A firm basis for policy-making

'I am an engineer, a master of calculation and tabulation.  I write out hypotheses for hours, I reject and I prove them again.  I make plans based on reason and proof'

- President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad says his calculations as an engineer as well as his belief in god convince him that Iran will not be attacked by western powers trying to end its nuclear programme [Source: Reuters, quoted in New Scientist, 8 September 2007]

On the semiotics of Ghostbusters

Okay, I know it's a corporate advert, but I still liked it. They play it at the Prince Charles all the time and it still gets a snicker from the audience.

Think before you Facebook

Tom Beech, 20, an employee of UK retailer Argos, was sacked for gross misconduct when his employers discovered he'd set up a Facebook page titled "I Work At Argos And Can't Wait To Leave Because It's Shit". Beech was quoted as saying:

I'm stunned they've fired me for this. I had a really bad day and was feeling overworked and underpaid.

- Guardian, 11 August 2007

Great, as long as you don't like movies

Broadcaster Sky NZ has started up a Sky Movies Greats channel... with a discerning playlist that includes Coyote Ugly, Flashdance  and Scary Movie 2.  So, no Battleship Potempkin, then?

Frogs' legs

I once went out walking in the Languedoc with a retired army general who always wore long trousers, even in the blistering heat. When I asked him why he did not wear shorts he looked at me sadly and said "there's already enough suffering in the world".

 

- John Laurenson, BBC News, 4 August 2007

This man was born in 1917

And he's third in line for the US presidency. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) sure does like the word 'barbaric', or maybe repetition was just way more popular back in the days before the talkies came along.



[Courtesy of Ruth]

How to speak Lawyer

'Section 13 abolished the common law offences of champerty and barratry, challenging to fight, eavesdropping or being "a common scold or a common night walker." It also repealed the offence of praemunire, which had survived on the statute books since 1392. It preserves the common law offence of embracery'

 

- Wikipedia, on the (UK) Criminal Law Act 1967

Just one little word too many

Jola, 21, au pair

'In Belsize Park, I loved the summer house.  The father was very handsome.  The mother was pretty because she'd had a little plastic surgery.  At first, she liked me but we had an argument.  She called down the stairs, "Jola, the children are calling!".  I said, "I think they are calling you".  She said, "And I expect you to go to them".  I said, "Your husband is telling me about Hong Kong.  Two minutes, please".  Then she said, "You impertinent slut".  Then upstairs, she let me hear her say she had wanted a gay man as the au pair.  I said, "And what if the gay man was also attracted to your husband?".  I should not have said "also"'.

- Metro.co.uk, 2 August 2007

Zen and the art of Dudeliness

'For me, the Dude has a certain type of wisdom. I like to call it the "Wisdom of Fingernails": the wisdom that gives you the ability to make your hair and fingernails grow, your heart beat, your bowels move. These are things that we know how to do, but we don't necessarily know how we know how to do them, yet still we do them very well. And that to me is very Dude. It's not like he's a know-it-all, the Dude. He's not a guy who has figured out the way to be or anything like that, but he is comfortable with what he's got, and, as the Stranger says, things turn out pretty well for him. I guess we can all take comfort in that because - who knows? - things may turn out pretty well for us, too'

- Jeff Bridges on The Big Lebowski, from the foreword to "I'm a Lebowski, You're a Lebowski", quoted in Guardian, 27 July 2007

[Courtesy of Louwrens]

Fair swap

'Dear USA. You have David and Victoria Beckham for the next five years. Would you please keep them? We had them here once and it was horrible. We've taken Madonna off your hands, so shall we call it square?  Yours, the Rest of the World'

 

- iPetitions