We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

Taken apart

One of the great things about the blog phenomenon is that it gives we humble writers the chance to subject the frequently idiotic views of newspaper columnists to systematic criticism. In the past, the best we could hope for would be a letter published in an editorial page. Blogs often contain line-by-line dissections of an article which shred an argument in a way that reminds me of a particularly rigorous university seminar.

Step forward Pejman Yousefzadeh for this brilliantly detailed take-down of Brian Whitaker, a writer for the British daily, the Guardian, who wrote a sneering piece about the website MEMRI, a site charting the often violently anti-semitic content of certain Arabic-speaking newspapers. The wretched Whitaker, in accusing MEMRI of being a shady organisation and therefore of dubious value, only fuels precisely the kind of mindset which MEMRI is determined to highlight. Pejman’s piece of Fisking is a must-read.

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