Welcome to the 10th edition of Quote the Ravin', a roundup of quotes from the week. I'm esby, your leader in all things quotable, and, I'm fired up because I didn't pay my $75 do-not-burn-my-house fee, but I'm running a bit late this week and didn't get a chance to pay. Oh, well, the chill is in the air and the roof, the roof, the roof is on fire. So gather round with your Thunderbird or what have you, sit a little closer to the fire, and let me enchant you with tales too ridiculous to tell.
One of the duties of conservatives in this soggy fallen world is to stand up for crunchiness. For the fire department to have extinguished the Cranicks’ fire would have been soggy, even aside from the considerable degree of sogginess it would have left on the property.
—John Derbyshire on the The Corner about the South Fulton, Tennessee fire department that watched a house burn down because the owner hadn't paid his $75 fee.
Somebody is cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs.
I don't hold myself out as an expert on Sharia Law. But I have talked a lot about that as a threat.
—Frank Gaffney, testifying at a court hearing to stop the Murfreesboro, TN mosque.
I don't hold myself out as an expert on Frank Gaffney being an idiot. But I have talked a lot about that as being a threat.
I went to a Catholic school in north Pakistan. Does this mean that I owe allegiance to the pope? That's absurd.
—Chair of Islamic Studies at American University Akbar Ahmed, in response to Gaffney's comment that a Murfreesboro Imam went to a Sharia university on Anderson Cooper's 360.
I was born with this disease, I didn't ask for it. I didn't smoke for 30 years. This is a genetic condition. It just seems really out of touch with reality to say we're gonna cut these things.
—Michael Lion, in reference to Rep. Paul Ryan's (R, WI) plan to cut anyone's Social Security under 55. Lion counts on Social Security to live independently.
Seems like a good idea to me. And certainly a much better idea than a Bush Institute program in torture, invasions, and economy-wrecking.
—Matthew Yglesias on The Bush Institute's plan to train 50,000 public school principals in the next 10 years.
And brush clearing. Don't forget that.
I am not a witch.
—Christine O'Donnell, from her newest campaign ad.
What a meatball.
If you work for a private advocacy group, you have every right to say: I didn’t come here to defend white folks against intimidation, only black folks.
—Charles Krauthammer on the New Black Panther controversy.
And if you are a desperate pundit, you can manufacture outrage in a precinct that had zero claims of voter intimidation at a polling place in a majority black district, despite the thugs that stood outside.
This, then, is the future of the Republican Party: Angry white voters hovering over their cash-stuffed mattresses with their kerosene lanterns, peering through the blinds at the oncoming hordes of suburban soccer moms they've mistaken for death-panel bureaucrats bent on exterminating anyone who isn't an illegal alien or a Kenyan anti-colonialist.
—Rolling Stone's Matt Taibbi
You know why their symbol is the letter D? Because it's a grade that means good enough, but just barely. You know why the Republicans symbol is R? Because it's the noise a pirate makes when he robs you and feeds you to a shark.
—Bill Maher, on Realtime.
Best illegal alien actor award of 2010 should go to Nicki Diaz for her role as the tearful victimized invader.
—William Gheen, spokesperson for Americans for Legal Immigration calling for the arrest of both Meg Whitman and her former maid, Nicky Diaz.
And a Best Asshole of the Year award should go to William Gheen. But they haven't even announced the nominations yet.
What GOProud has done, in inviting this woman, is much more than that: it is to invite someone who actively opposes our civil equality—equal rights, not special rights—and whose record of anti-gay bigotry is as plain as the collar bones on her shoulders.
—Andrew Sullivan, on Ann Coulter's speech at Homocon.
Zing.
I really think that the death penalty today is vastly different from the death penalty that we thought we were authorizing. And I think if the procedures had been followed that we expected to be in place, I think I probably would've still had the same views.
—Former Supreme Court Judge John Paul Stevens, on his regretful decision on the bench.
He loves cats, and the way to suck up to Pete is to get him sort of a cat gift of some kind.
—Former Senator Tom Daschle, on new White House Chief of Staff Pete Rouse.
Great, why don't you call him a pussy?
With the problems facing the country, our campaigns have become an embarrassment to democracy.
—Former U.S. Rep. John Porter (R, IL) in a letter to all candidates for congress. Porter has joined together with former members of Congress in both parties to create Former Members of Congress for Common Ground, a group that protests personal attacks in politics.
A group to restore sanity?
A number of readers have pointed out that MSNBC’s new tag-line is but a letter away from “Leap Forward” — as in, Mao’s Great one.
—The Corner's Daniel Foster, on MSNBC's tagline Lean Forward.
Holy crap! What a scoop! I've noticed that The Corner is one letter away from The Porner. Ha ha! Get it? The Porner!
Has it been pointed out yet that Carly Fiorina is an anagram for California — with an extra ‘r’ and ‘y’?
—The Corner's Jay Nordlinger
And Jay Nordlinger is an anagram for Ninja Log Dryer. These people are on it!