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

“Language is like soil. However rich, it is subject to erosion, and its fertility is constantly threatened by uses that exhaust its vitality. It needs constant re-invigoration if it is not to become arid and sterile.”
Elizabeth Drew.

“We’re at a point where global warming is impossible to deny . . . deniers are now on par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and the future.”
Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman.

“The planet has a fever. If your baby has a fever, you go to the doctor. If the doctor says you need to intervene here, you don’t say, ‘Well, I read a science fiction novel that told me it’s not a problem.’”
Vice President Al Gore testifying before House and Senate panels, in response to skepticism from Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) and Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK).

“My responsibilities were to kick-start the economy.”
Former U.S. administrator of Iraq Paul Bremer, explaining a government audit in 2005 that found $8.8 billion was turned over to Iraqi officials, most of it lost to corruption and waste.

“The president believes that there is a right for people to bear arms, but that all laws must be followed.”
The very first response of the White House to the Virginia Tech shootings, after expressing horror and offering his prayers to the victims and the people of Virginia. President Bush’s initial concern was to reassure his base where he stands on gun control.

“Why, we ask, do Americans continue to tolerate gun laws and a culture that seems to condemn thousands of innocents to death every year, when presumably tougher restrictions could at least reduce the number.”
The Times of London, 4/18/07.

“Four years of war in Iraq have cost the American taxpayer $351 billion, or $2610 per taxpayer. U. S. troop deaths number 3,197, Iraqi civilian deaths number 59,000, and 23,417 U. S. troops have been injured.”
Dallas Morning News, 3/18/07.

“In the last four years, about 2 million Iraqis have fled their country, and 1 million more will leave this year, yet the U.S. (who has admitted only 202) and the U. N. have not acknowledged a refugee crisis.”
NBC Nightly News, 3/21/07.

“In a democracy, you do not have the rule of majority. What makes a democracy is when it is safe to be a minority.”
Evangelical author and social activist Tony Campolo.

“The Dallas Morning News Editorial Board has reversed its century-old position on the death penalty, now arguing that the system is too flawed. Thus far in 2007, 49 executions have taken place in the U. S., 48 of them in Texas.”
DMN, 4/21/07.

“For every dollar Americans pay in federal income taxes, 36 cents goes toward past and present military spending.”
Sojourners Online.

“I am not anti-gun. I’m pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. . . . you have to catch up to someone in order to stab him. . . . knives for guns would promote physical fitness. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives.”
Texas author, columnist, and partisan wit Molly Ivins, who died January 31.

“Establishing Rhode Island as a haven for religious freedom, Baptist preacher Roger Williams spoke of the need for a ‘hedge or wall of separation between the garden of the church and the wilderness of the world.’”
Report From the Capital (February, 2007).

“It costs $14,600 a year to incarcerate an inmate in Texas—a 25-year sentence would cost close to $365,000. Correction experts say the costs of trials and appeals in death sentence cases are staggering, sometimes reaching $1 million per case.”
Dallas Morning News (3/4/07).

“Punctuating a fundamental change in American family life, married couples with children now occupy fewer than one in every four households.”
Sojourners Online (3/4/07).

“We Baptists gotta stick together—after all nobody else will have us!”
Rev. Will B. Dunn in Kudzu, by Doug Marlette.

“American generals have repeated the mistakes of Vietnam in Iraq. The intellectual and moral failures constitute a crisis.”
Lt. Col. Paul Yingling, Iraq veteran and deputy commander of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment.

Updated Tuesday, May 29, 2007