Quotes from USENET and the Web

"If Abraham Lincoln wanted to appeal to the 'better angels of our nature' then George Bush is surely the master of making devils of us all."
-- ginmar again 10 Jun 2008

"I think of patriotism and religion pretty much the same way I think about masturbation---theres nothing wrong with it, but must you talk about it at parties?"
-- ginmar's LiveJournal 4 Jul 2004

"A friend of mine offered yesterday to go stand guard at local-to-him mosques with his AR-15 in the wake of stupid-ass backlash violence. (Someone killed a Sikh.)

He gets it."

-- wednesday <hanayome@rosebitch.org> in a comment on Wil Wheaton's weblog 18 Sep 2001

"What's really weird is the Army ads in the back of Transmet. With a war likely, do we really want an army made up of Transmetropolitan fans?"
"I can't think of a better way to punish the perpetrators of last week's attacks than to unleash an army of drug-crazed tattooed maniacs wielding bowel disruptors upon them."
"You want to punish them by inviting them to one of my family reunions?"
-- enterfornone <spam@enterfornone.net>, me, Jeremy Henderson <jhinhui.kim@verizon.net>, concerning ads that ran in an issue of Transmetropolitan that came out last week. [rec.arts.comics.dc.vertigo] Unfortunate coincidence in Transmetropolitan #49 19 Sep 2001

"Would Jesus listen to that shit? I don't think so. I've always envisioned Jesus as having a bit more soul. If he listened to Christian music as at all, I could see him listening to Mahalia Jackson, to gospel music with soul. I can't imagine Jesus being the kind of person who would enjoy songs by rhythmless white people thanking Him for helping them buy a double-wide trailer."
-- The Misanthropic Bitch on silly Christian pop music 4 Jul 2001

"I liked the little musical riff that accompanied the PTEN logo--it was the signal for everyone to shut up *right* *now*."
-- Bill Woody [rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated] Re: I miss the PTEN intro 16 Jan 98

"I believe that MSN *is* shadows.org"
"No, it's the bastard offspring of a Vorlon and Shadow who got drunk and spent the night together."
-- jdpaul@jdpaul.student.harvard.edu (J.D. Paul), orionca@earthlink.net [rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5] Re: B5 in popular culture

"Pedantry is not just a hobby, it's a calling"
-- Bill Stewart-Cole [bofh.general] Re: MIME

"Addition of my name and address to your bulk-email database constitutes acceptance of my offer to remove both of your nipples with an orbital sander."
-- the .signature of Andy Ihnatko

"Hrmmm. One wonders... does sending a process a SIGHIP make it cooler?"
-- Abby Franquemont-Guillory [alt.sysadmin.recovery] ISP of the damned 22 Apr 97

"I will never use that abomination that someone laughingly titled an Operating System. If I wanted to point and drool, I'd got to a Chippendales show."
-- Leigh Metcalf on Windoze NT [alt.sysadmin.recovery] A minor rant 25 Mar 97

Mike Summers (afn56296@afn.org) wrote:
> I HATE ALL [...] CATS WHEN EVER I SEE ONE I KILL IT SO ... YOU ALL.

"I'll just stick to my dream world where computers simply crunch data, and occasionally even crunch it correctly, thankyouverymuch."
-- Jeff Uphoff 18 Feb 97

"I had to touch an NT box today. I feel so... dirty."
-- Abby Franquemont-Guillory, during her first week at Taos Mountain Consulting 18 Feb 97

"Of course 5 years from now that will be different, but 5 years from now everyone will be running free GNU on their 200 MIPS, 64M SPARCstation-5."
-- Prof. Andy Tanenbaum (Yes, THAT Andy Tanenbaum,) [comp.os.minix] Re: LINUX is obsolete 30 Jan 92

   \    /                           | Sincerely,
:-P #==8(-:                         | Lieutenant Wilkes
   /    \                           -------------------
World Peace Through Oral Sex.  Think Globally, Act Locally.

In article <53mcf2$3e9@vixen.cso.uiuc.edu>,
Jason Lindquist <jlindqui@uiuc.edu> wrote:

>*sigh*  Have I said I miss my expressways?
 
Well, I'll see if I can't find you some nice nekkid jpegs of the
Dan Ryan or something then."

"What ever happened to the good old non-controversial topics for English papers, like abortion, gun control, and euthanasia?

This Mac vs PC thing is just way too emotionally charged to be a safe choice for a topic."
-- Jeff Uphoff in [****.compfh.ibm.pc] Re: I am doing a Newspaper Article in English 10 Oct 96

"Rumor: To graduate, a Duke student must attend a basketball game.
Fact: To graduate, a Duke student must be able to spell Krujawoo, er, Shuhshef, er, what's the guy's name again?"
-- James Armstrong <jamesa@io.com> [alt.sports.college.acc] ACC: Facts and Rumors 3 Sep 96

I would worry about such things, but first you have to figure out how to
make your IBM-PC do ANYTHING.
 
Whereas we Mac drivers merely point and shoot.
 
Try again, sport.
 
Look at it this way -- IBM : Mac :: Iraqi T-72 : M1A1

"We are indeed tight-assed tyrannical bastards, but we prefer to be referred to as Bastard Operators From Hell, and we have had much more experience dealing with people like you than you have had dealing with people like us. After all, we do it for a living."
-- Mike Andrews, [alt.sysadmin.recovery] to all you tight-assed... 7 Aug 96

"I put "The Net" on about the same tier as I do "Wired." It just seems to have a lower budget and less shots of a topless Bill Gates on its covers."
-- Andrew S. "{The Bob, Gurk}" Damick, [alt.fan.wednesday] Re: Our very own page 32 girl! 20 Jul 96

"Now, what happens when you fuse several sysadmins together? A decent ISP? A network consulting firm that actually *knows* what it's talking about? A help desk that can find its collective butt without the map or flashlight?"
-- Mark Stapleton <mstaple@insync.net> [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Re: GRUMBLE GRUMBLE 2 Jul 96

"I wonder if Mister Gates is having Nightmeres of Linus Torvaldis taking Bill's fast cars for a drive while Billy pays child support of $3 billion/year to his wife (who runs off with Richard Stallman)."
-- Erik Zolan <eazolan@genius.dungeon.com> [comp.sys.*] Re: Bill Gates sucs

"Even if you don't live in the U.S., the anti-Internet hysteria will soon be visiting a legislative body near you. If it hasn't already."
-- EFFector 9.03, the online newsletter of the Electronic Freedom Foundation

"Question? Is there a DOS's version of UNIX?"
-- smallworld@alpha.c2.org, seen on bofh.cannon-fodder 24 Apr 96

"It never ceases to amaze me how people who have NO BUSINESS[2] running an ISP can get a $200k finance package together, while honest, hard-working net.geeks such as myself have to settle for bleeding them dry with consulting fees. Heheh."
-- Trevor Fiatal <tafiatal@ac.net> [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Re: Cities (was Re: Domain names redux.) 29 Mar 96

"I don't recall a damn thing about the silly stripper, as by that time I was focused on nothing but dealing with getting my suspended beer process to stdout before I started swapping or developed a memory leak or dumped core or something."
-- Abby Franquemont-Guillory [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Re: North West England ASR Meet, Anybody? 21 Mar 96, on the occasion she was held up trying to use a rest room in a bar because there was a bachelor party going on between the main part of the bar and the restrooms.

"This signature project was my last, best hope to seem eloquent.  It failed.
 But in the year of Decency In Communications Act, it became something
 greater.  My last, best hope for satire.  The year is 1996. The Place:
 Babbling On Pine."

"On two occasions I have been asked [by members of Parliament], 'Pray, Mr. Babbage, if you put into the machine wrong figures, will the right answers come out?' I am not able rightly to apprehend the kind of confusion of ideas that could provoke such a question."
-- Charles Babbage

"Most people designing flashy web pages these days are in desperate need of a spanking... The people at Netscape need to be sent to HTML Re-Education Camp."
-- Paul Callahan, quoted by Eric Sorenson <eric@aloha.net> in [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Re: NETSCAPE SUCKS!!!!! 6 Nov 95

"I have a sneaking suspicion that the people who've been asking me for free t-shirts are almost all children -- after all, I've also gotten mail from people accusing me of fraud for not sending them shirts, and that takes a level of ignorance that you really only find in the seventh grade... or in news.admin.censorship, but I digress."
-- Joel Furr <jfurr@acpub.duke.edu> 30 Oct 95

On Sun, 29 Oct 1995, Jose Luis Rivas wrote:

> What does the grand spammer award look like???

It looks like a can of Spam.  However on the front, there is a picture of
a pre-teen boy with one hand on the keyboard (typing useless Me Too
posts) and his other hand is down his pants.

"Anybody who really wants the government off our backs should seriously consider joining a militia or forming one, dying his skin black, and smoking pot."
-- Jeff X. Mink <jmcg+@andrew.cmu.edu> [alt.discordia] Re: DEA, ATF, Gestapo 22 Oct 95

"You know, a Fram. They make filters for cars. Cut one in half and place over your eyes and you can also pretend to be Geordi Laforge."
-- Umair Yousufi <yousufi@ucsub.colorado.edu> in rec.games.*, in reference to "40 frams per second" Japanese animation... "What's a fram?!!"

"When they took the fourth amendment, I was quiet because I don't deal drugs.
When they took the sixth amendment, I was quiet because I'm innocent.
When they took the second amendment, I was quiet because I don't own a gun.
Now they've taken the first amendment and I can't say anything at all."
-- Pulled from someone's .sig

If you upgrade from Windoze 3.1 to Windoze 95, are the bugs compatible?
-- Stuart Owen <rbebb@dbrw.win-uk.net> in [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Microsoft spin... 4 Aug 95

"WINDOWS95: It's like upgrading from Reagan to Bush"
-- Andy Ihnatko <andyi@world.std.com>

"I'm a native American. Born in Texas, I'm told. Please accept this nice T-shirt and enjoy my country, you lovely foreigners."
-- Alan McKendree <amck@news.eden.com> [alt.fan.letterman] Letterman Wants out. 31 Jul 95

"ObSysAdminQuote: When in the Machine Room, do as the SysAdmins do.
ObSysAdminCorollary: Except `rm -rf /'"
-- Andy Carey <careya@peak.org> in [alt.sysadmin.recovery] What to do with unwanted CDs? 26 Jul 95

"how often do you hear somebody these days mention the word "sun" and "fast" in the same sentense, without using a negator in there somewhere???"
-- John Kinsella <jlkinsella@ucdavis.edu> in [alt.sysadmin.recovery] vendors who give me conniptions 27 Jul 95

"What ARE you? Are your gonads blackmailing you, threatening to tell everyone some horribly embarrassing scene from your bathroom? Or are you a natural ass-sucker? Or maybe you're just some unthinking, phallus-lacking Dahmer-like scrunchnavel?"
-- forever@deviant.richnet.net in [alt.folklore.internet] Re: REPOST: Proclamation 22 Jul 95

"God, Linux running on a piece of toast would outperform SCO."
-- Leo Pereira <lpereira@us.oracle.com> [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Operating System Hall of Shame 7 Jul 95

"Congratulations! You've found the Dilbert Home Page. This is a sure indication that you are a little bit smarter and a little bit sexier than the people who are, for example, looking at the Smithsonian web site."
-- The Dilbert home page http://www.unitedmedia.com/comics/dilbert/

"Will somebody please let me quit defending Chris Collins?"
-- Rob MacKenna, 7 Oct 94 [rec.sport.basketball.college: "Re: Chris Collins...why he sucks"]

"I'd rather be branded a geek the rest of my life then live with little 13 year olds on the corner wearing "Warp" t-shirts and country slingers chatting about whether the they should participate in the annual America Online rodeo interactive. It's a phase, but please, don't make me live through it."
-- Jeffrey Sheldon jeff@tiger.lsu.edu in [alt.folklote.computers] "Wargames" hardware

"Have you ever gotten sick of hearing AT&T take credit for things that they didn't invent? You will."
-- Dave Hamilton <jazzbo@onr.com>

"Non computer users will [evolve to] grow tails, sit in zoos, and fling dung at tourists."
-- Scott Adams

"It is the job of the site postmasters to keep the kiddies on their systems from missing the potty, not ours. It is our job to let them know when one of theirs has made tinkle on the Net."
-- Alan Ogden <arog@bix.com> on dealing with net.spammers 18 Apr 95 [alt.sysadmin.recovery] Re: The Best Kept Secret to Meeting Women!

>You misspelled "NSA".  I know because no group bears a more epic love of

>manking than the directors of the NSA.

 ^^^^^^^

-- Jim Lippard, [alt.discordia] Various funky words..., 22 Sep 94

> Question: What the heck do (ex-Presidents) have to do now that is so important
> to warrant the need for office space?  Reagan has a whole ranch!