Michael > Recent Status Updates

The only way to keep the federal monstrosity in check would be to limit more strictly the authority of the federal government, thus guaranteeing the right of the people to govern themselves locally in all but a few areas. [Luther Martin]

[31] Republican government, he argued, was “only suited to a small and compact territory” such as a state. He fearfully predicted that the federal Leviathan that would emerge from the Constitutional Convention would become an unmanageable behemoth whose growth the states (and therefore the people) would be powerless to control. [Luther Martin]

"It's hard to walk away with any other conclusion but that the best way to defeat the kingdom of God is to empower the church to rule the world with the sword, for then it becomes the beast it wishes to destroy." (p.177)

"Caesar seemed to be able to do anything in the world. But Caesar could not wash feet." (p. 177)

[Larionov] ...a very agile skater. He could spin on a dime. He was an artist on the ice, very creative. Larionov believed that if you had the puck you shouldn't be getting rid of it and chasing it. He was adept defensively too. (hmm, maybe the current Oilers need to take a page from Larionov's book)

Standing up and yelling in the dressing room before the game doesn't make you a leader. Being unselfish does. (59)

pg. 271- Son of the first Duke of Northumberland, Smithson had, ironically been the half-brother of General Hugh Lord Percy, the British commander at the Battle of Lexington in 1775. ...House acceded to John Quincy's fierce interest in science and named him chairman of the committee to determine how to disburse the money [from Smithson].

g. 272 - In December 1835, President Jackson sent Congress a curious and unexpected message: an Englishman, James Smithson, had left a bequest of about $500,000 to the United States "to found at Washington, under the name of the Smithsonian Institution, and Establishment for the increase and diffusion of knowledge among men."

"The cross is not a detour or a hurdle on the way to the kingdom, nor is it even the way to the kingdom; it is the kingdom come." [Yoder, Politics of Jesus, 51. As quoted in Jesus For President by Claiborne and Haw, 131.]

p. 160 - "I advise you, my son [George], in whatever you read and most of all in reading the Bible to remember that it is for the purpose of making you wiser and more virtuous."