Notable & Quotable

Sir Robert McClure, his ship trapped in Arctic ice in 1853 during a search for John Franklin’s lost expedition, encounters the member of another search expedition, this one coming to his rescue. From McClure’s journal:

While walking near the ship, in conversation with the first lieutenant upon the subject of digging the grave for the man who died yesterday, and discussing how we could cut a grave in the ground whilst it was so hardly frozen—a subject naturally sad and depressing—we perceived a figure walking rapidly towards us from the rough ice at the entrance of the bay. . . . His face was as black as ebony, and really at that moment we might be pardoned for wondering whether he was a denizen of this or the other world; and had he but given us a glimpse of a tail or a cloven hoof, we should assuredly have taken to our legs: as it was, we gallantly stood our ground, and, had the skies fallen upon us, we could hardly have been more astonished than when the dark-faced stranger called out: “I am Lieutenant Pim!”

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Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703701004575113741511659202.html

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Devaluing the Nobel.

Bonnie Erbe, host of PBS’s “To The Contrary,” writing at PoliticsDaily.com on liberal dissatisfaction with President Obama’s Nobel Peace Prize, Dec. 14:

If only the Nobel Committee and the American voting public had dug a bit deeper before they endorsed Obama, they might not have been so surprised when he morphed into an unexpected type of president. The New York Times reported in February 2008 that Obama had a history of stretching his accomplishments and playing to his audience of the moment. It would have been easy to see what was coming if only voters had paid more attention to his record as a twister of facts and prince of prevarication. . . .

Every time the prize is given to someone whose later record does not comport with the peaceful efforts the committee seeks to award, it lessens the value and prestige of the award. And every time a president disses his base, more Americans lose faith in the political system. Both are travesties that can and should have been averted.

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Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704238104574602282156055264.html

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Genesis on the Great Flood.

Genesis 7:17-23, in the King James Version:

And the flood was forty days upon the earth; and the waters increased, and bare up the ark, and it was lift up above the earth. And the waters prevailed, and were increased greatly upon the earth; and the ark went upon the face of the waters. And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered. Fifteen cubits upward did the waters prevail; and the mountains were covered. And all flesh died that moved upon the earth, both of fowl, and of cattle, and of beast, and of every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth, and every man: All in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died. And every living substance was destroyed which was upon the face of the ground, both man, and cattle, and the creeping things, and the fowl of the heaven; and they were destroyed from the earth: and Noah only remained alive, and they that were with him in the ark.

Notable & Quotable, Wall Street Journal

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Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204518504574419360886594956.html

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All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant.

Nobel laureate Friedrich A. Hayek in “The Constitution of Liberty”

All political theories assume, of course, that most individuals are very ignorant. Those who plead for liberty differ from the rest in that they include among the ignorant themselves as well as the wisest. Compared with the totality of knowledge which is continually utilized in the evolution of a dynamic civilization, the difference between the knowledge that the wisest and that the most ignorant individual can deliberately employ is comparatively insignificant.

Notable & Quotable, Wall Street Journal

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Full article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574402821697524270.html

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