Bryan's Blog

Government and Taxes Quotes

2009-03-06T13:14:00.001-06:00

Brad sent me this email, and I thought it was too good not to share

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1. 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 a congress.
-- John Adams

2. If you don't read the newspaper you are uninformed, if you do read the newspaper you are misinformed.
-- Mark Twain

3. Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.

-- Mark Twain

4. I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle.
-- Winston Churchill

5. A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.
-- George Bernard Shaw

6. A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money.
-- G. Gordon Liddy

7. Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner.
-- James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994)

8. Foreign aid might be defined as a transfer of money from poor people in rich countries to rich people in poor countries.
-- Douglas Casey, Classmate of Bill Clinton at Georgetown University

9. Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.
-- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian

10. Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else.
-- Frederic Bastiat, French Economist (1801-1850)

11. Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.
-- Ronald Reagan (1986)

12. I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.
-- Will Rogers

13. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free!
-- P.J. O'Rourke

14. In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other.
-- Voltaire (1764)

15. Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you!
-- Pericles (430 B.C.)

16. No man's life, liberty, or property is safe while the legislature is in session.
-- Mark Twain (1866)

17. Talk is cheap...except when Congress does it.
-- Anonymous

18. The government is like a baby's alimentary canal, with a happy appetite at one end and no responsibility at the other.
-- Ronald Reagan

19. The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery.
-- Winston Churchill

20. The only difference between a tax man and a taxidermist is that the taxidermist leaves the skin.
-- Mark Twain

21. The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools.
-- Herbert Spencer, English Philosopher (1820-1903)

22. There is no distinctly native American criminal class...save Congress.
-- Mark Twain

23. What this country needs are more unemployed politicians.
-- Edward Langley, Artist (1928-1995)

24. A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-- Thomas Jefferson

Day and Night

2008-10-24T11:52:00.002-05:00

I downloaded Picasa 3 a couple of weeks ago, and although it is my favorite program for viewing my photos, I have been transitioning to Lightshop lately for my processing. One of the features that I really like in Picasa, though, is its ability to create collages. This is one I really liked because of the symmetry in the two pictures. The colors are are really saturated and show the contrast between the blue day sky and the bright orange that comes out in the evening.

Texas State Fair '08

2008-10-18T09:36:00.009-05:00

Tuesday, we took Sara and Coby out of school early and went as a family to the State Fair of Texas. With the exception of when Sara was a little baby, this was the first time the kids had been to the state fair, and they had a blast. We took the kids out of school at 10:30, after they had been counted present for the day, and headed to fair park. By 11:45 we had had a little lunch and had arrived at the park, and we ended up staying until 8:30 that night. It was a full day, and we kept going the whole time.

When we first arrived at the park, the Nerveless Nocks, from Florida, were putting on their stunt show near the entrance to the park. They had the "Globe of Thunder," one of the big balls that they rode motorcycles in, three tall sway poles, and the "Wheel of Destiny." It started sprinkling during the show, keeping us cool, and overall the weather was perfect for a day at the fair.

Throughout the day we also watched the BMX show, the pig races, and went to the car show and petting zoo where the kids could feed the animals. The shows were fun, but the real selling point of the fair is all of the food. The fair isn't called the "Fried Food Capitol of Texas" for nothing. Of course we enjoyed the pulled taffy, foot-long corny dogs, turkey legs, nachos, Frito pie, and funnel cakes, but we weren't real adventurous when it came to all the new fried foods that were available. We didn't venture out to the deep fried bacon, jelly beans, or pop tarts. The bravest thing we tried was a fried truffle, and it wasn't really that good. It was about the size of a donut hole, and all it really entailed was a soggy breading around a ball of melted chocolate. Other than that, the food was as good as I remembered.

From Fall 2008

We also spent a while in the midway. All of the kids won a prize by popping a balloon with a dart, and Coby also won another dart game where you have to throw a dart in a circle on the wall. Sara was the brave ride rider with me, and we went on a couple of the bigger carnival rides. All the kids found a little balloon ride that Lauren was big enough to go on, and we had to catch it one last time as we left park.

From Fall 2008

Of course, with my new camera, I knew there were two shots that I had to get, Big Tex and the Texas Star. I loved using my K200D for the day, and I think we were able to get some great pictures of the family and the fair.

Python List insertBefore

2008-06-17T17:41:00.004-05:00

def insertBefore(list, newElement, referenceElement):
   for i in range(0, len(list)):
      if list[i] == referenceElement
         list.insert(i, newElement)
         break

Using Regular Expressions To Get A Substring In Python

2008-06-12T21:53:00.003-05:00

Using the ElementTree to parse XML, I am getting tags that look like this: "{namespace}tag". I need an easy way to strip off the namespace.

>>> import re
>>> str = "{blat}tag"

>>> re.findall(r'{.*}', str)
['{blat}']

>>> str += "{goo}asdf{boing}blat"
>>> re.findall(r'{.*}', str)
['{blat}tag{goo}asdf{boing}']

>>> re.findall(r'{.*?}', str)
['{blat}', '{goo}', '{boing}']

>>> re.findall(r'{.*?}', str)[0]
'{blat}'

>>> goo = re.findall(r'{.*?}', str)[0]
>>> goo
'{blat}'
>>> goo[1:len(goo)-1]
'blat'

I'm sure the { and } could be stripped off with the regular expression. I still have to play with it.