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]

Samizdata slogan of the day

What kind of world is it when, in sheer self-defence, you have to Fisk your own newspaper articles?
– Brian Micklethwait (in an article earlier today)

Samizdata slogan of the day

You don’t need a government to tell you when you’ve gone too far. There’s no greater deterrent for a comedian than stone silence.
– Mike Myers

The reason not much blogging got done today…

…was that a large proportion of the Samizdata Team were distracted by Antoine Clarke’s birthday party in London!

Antoine blows his cork!

Adriana and Brian look on as David Carr
does his mushroom cloud impersonation

Samizdata slogan of the day

A man in New York City is suing McDonalds, Burger King, Wendy’s and KFC, saying they have made him fat. He is also suing Victoria Secret for making him play with himself.
– Jay Leno

Samizdata slogan of the day

Everybody, soon or late, sits down to a banquet of consequences.
-Robert Louis Stevenson

Samizdata slogan of the day

Never become mired in defending an unworkable idea out of some misguided ego or machismo motivation. Cut your losses and move on.
– James C. Freund

Samizdata slogan of the day

Most people would rather die than think; in fact, they do so.
– Bertrand Russell

Samizdata slogan of the day

Democracy consists of choosing your dictators, after they’ve told you what you think it is you want to hear.
– Alan Corenk

RSPCA: Royal Society for the Persecution of Countryside Activities

‘Animal rights’ campaigners of the RSPCA were themselves the target of protests by rural activists who are having their entire way of life criminalised.

But the fact is, the establishment will not take any notice of well mannered protests by people from the leafy shires. Of course there is indeed an established template for a minority-within-a-minority group in the British Isles to successfully defeat a majoritarian tyranny, provided you are willing to fight your corner for many years.

Sadly that template is Sinn Fein, the ‘political wing’ of the Provisional IRA: if the deck is stacked against you, play the game by different rules, a fact that has not been lost on some of the members of the Countryside Alliance’s splinter factions… and those ‘splinters’ are rather larger than many care to admit.

Samizdata slogan of the day

Indeed the Idols I have loved so long
Have done my Credit in men’s Eyes much wrong:
Have drown’d my Honour in a shallow Cup,
And sold my Reputation for a Song
– The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam, 69, First Edition

Samizdata slogan of the day

The constant expansion of the market, both in extensiveness and in intensity, was the result of an absence of a political order extending over the whole of Western Europe
– Jean Baechler, The Origins of Capitalism

Samizdata slogan of the day

Gun control? It’s the best thing you can do for crooks and gangsters. I want you to have nothing. If I’m a bad guy, I’m always gonna have a gun. Safety locks? You’ll pull the trigger with a lock on, and I’ll pull the trigger. We’ll see who wins.
– Sammy ‘The Bull’ Gravano, Mafia hit man