WHEEEEEEEE!

"those parquet floors are like the worst possible mix with new shoes and alcohol" -mia

"heh. *looks up parquet*" - me

a silly game

It began to dawn on [Thorby] that control and ownership were only slightly related; he had always thought of "ownership" and "control" as being the same thing; you owned a thing, a begging bowl or a uniform jacket—of course you controlled it!

The converging, diverging, and crossing of corporations and companies confused and disgusted him. It was as complex as a firecontrol computer without a computer's cool logic. He tried to draw a chart and could not make it work. The ownership of each entity was tangled in common stocks, preferred stocks, bonds, senior and junior issues, securities with odd names and unknown functions; sometimes one company owned a piece of another directly and another piece through a third, or two companies might each own a little of the other, or sometimes a company owned part of itself in a tail-swallowing fashion. It didn't make sense.

This wasn't "business"—what the People [a tribe of space merchants, traversing an intergalactic silk road] did was business... buy, sell, make a profit. But this was a silly game with wild rules.

  - Robert A. Heinlein, Citizen of the Galaxy

Brandalism: PsyOps for Ad execs

People abuse you every day. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They make flippant comments from buses that imply you're not sexy enough and that all the fun is happening somewhere else. They're on tv making your girlfriend feel inadequate. They have access to the most sophisticated technology the world has ever seen and they bully you with it. They are the advertisers and they are laughing at you. However, you are forbidden to touch them. Trademarks, intellectual property rights and copyright law mean advertisers can say what they like wherever they like with impunity. Any advert in public space that gives you no choice whether you see it or not is yours. It's yours to take, re-arrange and re-use. You can do whatever you like with it. Asking for permission is like asking to keep a rock someone just threw at your head. You owe the companies nothing. You especially don't we them any courtesy. They have re-arranged the world to put themselves in front of you. They never asked for your permission, don't even start asking for theirs.

pea sea

Eye halve a spelling chequer,
It came with my pea sea,
It plainly marques four my revue
Miss steaks eye kin knot sea.

Eye strike a key and type a word
And weight four it two say
Weather eye am wrong oar write
It shows me strait a weigh.

As soon as a mist ache is maid
It nose bee fore two long
And eye can put the error rite
Its rarely ever wrong.

Eye have run this poem threw it
I'm shore your pleased two no
Its letter perfect in it's weigh,
My chequer tolled me sew.

assuming a ladder

"We, as a country, are now in the grip of five kinds of politics that I want very briefly to discuss, if only to alarm you and depress you. I call them the politics of assuming a ladder; the politics of rent seeking, otherwise known as the war against Wal-Mart; the politics of learned dependency; the politics of speech rationing; and the politics of orchid building. Let me explain these in very short compass.

First, the politics of assuming a ladder. An old economics joke tells of an economist and a friend who are walking down a road and fall into a pit. The regular guy says, “We can’t get out.” And the economist replies, “Not to worry, we’ll just assume a ladder.” We have just had the last presidential election before the first of 77 million baby boomers begin to retire. They will put strains on a welfare state that, as currently configured, cannot endure. And so the entitlement advocates are assuming a ladder, assuming that something will happen to fix the problem.

No way to rule innocent men.

'There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Rearden, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with'.
  - Ayn Rand, "Atlas Shrugged"

from this slashdot thread

blame who?

Words of the Sentient:
"Some productive class Americans blame it all on immigrants, forgetting that we're a nation of immigrants -- and immigrants' children -- many of whom fled the same tyranny and corruption we face today. Sooner or later they'll learn not to blame people with funny names, funny clothes, or funny customs, but to look upon their own "representatives" as the foreign despots they've really become.
 -  L. Neil Smith

funny because it's true

"Oil prices have fallen lately. We include this news for the benefit of gas stations, which otherwise wouldn't learn of it for six months."
  - William D. Tammeus

list of things to return

So, if the US invented it they "own" it?
The Web was invented in Switzerland by a Belgian with a French name and a Londoner. Uninstall your browser and go back using Gopher and Archie.

Gunpowder was invented in China long ago and intended for recreational purpose only. The inventor could never envision its usage for anything else than making children happy, and uncivilised westerners use it today to maim them. Please return your firearms to the PRC. Do keep Charlton Heston.

Ships were invented in Greece to find a golden fleece. They were to be a means of transport and exploration, not military platforms. Please return the Nimitz to Athens.

The Latin alphabet was supposed to be used for Latin and derived languages exclusively. It was developed by legitimate scribes with Etrurian sublicenses, and never intended to be used by barbarians that cannot even write. ("write", for example, should be spelt "VRAJT"). Please send all your keyboards and typewriters back to Italy.

Bread was invended in Egypt as a tasty way of eating flour. It was never meant to be used in (bleargh) Big Macs. Send all your McDonalds to Cairo (though they will probably answer "thanks, but... let's just say like we took them, right?")

The Statue of Liberty was built in France to honour the values of Freedom, Equality and Fraternity, together with friendship between France and the US. It was not meant to symbolise a nation that claims to have saved France in the world wars (in the first the US entered only for one year, in the second they did not enter until attacked), calling the French "surrendering cheese-eating monkeys" (the "eating" remark, coming from an American, is really offensive) while never had a military occupation on their soil since the Brits left, and screwed all the statue was meant to represent by invading a defenseless country with bunches of black sticky liquid, and installing their puppet regime like Hapsburg Austria used to (ok, no sticky liquids back then). Unmount and shove it in a place the French will be all too happy to illustrate.

Cars were invented in Germany to visit the countryside in the weekend, not to be a penis supersizer. Please transfer of GM and Ford motor companies to Mannheim. Not sure whether they want the Humvees. Bikes go to Karlsruhe.

Circumcision was invented by people who had little water and lived in the desert. It was not meant as a way to prevent masturbation, and whoever thought for a second to cut a baby's willy because he might do "dirty things" with it in 15 years' time was a complete psycho. The idea was hygiene! Return to Israel your... oh never mind.

(from slashdot)

bastiat the troll

"The state is the great fictitious entity by which everyone seeks to live at the expense of everyone else."
- Frederic Bastiat