Thought for Today

"Americans need never fear their government because of the advantage of being armed, which the Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation."

~~~~~ Gouverneur Morris

Thought for Today

"If in the last few years you haven't discarded a major opinion or acquired a new one, check your pulse. You may be dead."

~~~~~ Gelett Burgess

Thought for Today

"A good upbringing means not that you won't spill sauce on the tablecloth, but that you won't notice it when someone else does."

~~~~~ Anton Chekhov

Thought for Today

"Most people ask for happiness on condition. Happiness can only be felt if you don't set any condition."

~~~~~ Arthur Rubinstein

Thought for Today

"Nevertheless the passions, whether violent or not, should never be so expressed as to reach the point of causing disgust; and music, even in situations of the greatest horror, should never be painful to the ear but should flatter and charm it, and thereby always remain music."

~~~~~ Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

Thought for Today

"Science shows us truth and beauty and fills each day with a fresh wonder of the exquisite order which governs our world."

~~~~~ Polykarp Kusch

Thought for Today

"Fraud is the homage that force pays to reason."

~~~~~ Charles Curtis

Thought for Today

"Good taste is the modesty of the mind; that is why it cannot be either imitated or acquired."

~~~~~ Delphine de Girardin

Thought for Today

"If one were to bring ten of the wisest men in the world together and ask them what was the most stupid thing in existence, they would not be able to discover anything so stupid as astrology."

~~~~~ David Hilbert

Thought for Today

"Think wrongly, if you please, but in all cases think for yourself."

~~~~~ Gotthold Ephraim Lessing

Istvan Marko interview on ADDE

Professor Istvan Marko explains that COP21 results in nothing as the agreement is nonbinding. Carbon dioxide is plant food and has resulted in the greening of the Earth. He explains that wind and solar power requires large subsidies with back-up from conventional power. Climate has changed cyclically. Temperatures were warmer during previous warm periods than now.

Thought for Today

"Write down the thoughts of the moment. Those that come unsought for are commonly the most valuable."

~~~~~ Francis Bacon

Thought for Today

"He who binds his soul to knowledge, steals the key of heaven."

~~~~~ Nathaniel Parker Willis

Thought for Today

"All legitimate government is a mutual insurance company, voluntarily agreed upon by the parties to it, for the protection of their rights against wrong-doers. In its voluntary character it is precisely similar to an association for mutual protection against fire or shipwreck."

~~~~~ Lysander Spooner

Thought for Today

"The tyranny of a prince in an oligarchy is not so dangerous to the public welfare as the apathy of a citizen in a democracy."

~~~~~ Charles de Montesquieu

Kudos to the fine folks at Fujifilm!

 

A couple of years ago, I received a Fujifilm Finepix AX550 camera as a gift. It's a really nice little camera that takes beautiful pictures, but it was much less useful than it could have been because it was draining batteries so rapidly. I should have done something about the problem long ago -- but I didn't. Finally, last month, I decided to contact Fujifilm and see if anything could be done about the camera's short battery life.

I called the company's US headquarters in Edison, NJ and spoke with a helpful gentleman who informed me that I could send the camera in for repair. "How much will it cost?" I asked. "Nothing," he replied.

Surely, I thought, he meant that they would not charge to diagnose the problem, but would want to be paid for repairing it, since the camera was well out of warranty.

So I carefully packed up my camera and sent it off. Two days later, I received a form email acknowledging receipt of the camera and giving me a case number I could use to check on it. The wording of the email seemed to indicate that in due course, I would be receiving another communication informing me of the cost to repair the camera and giving me the option to authorize the repair -- or have the camera returned as is.

Instead, one month to the day after I sent it off, my camera was returned to me via FedEx fully repaired -- at no charge.

Many companies have forgotten the meaning of the term "Customer Service," but Fujifilm is not one of them.

Thought for Today

"The death of democracy is not likely to be an assassination from ambush. It will be a slow extinction from apathy, indifference, and undernourishment."

~~~~~ Robert M. Hutchins

Thought for Today

"I would rather trust my child to a serpent than to a teacher who does not believe in God."

~~~~~ Karl G. Maeser

Thought for Today

"No shortcomings of other people cause us to be more intolerant than those which are caricatures of our own."

~~~~~ Franz Grillparzer

Thought for Today

"Homeopathy – an invention of the Father of Lies! I have tried it and found it wanting. I would swallow their whole doles' medicine chest for sixpence, and be sure of finding myself neither better nor worse for it."

~~~~~ Jane Welsh Carlyle

Thought for Today

"This republic was not established by cowards; and cowards will not preserve it."

~~~~~ Elmer Davis

Social Economics 101

Thought for Today

"The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts."

~~~~~ Edmund Burke

Thought for Today

"Idleness is to the human mind like rust to iron."

~~~~~ Ezra Cornell

Thought for Today

"When you can do the common things of life in an uncommon way, you will command the attention of the world."

~~~~~ George Washington Carver

Thought for Today

"It was as helpful as throwing a drowning man both ends of the rope."

~~~~~ Arthur Baer

Thought for Today

"I hope to live long enough to see my surviving comrades march side by side with the Union veterans along Pennsylvania Avenue, and then I will die happy."

~~~~~ General James Longstreet

Thought for Today

"A cruel story runs on wheels, and every hand oils the wheels as they run."

~~~~~ Ouida

Thought for Today

"From the beginning of our history the country has been afflicted with compromise. It is by compromise that human rights have been abandoned."

~~~~~ Charles Sumner

Thought for Today

"An infallible method of conciliating a tiger is to allow oneself to be devoured."

~~~~~ Konrad Adenauer

Thought for Today

"The worst enemy of human hope is not brute facts, but men of brains who will not face them."

~~~~~ Max Eastman

Thought for Today

"All that is gold does not glitter,
Not all those who wander are lost;
The old that is strong does not wither,
Deep roots are not reached by the frost."

~~~~~ J. R. R. Tolkien

Thought for Today

"The belief that youth is the happiest time of life is founded on a fallacy. The happiest person is the person who thinks the most interesting thoughts, and we grow happier as we grow older."

~~~~~ William Lyon Phelps

Thought for Today

"Some one has said that most of us don't think, we just occasionally rearrange our prejudices."

~~~~~ Frank Knox