Raw Meat is a quoteblog by Aaron Swartz.

‘The FDA got caught with their pants down,’ said Thomas Margolis, a pelvic surgeon from Burlingame, California.

There are a lot of people I dislike in the world. I mean, a lot. I don’t follow any of them on Twitter.

Last year a former Apple employee related his favorite Steve Jobs story to me. I have no way of knowing if it is true, so take it for what it’s worth. I think it nicely captures the man who changed the world four times over. When engineers working on the very first iPod completed the prototype, they presented their work to Steve Jobs for his approval. Jobs played with the device, scrutinized it, weighed it in his hands, and promptly rejected it. It was too big.

The engineers explained that they had to reinvent inventing to create the iPod, and that it was simply impossible to make it any smaller. Jobs was quiet for a moment. Finally he stood, walked over to an aquarium, and dropped the iPod in the tank. After it touched bottom, bubbles floated to the top.

“Those are air bubbles,” he snapped. “That means there’s space in there. Make it smaller.”

automation reduces institutional knowledge.

If you love our country you are national, and if you love our people you are socialist.

President Bush was criticized this week for not having a clear stance on the Middle East crisis. You know what? Good. The only people with a very clear stance on the Middle East are the crazy people in the Middle East. I’ve had it with all of them. Yasir Arafat? Don’t talk to us in English and say, “I agree to a ceasefire,” and then turn around in Arabic and be like, “Hassan, let’s do this.” O.K.? We’re onto you. We’ve got like two bilingual C.I.A. guys now. We know what you’re saying. And Sharon? When you’re storming West Bank towns and bulldozing people’s homes? Try not to look like ya love it. ’Cause ya kinda look like ya love it.

After parcel post service was introduced in 1913, at least two children were sent by the service. With stamps attached to their clothing, the children rode with railway and city carriers to their destination. The Postmaster General quickly issued a regulation forbidding the sending of children in the mail after hearing of those examples.

Smithsonian

I feel this one caption raises so many questions.

You’ve got potential, kid, more potential than any wizard I’ve ever seen, but you’ve got to learn how to use it, you know? Be a bit sweeter to them, learn some spells to clean up that mess you call hair. Above all, you need to hide your evilness better - not too well, but better. Nice well-groomed boys get girls, and Dark Wizards also get girls, but nice well-groomed boys suspected of being secretly Dark get more girls than you can imagine -