MEME MAKING

^{No. This blog is NOT only about news and politics anymore. Stop asking and visit www.warragulcitizen.com.}

I have an awesome friend called Karrin.

Karrin is the proud mother (totally not adoptive) of an awesome cat called Nala.

The human race could learn a lot from Nala; she has a love for everything, no matter what it is.

Want proof? Here it is, straight from Karrin’s camera:

Such is Nala’s love for all things, she will hug a cactus to prove we must feel the same way about the world.

For the cactus’ future.

For OUR future.

I feel such an important figure in the rise of our morally superior feline overlords should be immortalised, and what better way to immortalise a cat then by captioning its photograph!

Here is one to slip in your wallet to remind you not to buy that piece of cow meat or environmentally destructive cactus scented shampoo:

This one’s for those who need to be antagonised into doing hard things; I suggest hanging it in front of your treadmill or mounting it on your pushbike:

There is a problem in immortalising a cat in such a way though:

You can find Karrin’s Tumblr here: http://inakarr.tumblr.com/

Aaaaaaand you can follow me on Twitter here: http://twitter.com/#!/onecuckoosnest

Introducing the Absolutely Fabulous ad of the week!

_{Yes, this IS the blog that once brought you politics and news. If you’re still after that head over to www.warragulcitizen.com.}

The 1950s was a time of dull fashion, dull schooling, dull city planning* and dull politics. How did the population manage to muddle through their dull existence without the urge to throw their dull selves under a dull truck?

Luckily for the  people of the 1950s Fab washing detergent was there to make sure that their colours weren’t dull. However their ads ironically made for dull (and startlingly sexist) television.

_{[1952 Fab ad on YouTube below. Click play to play.]}

Check out their (f)abs!

So even though your dull PM was making dull speeches about dull education in his dull suit in the dull capital city, you could still be happy your clothes were that little bit more radiant than those of the next person. Just grab Fab!

… but make sure that Fab is consenting.

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*A lot of development of Canberra was completed or started in the 1950s.

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Trovebots attack!

This is yet another stretched comparison from my conspiratorial mind. (The last one was that Gillard v Meme picture – a bit less tangible than this one!)

There is a disturbing similarity between the new logo of the National Library of Australia’s Trove project and the symbol of the Autobots from Transformers.

Don’t believe me? Well let that be on your head when a self-aware copy of The Argus is flying at you faster than a wet fish!

They said I was mad when I warned that the old books and newsreel tapes were conspiring against us, but who’s laughing now!!!!

I have already alerted the police.

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Don’t forget to check out my new shindig – www.warragulcitizen.com (It’s where all my good stuff gone!)

Don’t be a burke – here’s the key to Locke

I saw the picture below on political reporter Latika Bourke’s Twitter last week:

This picture from one of the occupy protests seems silly, as Ms Bourke was sure to point out with her caption “um”, but there is actually a legitimate philosophical grounding for the sign’s statement that goes to the core of US political organisation.

To see it we have to go back to 17^th and 18^th century England and the wealthy political philosopher John Locke. Locke was one of the founders of liberalism; in his ideal world all people are free and equal, the government has little to no intervention in daily life and taxes require the direct consent of the people.

Locke’s ideas of property rights were also ground-breaking; he argued that each person should only take as much as they needed and leave as much and as good for everyone else. In other words, only take what you can take without waste and always leave something for everyone else. (It’s actually a little more complex than that but I want to keep the word count down!)

Lovely idea! Except that Locke’s wealth got in the way of his philosophy.

That rule that you can only take as much as you need is called the (rule) of spoilage. The example of this rule given to my first year political philosophy class was picking apples – take as many as you can eat so long as you don’t take so many that some rot. Locke argued that because money does not rot, (and a few other logistical reasons that allowed this concession to fit with his theory,) money should be exempt from this rule.

So according to Locke you can only have as much of anything as you need, except for money which you can have unlimited quantities of. This means that in Locke’s world the wealthy can remain wealthy.

You might be asking what a 17^th century English philosopher has to do with 21^st century America, but there is a direct link: The libertarian principals of Locke’s works are cited the major philosophical base of the American Revolution.

So America is a country founded on the principals of the man who validated unlimited money in a free and equal society. The sign doesn’t seem so silly now, hey!

I admit that I don’t know if the sign was intentionally a deep political statement or coincidental hippy mumbo jumbo, but the suggestion is surprisingly well grounded. Maybe Ms Bourke is just being too Burkean to see that.

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