Let’s just say that you can’t always trust the historical record and move swiftly on. - Charles Stross

A cure for old age is a very common wish," Kurtz observed. "Dashed slug-a-beds want to be shot by a jealous husband, not a nurse bored with emptying the bedpan."

Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by incompetence or overwork?" Alex asks, rising.
"Something like that. But there's a point at which sufficient incompetence is malice."

American cops are so heavily militarized these days that the only way I can tell the difference between them and the army is the color of their body armor—that, and the army is less trigger-happy.