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These things are only more difficult because the govt has deliberately made them so. Pushing my head underwater, then giving me the option of buying an overpriced snorkel isn’t doing me any favours. – Paul, a commentator on The Register, merely the funniest of many pertinent comments on this story: ‘Boil a frog’ ID card rollout to continue until 2012. Regular readers may gather I have been a little busy today. March 6th, 2008 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. – Ronald Reagan February 29th, 2008 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
You should see an ID card like a passport in-country. – Meg Hillier MP, the minister responsible for the scheme, to the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee, today. February 26th, 2008 | 62 comments - (Comments are closed)
Surveys about happiness also show that people say they are happier when they feel their circumstances are improving. They are less likely to profess happiness in a wealthy society that is static than in a less rich society which is advancing. It is the improvement which counts, not the actual level. Jefferson rightly pointed to “the pursuit of happiness” rather than to any given level of it. Humans are not the sort to enjoy static contentment. They seek challenges and the thrill of achievement. The peaceful calm of the Lotos Eaters is not for them, and neither are the sheep-pen and the secure pasture. Those who think of happiness as needs satisfied fail to spot that those needs include challenge and change. Humans are aspirational, seeking much more than the provision of necessities. Better a human dissatisfied than a pig satisfied. – Madsen Pirie reaches 39 in his Common Errors series at the ASI Blog (he has today reached 42) February 22nd, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Most of the harm in the world is done by good people, and not by accident, lapse, or omission. It is the result of their deliberate actions, long persevered in, which they hold to be motivated by high ideals toward virtuous ends. – Isabel Paterson, The God of the Machine, 1943. February 21st, 2008 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
Some social critics go on about The Permissive Society, but what we are really facing is The Priggish Society currently being created by busybody politicians and other authority figures… Going out for a night in a bar with close friends is now denounced as “binge drinking”. Smoking an occasional joint means you are a “drug addict”. February 18th, 2008 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
Hunter did something that none of us had the guts to do – he led the kind of life that secretly all of us would like to have the guts to lead. To hell with the whole thing, just stay drunk and high and smoke and hang out and write outrageous things. He’d never lived his life on anybody else’s terms. – James Carville, chief strategist for Bill Clinton’s 1992 election campaign, on Hunter S. Thompson February 16th, 2008 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Newsreaders still feel it is worth a special and rather worrying mention if, for instance, a crime was planned by people ‘over the Internet.’ They don’t bother to mention when criminals use the telephone or the M4, or discuss their dastardly plans ‘over a cup of tea,’ though each of these was new and controversial in their day. – Douglas Adams quoted (last month but who cares?) by Kevin Marks February 15th, 2008 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
The number of county court actions for mortgage and secured loans has also risen steeply over the last few years. Between 2004 and 2006, the number of mortgage possession claims has increased by nearly 70% and the number of possession orders actually made by 94%. The number of possession actions in 2006 is now similar to that seen at the beginning of the mortgage repossession crisis in 1990. – from a Citizens Advice Bureau report just released, quoted today by Guido, who says: “Somebody should dig out that old Labour Party general election poster which blamed house repossessions on Hague and Portillo, changing the pictures to Brown and Darling. So much for an end to boom and bust …” February 14th, 2008 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
A person has only so much time allotted to him, and I hate to waste it reading tripe. I suppose that’s why I rarely listen to politicians’ speeches – why waste time that could be better spent scratching my ass? – commenter veryretired February 10th, 2008 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
I never have seen any of the Rambo movies and who knows if I ever will? Probably not. The day is always full, and they’re not on any priority list of mine. Despite all this, the latest picture from Mr Stallone has given me one moment of pleasure. How so? Well, it’s being reported here and there that the movie, in which Rambo takes on Burma’s military junta, is making an impression with some of the junta’s opponents. And this has caused Marina Hyde a moment of irritation. ‘Oh, please!’ she exclaims. I don’t know why I should take satisfaction from it. After all, I have no interest in the quality of Marina Hyde’s day; in the normal way of things I’m happy for it to be altogether fine. But there you are: opponents of the Burmese regime don’t have the name of some smug little metropolitan liberal on their lips. They enjoy seeing the discomfiture of a tyranny at the hands of … Rambo. Dearie me, how gross. February 9th, 2008 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
I’m seriously considering pitching a detective novel, about the hunt for a serial killer. The unique selling point will be that as the detective homes in on the killer, he gradually comes to sympathize with him, and ends up questioning whether he should actually collar the murderer … because the victims are all spammers. February 6th, 2008 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
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