EthixBytes
A Collection of Quotes, Comments, Statistics, and News Items

“Oh wad some power the giftie gie us/ To see oursel’s as others see us!/ It wad frae moonie a blunder free us/ And foolish notion.”  
Robert Burns, 18^th century poet.

“The God so often discussed nowadays seems as dependent on the government as a welfare mother. For some reason, the Almighty needs government assistance to make his presence known. Either the schools must have prayer or government building must have a religious reminder—say, the Ten Commandments—or else, somehow, he will be banished from our lives or our consciousness.”    
Richard Cohen, The Washington Post, September 2, 2003.

“God forbid that I should claim for our country the mantle of perfect righteousness. We have committed sins of omission and sins of commission, for which we stand in need of the mercy of the Lord.”    
President Harry S. Truman.

“How could we expect to easily plant a clone of U.S. culture, values, and government in a country so riven with religious, territorial and tribal rivalries, so suspicious of U.S. motives, and so at odds with the galloping materialism which drives the Western-style economies?”    
Sen. Robert Byrd (D., W. VA), on the Senate floor, May 21, 2003.

“Prosecutors say Dennis Kozlowski, former CEO of Tyco Int. Ltd., spent company money on his $32 million New York apartment, including $500,000 for handpainted wallpaper, a $6,000 shower curtain in a maid’s room, and $40,000 worth of drapes.”
Christopher Mumma, Boomberg News.

“Augustine believed war is essentially an occasion for remorse. ‘The wise person will wage just wars,’ he wrote, but even the possibility of war ‘should cause humans sorrow because humans are responsible for it. . . . Let everyone grieve when he thinks about the truly shocking and cruel evil involved here, and let him acknowledge his miserable state.’ The most prominent architect of just war theory was more concerned that war lead to repentance than that it can, in some cases, be justified.”    
The Christian Century, April 5, 2003.

“Why of course the people don’t want war . . . But after all it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy. The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”      
Hermann Goering at the Nuremberg trials of Nazi war criminals.

“I believe we worship the same God.”        
President Bush responding to a reporter’s question in London on Nov. 20 about how he reacts to people who share his beliefs but don’t believe Muslims worship the same Almighty.

“The number of malnourished people swelled by an average of 4.5 million a year (1995-2001) and the most recent data found 840 million people, or 1 in 7 worldwide, went hungry.”       
U. N. Food and Agricultural Organization Report, Oct. 27, 2003.

“In Iraq between 10,000 and 20,000 private contractors are paid to do military tasks, hiding the true costs of the war—the dead, the profits, and the lucrative contracts are hidden by the executives, who also funnel earnings into political campaigns. The chief military contractor in Iraq is Kellogg, Brown & Root, owned by Halliburton Co. formerly led by V.P. Cheney.”
Jim Krane, Associated Press, November 1, 2003.

“I hope I live to see the day when, as in the early days of our country, we won’t have public schools. The church will have taken them over again and Christians will be running them. What a happy day that will be!”       
Rev. Jerry Falwell, Seven Things Corrupting America.

“Little boys need three things—a dog, a gun and a dad. . . . Get him a gun. Not a play gun, but a real gun. Play guns are the most dangerous guns in the world.”     
Paige Patterson, President of Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, at the FBC, Lavaca, AR.

“If you are the type of person who likes assault weapons, there is a place for you: the United States Army. We have them.”
Presidential Candidate Gen. Wesley Clark.

“I think the SBC leaders have gotten deeply immersed in politics as partners with the Republican Party. And even if they were partners with the Democratic Party, I’d still object to it.”  
President Jimmy Carter, Baptists Today, November, 2003.

“Too many whites are getting away with drug use. Find the ones who are getting away with it, convict them, and send them up the river.”       
Rush Limbaugh, Oklahoma Observer.

“Theodore Roosevelt would be standing up and applauding President Bush’s environmental policies.”            
White House political advisor Karl Rove.

“Roosevelt created 150 national parks, founded the National Forest Service, set aside 230 million acres of public land as parks and refuges. Bush has lifted limits on logging in the Tsongass National Forest in Alaska, cleared the way for BNP Petroleum to set up a 156-foot derrick at Padre Island National Seashore to drill for gas, and laid the groundwork for dismantling protections for some 20% of the country’s wetlands.”        
Response of John Buchanan to Karl Rove, Christian Century, February 22, 2003.

“The official poverty rate rose to 12.1% in 2002 from 11.7% in 2001, bringing the total number of people living below the poverty line to 34.6 million [poverty threshold for a family of four is $18,392; for individual $9183].” 
New York Times, September 27, 2003.

“We have sterilized and contracepted our families down to sizes so small that the children we do have are so spoiled with material things that they come to equate the receiving of the material with love.”      
Rep. Tom DeLay (R-TX), on the floor of the House blaming birth control as the cause of violence on high school campuses.

“President Bush’s policy of striking Iraq preemptively represents a fundamental challenge to the multilateral system that has undergirded 58 years of U.N. cooperation. It could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without justification.” 
U.N. Sec.-Gen. Kofi Annan, September 23, 2003.

“The International Campaign to Ban Landmines reported that 5,695 people were killed by land mines in Chechnya in 2002, more than anywhere else in the world. Russian troops and Chechen rebels use land mines.”

“American casualties in the first gulf war were relatively few (294 dead, a little over 400 wounded), but the longer-term effects have been staggering: 221,000 veterans from that war have been put on disability . . . [many] the result of contamination from depleted uranium (DU) used in munitions from friendly fire. The half-life of uranium 238 is 4.5 billion years; the U.S. military left more than 320 tons of it all over Iraq.”      
Forensic scientist Dr. Doug Rokke in The Christian Century, April 5, 2003.

“America needs to take drastic steps to control an epidemic of teenage drinking that is costing $53 billion a year. The National Academy of Sciences called for curbs on glamorous references to alcohol in hip-hop music and movies, harsh penalties on stores that sell alcohol to teenagers, and steep increases in taxes on beer.”

“The federal deficit will hit a record of $480 billion next year, more than twice the level forecast just five months ago. The annual budget shortfalls will total nearly $1.4 trillion over the next decade, a stunning reversal from the $5.6 trillion surplus forecast in 2001.”      
Congressional Budget Office, August 27, 2003.

“The number of “nones” who claim no religion has more than doubled the last decade to 30 million, from 8% of the U.S. population in 1990 to 14% in 2001.”    
American Religious Identification Survey.

“The Center on Economic and Policy Research reports that the richest 1 percent of all families owns 53 percent of all stock or mutual fund shares held by individuals. The top 10 percent possess more than 90 percent of the shares. Which means that 90 percent of Americans will get little if any tax break from elimination of the dividend tax.”
The Christian Century, May 3, 2003.

“I was saved by a woman preaching . . . at 12 years of age, and I’m still saved. People are being saved. Lives are being changed. Big churches are growing. Are we going to tell these women, ‘You can’t do that’?”      
Former SBC President Charles Stanley in response to his denomination’s stance about women serving as pastors.

 “My candle burns at both ends;/ It will not last the night;/ But, oh, my foes, and oh, my friends—/ It gives a lovely light.”
Edna St. Vincent Millay, in “First Flag.”

Updated Monday, February 02, 2004