The Hypocrisy Over MH17 Is Killing Me

The outrage over the suggestion that Russia might have provided or sold the rocket launcher that downed MH17 and killed 300 civilians is such a joke when the annual total of civilians deaths from small arms sales by the permanent members of the UNSC makes that 300 look like a blip.

My data is a little out of date, but I’m sure nothing much has changed. Here are some facts for you to consider.

1. Some 300,000 to half a million people around the world are killed by them each year. (globalissues.org 2006)

2. World military expenditure in 2012 is estimated to have reached $1.756 trillion. (globalissues.org 2012)

3. The 5 UN Security Council permanent members are generally the largest arms dealers. (globalissues.org 2013)

4. The USA is responsible for 44% of arms sales. (globalissues.org 2013)

global arms sales by country

5. Therefore, if there are between 300K – 500K people killed by small arms every year, and the USA is responsible for 44% of  arms sales, then we can assume that the USA is responsible for somewhere in the region of 176,000 deaths every year.

Remember this the next time you hear Obama or Abbott decrying Putin.

Using Evernote To Review Your Kindle Book Highlights

If you’re like me, you read a lot of books on your iPad and make lots of notes. Wouldn’t it be great to have a way to use Evernote to review those notes on a regular basis?

Here’s the method I’ve been using for grabbing Kindle notes. If you tend to read in iBooks, check out the Digested app.

1. Go to your Kindle Highlights page.

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2. Click on the book you want to review in Evernote.

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3. Then click the “You Have XX Highlighted passages” link.

Amazon_Kindle__Free_Will_and_Evernote_Premium_and_Skype

4. Click the Evernote Web Clipper in your browser. That will being up the clip menu. I save all of my book highlights to a Notebook. You can also use tags if you prefer to organise your notes that way.

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You will end up with all of your notes available to quickly review in Evernote.  If you’ve got a lot of books in Kindle, this might take a while. But if you then continue to do this after you finish a new book, it only takes a minute.

Amaze your friends at parties with your ability to quickly pull up pertinent points for a debate!

Australia – The Outlaw Nation

According to the SMH, the Abbott Federal Government’s position on sending asylum seekers back to Sri Lanka is against the law.

Australian international law experts have uniformly condemned Australia’s return of asylum seekers to Sri Lanka as a violation of international law that risks sending vulnerable people back to persecution and torture.

 

So how could this happen? How does a government break the law? As far as I can tell, there are only a few reasonable explanations.

1. They are completely inept.

2. They aren’t inept but don’t have any lawyers on staff to advise them about such actions, nor did they consult an external law firm.

3. They knew they were breaking the law – but didn’t care.

As much as I suspect our Prime Minister is a complete dickhead, I don’t think he or his team are completely inept or stupid, so the only reasonable explanation is option 3 – they knew they were breaking the law but didn’t care.

This leads me to wonder what the implications are when the government deliberately and knowingly breaks the law – does it mean that the concept of “law” is now invalid for the rest of us? Do we live in a lawless land? Are we an outlaw nation? If the government that is there to create laws willingly snubs its nose at the law, doesn’t this somehow mean the whole system of law is now void?

How can a government simultaneously insist that the population obeys the laws of the nation while it willfully breaks international law?

 

leunig

Heritage Corporate

About 21 or 22 years ago, Michael and I worked together in the financial services industry. We started on the same day, working for a company that has long since disappeared. It was the first sales role either of us ever had. Our manager was completely insane and the two guys that owned the company were pretty dodgy. So after about a year, Michael quit and took a job working for a guy called Rupert (not *that* Rupert). These days Mike runs the business – Heritage Corporate. They do Buy & Sell side advisory – a boutique firm that specialised in buying and selling transport businesses. We just re-built their website. It’s great to see old friends go from success to success although I can’t imagine working in the one business for twenty years. I think in that same time I’ve probably had ten different jobs.

heritage corporate