[quotes] first 10 from the world of politics

Some lines which made this blogger chuckle:

1] Most schemes of political improvement are very laughable things.
Samuel Johnson [1769]

2] A sheep in sheep's clothing.
Winston Churchill, of Clement Attlee [no date]

3] The great nations have always acted like gangsters and the small nations like prostitutes.
Stanley Kubrik [1963]

4] This is a rotten argument, but it should be good enough for their lordships on a hot summer afternoon.
Anonymous, said to have been read out inadvertently in the House of Lords [no date]

5] It is not necessary that every time he rises he should give his famous imitation of a semi-house-trained polecat.
Michael Foot, of Norman Tebbit [1978]

6] Like being savaged by a dead sheep.
Denis Healey, on being criticized by Geoffrey Howe [1978]

7] It is, I think, good evidence of life after death.
Lord Soper, on the quality of debate in the House of Lords [1978]

8] A triumph of the embalmer's art.
Gore Vidal,of Ronald Reagan [1981]

9] There are no true friends in politics. We are all sharks circling, and waiting, for traces of blood to appear in the water.
Alan Clark [1990]

10] Being an MP is the sort of job all working class parents want for their children - clean, indoors and no heavy lifting
Diane Abbot [1994]

[bush and rove] a slight whiff of watergate

Just how much blame must Karl Rove shoulder and how much should George W. over the sackings of eight federal prosecutors?

Justice Department officials have acknowledged that former U.S. Attorney H.E. Cummins was booted from his post in Little Rock, Ark., to make room for a former Rove aide. Other fired prosecutors handled politically sensitive investigations that angered Republicans during the run-up to the November elections. Lawmakers in both political parties have expressed concern about evidence of political meddling in the weeks before the November elections, when it was becoming clear that Democrats might take control of Congress for the first time in 12 years.

Although the replacements have been robustly defended, still:

"Nobody who objectively looks at this is going to think, oh, what a coincidence," said former prosecutor Green, now a Fordham University law professor who's on leave at New York University.

This smacks very much of the White House using the Justice Department for its own party political ends. It also smacks of outgoing administrations misusing their authority in the final days. Trouble is, the U.S. already has a constitution to supposedly deal with this sort of thing.

[jacques chirac] the grey havens beckon

On Jacques Chirac's retirement:

The candidates, and France at large, credit Mr Chirac with three main achievements: standing up to the US by opposing the invasion of Iraq; recognising France's anti-Semitic crimes in World War II, and opposing racism and political extremism.

The low points were the loss of the outright control of parliament in 1997, the repeated abandonment of reforms in the face of strikes and protests, the 2002 election in which the extreme rightwinger Jean-Marie Le Pen came second, and the race riots and voters' rejection of the French-inspired European constitution in 2005.

His "crimes" during his time as the Mayor of Paris will most likely not be sheeted home to him. No doubt he'll soon pass into that twilight zone of the venerated elder statesman. As Le Figaro put it: "Pour Chirac, le temps des hommages a commencé."

[pluto] yes, venetia, it really is a planet

Venetia Burney gazing over Hydra, Pluto, Charon and Nix. Now the demented denizens of a dark demesne, the astronomo-technocratic mafia, have taken her planet away from her. But help is at hand.

Blognor Regis is really onto something here:

State lawmakers will vote Tuesday on a bill that proposes "as Pluto passes overhead through New Mexico's excellent night skies, it be declared a planet." I fully support this move.

I do too, as is evident here, here, here and here. I call on all good people to give this little girl back the planet she named. Nix to them! That's the home of my sanity they're playing with. As a lady of course, her own thoughts on the matter, in 2007, are less vehement :

"At my age, I've been largely indifferent to [the debate]; though I suppose I would prefer it to remain a planet."

[chavez] which one looks most like him

[altruism] harnessing and unleashing power

Just been re-reading from Nietzsche's Zarathustra [1891] and other things - surprising, huh? Some of his observations were apt, e.g. There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness [7: On Reading and Writing].

On the question of compassion, of kindness, his views are well known - that these things are to assuage the person who does them, rather than to help the receiver - the feelgood factor. And I ask, 'Why not?' All actions ultimately stem from self. If such actions also produce a collateral, cumulative effect, a snowball, why not?

My best friend added that it just takes one act, just one each day, from every single person within a sphere of influence towards someone not family or best friend and the mood enhancement then spills over and creates an atmosphere.

The shop girl who slaps the change on the counter as another irascible customer, deep in his own thoughts unsmilingly gives his order - what if someone had just complimented her on something a few moments earlier? Now she'll say something nice to the chap and he'll be momentarily brought out of himself, as someone from a trance.

There's another aspect to all this. At the point where you, quite justifiably of course, are about to unleash a cutting remark at someone who is being insufferable - stop! Go against your instinct in some sort of a bloodyminded way and actually compliment the person instead. The look of shock is worth it. And as Nietzsche wrote: When a small kindness is not forgotten, it becometh a gnawing worm.

There's no altruism in this - at least it starts out this way. It's simply behaviourism, surrounding yourself with a cushioning bubble of pleasantness in which to travel through the day. And then it slowly becomes altruism because the pleasure you produce in the other is worth its weight in gold. It's a buzz, in other words, a narcotic fix.

Just as the natural instinct is to harbour feelings of resentment, of revenge, of withdrawal, of coldness, which eventually reduce us to quiet bitterness, so a serial altruist gets into a groove and can't help himself - he needs that daily fix but not face to face. No, no. Not at all.

The greatest buzz is to do the act in such a way that you have no chance of being thanked. You simply set in motion a train of events which you know will be taking place long after you've gone and that's the greatest buzz of all, chuckling over what you just caused to happen.

Nice article on the whole thing here.