Miljenko's Blog

Bill Maher would sometime get on my nerves with his relentless anti-Bush stuff but his "documentary" is excellent. You just need to watch it because it is hard to talk about everything that is in it but one example is the question of how did the US as a nation get from founding fathers who said - "Lighthouses are more useful than churches" (B. Franklin) and "Christianity is the most perverted system that ever shone on man" (T. Jefferson) - to having "In God We Trust" printed on its currency. Just the basic act of asking questions is so powerful that one cannot but cumulatively be struck by the sheer ridiculousness of religions as such, not singling out any particular one. So while for the past number of years I would have taken the usual cop out of "agnostic" or "spiritual but not religious" in part due to those things being more PC, I must say I am now willing to throw it in with Dawkins and Hitchens (and by implication Maher...

So far Barack Obama's steps to build his cabinet have been nothing short of the Barcelona Olympics US basketball Dream Team. Is he the Michael Jordan of leadership? For all of ours sake I hope he is. The only true answer to that question is that it is too early to tell but the first steps were nothing short of brilliant. Larry Summers at the White House and Geithner at the Treasury were exactly the right moves. Summers will be much better out of the limelight and pulling at more levers, while Geithner at the Treasury is just the right technocrat (and is 47, as is Obama, as is your truly, which I like to point out). To get two Clinton's, and it is the two Clinton's that he is getting, is the ultimate twofer. It says a lot about his ability and that of the people around him to smooth over ruffled feathers. However, the more important thing is that they are perfect for the job - they will be the face of America to the world and one could hardly find two Americans that the worl...

There are only 3 possible reasons to do anything in life and they are: One, to make a lot of money. Two, to change the world and three, because you can't help it. The first one does not merit much discussion - you need to put food on the table, provide for the family and you do what it takes to maximize your marketable skills to make the most of it. The second is different in that you have to decide in which way are you going to try to "change the world" or at least contribute to it. Do you help starving children or do you work to help the elderly. Do you try to make a difference in Darfur or do you try to make a difference in the inner city Detroit. The easiest of them is the third one. I asked a friend who is a singer "if you were on a deserted island and there was nobody else around, would you still sing every day even if there is no fame or fortune to be gained?". People who have born talents just can't help but use them and of course she said yes. Most ...

Saw a group of people riding horses on the beach the other day and it reminded me to post a rant that I have repeated many times to many people. All of these horse riders and "horse lovers" are convinced that horses like to be ridden. Really? The first horse that a human ever jumped onto immediately thought "Oh, goody, it's so fun to run around with 200 pounds of extra weight on my back". I don't think so. I think it was rather pissed off in fact and therefore the whole "breaking them in" thing from cowboy movies. People who ride horses think that their love for the horse means that the horse enjoys to have them on their back. If you love horses, run next to them on the beach. The horse will definitely have a better time and you will be in better shape. We love our children but we don't ride them to school. We don't put big leather things on their backs and pieces of metal in their mouths and kick them in the ribs to tell them what we want ...

A great one has died and given that we are talking about William F. Buckley the list of favorite quotes could run pages and pages but I decided to chose one: "The attempted assassination of Sukarno last week had all the earmarks of a CIA operation. Everyone in the room was killed except Sukarno" OK, one more: "I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words."