Sine Qua Non

A man must have a certain amount of intelligent ignorance to get anywhere.

 — Charles Franklin Kettering

No It's Because You're A Dickhead

Flattery

Learn from the mistakes of others. 

You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.

 ― Groucho Marx

Collected Thoughts

It is a very mixed blessing to be brought back from the dead. 

 — Kurt Vonnegut

Testosterone Causes The Form Of Brain Damage Known As Machismo

Survival Of The Chosenest

Minimal Pair

It Gets Worse

States Men

Conservative, n: A statesman who is enamoured of existing evils, 

as distinguished from the Liberal who wishes to replace them with others.

 — Ambrose Bierce

Mediarchy

Google Nazis

Your Google+ Appeal

Google+ team ✆ 109474793783607252327-noreply@google.com 

Hello,

After reviewing your appeal, we have determined that your name does not comply with the Google+ Names Policy.

We want users to be able to find each other using the name they already use with their friends, family and colleagues. For most people this is their legal name, or some variant of it, but we recognise that this isn't always the case, and we allow for other common names in Google+ - specifically, those that represent an individual with an established online identity with a meaningful following. If you haven't already done so, you can provide us with additional information regarding an established identity by re-submitting an appeal that includes references to where you are known by this name either in online or offline settings.

Note that if you're trying to set up a page for a business, band, group or other organisation, please sign up with your own name and then create a Google+ Page. If you're trying to add an alternative name (such as a nickname, maiden name or name in another script), please sign up with your full name; you can add this alternative name (which will appear alongside your full name) once you've signed up.

You may re-appeal with additional information, if you have not already done so. If you're already using Google+, your current name will continue to be used.

The Google+ team.

View the Google+ Names Policy. You can't reply to this message. 

[Note that the name I requested to use was not only my legal name — and so already the name I use with "friends, family and colleagues" — but also the representation of it that I use for gmail, academic discussion lists and a dozen google blogs.]

A Fine Balance

In a democracy,
an uninformed vote counts as much as an informed vote;
a greedy vote counts as much as a generous vote;
a selfish vote counts as much as an altruistic vote;
a stupid vote counts as much as an intelligent vote;
a dishonest vote counts as much as an honest vote.

One More Mystery Explained

Transemmentalism

Sprung

The Right To Bear Arms

Vacuation

Silly Sausage

Theory Of Elocution

You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.
 ― Khalil Gibran

The 5 Basic Laws Of Human Stupidity

1. Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2. The probability that a certain person be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places and under any circumstances to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

[More here.]

Legitimation

You are not entitled to your opinion. 

You are entitled to your informed opinion. 

No-one is entitled to be ignorant.
 ― Harlan Ellison

Triumph Of The Will

Wilful ignorance is the state and practice of ignoring any sensory input that appears to contradict one’s inner model of reality.

Let Sleeping Pit Bulls Lie

The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie
comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him,
or around him,
and so loses all respect for himself and for others.

 — Fyodor Dostoevsky

Consensus Vs Truth

Vice Versa

Hatred is gained as much by good works as by evil.

 — Niccolo Machiavelli

Hearts & Minds

The heart deceives, because it is never anything but the expression of the mind’s miscalculations.

 — Marquis de Sade

Secret Service

America has been discovered before, but it has always been hushed up.
 — Oscar Wilde

Evangelism

By persuading others, we convince ourselves.

 — Junius

Prescient

Nowadays to be intelligible is to be found out.

 — Oscar Wilde