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]
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‘Chemical Ali’ is dead at the age of 64, killed in a true ‘coalition’ attack: blown apart by an American bomb called in by a British forward air controller. He has now gone to join the unquiet ghosts of the 200,000+ Kurdish and Iraqi people whose murder he was personally responsible for supervising. Two hundred thousand people… that would be as if Janet Reno had ordered about 2,600 Waco massacres.
There are several intellectually viable reasons for opposing this war but I assume that the anti-war protestors who marched against it on the grounds that the cost to Iraq’s people would be intolerable will be distraught to learn of his death, as this fine specimen of humanity would still be alive today if they had gotten their way, continuing to ply his dark trade across that unhappy land called Iraq.
I would spit in a million of their faces if I could because the perpetuation in power of ‘Chemical Ali’ and his evil brethren was the reality of what they were marching for.
There has been some speculation about why the Australian military contribution to the war in Iraq has not received anything like the coverage that the American (obviously) and British forces have.
Well the reasons are twofold: firstly, the size of the force is a great deal smaller as it is made up of the elite Australian Special Air Service (which is operating in conjunction with their British SAS and American Delta Force & SEAL counterparts)… and secondly the fact they are special forces means operational security is paramount. The Aussies are famous in Special Forces circles for their ability to survive without resupply for long periods of time, something very useful when operating behind enemy lines. Just how they do this is a closely guarded secret.
However there is another more… puzzling… aspect to the lack of news, considering the Australians are the only group to invite the Al-Jazeera TV channel to embed journalists with them. A recently broadcast signal from a Australian SAS unit ‘somewhere in Iraq’ made mention that they had run out of embedded journalists and could they send a couple more out, preferably less stringy ones this time. It is unclear what the significance of that last remark was.
On March 28, 1797 Nathaniel Briggs patented a rotary clothes washing machine, thereby doing more for female liberation than any bunch of screeching, anti-male, feminist harpies you could name.
We have got the war we argued for. Now we who called for it can only pray that the cost is not too terrible for the soldiers of the United States and Britain, nor of course for the long suffering hapless people of Iraq. At this moment of truth for the Anglosphere I have very few words of my own right now that do not stick in my throat, so I will just quote Julia Ward Howe’s famous song (large file) that was also sung at the funeral of Winston Churchill.
Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored,
He has loosed the fateful lightening of His terrible swift sword
His truth is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps
l can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps
His day is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnish’d rows of steel,
“As ye deal with my contemners, So with you my grace shall deal;”
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel
Since God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat
He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment-seat
Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! be jubilant, my feet!
Our God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
In the beauty of the lilies Christ was born across the sea,
With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me:
As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free,
While God is marching on.
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
His truth is marching on.
God speed, Gentlemen.
On March 6, 1950 the first egg of Silly Putty was sold.
Michael Moore is just like P. J. O’Rourke, only without the wit, the humour and the insight
– Tom Burroughes
The government announced today that it is changing its emblem to a condom because it more clearly reflects the government’s political stance. A condom stands up to inflation, halts production, destroys the next generation, protects a bunch of pricks and gives you a sense of security while you are actually being screwed. Damn, it just doesn’t get more accurate than that!
– Anonymous
On February 25, 1836 Samuel Colt patented his revolver. “God made man, Colt made them equal”
We certainly have seen the results of appeasement. It is much easier to tolerate a dictator when he is dictating over somebody else’s life and not your own.
– Latvian President Vaira Vike-Freiberga in response to Jaques Chirac’s outburst.
When people fear the government, there is tyranny. When government fears the people, there is liberty
-Thomas Paine
Here are four pieces of advice. The first two are evil, the last is prudent
and the third is, um, British I suppose.
– James Knowles
We shall know what we go to Mars for, only after we get there. You might as well ask Columbus why he wasted his time discovering America when he could have been improving the methods of Spanish sheep-farming. It is lucky that the U.S. government like Queen Isabella is willing to pay for the ships.
– Freeman Dyson, letter to his parents, 19 May 1958
though it is a pity the US and other governments also crowd out private space business alternatives
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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