378 Weekend Miscellany
Good quotes recently in the news:
US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates quotes G. Behn and tells a Marine Corps dinner about the “pleasure” of returning to Washington, “where there are so many lost in thought because it’s such unfamiliar territory.”
“The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else.” Frédéric Bastiat, Selected Essays on Political Economy (1848), quoted in a Wall Street Journal commentary by Bob McTeer.
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My favorite WWII postal acronyms:
B.U.R.M.A. Be Upstairs Ready My Angel
N.O.R.W.I.C.H. (K)nickers Off Ready When I Come Home
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My favorite deaths of Burmese kings:
Theinhko: Killed by a farmer whose cucumbers he ate without permission (931 AD). Theinko’s queen, fearing civil disorder, smuggled the farmer into the royal palace and dressed him in royal robes. He was proclaimed King Nyaung-u Sawrhan, and was known as the “Cucumber King.” He later transformed his cucumber plantation into a spacious and pleasant royal garden.
Anawrahta: Gored to death by a buffalo during a military campaign (1077).
Tabinshweti: Beheaded by his chamberlains while searching for a fictitious white elephant (1551). Good to pull out the next time someone refers to any “white elephant” project.
And, my favorite, Nandabayin: Laughed to death when informed, by a visiting Italian merchant, that Venice was a free state without a king (1599).
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