"I dont lie, because I'm not scared of anybody; the only time people lie is when they're scared; Therefore, I dont lie."
-- John Gotti

"Let’s start with 'Heinz.' By retaining her dead husband’s name ­there is no genteel way to put this­ she is publicly, subliminally cuckolding Kerry with the power of another man, ­a dead Republican man, at that. Add to that the fact that her first husband was (as she is herself now) vastly more wealthy than her second husband. Throw into all of this her penchant for black, a color that no woman wears in the heartland, and you have a recipe for just what Kerry is struggling with now: charges of elitism, unstable family relationships, and an unmanned candidate.

"Hillary Rodham Clinton merely insisted on using 'Rodham' as part of her married name; Heinz Kerry is insisting on the primacy of another man. She could, though, have spoken about what she admires in her husband; she could have spoken about her own work in terms of service, family, and community. All those are ways of being oneself while still showing deference to women voters who are not wealthy and multilingual. I am a feminist, but I still believe that a candidate’s spouse, male or female, needs to understand something that Republicans get now but Democrats still don’t: It is not about them. If you are a president’s wife ­or husband ­your life and imagery do not belong just to you. For the duration, you belong to us, and you need to reflect and respect our own aspirations and dreams."
-- Naomi Wolf, Female Trouble, New York Magazine.


Image from ZDF.de

"After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.

"The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair

"The Carter Center has monitored more than 50 elections, all of them held under contentious, troubled or dangerous conditions. When I describe these activities, either in the United States or in foreign forums, the almost inevitable questions are: 'Why don't you observe the election in Florida?' and 'How do you explain the serious problems with elections there?'

"The answer to the first question is that we can monitor only about five elections each year, and meeting crucial needs in other nations is our top priority. (Our most recent ones were in Venezuela and Indonesia, and the next will be in Mozambique.) A partial answer to the other question is that some basic international requirements for a fair election are missing in Florida.

"The most significant of these requirements are:

• A nonpartisan electoral commission or a trusted and nonpartisan official who will be responsible for organizing and conducting the electoral process before, during and after the actual voting takes place. Although rarely perfect in their objectivity, such top administrators are at least subject to public scrutiny and responsible for the integrity of their decisions. Florida voting officials have proved to be highly partisan, brazenly violating a basic need for an unbiased and universally trusted authority to manage all elements of the electoral process.

• Uniformity in voting procedures, so that all citizens, regardless of their social or financial status, have equal assurance that their votes are cast in the same way and will be tabulated with equal accuracy. Modern technology is already in use that makes electronic voting possible, with accurate and almost immediate tabulation and with paper ballot printouts so all voters can have confidence in the integrity of the process. There is no reason these proven techniques, used overseas and in some U.S. states, could not be used in Florida.

"It was obvious that in 2000 these basic standards were not met in Florida, and there are disturbing signs that once again, as we prepare for a presidential election, some of the state's leading officials hold strong political biases that prevent necessary reforms.

"Four years ago, the top election official, Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris, was also the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney state campaign committee. The same strong bias has become evident in her successor, Glenda Hood, who was a highly partisan elector for George W. Bush in 2000. Several thousand ballots of African Americans were thrown out on technicalities in 2000, and a fumbling attempt has been made recently to disqualify 22,000 African Americans (likely Democrats), but only 61 Hispanics (likely Republicans), as alleged felons.

"The top election official has also played a leading role in qualifying Ralph Nader as a candidate, knowing that two-thirds of his votes in the previous election came at the expense of Al Gore. She ordered Nader's name be included on absentee ballots even before the state Supreme Court ruled on the controversial issue.

"Florida's governor, Jeb Bush, naturally a strong supporter of his brother, has taken no steps to correct these departures from principles of fair and equal treatment or to prevent them in the future.

"It is unconscionable to perpetuate fraudulent or biased electoral practices in any nation. It is especially objectionable among us Americans, who have prided ourselves on setting a global example for pure democracy. With reforms unlikely at this late stage of the election, perhaps the only recourse will be to focus maximum public scrutiny on the suspicious process in Florida."

-- President Jimmy Carter, Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote, Washington Post, yesterday.


Image from JohnWorldPeace.com

"Gay people run for members of Congress. Gay people served beside me in Vietnam... Gay people have served in the military for years. For years, they've served in the military. I know this...

This is what's important: I want an America in which people are loved and respected and not an America which has outcasts and discrimination and different layers of being an American or a human being. People are who they are, and America's greatness is that we honor that and can respect it.

I think, you know, and I've said this before, I think marriage raises a different issue in the minds of a lot of people because of its deep religious foundations and institutional structure as the oldest institution in the world.

It is the oldest institution in the world ­ older than country, older than our form of government, older than most forms of government. And people view it differently.

What's important to me is not the terminology or the status; what's important to me are the rights. The rights. That you shouldn't be discriminated against in your right to visit a partner in the hospital. You shouldn't be discriminated against in your right to leave property to somebody, if that's what you want. You shouldn't be discriminated against if you have a civil union relationship that affords you the same rights.

Now I think that's a huge step. There's never been a candidate for president who has stood up and said I think we should fight for those things. And you've got to progress. Even that, I take huge hits for.

And you know, I stood up on the floor of the Senate and voted against DOMA because I thought it was gay bashing on the floor of the United States Senate. I was one of 14 votes. The only person running for reelection who did that.

So I'm not going to take a second seat to anybody in my willingness to fight for what I think is right. But I do think you have to take things step by step, in a reasonable way, so you can achieve some progress and not go backwards."

-- Senator John Kerry, as quoted in the New York Blade.


Image from First Coast News.

"We would be much safer today if President Bush had kept his focus on al-Qaida, rather than diverting crucial resources from the war on terror in Afghanistan to a war of choice in Iraq... This war has been a grotesque mistake that has diminished our reputation in the world and has not made America safer."
-- Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, (D-California) Democratic Leader in the U.S. House of Representatives, in a radio address yesterday.


Image from House Democrats.

"I'm trying to find the correct name for it... this utter absolute, asinine, idiotic stupidity of men marrying men... I've never seen a man in my life I wanted to marry. And I'm gonna be blunt and plain, if one ever looks at me like that I'm going to kill him and tell God he died."
-- Jimmy Swaggart


Image from Love Prong

"Mr. Bush claims that Mr. Kerry's plan to secure and rebuild Iraq is 'exactly what we're currently doing.' No, it isn't. It's only what Mr. Bush is currently saying. And we have 18 months of his administration's deeds to contrast with his words."
-- Paul Krugman, in an op-ed piece titled Let's Get Real, The New York Times.


Image from the Harvard Book Store.

"Too many OB-GYNs aren't able to practice their love with women all across this country."
--President George W. Bush, as quoted by Reuters.


Image from PBS.

"When internationally respected Islamic personalities like Yusuf Islam [Cat Stevens]and Professor Tariq Ramadan are denied entry to the United States, it sends the disturbing message that even moderate and mainstream Muslims will now be treated like terrorists."
-- Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.


Image from Encore Music.

"Saddam Hussein was a brutal dictator who deserves his own special place in hell. But that was not, in itself, a reason to go to war. The satisfaction we take in his downfall does not hide this fact: We have traded a dictator for a chaos that has left America less secure."
-- Senator John Kerry at New York University, yesterday.

Image from the BBC.

"Mr. Kerry has suffered recently in the polls primarily because of his reluctance to put his authentic self on display. He's run a cautious, soulless campaign so far, saying only the things he thinks he should, and shadow boxing instead of really mixing it up, as if he were afraid, as Bonnie Raitt once memorably sang, 'to throw a punch that might land.'... Mr. Kerry has only a few weeks to turn things around. Nearly everyone who thinks the Bush administration has been a disaster for the United States is rooting for him. Sort of. More precisely, they are rooting for Mr. Bush to lose. And this, I think, is Mr. Kerry's fundamental problem... He was selected by Democratic voters because they thought he could beat the president. But he has yet to exhibit the warmth or political savvy necessary to fully energize potential supporters and achieve that victory. An overly cerebral campaign fronted by a candidate too inhibited to blow the whistle on the insanity surrounding us is a big-time recipe for defeat... John Kerry needs to make a stronger emotional connection with voters, and he won't be able to do that without revealing more of what he truly feels and believes - in other words, more of himself... Voters may want change, but they don't want to step into the unknown. The race is still close enough for Mr. Kerry to prevail, and there are debates coming up. But time is short."
-- Bob Herbert in an op-ed piece titled Waiting for the Candidate to Emerge in The New York Times.

"I wouldn't trade any of my experiences for anything in the world. I'm very happy with who I am, and where I've ended up and I wouldn't change one thing. Because if you change one thing in the past, everything else is different."
-- Macaulay Culkin, on the subject of his teen years, as quoted on AllMoviePortal.com.


Image from Now Toronto.

"See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time."
-- Robin Williams

"I'd like to address this to the Undecideds: I'm on to you. You may be fooling everyone else with your little "undecided" act, but you're not fooling me. You know perfectly well whom you're voting for. The only reason you say you're undecided is that it's a cheap ploy to get attention...
The truth is, Undecideds, you're getting on our nerves. We Decideds hate all the attention you're getting and that you're jerking us around. Anyone who can't make up his or her mind at this point in the campaign should forget about the election entirely, buy a pint of ice cream and get into bed... We'd love to tell you to take a hike, but we're afraid to alienate you. If we really had any brains, we wouldn't spend another second on you, but on the people who can truly make a difference: the "unlikely" voters. And there are millions more of them than there are of you."
-- Larry David, in an Op Ed piece titled Are You Undecided? Or Not? in The New York Times.

"And I will miss all of my pets - my two beloved, fun-loving dogs, my seven lively cats, my canaries, my horses and even my chickens. It's odd what becomes of immense importance when one realizes one's freedom is about to be curtailed."
-- Martha Stewart


Image from Digital Journal.

"President Bush's paramount problem with his National Guard years is not that he took shortcuts in 1972. The problem is that he still refuses to come clean about it... What worries me... is the lack of honesty today about that past - and the way Mr. Bush is hurling stones without the self-awareness to realize that he's living in a glass house."
-- Nicholas D. Kristof, in an op-ed piece titled Mr. Bush's Glass House, The New York Times

"Osama Bin Laden is saying exactly what the enemies of the western empires said through the 20th century: The price of your occupation, the price of your empire in our world, is terror. The Islamic terrorists of 9/11 were over here because we were over there. We took sides in a religious civil war, their war, and they want us out of that war. The 15 hijackers from Saudi Arabia did not fly into the World Trade Center to protest the Bill of Rights. They want us off sacred Saudi soil and out of the Middle East."
-- Patrick J. Buchanan, Where the Right Went Wrong: How Neoconservatives Subverted the Reagan Revolution and Hijacked the Bush Presidency.


Photo by Hugh Scott Photography.

"I think he is a bully, and like all bullies, he’s a coward when confronted with a force that he’s fearful of. His reactions to the extravagant and unbelievably selfish wish list of the wealthy interest groups that put him in the White House are obsequious. The degree of obsequiousness that is involved in saying ‘yes, yes, yes, yes,’ to whatever these people want, no matter the damage and harm done to the nation as a whole ­ that can come only from genuine moral cowardice.”
-- Vice President Al Gore, regarding President George W. Bush, in his interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker.

"What good is sitting alone in your room? Come, hear the music play. Life is a cabaret old chum. Come to the cabaret..."
--Fred Ebb, lyricist, circa 1928-2004.


Image from WNET.

"Three years after an unthinkable Tuesday morning of a sunny New York September, it is today plain that we are living through an extraordinarily epochal moment in the world's history, one that scholars of the future will view as having marked a great eruption in tide and time..."
-- Editorial, Facing the truth three years later, New York Daily News.


Image from Raft.org

"Beer is living proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
-- Benjamin Franklin


Photo from Columbia University

"Use what you got to get what you want..."
--Anonymous, submitted by Lady Donothing

"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice then the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
-- Vice President Dick Cheney


"Dick Cheney's scare tactics today crossed the line."
-- Senator John Edwards

"Never try to teach a pig to sing....it wastes
your time and annoys the pig."
-- Anonymous

"... On Labor Day, summer seems preposterously short, just a daydream, really. It's a day when we can almost admit that autumn will feel welcome, bringing a resurgence in the normal rhythms of life. Labor Day isn't a holiday that most Americans take very seriously, unless they come from union families. It's a day off just as the children start school - a quiet echo of the Fourth of July - and that's about it. But even a holiday as transitional and as muted as this one still creates in many Americans a feeling of having the whole country in view at once... In a way, that is what these civic holidays are meant to do - to create a moment of self-awareness, not as individuals but as a nation, to get a glimpse of who we are and where we are at this moment. The political campaigns encourage us to look up from the America in which we actually live to the Americas the candidates want us to imagine and believe in. Judging which version is closer to reality is very much what elections are all about..."
--Editorial, From Now Until Then, The New York Times.


Image from Class Brain.

"Regrets?... When everything is said and done I would not swap anything I have either said or done. If you look back, you only fall down the stairs."
-- Rudolf Nureyev.


Photo from Lukart.

"Life's journey is not to arrive at the grave safely in a well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, totally worn out, shouting: 'Holy shit! What a ride!'"
--Anonymous

"We've had insults, we've had anger from Republicans. And I'll tell you why. Because they can't come to you and talk to you about having created jobs since they've lost them. They can't come to you and talk to you about creating health care since 5 million Americans have lost it... Their own labor secretary talks about exporting jobs overseas. They can't talk about their record because it is a record of failure. And so all they do is attack."
-- Senator John Kerry


Image from UC Berkely Graduate School of Journalism

"You can't craft a vicious, mean-spirited platform, then try to put lipstick on the pig by putting Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger on in prime time."
-- Patrick Guerriero, Executive Director of the Log Cabin Republicans.

"Maybe he'll change his mind about gay marriage... He's certainly not going to leave feeling more right-wing. Making people laugh is the first step to getting them to listen."
-- John Waters, when Page Six told him that George and Laura Bush were slated to catch a performance of Hairspray.

Are you kidding? We've got two men singing a love song to each other. The Republicans don't want to see that."
-- John Waters, discussing his hit show Hairspray on Broadway, and it's projected business during the Republican National Convention.


Image from USA Today.

"With the Republican convention in New York this week, a lot of the delegates have been going to Broadway shows. When asked about it, a spokesperson for the Republicans said, 'A lot of us are curious to see what gay people look like."
--Conan O'Brien


Image from The Producers on SDBuzz.