Potent Quotables

"If you have integrity, nothing else matters. If you don't have integrity, nothing else matters."
Source: Brainy Quotes

"Referring to the market turmoil in Europe over the need for tax and spending reform, Simpson said: 'We are the healthiest horse in the glue factory.'"
Source: Fortune

- Alan K. Simpson (Sept. 2, 1931 - Present), former U.S. Senator

Misunderstanding of a Crisis (Church of England)

"Furthermore, as Ross reports there is a perfect storm arriving fast on the horizon with aging congregations. The average age of an attender at a Church of England service right now is 61 and many congregations have averages far above that.  'Another ten years on,' said one of the leaders, 'some extrapolations put the Church of England as no longer functionally extant at all'.  That actually means they are looking at being extinct in less than a decade.  Andreas Whittam Smith, another Anglican leader there at the general synod said that the Anglican church now faces a demographic 'time bomb,' which should be seen as a 'crisis'.  Well, if a church leader is going to define their current problem as a demographic time bomb, then they are going to look for a demographic solution.  But the churches problem, when it comes to the Church of England, is not a demographic crisis.  The demographic crisis followed a theological crisis.  This is a church that has been in a theological crisis for the better part of a century.  We're talking about a church that began accepting unbelief into it's clerical ranks, among it priests and it's preachers and it's leaders almost a century ago.  And it's now reaping the bitter harvest of allowing itself to become secularized.  And the demographic crisis comes down to this: there is no reason for a secular society to attend any kind of worship in a secular church."

- Albert Mohler
The Briefing 9/30/2014 (18:08 - 19:25)
Quoting from: Ageing Church of England 'will be dead in 20 years' - The Telegraph

Capitalism

"We will hang the capitalists with the rope that they sell us."

  - unknown (often misattributed to Vladimir Lenin)

Debt Ceiling Shenanigans

"Even though the steps are called “emergency” measures, they have become employed so routinely during recent fiscal standoffs that Congress often waits for the emergency steps to be exhausted before beginning negotiations on raising the borrowing limit."

Source: The Wall Street Journal, House Debt-Ceiling Plan Would Ban ‘Emergency’ Measures

America's Response To 9/11

"...the decision to respond to 9/11 as an act of war rather than a crime was arguably Washington's greatest foreign policy blunder ever."

"...going to war was the only way they [Al-Qaeda] could possibly become the "holy warriors" they imagined themselves to be. It was, quite frankly, America's military response to 9/11 that created al Qaeda as a military force and legitmised [sic] its bogus claim to the mantle of being called "holy warriors"."

Source: Al Jazeera, Obama's Crackpot Realism and the Real Crime of Edward Snowden

The majority of this article is actually not about Edward Snowden, nor should it be.  I think that the author added Snowden to the articles title merely because articles about Snowden are in vogue at the moment.  It would have been better had the author left him out entirely as I feel like the author is conflating two issues merely to get more people to view/read his article.  ...Isn't that trolling?

FYI: The article is not worth reading
Disclaimer: I make no claims implicitly nor explicitly as to agreeing or disagreeing with the above quotes.

Peace

"If you want to make peace, you don't talk to your friends.  You talk to your enemies."
   - Moshe Dayan (May 20, 1915 - October 16, 1981) Israeli military leader and politician

Source: Wikiquote

Red Bull: By the Numbers

Commands 43% of the US energy drink market.
Sold 4.6 Billion Cans of Red Bull in 2011.
2011 revenue of $5.5 Billion, a third of which the company says they put back into marketing.

Yes, now I understand how RB can afford to do so much cool stuff.  Keep on, keepin' on!  I would be curious how Monster's numbers would stack up against RB's?

Source: Newsweek, Red Bull Goes to Space