Ryan Stahl > Recent Status Updates

"The whole economic system is based on a shared agreement that a piece of paper with a stamp on it has value. In reality you know it isn't true, but everyone else accepts it, so why rock the boat?" Hayden said, climbing onto the bike. "The system's flawed by nature."

“More than twice the number of Americans were killed and wounded than on Guadalcanal and Iwo Jima combined.”

“Okinawa was the site of the largest land-sea-air battle in history.”

Such a good book! I never get tired of reading it. From the same chapter: “It’s a lot easier to blow up trains than to make them run on time. What is it that Mister Churchill used to say? ‘Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.’”

“Freedom isn’t just something you have for the sake of having, you have to want something else first and then want the freedom to fight for it.”

"Fear," he used to say, "fear is the most valuable commodity in the universe." That blew me away. "Turn on the TV," he'd say. "What are you seeing? People selling their products? No. People selling the fear of you having to live without their products." Fuckin' A, was he right. Fear of aging, fear of loneliness, fear of poverty, fear of failure. Fear is the most basic emotion we have. Fear is primal. Fear sells.

Secrecy is a vacuum and nothing fills a vacuum like paranoid speculation.

Believe it or not, I've never completed all 7 Harry Potter books. In the past, I think I made it to book 4. Since it has been so long, it's time to start from the beginning!

Most people don’t believe something can happen until it already has. That’s not stupidity or weakness, that’s just human nature.

These stories are fascinating! Time and again, I'm amazed that, as the pirates are taking everything from their victims, they demand respect and courtesy as well. If a victim refuses those niceties, they can expect no quarter. So far, Captain Morgan sacking Panama is one of my favorite stories!