Thought for Thursday, Jul 31, 2008

*

People will do tomorrow
what they did today because
that is what they did yesterday.

Thought for Wednesday, Jul 30, 2008

*
Real Time, adj.:
Here and now, as opposed to fake time,
which only occurs there and then.

Thought for Tuesday, Jul 29, 2008

*

He played the king
as if afraid someone
else would play the ace.

-John Mason Brown, drama critic

Thought for Monday, Jul 28, 2008

Well, we don't hold age against people,
and the older I get the less I (am
inclined to) do that.

-Mike Sherman
Aggie Football Coach
On hiring 64 year old defensive
coordinator Joe Kines

Thought for Friday, Jul 25, 2008

In my many years I have come to a conclusion that
one useless man is a shame, two is a law firm,
and three or more is Congress.

--John Adams (1735 - 1826)
Submitted by Herr Kemper

Thought for Thursday, Jul 24, 2008

The truth of the matter is that you always know
the right thing to do. The hard part is doing it.

- General H. Norman Schwarzkopf
From the Masters: Discipline
Mon, 23 Jun 2008

Thought for Wednesday, Jul 23, 2008

If you have an important point to make, don.t try to be subtle
or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back
and hit it again. Then hit it a third time a tremendous whack.

- Winston Churchill
From the Masters:
Determination
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008

(Or as the Amry says, "Tell'em what you are going to tell them, tell them,
and then tell them what you told'em")

Thought for Tuesday, Jul 22, 2008

It takes a lot of things to prove you are smart,
but only one thing to prove you are ignorant.

-Don Herold
From the Masters:
Credibility
Fri, 13 Jun 2008

Thought for Monday, Jul 21, 2008

Golden Oldie

The mockingbird can change its tune
eighty-seven times in seven minutes.
Politicians regard this interesting
fact with envy.

-Anon

Thought for Friday, Jul 18, 2008

Working people frequently ask retired people what they
do to make their days interesting.
Well, for example, the other day the wife and I went
into town and went into a shop.. We were only in there
for about 5 minutes. When we came out, there was a
cop writing out a parking ticket. We went up to him and
I said, 'Come on man, how about giving a senior citizen
a break?' He ignored us and continued writing the ticket.

I called him a Dummkopf. He glared at me and started
writing another ticket for having worn tires. So Mary
called him a dumbbell. He finished the second ticket and
put it on the windshield with the first. Then he started
writing a third ticket. This went on for about 20
minutes. The more we abused him, the more tickets
he wrote. Personally, we didn't care. We came into town
by bus. We try to have a little fun each day now that
we're retired. It's important at our age.

-Submitted by Jim Berry
(with some editing by the functional
illiterate as Jim has previously
referred to tftd)

Thought for Thursday, Jul 17, 2008

*
"I'm prepared for all emergencies but totally unprepared for everyday
life."

Thought for Wednesday, Jul 16, 2008

Caution: Cape does not enable user to fly.

-Signiture Line
As reported by Herr Kemper

Thought for Tuesday, Jul 15, 2008

You can be totally rational with a machine.
But, if you work with people, sometimes
logic has to take a back seat to understanding.

-Akio Morita (1921-1999)
Business executive
From the Masters:
Mon, 7 Jul 2008

Thought for Monday, Jul 14, 2008

*
O'Toole's Commentary on Murphy's Law:
Murphy was an optimist.

Thought for Thursday, Jul 10, 2008

The eye sees only what the
mind is prepared to comprehend.

-Robertson Davies
(1913-1995)
Novelist and playwright
Bits and Pieces June 2008

Thought for Wednesday, Jul 9, 2008

*

Where humor is concerned there are no standards --
no one can say what is good or bad, although
you can be sure that everyone will.

-John Kenneth Galbraith

Thought for Tuesday, Jul 8, 2008

*
Genius, n.:
A chemist who discovers a laundry additive that rhymes with
"bright".

Thought for Monday, Jul 7, 2008

*

Democracy is a device that insures we
shall be governed no better than we deserve.

-George Bernard Shaw

Thought for Thursday, Jul 3, 2008

Golden Oldie

http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=2#

tftd will resume on or about July 7, 2008

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to
dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and
to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to
which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent
respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the
causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights,
that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to
secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their
just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of
Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the
People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying
its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form,
as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and
Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long
established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and
accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to
suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing
the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses
and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to
reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty,
to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future
security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and
such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former
Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is
a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct
object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To
prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for
the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing
importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be
obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to
them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts
of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of
Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and
formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual,
uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records,
for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly
firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others
to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation,
have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State
remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from
without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that
purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to
pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the
conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to
Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their
offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of
Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the
Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the
Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our
constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their
Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders
which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province,
establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries
so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing
the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and
altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested
with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection
and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and
destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to
compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with
circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most
barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to
bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their
friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to
bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages,
whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all
ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the
most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by
repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act
which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have
warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend
an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the
circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to
their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the
ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would
inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have
been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must,
therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and
hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace
Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in
General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world
for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of
the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That
these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent
States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown,
and that all political connection between them and the State of Great
Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and
Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace,
contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and
Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of
this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine
Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and
our sacred Honor.

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Thought for Wednesday, Jul 2, 2008

*
A day without sunshine is like night.

Thought for Tuesday, Jul 1, 2008

Words, like eyeglasses,
obscure everything they
do not make clear.

-Joseph Joubert,
moralist and essayist
(1754-1824)
AWADmail Issue 312