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Samizdata.  Eleven years. Blimey. Many thanks to all the contributors for 14,148 articles and to the commentariat for just under a quarter of a million comments. Hopefully before the end of the year we might (maybe, perhaps, possibly) have a new improved Samizdata (hi Alec!) with new red knobs and extra added fiddly bits. November 2nd, 2012 | 42 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The deeper truth masked by all the ranting – and, it should be added, by the blinkers of many Western secularists – is that Christians are targeted in greater numbers than any other faith group on earth. About 200 million church members (10 per cent of the global total) face discrimination or persecution: it just isn’t fashionable to say so. October 30th, 2012 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
To be sure, all governments since the invention of papyrus have had cause to fear leaks, and all modern British governments have known that after 50, or 30, or 20 years most official paper will be released to the public. But when these documents were generated, their authors knew – or thought they knew – that, in principle, they were secure until that release. Their premature disclosure could not be ordered by an information commissioner or tribunal. Without such security, there can be no honesty. It is simple: if you fear your private communication will be laid before the world, you will write it quite differently, or not at all. So the effect of FoI is to promote dishonesty and concealment. I pity any biographer of any prime minister from Tony Blair onwards. He or she will not be short of government paper. Thanks to the computer’s power of infinite reproduction and the advent of the email (to whose implications, by the way, FoI gave no thought), he will drown in material. Because of the cant in which modern administrative documents are expressed, words like “openness” and “transparency” will be spattered over thousands of pages. But there will be no such openness or transparency. The big decisions will all have been made in whispers in a corridor, or abbreviated in a text message. To find out what happened, the biographer will have to rely solely on the fallible memory of elderly ex-ministers and officials. October 19th, 2012 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
We work hard to create a community everyone can enjoy and which also enables people to express different opinions. This can be a challenge because what’s OK in one country can be offensive elsewhere. This video – which is widely available on the Web – is clearly within our guidelines and so will stay on YouTube – YouTube Official Statement. Bravo YouTube! October 15th, 2012 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’m not looking to cut massive taxes and to reduce the revenues going to the government. October 11th, 2012 | 47 comments - (Comments are closed)
According to Ramadan, writes Ahmari, “the American government and ‘powerful American corporations’ nurtured the young activists who triggered the Arab Spring as a way of ‘opening up Arab markets and integrating the region into the global economy’.” This analysis is magnificent in its idiocy. It is radiant, luminescent, in its absurdity. What on earth do “powerful American corporations” know about bringing down a totalitarian regime like Moammar Qaddafi’s in Libya, a military dictatorship like Hosni Mubarak’s in Egypt, or the sectarian Soviet-style creature that the Assad family hatched upon the people of Syria? Why on earth would “powerful American corporations” care about Egypt? There’s no money to be made there. Half the country lives on less than two dollars a day. It consumes little and exports nothing of value. India, China, and Brazil are serious emerging markets, but Egypt? Come on. And what corporate boardroom worth half a damn would waste time even discussing the “nurturing” of activists in a backwater like Yemen? Yemen, from the corporate point of view, is off-planet. And consider dropping your mouse on his ‘donate’ button to fund his excellent work. Worth every Penny, Cent, Yen, Renminbi, Piastre, Swiss Franc, Crown or Groat you throw his way. October 10th, 2012 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
It would be fair to say us folks at Samizdata can be depended on to oppose state subsidies for, well, almost everything. But when I read this:
My immediate response was “awesome! Now spend some tax money for their air fares to encourage the fuckers to leave sooner rather than later!”. The departure of rent seeking tax farming parasites is rarely a bad thing for the people whose taxes are being farmed. So happy trails, guys! October 8th, 2012 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
If Hobsbawm had been an unrepentant Nazi, I doubt he’d be getting so many tributes. Strange how that works out. – Samizdata commenter ‘Vinegar Joe’ October 4th, 2012 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
These are the facts. George W Bush left behind a set of books that were not so much unbalanced as vertiginous. At the end of 2008, US debt was $9.9 trillion, or 69.7 per cent of GDP, and the ballooning deficit was $683 billion. Since then, all the key indicators have worsened markedly. By the end of this year, gross debt is forecast to reach $16.3 trillion (the number to which Letterman was alluding), more than 100 per cent of GDP, or a rise of two thirds under Obama. The annual deficit is close to $1.5 trillion, 10 per cent of GDP. Worse still, according to official forecasts, US debt is on course to hit $20 trillion by 2016. September 24th, 2012 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
David Leigh thinks that broadband needs to be taxed to keep him in his job at The Guardian:
In case you do not know (and why should you in this age of a multiplicity of news sources?), The Guardian is a very pro-statist dead tree newspaper. I was going to explain what I thought of this notion but I will instead just quote the first commenter I saw who replied, someone calling themselves ‘romandavid’:
Quite. Moreover I have looked over some articles by David Leigh and it is unclear where this ‘great journalism’ is that so desperately needs protection. It is bad enough we have to pay for the crap on the BBC whether we watch it or not. September 23rd, 2012 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
As a young and naive man, I “knew” what was right and voted accordingly. As I grew older and more sophisticated, I discovered such things as tactical voting and a perceived duty to support the election of the least-worst option with the best chance of victory, regardless of how slim the differences might be. Now, middle-aged and faced with the consequences of those decades of “enlightened pragmatism”, I once again find myself voting my conscience, while turning a deaf ear to the blandishments of the machine. I have a vague notion that this sounds like some Buddhist proverb, or something. – Samizdata commenter ‘the other rob’, who seems to be on a roll lately. September 20th, 2012 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Romney is no Thatcher – in truth, he’s far from it. It made sense for the unemployed back then to vote Thatcher because she offered an alternative to the headlong rush to destruction. Sadly, Romney may be correct – what sense would it make for today’s unemployed to vote for a marginally slower slide into the abyss? – Samizdata commenter ‘the other rob’ September 19th, 2012 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
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