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]

I know the armed forces are underpaid but…

Depending on the deals, could we see personnel queuing up to be arrested by the Iranians so that they could subsequently sell their story?

‘Lilotes’

Samizdata put-down of the day

This is just too damn funny not to draw people’s attention to:

[Y]ou have raised so many straw men in that comment you are probably eligible for some sort of agricultural subsidy.

– Commenter ‘Squawkbox’

Samizdata quote of the day

How do you tell a Communist? Well, it’s someone who reads Marx and Lenin. And how do you tell an anti-Communist? It’s someone who understands Marx and Lenin.

– Ronald Reagan

Government failure

The EU is going to ban ordinary lightbulbs because we are making the wrong choices and not buying the energy efficient ones. And who’s to blame for poor sales of the more efficient ones? The EU.

Samizdata quote of the day

Civitas – otherwise the most authoritative and radical of modern policy institutes… has published the longest petition of intellectual bankruptcy I have read in years. I do most strongly urge David Green to withdraw this book at once and remove it from the Civitas catalogue.

Sean Gabb, reviewing Danny Krueger’s new book On Fraternity: Politics beyond Liberty and Equality

Samizdata quote of the day

“At some point, I think I would like to get out and found a much smaller business. I’d like to start with perhaps two or three billion dollars, and go from there.”

– Michael Jennings’ dinner companion this evening, who was admittedly nice enough to pay the bill at the end of the meal.

Apropos nothing… my favourite phrase in a song

Behold the depths of your innermost soul
A Minotaur walking in endless despair
Mythical like a dream
Invisible like a soft breath of wind

Bel Canto, Time without end.

I suppose I just cannot bring myself to give a damn about what is happening in the news today.

Samizdata quote of the day

Make Ken Livingston carbon neutral… stop him breathing

– Overheard at a Samizdata party the other day

Samizdata quote of the day

None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free

– Johann von Goethe. Truly words that should resonate in this age of the democratic centrist regulatory total state in which the majority actively collaborate with their own repression.

Samizdata quote of the day

Some libertarians act as if the thing that was wrong with Auschwitz was that it was a state enterprise rather than a public/private partnership

– Antoine Clarke

Samizdata quote of the day

Guns cause violence, like flies cause garbage

– Zink Mitchell

Samizdata quote of the day

Buying ‘Carbon Offsets’ is the 21st-century equivalent of buying Papal Indulgences – a salve to the consciences of the deluded for having committed an entirely fictitious sin dreamed up – rather conveniently – by the indulgence-peddlers themselves. A ‘Sin of Emission’, one could say…

– Commenter Tanuki