Samizdata

Now I party with petrochemicals like it’s 1999!

– Glenn Reynolds, taking his environmental responsibilities seriously.

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!

There may have been disillusionments in the lives of the medieval saints, but they would scarcely have been better pleased if they could have foreseen that their names would be associated nowadays chiefly with racehorses and the cheaper clarets.

– Saki (aka H. Munro).

If you have not read any Saki, well you should repair that omission immediately. Many people, including PG Wodehouse, Noel Coward, Evelyn Waugh and others were inspired by the brilliant, cruel wit of Saki. I have my old friend and intellectual mentor, the late Chris R. Tame, to thank for encouraging me to read Saki. If you are ever in need of cheering up, read any one of Saki’s short stories. Absolute magic.

Kissing the jackboot gets you kicked, not loved

– Triinu Saar

Is using perfectly legal methods of minimising tax right? The answer is no.

– Andrew Pendleton, a senior campaigner at Christian Aid

The threat posed by humans to the natural environment is nothing compared to the threat to humans posed by global environmental policy

– Fred L. Smith