Steven Purcell's page

Capital as such is not evil; it is its wrong use that is evil. Capital in some form or other will always be needed.
Mahatma Gandhi

Merisiel to the Tengu and Harsk: "Looks like kobold's back on the menu boys!"

Google Maps gets a frightening new app - Nukemap

"This is not a peace. It is an armistice for 20 years."
Ferdinand Foch on the Treaty of Versailles, 1919

What happens if you go into the vacuum of space without a spacesuit?

Dinocrocs crushed the competition

Science, history and the blue circles

6 Reasons aliens would never invade Earth

If you have an important point to make, don't try to be subtle or clever. Use a pile driver. Hit the point once. Then come back and hit it again. Then hit it a third time - a tremendous whack.
—Winston Churchill

Yosemite in all its glory

We shall go on to the end, we shall fight in France, we shall fight on the seas and oceans, we shall fight with growing confidence and growing strength in the air, we shall defend our Island, whatever the cost may be, we shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and even if, which I do not for a moment believe, this Island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas, armed and guarded by the British Fleet, would carry on the struggle, until, in God's good time, the New World, with all its power and might, steps forth to the rescue and the liberation of the Old.
— Winston Churchill, Speech in the House of Commons, 4 June 1940

Starship dimensions comparing the sizes of various SF starships and structures side by side

A few quotes about radicals:

“If a man is right, he can’t be too radical; if he is wrong, he can’t be too conservative.” - Henry Wheeler Shaw, pen name Josh Billings

An armourers take on female fantasy armour

If 7 billion people lived in one city...

"To win a hundred battles is not of the supreme excellence. To subdue one's enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

Just because it is too cool not to link to (pun intended)

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. - Abraham Lincoln

On common names

"I regret that I am not clear as to what you intend by arisch. I am not of Aryan extraction: that is Indo-Iranian; as far as I am aware none of my ancestors spoke Hindustani, Persian, Gypsy, or any related dialects. But if I am to understand that you are enquiring whether I am of Jewish origin, I can only reply that I regret that I appear to have no ancestors of that gifted people." - J.R.R. Tolkien, responding to a potential German publisher for The Hobbit, as a Take That against the then in power Nazi regime

“I am sick, of obscure towns that exist ... for the sole accommodation of these so-called limerick writers – and even sicker of their residents, all of whom suffer from physical deformities and spend their time dismembering relatives and attending fancy dress balls.” - The editor of the Limerick Times, circa 1900

War is a matter of vital importance to the state; a matter of life and death, the road either to survival or ruin. Hence, it is imperative that it be studied thoroughly.
— Sun Tzu

"The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide. This has been so since antiquity." - The Romance of the Three Kingdoms

"Have taken Trier with two divisions. What do you want me to do? Give it back?" - George Patton replying to Dwight Eisenhower's order to bypass Trier, as Eisenhower thought it would require too many forces to take

Am I missing an eyebrow? - Adam Savage

The Earth is the cradle of the mind, but one cannot stay in the cradle forever. Konstantin Tsiolkovsky

Tengu in section 2 (probable anyway but just wanted to make sure it was said)

0HD lizardfolk in section 3

0HD dogfolk in section 3

0HD cat-type race in section 3

I think that covers it for me

What does $14.3 trillion look like?

Blending into the background

Part one

Part two

"I've never wished a man dead, but I read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Clarence Darrow but, due to common misappropriation of that quote, later said, "I've never killed anyone, save for idiots attributing my g#$-d$+n quote to Mark Twain."

"I shouldn't have done my research just in prisons. I should have spent some time inside the Stock Exchange as well." - Bob Hare, psychiatrist on where to look for psychopaths

The most placid resident of the Underworld (Underdark, Paths of Khyber, Darklands, etc.)

“In a good marriage, each is the other’s better half.”-Alfred Hitchcock

"The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."
— Sir Winston Churchill

It's difficult in times like these: ideals, dreams and cherished hopes rise within us, only to be crushed by grim reality. It's a wonder I haven't abandoned all my ideals, they seem so absurd and impractical. Yet I cling to them because I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.
— The Diary of Anne Frank, 1944

Risk: The game of Global Damnation!

Actually it is kind of interesting: among bees, wasps (and some ants for that matter) only the females have stingers as they are modified ovipositors and in the communal wasps and bees most females are sterile except for the queens, but in solitary species the stings work both as ovipositors and as weapons and in fact some wasps are parasitic, disabling a host bug with a sting and then laying an egg inside it using the stinger and the resultant larva will eat the host alive when it hatches. So in some ways wasps can be an excellent symbol for Calistria and the wasp association definitely works (to me anyway).

To expand on the point in a way: Urgathoa has a fly as a symbol and certain flies (horseflies, blackflies and deerflies, as well as mosquitoes) only the females bite as they need the blood (or flesh, in some cases) as nourishment to successfully lay their eggs. So insects can be excellent deity symbols (that isn't even adding in the Red Mantis material to the discussion).