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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“The more corrupt the state, the more numerous the laws.”
– Tacitus
“The man must be presumed innocent until proven guilty, and in any event, there is still some chance that the whole sordid affair turns out to have been a political set-up, in which case he might even emerge from this bizarre scandal with credit and sympathy. Yet it is about time Europe’s ownership of the International Monetary Fund, and particularly France’s apparently divine right to the top job, was brought to a close. If Mr Strauss-Kahn’s nemesis in a New York hotel room loosens Europe’s grip, then that may be no bad thing. Whatever the truth of otherwise of the allegations, Mr Strauss-Kahn’s spectacular fall from grace is widely seen as a near catastrophe both for the IMF and the delicate negotiations around further rescue packages for the stricken eurozone periphery. This it is definitively not. To the contrary, it might even bring about a rethink of the currently doomed strategy of throwing good money after bad.”
– Jeremy Warner
When a man is tired of ITV4 he is tired of life.
– Patrick Crozier.
I eagerly await Amnesty’s Human Rights Action Centre being turned over to the BNP for a debate on how changing demographics in England are depleting national pride
– Michael Weiss
Superb.
“Anybody visiting the Middle East in the last decade has had the experience: meeting the hoarse and aggressive person who first denies that Osama Bin Laden was responsible for the destruction of the World Trade Center and then proceeds to describe the attack as a justified vengeance for decades of American imperialism.”
– Christopher Hitchens on Noam Chomsky.
Texan wine is actually quite good – on a par with Californian
– Philip Chaston
“At the moment, I am very pessimistic about the prospects for the United States solving its fiscal problems without a crisis. Given that we have divided government, a reasonable long-term budget will require a compromise. But the two sides seem to live in alternate universes. The Republicans’ alternate universe is based on the belief that government spending ought not to exceed its historical average of about 20 percent of GDP. You can’t get future spending down to that level, however, without really major cuts in future spending on Social Security and Medicare. Much as I would like to see those programs phased out completely, neither I or nor anybody else can claim to have won an election on that platform. The Democrats’ alternate universe is based on (a) the belief that the rich are not paying their share of taxes and (b) with Obamacare passed, the rise in health care spending as a share of GDP is as good as arrested. So they see no need to change the status quo on entitlements.”
– Arnold Kling.
I think a crisis is coming. And maybe, in a spirit of schadenfreude, we can finally prove the truth of Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine”, but not in a way she approves of.
Some people are just neurotically sceptical. But even they won’t deny what is before their eyes. Is there anyone who seriously questions the fact that Saddam Hussein is dead? That’s the way to do things these days. Don’t launch a bloody, decade defining series of wars and then refuse to release photos of a dead body, or better still display the actual body, because you’re worried it’ll upset people. Shoot the ****** in the head on camera then release it on youtube.
– Commenter ub313 on Ed West‘s Daily Telegraph site blog
It is only those who hope to transform human beings who end up by burning them, like the waste product of a failed experiment.
– Christopher Hitchens, as seen in this excellent article about the great man, written by Martin Amis
It’s kind of jumbled, but putting together what the Democrats are saying now and what actually happened in the past, I gather that their economic “plan” is to somehow organize another bubble so that some people will make a lot of money and then tax the hell out of these people, which will then eliminate the deficit and also pay for all their programs, present and future.
– commenter “Hagar” here
Gordon Brown as the next head of the IMF? What a splendid idea – at least as long as Charlie Sheen is not available.
– Detlev Schlichter
“If any place should be concerned with a robot takeover, it is the red-light district.”
– PW Singer, Wired For War, page 419.
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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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