It is inaccurate to say that I hate everything. I am strongly in favour of common sense, common honesty, and common decency. This makes me forever ineligible for public office.
– H. L. Mencken
|
|||||
|
Freedom is not feeling like an outcast in the face of mainstream consensus. – Adriana Lukas at the Apeldoorn conference in the Hague June 3rd, 2007 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
 June 2nd, 2007 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
“It is not the State that creates a healthy society. When the State grows too powerful people feel they count for less and less. The State drains society, not only of its wealth but also of initiative, of energy, the will to improve and innovate as well as to preserve what is best. Our aim is to let people feel that they count for more and more.” – Margaret Thatcher, 10 October, 1980. Taken from the rather good tome, Great British Speeches, a collection compiled by Simon Heffer. Perhaps out of an impish desire to annoy, the book contains Blair’s ghastly and embarrassing ‘forces of conservatism’ speech, perhaps the ugliest statement of political authoritarianism in recent British political history. May 30th, 2007 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies – Groucho Marx May 29th, 2007 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce. – Karl Marx It must be plain to the historicist that Tinky Winky is such a personage. First, as supporting character in the American tragedy of Jerry Fallwell; now as a causus belli in the farcical end of Polish ultra-Catholicism. The trouble is, Marx – or at least that Marx) had it wrong, as usual. It is always farce and tragedy at the same time. May 28th, 2007 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
I like to feel that programs get on to my computer at my invitation, rather than barging past me into the living room and demanding to know where the drinks are. – Charles Arthur on the Word 2007 converter. Which goes for all sorts of institutions and people. If someone is prepared to explain themselves, gives us an alternative, recognises our autonomy, then we incline to trust them simply because they have shown they understand that there is trust involved. May 24th, 2007 | 37 comments - (Comments are closed)
He [Michael Moore] travels to London to show off the beauty and brilliance of the British National Health Service. He talks to an unstressed doctor who has a four bedroom house in Greenwich and a £100,000 salary from the NHS. He films empty waiting rooms and happy, care-free health workers. He even talks to Tony Benn about how this wonderful marvel came into existence in 1948. What he hasn’t done is lie in a corridor all night at the Royal Free watching his severed toe disintegrate in a plastic cup of melted ice. I have. – James Christopher, reviewing Michael Moore’s film Sicko in the Times. May 21st, 2007 | 51 comments - (Comments are closed)
Now I party with petrochemicals like it’s 1999! – Glenn Reynolds, taking his environmental responsibilities seriously. May 18th, 2007 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
It seemed to me that on one side you had representatives of a fanatical cult trying to foist its views on the rest of the world and on the other… the Church of Scientology. Truly, they deserve one another. May 17th, 2007 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is already settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agrees on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had. “Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. “Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus. – Michael Crichton on dangers of ‘consensus science’ in a 2003 speech, quoted in an article about global warming. thanks Ben! May 16th, 2007 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Vote Blue” the Tories say, “Go Green” – Sean Gabb. To see him on 18 Doughty Street discussing the Resignation of Tony Blair, go here. May 14th, 2007 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||