Rating Quotes

What podcasts can do in order to liven up the talk show area of TV is bring new personalities and unique worldviews into the fray in a way that's not going to be filtered through the whole Q-rating thing. I think there's a whole new layer of doing things that TV is behind the Internet in figuring out. ~ Julie Klausner

why the rating agencies weren't more critical of bonds underpinned by floating-rate subprime mortgages. Subprime borrowers tended to be one broken refrigerator away from default. Few, if any, should be running the risk of their interest payment spiking up. As most of these loans were structured, however, the homeowner would pay a fixed teaser rate of, say, 8 percent for the first two years, and then, at the start of the third year, the interest rate would skyrocket to, say, 12 percent, and thereafter it would float at permanently high levels. ~ Michael Lewis

When the Goldman Sachs saleswoman called Mike Burry and told him that her firm would be happy to sell him credit default swaps in $100 million chunks, Burry guessed, rightly, that Goldman wasn't ultimately on the other side of his bets. Goldman would never be so stupid as to make huge naked bets that millions of insolvent Americans would repay their home loans. He didn't know who, or why, or how much, but he knew that some giant corporate entity with a triple-A rating was out there selling credit default swaps on subprime mortgage bonds. Only a triple-A-rated corporation could assume such risk, no money down, and no questions asked. Burry was right about this, too, but it would be three years before he knew it. The party on the other side of his bet against subprime mortgage bonds was the triple-A-rated insurance company AIG - American International Group, Inc. ~ Michael Lewis

We got great ratings and fan interest, and that's what management wanted. ~ Trish Stratus

The trafficking of sex and violence is comes after the demand for ratings. ~ Norman Lear

Why waste so much time, energy, and money trying to buy the biggest house that your credit rating will allow? Truth be known, a small house can hold as much happiness as a large one. Sometimes it will hold even more. ~ Ernie J Zelinski

[T]he important thing was that each Saturday they must win games and put The Academy on the sporting pages. For that, after all, was the final index to the rating of an American school. ~ John Horne Burns

When forced to choose, I will not trade even a night's sleep for the chance of extra profits. ~ Warren Buffett

There are those who believe a liberal or a conservative bias permeates the media. I don't. The operative press bias is one that favors conflict, not ideology, and it is lashed by a market-driven bias to boost ratings or circulation with more wow stories, more sizzle. ~ Ken Auletta

I'm currently doing Undeclared an American TV show set in a college. It just got aired and got massive ratings so hopefully that'll screen in the UK soon. ~ Charlie Hunnam

There's a lot of kids' shows that are really popular ratings-wise, but they don't sell a lot of stuff. A character on a backpack just doesn't have the same appeal as watching it on TV. ~ Tom Kenny

(Australia. The only continent designed with a difficulty rating of "ha ha fuck you no.") ~ Seanan McGuire

A time-tested political tactic guaranteed to raise a president's popularity rating by at least 30 points. It is especially useful during election years and economic downturns. ~ Chaz Bufe

When I tried to access one of the other entertainment libraries, Vintage Movies, the system informed me that I wouldn't be granted access to a wider selection of entertainment options until I had received an above-average rating in three consecutive employee performance reviews. Then the system asked me if I wanted more information on the Indentured Employee Entertainment Reward Program. I didn't. ~ Ernest Cline

With gridlock the norm, Congress's approval rating is below 10 percent and the public has lost faith in its national leadership. ~ Ron Fournier

The president is not doing well with African Americans. His popularity rating - his approval rating - with blacks: two percent. Two percent. That is somewhere between Mark Fuhrman and sickle cell anemia. ~ Bill Maher

For my own part, I did not see and did not appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit ratings agencies, the shadow banking system, the S.I.V.'s - I didn't see any of that coming until it happened. ~ Janet Yellen

Ironically, the possibility that the president dodged his military service has increased his approval ratings with Democrats by 80 percent. ~ Craig Kilborn

[On gender-rating by insurance companies:] They say the reason they get to charge more is we have children. I would say having children is a socially useful act. Being female is not a preexisting condition. ~ Gloria Steinem

I don't pay attention to target audiences and therefore I often hear that I am a ratings killer, somebody who fundamentally doesn't care whether one person is watching or an entire soccer stadium. ~ Alexander Kluge

Every time I went on the radio, I would take the crummiest radio station, the station that was like a toilet bowl. I would go on there and build up the ratings, so you couldn't do any worse. ~ Howard Stern

It's not going to do anything. And it really is disappointing because the president has an opportunity here to work with organizations like the NRA, who have actually done a lot of significant work when it comes to actually keeping guns out of the hands of criminals.Hillary Clinton can attack the NRA all she wants, the fact is that the NRA has a higher approval rating than Hillary Clinton does when it comes to trustworthiness, that's for sure. ~ Katie Pavlich

I think that we shouldn't be fixated all the time on the ups and downs of the weekly ratings, of the quarter-hour ratings. ~ Walter Isaacson

No no there wasn't any planned 14th season, we all saw the writing on the wall. The ratings had been going down and so fourth, that curve goes on every show and in everybody's life. ~ Larry Hagman

Self-acceptance means fully accepting yourself no matter what your traits or how you perform or achieve. It does not mean self-esteem, self-confidence, or self-regard. These terms imply that you accept yourself because you perform or behave in a specific way or because people accept you based on your achievements. Self-acceptance means that you non-judgmentally accept yourself for who you are without rating or evaluating yourself, or requiring the approval of others. ~ Lee A. Wilkinson

The Grammys used me for ratings. And they were up 18 percent! ~ Justin Timberlake

I have a rating system I apply to all people. Mao Zedong might have a Meow Factor of four, but I like to keep my Meow Factor as close to zero as I can. This system is not to be confused with my HV methodology, where I assign myself a Hooray Value of five. ~ Jarod Kintz

Today, credit rating agencies rate companies, countries and bonds. ~ Mike Fitzpatrick

Nobody lives long low-rating an enemy. You've got to give the other fellow credit for having as much savvy as you have, and maybe a little more. ~ Louis L'Amour

We are in the habit of rating our lives in real time - a sad day, a nice visit, a terrible commute, a good meditation - qualifying and quantifying everything. There are actually neither unequivocally good nor bad events, things, or people - only the wanted and the unwanted - and everything is subjective. This is strong medicine; think about it. It's a matter of perspective. ~ Lama Surya Das

It's not a stretch to say the whole financial industry revolves around the compass point of the absolutely safe AAA rating. But the financial crisis happened because AAA ratings stopped being something that had to be earned and turned into something that could be paid for. ~ Matt Taibbi

We have got this Damocles' sword of Standard and Poor's hanging over us, with the commitment they have made to review Britain's credit rating in the summer of 2010 after the general election. Everybody in Britain has a vital interest in ensuring that the triple A credit rating agency is maintained. ~ Philip Hammond

I worked very hard on compiling this list of free movie and tv show sources. I would greatly appreciate it if you gave me a positive five star rating on this ebook. I know it is a hassle to leave a rating on an ebook but I would just appreciate it so much. The more positive ratings I have the more other people will learn about this book and possibly saves hundreds of dollars. Thank ~ Thomas Lowman

I - it's simply not for me to evaluate an independent rating agency's processes. But I will say that there was reason to be anxious - absolute reason to be anxious. ~ Jay Carney

I don't think an NC-17 rating is the kiss of death. Nor do I think that, in the hands of the right filmmakers, studios have a preconceived notion to pass on NC-17 material. ~ Steve Tisch

Reality has a well-known liberal bias. ~ S. Colbert

Bill Clinton left office with a more than 60% approval rating. ~ Nancy Gibbs

Under pressure, a team will consciously or unconsciously begin to be more conservative in what they take on. They will begin rating things as a bit larger or a bit harder than they used to. This will give the impression that they're going faster, but they are not. ~ Anonymous

Lady, all I know about you is that you're tough as hell. Guys like me, we got a list of people like you. Like a rating system.

You got your Daredevils, your Iron Fists--those guys, you fight. Maybe you get lucky, or maybe you're actually good enough to beat 'em.

Now, any Hulk--lady, dude, red, green, purple--you see a Hulk. you run. As you saw. Thors, too. ~ Charles Soule

I wanted this to have as wide an audience as possible. I didn't want to get an X rating, because in my opinion once that happens you X-out everyone else. ~ Dana Plato

In our first season we had a 22 rating. Today Seinfeld, a hit show, gets a 15. Lost in Space actually had a bigger audience than Star Trek got at that time. ~ Mark Goddard

Take George W. Bush: He was an unpopular two-term president. Three times, his approval rating dropped to 25 percent. [To be fair, he also had the highest approval rating of all time, very briefly. But that was immediately after 9/11  -  and in the wake of domestic terrorism, a well-dressed mannequin's approval rating might have hovered around 50.] During his last two years in office, he was hammered nonstop, periodically classified as the worst U.S. president since Ulysses Grant or James Buchanan. Yet was Bush a villain? No. He was not. He was never, ever calculating. He didn't know the most (which is not to say he was dumb), and he didn't care the least (which is not to say he was a paragon of empathy). He was just the guy who ended up with the job. The villain of his administration ended up being Vice President Dick Cheney, a frosty puppet master who radically expanded the powers of the presidency even though he was not the president. ~ Chuck Klosterman

Politicians in their hubris who believe they can ignore debt or wish it away are sorely disappointed - as we see now with the plummeting approval ratings of both the administration and Congress. ~ Victor Davis Hanson

I believe Korea is making the best movies. Only in Korea - you can do whatever you want to without any rating system or whatever. They can make world-class karate movies and make lots of money, which is very important. ~ Ryuhei Kitamura

Overborrowing or overlending? Lenders encourage indebtedness because it is profitable. Developing country governments are sometimes even pressured to overborrow ... Even without corruption, it is easy to be influenced by Western businessmen and financiers ... Countries that aren't sure that borrowing is worth the rist are told how important it is to establis a credit rating: borrow even if you really don't need the money. ~ Joseph E. Stiglitz

I have never been over-concerned or obsessed with opinion polls or popularity polls. I think a leader who is, is a weak leader. If you are concerned with whether your rating will go up or down, then you are not a leader. You are just catching the wind ... you will go where the wind is blowing. And that's not what I am in this for. ~ Lee Kuan Yew

At root, vulgar just means popular on a mass scale. It is the semantic opposite of pretentious or snobby. It is humility with a comb-over. It is Nielsen ratings and Barnum's axiom and the real bottom line. It is big, big business. ~ David Foster Wallace

You're in the business - when you're a writer, producer, director - to get ratings. ~ Norman Lear

One of the first things many clerks hear from RBG is that the most important job requirement is that they treat her two secretaries well. 'There was one law clerk applicant who came to interview with me - top rating at Harvard - who treated my secretaries with disdain,' RBG recalled. 'As if they were just minions. So that is one very important thing - how you deal with my secretaries. They are not hired help. As I tell my clerks, 'if push came to shove, I could do your work - but I can't do without my secretaries. ~ Irin Carmon

Whether I praise or criticize someone's action, I imply that I am their judge, that I'm engaged in rating them or what they have done. ~ Marshall B. Rosenberg

Brother Lawrence says, in The Practice of the Presence of God, 'There is not in the world a kind of life more sweet and delightful than that of a continual conversation with God. Those only can comprehend it who practice and experience it' (Letter 5). No one who has ever tried it has ever given it a lesser rating than that. For even though our prayer-contact with God may be almost infinitely poor, the God we thus contact is infinitely rich! Therefore, 'we are to be pitied who content ourselves with so little. God has infinite treasure to bestow' (Letter 4). What is that? 'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, not the heart of man conceived, what God has prepared for those who love him' (1 Cor 2:9). ~ Peter Kreeft

Your customers are judging every aspect of every transaction and rating everything, from friendliness of people to ease of doing business to quality of product to service after the sale. ~ Jeffrey Gitomer

When you look at a Congress that has an 84 percent disapproval rating, that means that for the most part, the people of this country, and certainly California, are looking for new leadership. ~ Elizabeth Emken

Go ahead, you guys. I'm not done with Kim yet."
Braden made annoying kissing noises while Michelle giggled.
"Fine with me," Kim said. He pulled his shirt over his head and threw it to the ground. Sweat glistened on the tight muscles of his chest. Standing under the orange glow of the setting sun, he looked like a golden statue brought to life.
"That's not fair." I struggled to swallow past the sudden dryness of my tongue. "That's distracting."
He flashed me a grin that ignited a fire low inside me. "That would be the point. Call it a tactical move."
Braden used the tree to pull himself up. "Well, boys and girls, I think it's time we moved along. This fight is about to lose its PG-13 rating."
Michelle nudged him in the side. "I think it's cute."
Something prickled on the back of my neck and I turned to find Quentin staring at me with a look between confusion and pain. As I tried to decipher its meaning, Kim used that moment to snatch my wrist and twist it behind my back. He pulled me in, pinning me against his chest, and lowered his head to place a kiss just below my ear.
"I may need to take notes." Braden pretended to open an invisible notebook. "So, what do you call this martial arts style, Kim? Kung fu-ling around? How about jujits-you-some? ~ Cole Gibsen

I don't think anyone can fall in love for ratings. ~ Kourtney Kardashian

My, my," he said, looking the note over. "If only students would write this much in their essays. One of you has considerably worse writing than the other, so forgive me if I get anything wrong here." He cleared his throat."'So, I saw J last night,' begins the person with bad handwriting, to which the response is,'What happened,' followed by no fewer than five question marks. Understandable, since sometimes one - let alone four - just won't get the point across, eh?" The class laughed, and I noticed Mia throwing me a particularly mean smile. "The first speaker responds:'What do you think happened? We hooked up in one of the empty lounges.'"
Mr. Nagy glanced up after hearing some more giggles in the room. His British accent only added to the hilarity.
"May I assume by this reaction that the use of 'hook up' pertains to the more recent, shall we say,carnal application of the term than the tamer one I grew up with?"
More snickers ensued. Straightening up, I said boldly, "Yes, sir, Mr. Nagy. That would be correct, sir."
A number of people in the class laughed outright.
"Thank you for that confirmation, Miss Hathaway. Now, where was I? Ah yes, the other speaker then asks,'How was it?' The response is,'Good,' punctuated with a smiley face to confirm said adjective. Well. I suppose kudos are in order for the mysterious J, hmmm?'So, like, how far did you guys go?' Uh, ladies," said Mr. Nagy, "I do hope this doesn't surpass a PG rating.'Not very.We got caught. ~ Richelle Mead

We have new rules that give shareholders the ability to vote on executive compensation. We have new rules for asset-backed securities. We have new rules around credit rating agencies. ~ Mary Schapiro

A loach can't emulate a goldfish. Because of my looks, the public support rating for us won't rise. ~ Yoshihiko Noda

A person's credit report is one of the most important tools consumers can use to maintain their financial security and credit rating, but for so long many did not know how to obtain one, or what to do with the information it provided. ~ Ruben Hinojosa

I don't mind ratings boards. As a viewer, you have the right not to see a film. ~ Takashi Miike

Being a mother still happens if you don't stay home with your kids. It still happens if you get a job and go to work. It happens if you are an Army Ranger and you're deployed overseas and your kid is rating with your parents. Still a mother. Still not a job. Working or staying home, one is still a mother. ~ Shonda Rhimes

Kai stared at the top of her head.
Linh Cinder.
The renown. The reputation. The approval rating.
New Beijing's best mechanic was ... a teenager?
Kai was intrigued. He was amused, but more than that, he was impressed. After all, he still needed help installing the software every time he upgraded to a new port. Meanwhile, this girl ran her own mechanic business. ~ Marissa Meyer

When I ran the first time in 2001, they called me 'The Latino Mayor.' By the time I left in 2013, with a 58 percent approval rating, half the people liked me, half the people didn't. I was everybody's mayor. There was never any criticism that I was just for one group. ~ Antonio Villaraigosa

Nobody's profitable at this moment, because recession is on; advertising dollars are down, and expenses are way up. So that kind of belies the situation that you would expect, because the ratings are way up everywhere. ~ Brit Hume

I'm torn. I want an 'R' (rating) because we can get a lot of cool scenes into it, but then I like the idea of younger girls being able to see it. ~ Emily Browning

The whole 'R' rating depends on a strange sort of fantasy land where all adults are responsible people, and children only ever go to the cinema with their parents. ~ Helen Mirren

The popular culture says ... Do what you do, your life is predestined, like the installment plan on your house. There's not much you can do about it. Make your payments, live it, get sick, die, don't make any trouble. It is the Master Charge of destiny. Try to get your high credit rating. ~ Jerzy Kosinski

In real markets, agents make bad choices. They are often ignorant, misinformed, and irrational. Yet, markets tend to punish agents for making bad choices, and they tend to learn from their mistakes. For instance, if you fail to pay your bills, your credit rating declines and you have a harder time getting loans. If you fail to do research and buy an unreliable car, you suffer from repair bills. In contrast, when people in government make bad choices, the political process almost never punishes them. Studies show that voters are terrible at retrospective voting - they do not know whom to blame for bad government - and so politicians are not punished for making bad choices. ~ Jason Brennan

A couple of years ago, a Republican committee staff director told me candidly (and proudly) what the method was to all this obstruction and disruption. Should Republicans succeed in obstructing the Senate from doing its job, it would further lower Congress's generic favorability rating among the American people. By sabotaging the reputation of an institution of government, the party that is programmatically against government would come out the relative winner. ~ Mike Lofgren

Our first benchmark is to cut the deficit more quickly to safeguard Britain's credit rating. I know that we are taking a political gamble to set this up as a measure of success. Protecting the credit rating will not be easy The pace of fiscal consolidation will be co-ordinated with monetary policy. And we will protect Britain's credit rating and international reputation. ~ George Osborne

I mean, all the ratings wars are silly. But, I mean, someone has to be concerned about the ratings because it means, you know, it translates into revenue. ~ Connie Chung

My mum and my dad have really good taste in movies. My gran would tape them off the TV and write notes about them, rating them. ~ Domhnall Gleeson

Is it any wonder, why the approval ratings of the Congress go up every time we go into recess? ~ Robert Byrd

Listen, Google,' I will say, 'both John and Paul are courting me. I like both of them, but in a different way, and it's so hard to make up my mind. Given everything you know, what do you advise me to do?'
And Google will answer: 'Well, I know you from the day you were born. I have read all your emails, recorded all your phone calls, and know your favourite films, your DNA and the entire history of your heart. I have exact data about each date you went on, and if you want, I can show you second-by-second graphs of your heart rate, blood pressure and sugar levels whenever you went on a date with John or Paul. If necessary, I can even provide you with accurate mathematical ranking of every sexual encounter you had with either of them. And naturally enough, I know them as well as I know you. Based on all this information, on my superb algorithms, and on decades' worth of statistics about millions of relationships – I advise you to go with John, with an 87 per cent probability of being more satisfied with him in the long run.
Indeed, I know you so well that I also know you don't like this answer. Paul is much more handsome than John, and because you give external appearances too much weight, you secretly wanted me to say "Paul". Looks matter, of course; but not as much as you think. Your biochemical algorithms – which evolved tens of thousands of years ago in the African savannah – give looks a weight of 35 per cent in their overall rating of potential mates. My algorith ~ Yuval Noah Harari

My favorite of all was still the place on Vermont, the French cafe, La Lyonnaise, that had given me the best onion soup on that night with George and my father. The two owners hailed from France, from Lyon, before the city had boomed into a culinary sibling of Paris. Inside, it had only a few tables, and the waiters served everything out of order, and it had a B rating in the window, and they usually sat me right by the swinging kitchen door, but I didn't care about any of it.
There, I ordered chicken Dijon, or beef Bourguignon, or a simple green salad, or a pate sandwich, and when it came to the table, I melted into whatever arrived. I lavished in a forkful of spinach gratin on the side, at how delighted the chef had clearly been over the balance of spinach and cheese, like she was conducting a meeting of spinach and cheese, like a matchmaker who knew they would shortly fall in love. Sure, there were small distractions and preoccupations in it all, but I could find the food in there, the food was the center, and the person making the food was so connected with the food that I could really, for once, enjoy it. ~ Aimee Bender

Truman has become the patron saint of failed presidents because he left office with a 27 percent approval rating, and people were saying, 'To err is Truman,' yet look at what he did: the Marshall Plan, the creation of NATO, the Truman Doctrine. ~ Douglas Brinkley

When you need to borrow money the Mob seems like a better deal I think. 'You don't pay me back I break both yer legs.' Is that all? You won't take my house or wreck my credit rating? Fine where do I sign. Legs? Fine. You don't even have to sign anything. ~ Craig Ferguson

The L.A. Times reports that al Qaeda terrorists have been traced to Iran, and President Bush is talking tough. In fact he said he will attack the minute he has evidence his approval rating is under 45 percent. ~ Jay Leno

The only women I publicly date are those who have a higher IMDB rating than me. ~ Zach Braff

Are you attracted by his new ideas or his new poll ratings? ~ Pat Buchanan

Perhaps if you were less heavy-handed in your treatment of the guests you claim to honor and protect, your inn would have a higher rating."
He did not. Oh yes, yes he did. "Perhaps if you trained the knights under your command to follow simple orders, your House would've reached greater prominence within your empire. ~ Ilona Andrews

Congratulations, Congress! 77% disapproval rating! You may be about to become the English language's most offensive C-word. ~ John Oliver

The BBC must never be all about ratings - or even mainly about ratings. In the past year, we have made a raft of terrific programmes which stand comparison with the best the BBC has ever done: 'Blue Planet,' 'Walking with Beasts,' 'Son of God,' 'Clocking Off,' 'The Way We Live Now,' 'Conspiracy,' 'Lost World.' ~ Gavyn Davies

We give the podium to a lot of people who shouldn't have the podium. The message that's delivered the loudest and in the most entertaining way is the one that we're going to put on because that's what we want. We want ratings more than we want to deliver information. That's just where the culture's gotten. ~ Dave Matthews

We could begin to allow the history of science to curb scientific awe by imposing a rating system, like those used with movies and television. Any scientific claim that lasts longer than a millennium, we'll rate "GC" for "Getting Close." For claims that stand for five hundred years, we'll rate "KP," for "Kinda Probable;" for a century, "PF" for Probably False;" for fifty years, "ACF" for "Almost Certainly False;" for twenty years and less, "TLA," for "Treat Like Astrology. ~ Douglas M. Jones III

Torbjorn (Hansen, Magnus Carlsen's first teacher) himself went from 2104 to 2204 in rating during the year he trained with Magnus. This reflects the experience I have had. One learns nearly as much from teaching others. ~ Simen Agdestein

Most of us know intuitively that a score on a personality test, a rank on a standardized assessment, a grade point average, or a rating on a performance review doesn't reflect your, or your child's, or your students', or your employees' abilities. Yet the concept of average as a yardstick for measuring individuals has been so thoroughly ingrained in our minds that we rarely question it seriously. ~ Todd Rose

One should not associate with controversy; one should always reach for the highest ratings; one should never forget that there is safety in numbers; one should always remember that comedy, adventure, and escapism provide the best atmosphere for selling. ~ Peter George Peterson

Linh Cinder. The renown. The reputation. The approval rating. New Beijing's best mechanic was ... a teenager? Kai was intrigued. He was amused, but more than that, he was impressed. ~ Marissa Meyer

I wonder sometimes, though, does this collective rating of memories add value to our existence here? Do certain parts of people's pasts deserve to be remembered while others are forgotten? ~ Lenore Appelhans

Electrical fire and the fire of greed kindle economies. In that flux, nations become digitized commodities on stock-exchange floors and on investors' rating screens. A country becomes a product to be rated for its obedience to paying of deficits and debts. ~ B.W. Powe

THIS SCENE WAS REPEATED IN every previously uninhabited nook, elbow, spit, lot, and underpass throughout the foreclosed and abandoned suburbs and exurbs and trailer parks of America, now squatted by the millions who had walked out on mortgages, been foreclosed upon, or simply could no longer afford a fixed address. They were all lumped together by the media into a category called 'subprimes,' a less descriptive label, perhaps, than 'homeless,' but one that in this era of raw, rapacious capitalism gave all the information anyone needed: the credit rating of the men, women, and children who inhabited these Ryanvilles was subprime. ~ Karl Taro Greenfeld

R means under 18 accompanied by an adult. Therefore all corporately funded films in the US must be made with the concept that those under the age of 18 are able to view the film. This means all corporately funded films in the US are made for the eyes of children. ~ Crispin Hellion Glover

Rating systems work perfectly for players who play only in round robin closed events. I think most of them are overrated. Organizers invite same people over and over because they have the same rating and their rating stays high. ~ Alexander Khalifman

Deprived of bread or the equal benefits of the commonwealth, the person shrivels. Obviously. And that is a clear line to fight on. But when the transcendent energies waste away, then too the person shrivels
though far less obviously. Their loss is suffered in privacy and bewildered silence; it is easily submerged in affluence, entertaining diversions, and adjustive therapy. Well fed and fashionably dressed, surrounded by every manner of mechanical convenience and with our credit rating in good order, we may even be ashamed to feel we have any problem at all. ~ Theodore Roszak

We're going to get that little bug before that little bug gets my poll ratings down any further. ~ Jerry Brown

I may be in deep slop if the findings of a new study published in the latest issue of Neurology, journal of the American Academy of Neurology, prove to be true. The study conducted by University of Eastern Finland tested 1,449 people averaging 71 years of age and found that the subjects labeled "highly cynical" had a 2.54 times greater risk of developing dementia than those with the lowest cynicism rating.

I'd better tell my youngest son, Andy, about the study, too. I think he became a cynic before he turned 30, the predictable result of the massive self-administered force-feedings of the Story of Man in his pursuit of a Ph.D. in American history.

In Andy's defense, reading too much, too soon, of our track record on earth would make a cynic of anyone. Fortunately, his perusals have turned him into a champion of the underdog as well, another inevitability of historical research, particularly studies of our brutal conquest of the American West. ~ Lionel Fisher

To serve as prime minister while being too mindful of the approval rating is like serving as a prime minister on a roller coaster. What is important, I believe, is that I really act on promises that I make and leave results. Leave a track record and show that to the Japanese public, who will, at the end of the day, I hope, appreciate it. ~ Shinzo Abe

you weren't that unhappy. "Contrast him with the Air Corps man of the same education and longevity," Stouffer wrote. His chance of getting promoted to officer was greater than 50 percent. "If he had earned a [promotion], so had the majority of his fellows in the branch, and his achievement was less conspicuous than in the MP's. If he had failed to earn a rating while the majority had succeeded, he had more reason to feel a sense of personal frustration, which could be expressed as criticism of the promotion system." Stouffer's point is that we form our impressions not globally, by placing ourselves in the broadest possible context, but locally - by comparing ourselves to people "in the same boat as ourselves." Our sense of how deprived we are is relative. This is one of those observations that is both obvious and (upon exploration) deeply profound, and it explains all kinds of otherwise puzzling observations. Which do you ~ Malcolm Gladwell

I respect the view of a rating agency, but I do not make a budget for the rating agency. I make a budget for the people of India. ~ P. Chidambaram