Comments on: Impending "Fake News" Bill Brings Censorship, Free Speech Concerns

By: Mark E. Jeftovic

Mark E. Jeftovic — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 21:27:59 +0000

I wrote about the Einstein quote on my personal blog many years ago:
http://markable.com/2012/08/21/einstein-never-said-that/

Nice detective work on this one Tony, that earns you a renewal as well.

By: Tony Q. King

Tony Q. King — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 20:42:43 +0000

For a long time there was a “quote” going around the internet-
“If all the bees were die tomorrow, mankind would only have another two years to live” -Albert Einstein
Not sure if the above is the exact quote, but something like it. Google it. You may still see it attributed to Einstein.
Einstein knew SFA about bees, but that didn’t stop people re-quoting it until “Hey, it’s on the Internet. It MUST BE TRUE!”
Same goes for the “banquet of consequences” – apocryphal? NO. Inaccurate? YES, Sir Walter Scott said it. NO. My bad.
It WAS Stevenson, and an inaccurate quote.
See http://robert-louis-stevenson.org/richard-dury-archive/nonquotes.htm to wit-
“8) ‘Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences’
This (and its variants) are mostly attributed to Stevenson on internet pages. The sentence, though not found in his works, is based on a genuine quotation from the essay ‘Old Mortality’:
‘Books were the proper remedy: books of vivid human import, forcing upon their minds the issues, pleasures, busyness, importance and immediacy of that life in which they stand; books of smiling or heroic temper, to excite or to console; books of a large design, shadowing the complexity of that game of consequences to which we all sit down, the hanger-back not least.’
In contrast to the thousands of hits for spurious version, Stevenson’s actual quote gets only 4 hits. ”

Alas, a book titled “Old Mortality” was written by Scott, as well an essay by Stevenson! This is where the confusion started. For the actual quote, see https://ebooks.adelaide.edu.au/s/stevenson/robert_louis/s848mp/chapter3.html
OK- seems Stevenson said it, not Scott. Mea culpa, but in my defense, there was never any banquet.
Why did I become intrigued? Well, one of the first search hits was Snopes. This always piques my interest.
—– Hey! Install a edit feature and some BBCode tools! 😉

By: Mark E. Jeftovic

Mark E. Jeftovic — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 02:15:31 +0000

In reply to Gregory Gaich. You're right I should have read it more closely. The subject was originally submitted by a user who referenced a URL that I couldn't source (page changed or something) and I went looking for another source.

By: Mark E. Jeftovic

Mark E. Jeftovic — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 02:14:04 +0000

In reply to Tony Q. King. Tony are you saying the quote is apocryphal, inaccurate, and/or that Sir Walter Scott said it? I do see that RLS may not have actually said it the way it is frequently attributed to him.

By: Gregory Gaich

Gregory Gaich — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 21:11:28 +0000

“Florida neglected to run gun background checks for over a year because…” as a headline is both factually incorrect and misleading.

As noted in the article, Florida DID conduct extensive background checks on concealed carry permit holders on TWO different criminal databases, including one national database. While failing to search NICS (the same database searched every time a firearm is purchased) is a gross negligence, only 291 out of the “tens of thousands” not checked were revoked once the negligence was detected and corrected.

And neither the Parkland nor the Pulse shootings cited in the article had anything to do with the lapse in NICS background checks.

If we want to get somewhere in the national gun debate, we all have to stop believing (and echoing) inflammatory and misleading click-bait headlines and demand that the media give us full and honest information about which we can civilly debate important public policy.

This article isn’t it. We deserve better.

By: Tony Q. King

Tony Q. King — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 17:39:02 +0000

You have a winner? Sorry. You lose. Please re-read your R.L. Stevenson and SHOW ME WHERE he wrote this! (No googling allowed)
And then try reading Sir Walter Scott: https://www.gutenberg.org/files/6941/old/orig6941-h/main.htm

By: Tony Q. King

Tony Q. King — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 17:34:38 +0000

Well, CERTAINLY NOT R.L. Stenenson, as the book “Old Mortality” was written by Sir Walter Scott.
And actually the quotation is a corruption of “…game of consequences to which we all sit down…” etc.
And I sir, do NOT use Google Books! Not when open source Gutenberg is freely available!
https://www.gutenberg.org/ And they do not spy on you!

By: Mark Robinson

Mark Robinson — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:42:43 +0000

Robert Louis Stevenson. Wow Ivan is fast….or easyDNS email is S L O W!! 😉

By: Mark E. Jeftovic

Mark E. Jeftovic — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:35:49 +0000

In reply to Ivan Petrovic. We have a winner. Yes, mine too. Always loved this one.

By: Ivan Petrovic

Ivan Petrovic — Mon, 11 Jun 2018 14:27:30 +0000

Robert Louis Stevenson – One of my favourite quotes. Not googled but I do have this quote in the Notes app.