“The question became, how do you hide an elephant?” a National Reconnaissance Office report stated at the time. It decided on a simple response: “What elephant?”

Fox News – Discussing how a satellite reconnaissance program dealt with secrecy for 40+ years.  The program was recently declassified


In order words:  “Intel?  Never heard of it!”


For other examples of people who did good things, but kept their trap shut, see:

• The work to decipher the Enigma code
• VENONA
• Navajo Code Talkers

I carry a gun so my last thought won’t be, “If only I was armed….”

— Roberta X, “Gun Myths/Gun Realities”

Read.The.Whole.Thing.

1% OF THE HOLIDAYS GET 99% OF THE EGG NOG.


— Larry Correia, The Christmas Noun 4:  Occupy Christmas Noun

When are the nanny staters going to learn that there’s a wide swath of the American public who are going to do exactly the opposite of what you tell them, because Americans don’t like to be bossed around? The fastest way to encourage Americans to do something is to ban it. The fastest way to get them to stop doing something is to mandate it. We just don’t like being told what to do.

Tam, “Eat Your Spinach“

Both the nanny-staters and daddy-staters think it’s their electoral mandate to keep us from making bad decisions.  If it’s not “drive a car that doesn’t use much fuel” it’s “you shouldn’t be drinking or smoking that”.  We do best when we are left to make our own decisions and are left to deal with our own consequences.

I would critically-hit that with double-damage in a called shot to the knocker sandwich. 

– Ace at Ace of Spades, talking about new whisky commercials featuring actress Christina Hendrix

There’s a lesson here. If anyone is willing to raise a hand to you in a relationship, you should assume that they will kill you if they get a chance to. The only acceptable reason to strike another person is self defense. That goes double if you are in a relationship with them. A person who will hit you in a relationship has already demonstrated that they don’t respect you. Get out, get away, and never come back. You are worth more than that.

Sean over at An NC Gun Blog.  He makes an excellent point about domestic violence.  The first part of dealing with an abusive partner is to get them out of your life.  The next part is to protect yourself. No person has the right to raise a hand to another except to defend, and no person has a responsibility to take a beating or worse because they care about the attacker.

What do we want?
A cure for tourettes!
When do we want it?
@%**!!?##%&!
— Lumberjack

In case the language is a little challenging, here’s the Jennifer Simplified Version(JSV?): and Jesus said “Don’t be a dick“ 

Jennifer, talking about how some Christians seem to need a little reminder about one of the basic tenets of the faith.

• I haven’t a particle of confidence in a man who has no redeeming petty vices whatsoever.
•  It [the press] has scoffed at religion till it has made scoffing popular. It has defended official criminals, on party pretexts, until it has created a United States Senate whose members are incapable of determining what crime against law and the dignity of their own body is—they are so morally blind—and it has made light of dishonesty till we have as a result a Congress which contracts to work for a certain sum and then deliberately steals additional wages out of the public pocket and is pained and surprised that anybody should worry about a little thing like that. 
• Reader, suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.  
• To put it in rude, plain, unpalatable words — true patriotism, real patriotism: loyalty not to a Family and a Fiction, but a loyalty to the Nation itself!
  …”Remember this, take this to heart, live by it, die for it if necessary: that our patriotism is medieval, outworn, obsolete; that the modern patriotism, the true patriotism, the only rational patriotism, is loyalty to the Nation ALL the time, loyalty to the Government when it deserves it.“
• It is curious that physical courage should be so common in the world, and moral courage so rare. 

— Samuel Clemons, AKA Mark Twain, November 30, 1835 – April 21, 1910

The children of these prairies do not grow up expecting that all the bonbons of this world are going to be fed to them with a runcible spoon by pampering destiny. Here you sweat by summer, shiver by winter, and work and pay for everything you get, so that by the time you are an adult, you are spiritually prepared for more hard work. North Dakota life has been meant to make of you a tough fighter, a hard worker.
— Carroll E. Simcox