People From Rhode Island

"Fuel is a basic part of the business. Everybody basically pays the same price for fuel. It is a matter of how appropriately you trade off capital costs against operating costs. New airplanes burn less fuel but they take more capital."

"Market share is important because you're going to fly between point A and point B. You need to offer a reasonable amount of frequency that's something that... That you used to have to in order to appeal to some segment of business travellers and there will be some business travel frequency. Therefore, frequency isn't going to become completely unimportant, maybe less important than it used to be. But if you're going to be a competitor in a given market, you find that market, you will, you can't, you can't rely on price, right? To say, well, I've got, I've got 2% of the capacity, but in order to fill the aeroplane, I've got to have 5% of the business. It's not going to work that way. And the consequence market share is important. You can't... To be a participant in the market. You've got to have a representative pretend age of capacity and, correspondingly, a representative share of the business. Alternatively, you're going to find yourself in very difficult times."

"I don’t give a sh*t about the low-cost carriers. I just told you a minute ago. If the legacy carriers cannot get their costs down to match the low-cost carriers, they’re finished. So, the question is, will they get their costs down? I don’t know. You know, [we probably won’t] know for 10 years."

"In the '50s and '60s ... if you worked hard and tried hard, you could do well. It's much harder to climb the ladder of economic success now than it was then."

"If you're going to have an active and successful democracy, you have to have equal opportunity."

"The ubiquity of social media only makes the point. You look at what other people have and you can never get because you don't have education, because you don't have access to medical care, because there's no decent jobs."

"I'm not very optimistic about the United States from the political perspective. If the U.S. got its political act together, it has a lot of natural advantages versus a lot of other places in the world. Until we solve this business of these terribly gerrymandered districts, which send extremists to Congress, I don't see much hope for sorting out the political situation."

"The infrastructure of the country, all the roads, all the bridges, all the water systems are just not going to be maintained. To the extent they are not maintained, our ability to compete with countries that are maintaining their infrastructure is compromised. What has been one of the great strengths of the United States over the years is just going to diminish. This political extremism that we've fallen victim to is doing very bad things to the economy."

"I became successful because I lived in a society that offered an opportunity to everyone."

"I always tell young people discerning vocations that, if it is your call, you can expect to enter into a life that is full of joy and serenity of spirit, that the faithful will invite a priest to enter into their lives at a depth that sometimes they won’t even permit their own spouses. That’s not because we have any particular talent; it’s because Catholics look at priests as bringing into their lives the love of Christ and the Church, which will lead them home to a place in heaven."

"There is a romance with the people of God. To know that you're building up the Kingdom of God, you who have been called and been given that grace, Jesus Christ is working through you in a very special way. I can’t save anybody personally, but I can through the Church through that I serve."

"... Early on, Simons made a decision to dig through mountains of data, employ advanced mathematics, and develop cutting-edge computer models, while others were still relying on intuition, instinct, and old-fashioned research for their own predictions. Simons inspired a revolution that has since swept the investing world. By early 2019, hedge funds and other quantitative, or quant, investors had emerged as the market's largest players, controlling about 30 percent of stock trading, topping the activity of both individual investors and traditional investing firms. ..."

"... When Asian markets crumbled in 1997, Mr. Tepper added Korean stocks to a portfolio laden with Russian debt. The moves led to hundreds of millions of dollars in profits when markets rebounded two years later. He scored big on junk bonds in 2003, and his 2007 wager on steel, coal and other resource companies paid off in 2008 when commodity prices soared. But because he sometimes places more than half of his portfolio in a single trade idea, Mr. Tepper also is prone to brutal, abrupt losses."

"On Wall Street, the losers in the collapse of the housing market are legion. The biggest winner looks to be John Paulson, a little-known hedge fund manager who smelled trouble two years ago. ... Like many legendary market killings, from Warren Buffett's takeovers of small companies in the 70s to Wilbur Ross's steelmaker consolidation earlier this decade, Mr. Paulson's sprang from defying conventional wisdom. In early 2006, the wisdom was that while loose lending standards might be of some concern, deep trouble in the housing and mortgage markets was unlikely. A lot of big Wall Street players were in this camp, as seen by the giant mortgage-market losses they're disclosing."

"A wedding. According to Chris, they didn't die on the boat. They got washed up on a shore in a jungle island. The queen gave birth to a baby boy. They build a treehouse. They get eaten by a leopard..."

"10 February 2014 in response to "Where were the King and Queen planning to go when they lost their lives out at sea?" speaking of Chris Buck"

"I would like to ask what were the causes which led up to the Declaration of Independence; what it was that our forefathers fought for during 1776? Let me suggest that the initial cause for which we fought was that there should be “no taxation without representation,” and there can be no representation without the right to exercise the franchise. Direct representation of those governed in the governing body is the keystone of our democratic institutions. If our Government is not a representative government it is nothing."

"To search out the dragon in his true greatness is to learn strange things."

"White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, who was a commander in the Naval Reserves, tried several times to persuade Mattis to appear on Sunday talk shows on behalf of the administration. The answer was always no. "Sean," Mattis finally said, "I've killed people for a living. If you call me again, I'm going to fucking send you to Afghanistan. Are we clear?""

"The President had a very cordial conversation with Prime Minister Trumble..."

"To assume someone because of their age or gender, that they don't pose a threat, would be wrong."

"So he has ensured that while he has respect for the Australian people, respect for Prime Minister Trumble..."

"Business as usual is over. And I think what I mean by that is that you know, the President-elect looks at this and says what’s best for the country? How do we put America and Americans first and stop trying to figure out how we cater to you know, pundits and the establishment class, big donors. He is putting Americans first and foremost. And when he talks about Americans first, he means I don’t care what a bunch of elites tell me or people at a dinner party. He wants to know what American workers care about, what American families care about, what’s going to help American businesses grow."

"This was the largest audience to ever witness an inauguration -- period -- both in person and around the globe."

"The President had an incredibly productive set of meetings and discussions with Prime Minister Joe Trudeau of Canada"

"I think sometimes we can disagree with the facts ... But our intention is never to lie to you."

"Flynn’s pro-Turkish positions compound concerns arising from his judgement and ethical lapse."

"Lt. Gen. Michael T. Flynn, a Trump national security adviser, has been paid by Turkish money laundered through a Dutch company to lobby on behalf of the Turkish government. More than bad judgement, Flynn’s egregious conduct raises ethical questions. It also casts doubt on his suitability for public office."

"My guilty plea and agreement to cooperate with the special counsel’s office reflect a decision I made in the best interests of my family and of our country. I accept full responsibility for my actions."

"One night at Socko and a year of probation were no comparison to the punishment at home. My rehabilitation was one of the fastest in adolescent history. I had it coming, and it taught me that moral rehab is possible. I behaved during my term of probation and stopped all of my criminal activity. But I would always retain my strong impulse to challenge authority and to think and act on my own whenever possible. There is room for such types in America, even in the disciplined confines of the United States Army. I’m a big believer in the value of unconventional men and women. They are the innovators and risk takers. Apple, one of the world’s most creative and successful high-tech companies, lives by the vision of transformation through exception. “Here’s to the crazy ones,” Apple’s campaign says. “The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes. The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them. About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. They push the human race forward. And while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.” If you talk to my colleagues, they’ll tell you that I’m cut from the same cloth. My military biography starts badly. I was a miserable dropout in my freshman year of college (1.2 GPA), enlisted in a delayed-entry Marine Corps program, went to work as a lifeguard at a local beach, and then came the first of several miracles: an Army ROTC scholarship. Little did I know that my rebellious activities, such as skipping class and sundry other mistakes, would lead me to playing basketball (which I was very good at) with an ROTC instructor who saw something in me. Not only that, he took surprising initiative."

"The U.S. media is doing a bang-up job of reporting the Erdoğan government’s crackdown on dissidents, but it’s not putting it into perspective."

"And he knows the consequences: “War ruins everything, even the bonds between brothers. War is irrational; its only plan is to bring destruction: It seeks to grow by destroying.”"

"We must begin with understanding that Turkey is vital to U.S. interests. Turkey is really our strongest ally against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), as well as a source of stability in the region. It provides badly needed cooperation with U.S. military operations. But the Obama administration is keeping Erdoğan’s government at arm’s length — an unwise policy that threatens our long-standing alliance."

"Most Americans mistakenly believe that peace is the normal condition of mankind, while war is some weird aberration. Actually, it’s the other way around. Most of human history has to do with war, and preparations for the next one. But we Americans do not prepare for the next war, are invariably surprised when it erupts, and, since we did not take prudent steps when it would have been relatively simple to prevail, usually end up fighting on our enemies’ more difficult and costly terms."

"Very few Americans—indeed very few Western leaders who, from time to time, use the word “war” and promise to “win” it—seem to recognize that a global war is being waged against us. Even the few who follow the actual combat tend to see the events separately: there’s fighting in Syria, Iraq, Yemen, and the Sinai, terrorists are at work all over the place, and we try to figure out what to do in each case."

"The primary bone of contention between the U.S. and Turkey is Fethullah Gülen, a shady Islamic residing in Pennsylvania whom former President Clinton once called his “friend” in a well circulated video."

"Lock her up, that's right. Yeah, that's right, lock her up! I'm going to tell you what, it's unbelievable, it's unbelievable. If I did a tenth, a tenth, of what she did, I would be in jail today."

"The first machine of Papin was very similar to the gunpowder-engine... of Huyghens. In place of gunpowder, a small quantity of water is placed at the bottom of the cylinder, A; a fire is built beneath it, "the bottom being made of very thin metal," and the steam formed soon raises the piston, B, to the top where a latch, E, engaging a notch in latch engaging the piston rod, H, holds it up until it is desired that it shall drop. The fire being removed, the steam condenses, and a vacuum is formed below the piston, and the latch, E, being disengaged, the piston is driven down by the superincumbent atmosphere and raises the weight which has been, meantime, attached to a rope... passing from the piston rod over pulleys... The machine had a cylinder two and a half inches in diameter, and raised 60 pounds once a minute; and Papin calculated that a machine of a little more than two feet diameter of cylinder and of four feet stroke would raise 8,000 pounds four feet per minute—i.e., that it would yield about one horse-power."

"Great inventions are never, and great discoveries are seldom, the work of any one mind. Every great invention is really an aggregation of minor inventions, or the final step of a progression. It is not usually a creation, but a growth, as truly so as is the growth of the trees in the forest."

"The wonderful progress of the present century is, in very great degree, due to the invention and improvement of the steam-engine."

"Fascism first begins with language, and then gains momentum as an organizing force for shaping a culture that legitimates indiscriminate violence against entire groups — Black people, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and others considered “disposable.” In this vein, Trump portrays his critics as “villains,” describes immigrants as “losers” and “criminals,” and has become a national mouthpiece for violent nationalists and a myriad of extremists who trade in hate and violence. One recent example can be found in the Trump-like language used in the manifesto posted by the El Paso shooter."

"Today freedom also means the freedom to hate, it means the freedom to say anything, it means the freedom to disparage people, to dehumanize people, to believe in the culture of cruelty, to believe that kindness is not a virtue but a liability. Freedom has been extended into a discourse of violence and hate, which is really part of a larger cultural apparatus that has so undermined the relationship between freedom and justice, freedom and equality, freedom and social responsibility that those terms drop out and freedom becomes in a sense a liability with respect to what a democratic socialist country might look like. The other side of this is that there is a really demonic notion of freedom that seems to suggest we’re all equal and we can all make all of the choices that we want — it’s up to us. In other words, it suggests that choice in this one-dimensional sense of market freedom is defined without constraints. So you are free to sleep under a bridge at night, or you’re free to sleep in the Ritz. Well, that’s just nonsense. It seems to me that choice only becomes meaningful when people have the capacity to make real choices. That’s what freedom really is about in an economic and political sense."

"Trump does not just fan the flames of violence with his rhetoric, he also provides legitimation to a number of white nationalists and right-wing extremist groups who are emboldened by his words and actions and too often ready to translate their hatred into the desecration of synagogues, schools, and other public sites, as well as engage in violence against peaceful protesters, and in some cases commit heinous acts of violence."

"[T]eachers have to be involved in the community and connected with parents and others who shape the lives of young people. They have to be involved with a whole range of people. They have to bring people together. They have to make sure that students in some way find that the work that they’re doing has something to do with their lives and matters."

"All pedagogy, when it matters, is contextual. Different kids come from different neighborhoods, they come from different experiences, they come from different classes, and they come from different backgrounds. Context always matters in an educational setting and matters of difference have to be addressed if you are going to connect with young people. In order for education to work, you have to make it meaningful, to make it critical, to make it transformative."

"Schools are increasingly either engaged in massive forms of pedagogical oppression and discipline or they’re basically disimagination machines — they kill the imagination of students and prepare them to work in utterly boring jobs without the slightest notion that they should resist because the implication seems to be that this is normal. They’re normalizing idiocy. They’re normalizing anti-intellectualism."

"Social hope means that hope is not limited to simply individual aspirations, that hope becomes a collective affair and is compatible with the assumption that people can collectively organize and in doing so they can imagine a different future. But more importantly, collectively in the name of hope, they can address the problems that prevent that future from emerging, and they can organize and become active through a mass social movement to make that hope possible. When we talk about social hope versus individualistic hope, we’re talking about a collective consciousness that is able in a sense to think otherwise in order to act otherwise — that’s the basic key here. I think there are promising movements all over the world."

"[W]hen people can’t tell the difference between fact and fiction, they can’t tell the difference between good and evil. They can’t recognize a crime when they see one or what lawlessness looks like. All standards of truth go out the window. It’s a very dangerous moment because it means that people become more susceptible to demagogues, to people like Trump, and I think that the media has played an enormous role in creating a formative culture that at its worst legitimates and at its best enables what we see happening in the United States today."

"People are waking up. The contradictions are becoming obvious. But the problem that plagues all of these groups is that they’re individualized. They tend to be autonomous, reduced to isolated issues, and they tend not to be part of a larger social movement in which each group can both articulate its own concerns but at the same time join with others in the call for a democratic socialist mode or a democratic mode of society."

"Remember, we live in a culture of immediacy. We live in a culture in which simplistic answers override more complicated answers. We live in a culture in which language is reduced to its bare bones. We live in a culture in which language is now in the service of violence."