Quote of the Day

"An idealist is one who, on noticing that roses smell better than a cabbage, concludes that they will also make better soup." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the day

"When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the public alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"To die for an idea; it is unquestionably noble. But how much nobler it would be if men died for ideas that were true!" -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth -- that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first." -- H.L. Mencken

It seems somewhat likely that the global warming hysteria is at something close to a peak and perhaps already on the decline. What silliness will follow it? Unfortunately, probably not something closer to truth. As Mencken also noted, truth is almost never welcome among the supposedly wise.

Quote of the Day

"When a new source of taxation is found it never means, in practice, that the old source is abandoned. It merely means that the politicians have two ways of milking the taxpayer where they had one before." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"A politician is an animal which can sit on a fence and yet keep both ears to the ground." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"I believe in only one thing: liberty; but I do not believe in liberty enough to want to force it upon anyone." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"It is the popular theory, at least in America, that monarchism is a curse fastened upon the common people from above -- that the monarch saddles it upon them without their consent and against their will. The theory is without support in the facts. Kings are created, not by kings, but by the people. The visualize one of the ineradicable needs of all third-rate men . . . and that is the need of something to venerate, to bow down to, to follow and obey." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favor of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office." -- H.L. Mencken

Quote of the Day

"All successful newspapers are ceaselessly querulous and bellicose. They never defend anyone or anything if they can help it; if the job is forced on them, they tackle it by denouncing someone or something else." -- H.L. Mencken

Of course he qualified it with the word "successful," but would that it were true of more newspapers today. We would still be facing the revenue problems brought on by the Internet and our own complacency, but we would be doing it with a feistier spirit.