Observations - 7th November 2011

"The important work of moving the world forward does not wait to be done by perfect men." - George Eliot

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Talk of respecting heritage by ghettoising historical cultural artefacts in their country of discovery (note the distinction between this and their "home" country) is a cynical attempt to cash in politically and monetarily from said artefacts. For example, take Egyptian Mummies. If Respect was really the most important factor here, you wouldn't even be excavating them and their grave goods, much less putting them on display (and almost always charging an admission fee). This is in addition to the other issues of cultural continuity (what do modern-day Turks have in common with Christian Byzantines or Classical Athenians?), genetic continuity (the Ainu were driven out of most of Japan, so the modern Japanese connection to a Ainu "heritage" is tenuous at best) and more. What we are really "respecting" is contemporary delusions and pretensions about ancestry and cultural continuity.

When people say you should be more open-minded, they mean you should agree with them - and then they proceed to refuse to listen to you.

Saving the planet is great, but first you need to save yourself.

Imaginary pound wise, penny foolish - is still foolish.

21st century emails: calling someone to send him an email.

Amused that someone told me a lot of HR practitioners he spoke to don't think much of SMU graduates.

I have grudging respect for spammers who mark their emails as "low priority".

Wondering if those who bash stereotyping take medical screening seriously.

It's better to be evil than good. Do you know how hard white robes are to maintain?

Amused teachers are a significant percentage of drug OD patients


"Karl Marx, a man who was so convinced of his rightness, and so buried in his books in the British Library, that he failed to observe the world around him. He did not bother to visit a single British factory. He refused to exchange a word with the intellectual titans of the time, including Charles Darwin and George Eliot, both of whom lived just a few miles from his front door. He ignored overwhelming statistical evidence that the working class’s share of the nation’s wealth was increasing."

[On Occupy Whatever] "you dont like the gap between rich and poor, well go and get a job then you are not getting any richer by being on the dole. if you dont like the 1% then dont use their services, go and get an ethical job, bank with the Bendigo bank and not one of the four big banks, dont buy anything from the big mutlinationals, get rid of your car and get a bike. vote with your feet not some pointless camping exercise."

RT: @fakeyarratrams: #occupymelb lobby blocking trams in the city. Don't they realise the 1% don't catch trams? Stop delaying the 99% heading home. #YarraTrams


RT: EverywhereTrip: Steve Jobs probably did more to make people happy than most religions in the world

Maybe the bad reaction to the iPhone 4S was what finally did him in

[On Jobs's passing] "My 4 year old MacBook pro died this morning. It must have been his last horcrux : ("


RT @clarissejang: "You are what you eat"..."I need to eat a skinny person"

RT: @markleggett: As the dawn sun glistens on your sweaty body, you awaken in a bed filled with coarse hairs. You are either a werewolf or an Italian.

RT @TheeBuddha The most unforgettable evenings are the ones you can't remember the next morning.

RT @edchng if you replace "penis" with "power" in everything Freud says, he becomes Foucault

RT: @mrbrown: "The trouble with quotes on the internet is that it is sometimes impossible to determine whether or not they are genuine." —Abraham Lincoln

"why do the dead deserve any special respect? If I did not respect someone when he was alive, I am certainly not going to respect him when he's dead."