DallasDave's Blog

Received this in an Email:

 

THE YEAR'S BEST HEADLINES OF 2007: 

(Yes, they were really printed as seen here.)

 

 

Something Went Wrong in Jet Crash, Expert Says

 

      No, really?

 

 

 

Police Begin Campaign to Run Down Jaywalkers 

 

       Now that's taking  things a bit far!

 

 

 

Panda Mating Fails; Veterinarian Takes Over 

 

       What a guy!

 

 

 

Miners Refuse to Work after Death

 

       No-good-for-nothing' lazy so-and-sos!

 

 

 

Juvenile Court to Try Shooting Defendant 

 

       See if that works any better than a fair trial!

 

 

 

 

War Dims Hope for Peace 

 

       I can see where it might have that effect!

 

 

 

 

 

If Strike Isn't Settled Quickly, It May Last Awhile     Ya think?!

 

 

 

 

Cold Wave Linked to Temperatures 

 

      Who would have thought!

 

 

Enfield ( London ) Couple Slain; Police   Suspect Homicide 

 

       They may be on to something!

 

 

Red Tape Holds Up New Bridges 

 

      You mean there's something stronger than duct tape?! 

Oklahoma's construction program! 

 

 

 

Man Struck By Lightning: Faces Battery Charge 

 

     He probably IS the battery charge

 

 

New Study of Obesity Looks for Larger  Test Group 

 

       Weren't they fat enough?!

 

 

 

Astronaut Takes Blame for Gas in Spacecraft 

 

       That's what he gets for eating those beans!

 

 

Kids Make Nutritious Snacks 

       Do they taste like chicken?

 

 

 

  Local High School Dropouts Cut in Half 

       Chainsaw Massacre all over again!

 

 

 

Hospitals are Sued by 7 Foot Doctors 

 

       Boy, are they tall!

 

 

And the winner is.... 

 

Typhoon Rips Through Cemetery; Hundreds Dead 

 

     Did I read that right?

 

In 1973 doctors in Israel staged a month-long strike and during that month, mortality fell by 50 percent. A couple of years later, a two-month work stoppage by doctors in the Columbian capital of Bogotá led to a 35-percent decline in deaths. And during a “work slowdown” by doctors in Los Angeles protesting against the sharp increase in premiums for liability insurance, the number of deaths fell by 18 percent.

Once doctors were back at work full time, mortality immediately jumped back to the previous level. Every year, 1.2 million Britons are hospitalized as a result of improper medical care. In the United States – where 40,000 people are shot to death each year – the chance of getting “killed” by a doctor is three times greater than being killed by a gun. And every year significantly more people die from an infection sustained while in the hospital than as a result of traffic accidents.

As Americans we must always remember that we all have a common enemy, an enemy that is dangerous, powerful and relentless. I refer, of course, to the federal government.
-- Dave Barry

A quotation at the right moment is like bread to the famished. – Anonymous


A government which robs Peter to pay Paul, can always count on the support of Paul. – George Bernard Shaw

America needs fewer laws, not more prisons. – James Bovard

War is just one more big government program. – Joseph Sobran

Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a democracy yet that did not commit suicide. – John Adams (1814)

They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety. – Benjamin Franklin

One of the greatest delusions in the world is the hope that the evils in this world are to be cured by legislation. – Thomas B. Reed (1886)

If you are not free to choose wrongly and irresponsibly, you are not free at all. – Jacob Hornberger (1995)

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. – P.J. O'Rourke

The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates. – Tacitus

Government is not reason; it is not eloquence; it is force. Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. – George Washington

No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session. – Mark Twain (1866)

There is no worse tyranny than to force a man to pay for what he does not want merely because you think it would be good for him. – Robert Heinlein

The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients. – Edmund Burke (1899)

Peace, commerce and honest friendship with all nations; entangling alliances with none. – Thomas Jefferson

The triumph of persuasion over force is the sign of a civilized society. – Mark Skousen

A wise and frugal government which shall restrain men from injuring one another, which shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government. – Thomas Jefferson (1801)

The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it. – John Hay (1872)

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. – James Bovard (1994)

The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground. – Thomas Jefferson

Timid men prefer the calm of despotism to the tempestuous sea of Liberty. – Thomas Jefferson

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free. – Goethe

When the government's boot is on your throat, whether it is a left boot or a right boot is of no consequence. – Gary Lloyd

Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under. – H.L. Mencken

The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule. – H.L. Mencken

It is not the business of government to make men virtuous or religious, or to preserve the fool from the consequences of his own folly. Government should be repressive no further than is necessary to secure liberty by protecting the equal rights of each from aggression on the part of others, and the moment governmental prohibitions extend beyond this line they are in danger of defeating the very ends they are intended to serve. – Henry George

Where morality is present, laws are unnecessary. Without morality, laws are unenforceable. – Anonymous

Extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice. Moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue. – Barry Goldwater (1964)

Liberty is not a means to a political end. It is itself the highest political end. – Lord Acton

The power to tax is the power to destroy. – John Marshall

[On ancient Athens]: In the end, more than freedom, they wanted security. They wanted a comfortable life, and they lost it all – security, comfort, and freedom. When the Athenians finally wanted not to give to society but for society to give to them, when the freedom they wished for most was freedom from responsibility, then Athens ceased to be free and was never free again. – Edward Gibbon

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience. – C. S. Lewis

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property. – Lysander Spooner

In order to get power and retain it, it is necessary to love power; but love of power is not connected with goodness but with qualities that are the opposite of goodness, such as pride, cunning, and cruelty. – Leo Tolstoy

There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws. – Ayn Rand

If ye love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you. May your chains set lightly upon you; and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen. – Samuel Adams

If a nation values anything more than freedom, it will lose its freedom; and the irony of it is that if it is comfort or money that it values more, it will lose that, too. – Somerset Maugham

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until a majority of voters discover that they can vote themselves largess out of the public treasury. – Alexander Tytler

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. – G. Gordon Liddy

The United States is a nation of laws, badly written and randomly enforced. – Frank Zappa

Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women. When it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can save it. – Justice Learned Hand

It is sobering to reflect that one of the best ways to get yourself a reputation as a dangerous citizen these days is to go about repeating the very phrases which our founding fathers used in the struggle for independence. – Charles A. Beard

A nation of sheep will beget a government of wolves. – Edward R. Murrow

The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others. But it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods, or no god. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg. – Thomas Jefferson (1781)

The desire to rule is the mother of heresies. – St. John Chrysostom

Can our form of government, our system of justice, survive if one can be denied a freedom because he might abuse it? – Harlon Carter

It is not the responsibility of the government or the legal system to protect a citizen from himself. – Justice Casey Percell

No one can read our Constitution without concluding that the people who wrote it wanted their government severely limited; the words "no" and "not" employed in restraint of government power occur 24 times in the first seven articles of the Constitution and 22 more times in the Bill of Rights. – Edmund A. Opitz

The government was set to protect man from criminals – and the Constitution was written to protect man from the government. – Ayn Rand

The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin. – Mark Twain

What this country needs are more unemployed politicians. – Edward Langley

I believe that every individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruits of his labor, so far as it in no way interferes with any other men's rights. – Abraham Lincoln

Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it. – Thomas Paine

Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have. – Harry Emerson Fosdick

The state in which the rulers are the most reluctant to govern is always the best and most quietly governed; and the state in which they are the most eager, the worst. – Anonymous

It is much more important to kill bad bills than to pass good ones. – Calvin Coolidge

To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical. – Thomas Jefferson

It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong. – Voltaire

I am one of those people ruled by logic. If it doesn't make sense I can't follow it. I have never been good a following orders for the sake of following orders. Let me have the flexibility to reach the destination following my own path or explain to me why it has to be done your way. Some bloggers here have even been a "victim" of my logic, for better or worse.

I have been known to let emotion take over, but that usually results in hurt feelings and nobody likes that.

That said, this is just one of my little pet peeves.

I can overlook typos, lord knows I make enough of them, and intuitive abbreviations (I like to use BTW, IIRC). The kind of things that really get to me are statements that logically mean the opposite or rather different than the intent. (i.e. double negatives).

One that became popular in the last few years is the "all are not" statement. I will provide this song lyric as an example:

"You can't save everybody
Everybody don't wanna be saved"

I can certainly let this slide under the guise of literary license in a song, but it gets confusing in everyday language.

Everybody don't = everyone does not = no one does

The logic in the statment in the song is:

You can't save everyone
No one wants to be saved

Personally, I doubt they were trying to say that "no one wants to be saved", but rather that "not everyone wants to be saved".

"Not everyone" leaves it open to the possibility that some do and some do not.

Now, I'm glad I got that off my chest, I don't want to hear nobody not saying nothing about nothing.