Thursday 30 June 2011

Too Much To Ask?

All I wanted to do was come to London and sell a dead Nazi's head.
 — Mr Jelly

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Rights

Sadly, a lot of "normal" people who demand freedom of speech
do so to compensate for avoiding freedom of thought.
 — Doug Anderson

Friday 24 June 2011

Funda Mental Processes

Belief and understanding are independent variables.

Monday 20 June 2011

Inductive Reasoning

If it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck,
we have at least to consider the possibility
that we have a small aquatic bird of the family anatidae on our hands. 
 — Douglas Adams


An Alleged Duck

Thursday 16 June 2011

Like A Fish Needs A Barnacle

Bloomsday is observed on 16 June each year around the world, to celebrate the life of Irish writer James Joyce and to relive the events in his novel Ulysses, that took place on the same day in 1904 in Dublin, Ireland.

Though he wrote the book in later years, Joyce enshrined the date 16 June 1904 in literary history as a commemoration of the day he first 'stepped out' with the love of his life Nora Barnacle.

Moon Experiencing A Solar Eclipse

Tuesday 14 June 2011

We Thought Of It First!

[As the PFJ approach a corner crouching, another group of rebels, the Campaign for a Free Galilee (CFG) advance towards the other side.]
CFG 1: Sssh.
CFG 2: Sssh.
[The two groups spot each other, and relax. After a few confused moments, the leader (CFGHead) declares his group in a thick Welsh accent.]
CFGHead: Campaign for Free Galilee.
PFJHead: Oh. Uh. People's Front of Judea. Officials.
CFGHead: Oh.
PFJHead: What's your group doing here?
CFGHead: We're going to kidnap Pilate's wife, take her back, issue demands.
PFJHead: So are we.
CFGHead: What?
PFJHead: That's our plan.
CFGHead: We were here first.
PFJHead: What do you mean?
CFGHead: We thought of it first.
PFJ: Man Oh yeah?
CFGHead: Yes. A couple of years ago.
PFJ: Oh, yeahehehe.
CFG Man: He did!
PFJHead: Okay, come on, come on. You got all your demands worked out?
CFGHead: 'Course we have.
PFJHead: What are they?
CFGHead: Well I'm not telling you.
PFJ men: yeah.
PFJHead: Oh come on. Pull the other one.
CFGHead: That's not the point. We thought of it before you.
Various: Ssssh.
PFJHead: Did not.
CFGHead: We did.
PFJ: You did not.
CFG: We bloody did!
Various: Sssssssh. Sssssssssssssh.
CFGHead: You bastards, we've been planning this for months.
PFJHead: Well tought titty for you, fish face. AAAAWW!
[A general fight breaks out between the two groups.]
Brian: Brothers, brothers. We should be struggling together.
PFJHead: We are!
Brian: We musn't fight each other. Surely we should be united against the common enemy.
All: The Judæan People's front!!!
Brian: No. No. The Romans!
All: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.

Monday 13 June 2011

Down For The Count

To Go With Bold Entreaty Whither No Man Had Gone Before

At length, sick with longing for those glittering sunset streets and cryptical hill lanes among ancient tiled roofs, nor able sleeping or waking to drive them from his mind, Carter resolved to go with bold entreaty whither no man had gone before, and dare the icy deserts through the dark to where unknown Kadath, veiled in cloud and crowned with unimagined stars, holds secret and nocturnal the onyx castle of the Great Ones.
 — HP Lovecraft (1927)

Friday 10 June 2011

Dying For America

Another
Futile
Gesture
Highlighting
Australia's
Neurotic
Incurable
Subservience
To
American
Needs

Thursday 9 June 2011

Funny Games

My films are intended as polemical statements against the American 'barrel down' cinema and its disempowerment of the spectator.  They are an appeal for a cinema of insistent question instead of false answers; for clarifying distance in place of violating closeness; for provocation of dialogue instead of consumption of consensus.
 — Michæl Haneke

The Shared Stench Of Slow Suicide

Wednesday 8 June 2011

Economic Growth & Adam Smith's 'Invisible Hand'

Each man is locked into a system that compels him to increase his herd without limit — in a world that is limited.  Ruin is the destination toward which all men rush, each pursuing his own best interest in a society that believes in the freedom of the commons.  Freedom in the commons brings ruin to all.
 — Garrett Hardin 'The Tragedy Of The Commons'

One Foot In The Grave

The essence of dramatic tragedy is not unhappiness.  It resides in the solemnity of the remorseless working of things. … This inevitableness of destiny can only be illustrated in terms of human life by incidents which in fact involve unhappiness.  For it is only by them that the futility of escape can be made evident in the drama.
 — Alfred North Whitehead

Conspiracy Theory

Never attribute to conspiracy that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
— Robert Heinlein

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Numb And Number

Thus the erectile organ comes to symbolize the place of jouissance [ecstasy], not in itself, or even in the form of an image, but as a part lacking in the desired image: that is why it is equivalent to the  of the signification produced above, of the jouissance that it restores by the coefficient of its statement to the function of lack of signifier (-1).
 — Jacques Lacan

Administration

They need activity. It is their substitute for achievement.
 — Sir Humphrey Appleby

Friday 3 June 2011

You Are Books

A room without books is like a body without a soul.
 — Cicero

Thursday 2 June 2011

What'ch Your Language

Co-operation And Retaliation

Tit for tat is a highly effective strategy in game theory for the iterated prisoner's dilemma. It was first introduced by Anatol Rapoport in Robert Axelrod's two tournaments, held around 1980. An agent using this strategy will initially cooperate, then respond in kind to an opponent's previous action. Unless provoked, the agent will always cooperate. If provoked, the agent will retaliate. Some game theorists informally believe the strategy to be optimal, although no proof is presented.

A Fool

What has infused my very blood with an unconquerable hatred of the whole tribe of fools from the day of my birth is that I become a fool myself whenever I am in their company.
 — Casanova

Asp

aspish
asperges
aspersor
asphyxiate
aspirant