly less so. Kellyanne Conway, New York Times, January 13, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say  Wannabe dictator speaks at the White House after having his political rival arrested Chryon appearing at the end of “Fox News Tonight”, hosted by Brian Kilmeade, below split-screen footage of Biden and Trump, following Trump's arraignment in Miami for mishandilg classified documents and participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice [Kilmeade introduced his coverage of Trump's response to being arraigned by calling Trump “the president of the United States”] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say When you look at a pardon, the issue is less about guilt and more about what's good for the country. And I think it would be terrible for the country to have a former president in prison for years because of a documents case. So I would be inclined to favor a pardon [of Trump if he's convicted of mishandling classified documents]. Nikki Haley, after saying the DOJ's indictment of Trump for mishandling classified documents, if true, shows he was “incredibly reckless with our national security” and put “all of our military men and women in danger” © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trumpists say WITCH HUNT!!! They KNOW they can’t beat Trump  at the ballot box, so Biden has WEAPONIZED our entire federal government against him. This is a DARK DAY in American history, but we’ll get the last laugh. Trump will be BACK in the White House!! Ronny Jackson, once Trump's White House doctor, now a Representative from Amarillo, after the DOJ indicted Trump for mishandling classified documents and participating in a conspiracy to obstruct justice, 8:52 PM – Jun 8, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Trust Whatever trust that China had built up with the West since the late 1970s  evaporated at the exact moment in history when trust, and shared values, became more important than ever in a world of deep, dual-use products driven by software, connectivity and microchips. Thomas Friedman, New York Times, April 14, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Twitter Would Donald Trump have become president in 2016 without his Twitter account? Edward Luce, Financial Times, November 7, 2022 © 2022 Kwiple.com
Ukraine As president, I will bring back peace through strength. Peace through strength. It would never have happened. If I was president, there would not have been a war with Russia in Ukraine. Zero chance. …  Even now, despite tremendous loss of lives and destruction of much of that country, I would have a peace deal negotiated within 24 hours. Donald Trump, January 28, 2023, launching his 2024 presidential campaign © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine FIRST COME THE TANKS, THEN COME THE NUKES. Get this crazy war ended, NOW. So easy to do! Donald Trump, @realDonaldTrump – Jan 26, 2023, 5:44 AM © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine For the first time in years, the United States has demonstrated policy competence during a global crisis. Ukraine's stout resistance and its identification with Europe and the United States have reminded everyone, including Americans, that U.S. soft power and structural power persist. After decades of rhetoric about American decline and a democratic recession, U.S. policymakers can now speak of restored alliances and a determination to strengthen the liberal international order. Perceptions of U.S. hegemony might be starting to shift in a more favorable direction. Daniel W. Drezner, Foreign Affairs, July/August 2022 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine I want people to stop dying over this ridiculous war. Donald Trump, who refuses to side with Ukraine in its war with Putin's Russia and says Ukrainians “earned a lot of respect” for defending their territory but have to give it up if they want peace © 2023 Kwiple.com
Ukraine Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning. Alexander Dugin, far-right Russian nationalist philosopher known everywhere as “Putin's brain” © 2022 Kwiple.com
Ukraine You're occupants, you're fascists. What the fuck are you doing on our land with all these guns? Take these seeds and put them in your pockets so at least sunflowers will grow when you all lie down here. A Ukrainian woman shouting at a heavily-armed Russian soldier in a viral video from February 2022 [Sunflowers are Ukraine's national flower] © 2023 Kwiple.com
Unions Unless labor is powerful enough to be repected, it is doomed to degrading servitude. Without unions no such power is possible. Without unions industrial democracy is unthinkable. Without democracy in industry, that is where it counts most, there is no such thing as democracy in America. Walter Lippmann, Drift and Mastery  © 2021 Kwiple.com
Vietnam War It became necessary to destroy the town to save it. Unidentified US Army major quoted in Ben Tre, Vietnam, February 8, 1968 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Violence All workable social systems are predicated on creating reliable forms of cooperation among an extensive population and then distributing the fruits of that cooperation in ways that prevent the outbreak of catastrophic violence. Josiah Ober, The Rise and Fall of Classical Greece © 2021 Kwiple.com
Violence In the past, it was perfectly normal for all sorts of different groups, starting with family clans, to make use of physical violence. Today, in contrast, we would have to say that the state is the only  human community that (successfully) claims a  monopoly on physical violence  for itself, within a certain geographical territory (this territorial aspect is a defining feature.) Max Weber, “The Politician's Work” in Charisma and Disenchantment, translated by Damion Searls © 2020 Kwiple.com
Violence Violence is the ultimate foundation of any political order. Peter L. Berger, An Invitation to Sociology © 2021 Kwiple.com
Washington, D.C. You want a friend in Washington? Get a dog. Harry S. Truman © 2023 Kwiple.com
Water  One study found that 88 percent of water in  17 Western states was used by agriculture. Only 7 percent was consumed by homes. Alfalfa fields single-handedly drank up al-  most three times as much as all households. California produces a bounty of almonds, which gulp about 3.2 gallons of water for each almond, according to a 2019 study. Researchers say that the Southwest is experiencing a megadrought that is the worst in at least 1,200 years. Wells have been drying up as far north as Oregon, and the Great Salt Lake in Utah has shrunk by two-thirds. Nicholas Kristof, New York Times, May 15, 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
Weddings Last year,  approximately 13,000 weddings in America cost $1 million or more, according to the consulting firm Think Splendid. Xochitl Gonzalez, The Atlantic, July/August 2023 © 2023 Kwiple.com
the West  [I]n Europe and America, the prevailing view is that bipolarity is coming back.  A significant number of people expect a world dominated by two blocs led by the US and China. … Meanwhile, outside the West, citizens believe that fragmentation rather than polarisation will mark the next international order. Most people in major non-Western countries such as China, India, Turkiye, and Russia predict the West will soon be just one global  pole among several. The West may still be the strongest party but it will not be hegemonic.  Timothy Garton Ash, Ivan Krastev, Mark Leonard, "United West, divided from the rest," European Council on Foreign Relations © 2023 Kwiple.com
Work In today’s economy, few workers get to be judged on output that is discrete and identifiably theirs (such as a newspaper column). More often, they are among the many contributors to a rolling and amorphous process: a corporate merger, say, or IT maintenance. One effect is that, in all candour, I have no idea what most of you do. Janan Ganesh, Financial Times, October 2, 2021 © 2021 Kwiple.com
Work  It's true hard work never killed anybody, but why take the chance? Ronald Reagan © 2023 Kwiple.com
World War I No truce or parley mitigated the strife of the armies. The wounded died between the lines; the dead mouldered into the soil. Poison gas in many forms stifled or seared the soldiers.  Liquid fire was projected upon their bodies. Men fell from the air in flames, or were smothered, often slowly, in the dark recesses of the sea. Winxton Churchill, The World Crisis © 2023 Kwiple.com
 
Wretched excess A penthouse at the Manhattan megatower 432 Park Avenue is slashing its price by more than 20% to $139 million, according to the listing agents. … [Fawaz] Al Hokair bought the Billionaires' Row penthouse in 2016 for $87.66 million, one of the highest prices ever paid for a New York apartment, records show. The unit has never been lived in; the seller hasn't spent the night there once, [Tai] Alexander [one of the listing agents] said. A representative for Al Hokair declined to comment. Wall Street Journal, May 19, 2023 © 2023Kwiple.com