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 quote of the day

I like pigs. Dogs look up to us. Cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

– Winston S. Churchill, war leader, soldier, journalist, historian, painter and amateur pig-farmer.

Samizdata quote of the day

I suppose David Cameron never had much a chance with people like me, in that I hated him almost before he was born.

– Paul Marks

Samizdata quote of the day

It was a sensational win by a great team

– Shane Warne, discussing the Australian cricket team’s stunning final day comeback to win the second Ashes test and take a 2-0 lead in the series. On the final day, Australia’s two old and tired bowlers, Glenn McGrath and Warne himself, took a total of 42 overs, 18 maidens, 64 runs, 6 wickets, and those numbers are (in case you are wondering what on earth they signify) extremely good .

Samizdata quote for the day

“Why hate someone for the color of their skin when there are much better reasons to hate them”.

Denis Leary, comedian, actor and champion of American firefighters and emergency workers.

Samizdata quote of the day

You know, let’s not blame other people for our own mistakes.

– Nihad Awad, spokesman for the Council of Islamic-American Relations, debating the slightly unhinged Bill O’Reilly on his TV show.

Mr Awad is referring – presumably in his conveniently interchangeable capacity as an American rather than a Muslim – to recent US activity in Iraq. Nevertheless, I think the world would be an immeasurably more peaceable a place if a number of Muslims heeded his words. What’s sauce for the goose and all that.

(Via LGF)

Watermelons

Green on the outside, red on the inside.

I move that any member of this ubiquitous breed of activist shall henceforth be known as a “watermelon”.

UPDATE: members of the commentariat have alerted me to the fact that I did not devise the “watermelon” double entrendre first. Fine – consider this post a propagation of an excellent and underused meme.

Samizdata quote of the day

The overwhelming majority of theories are rejected because they contain bad explanations, not because they fail experimental tests.

– David Deutsch

Samizdata quote of the day

I’d rather be stuck in a lift with Abu Hamza than Zac Goldsmith

– Sean Gabb, at the Libertarian Alliance/Libertarian International conference today

Samizdata quote of the day

For the last couple of weeks I’ve been trying to treat my setback at work as a chance to contemplate things like The Transient And Illusory Nature Of Material Things and Attachment As The Root Of Suffering – the bits of yoga that actually matter. And today I did a fairly intensive backbending practice – perhaps not the best possible idea in the circumstances. Backbending has a tendency to be emotional-turmoil-inducing at the best of times, let alone at the end of a weekend spent brooding on the Cruelty Of Fate. Even today, though, the peace that comes from just watching the breath going in, watching the breath going out, was there eventually. Even if it was only for the last four or five breaths of a two hour practice, that’s enough.

Alan Little just breathes

Samizdata quotes of the day

Where coercive institutions are strong a fanatical minority is well placed to capture them and turn them to its own purposes.

– Natalie Solent, in this discussion, which is a an interesting touchstone of liberalism.

This would have been the Samizdata quote of the day if the Samizdata quote of the day had not already been taken

Yes indeed:

Miss Israel has been given permission not to carry her assault rifle during service in the Israeli army because she says it bruises her legs.

This has everything that a Samizdata quote of the day should have. It is about a beauty queen. It is not just something said by or about some dreary politician. Plus, guns are involved.

But: Is this decision evidence that Israel is going soft, or does it display a fine understand of the balance that must always be struck between the needs of national defence and the need not to damage that which is being defended?

And the really big problem with Russia is…

Putin, a former member of the KGB, became the leader of Russia in 1999, eight years after the fall of the USSR. Would anyone have considered it acceptable for a former member of the Gestapo to be leading West Germany in 1953?

David Emami