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

The political system tends to lag behind technological change, which is often a good thing. I remember attending a House subcommittee hearing in the 1980s on whether the U.S. should create a phone-computer system modeled on the state-funded French Minitel, a text-only network being promoted as the wave of the future. Fortunately, the Internet exploded – making Minitel obsolete – before Congress could fund such a project.

Glenn Harlan Reynolds reviewing this book

Samizdata quote of the day

If Nazi Germany was fascism by radio, New Labour is the corporate state by television.

Colin MacCabe, writing in the Observer, on why he has left the Labour Party.

Samizdata quote of the day

Meanwhile, you’ve got how many (admittedly very stupid) Australians in Indonesian prisons for something like 20 years on drug charges? So I guess the message here is kill some infidels and you’ll get two years with time off for good behavior, have a couple tabs of ecstasy on you and you’ll do 20 years in a third world prison.
Hank Scorpio

Samizdata quote of the day


Take my love, take my land, take me where I cannot stand.
I don’t care, I’m still free. You can’t take the sky from me.
Take me out to the black. Tell ’em I ain’t comin’ back.
Burn the land and boil the sea. You can’t take the sky from me.
Have no place I can be since I found Serenity
But you can’t take the sky from me.

– Joss Whedon

Bollocks to Blair

What does this, have in common with this,
and this?

What’s different is also interesting. The police being used as as an instrument to suppress peaceful political dissent is one thing, but their doing it on their own initiative is if anything more worrying.

Stockholm syndrome?

One cannot say, in general, that there should be more
or less legislation: that is for governments to
decide. If the present volume of legislation is
causing problems at the various stages of the
legislative process – and all our evidence confirms
that this is so – the first requirement is not a
reduction in that volume, but improvements in the
process at those stages where it is under strain. The
kitchen should be big enough and properly equipped to
satisfy the legislative appetite.

Making the Law, Hansard Society, 1993.

So much for separation of powers in the view of serious British parliamentarians.

Pledge of allegiance

I pledge allegiance to the curve
Of supply and demand in equilibrium
And to the principle for which it stands
Market pricing, with low transaction costs
Yields utility and profit for all

– Commenter thoreau, at Hit and Run.

Samizdata quote of the day

For centuries, philosophers and poets have tried to understand what happiness is, and what might contribute to it. In recent decades, scientists have started to come up with the answers. Happiness is electrical activity in the left front part of the brain, and it comes from getting married, getting friends, getting rich, and avoiding communism.

Johan Norberg

Samizdata quote of the day

In an interview for the New York Daily News in 1997, the actor and entertainer Clint Eastwood explained how the world would change if politicians adopted a flat tax:

“All of a sudden, what do you have? You have the whole tax system run by a little old lady on a home computer, doing the work of all these thousands of bureaucrats and accountants. Passing that would be amazing, wouldn’t it?”

Go ahead, Gordon. Make our day.

Matthew Elliott

Samizdata quote of the day

In fact, the only fun and spontaneous bit was booing Livingstone, but I assume that was edited out. If those feet in ancient times really did walk upon England’s mountains green, they’d have found themselves with Sue Barker sticking a microphone in their countenance divine…
Pete

For our Trans-Atlantic brethren who do not get the reference, the words of the hymn Jerusalem can he found here or hear it here (Real Audio required).

Samizdata quote of the day

I could not tread these perilous paths in safety, if I did not keep a saving sense of humour
– Horatio Nelson

Samizdata quote of the day

In, you know, the first year in law school we all read the decision in Calder against Bull, which has the famous statement that the government may not take the property of A and give it to B
Judge John G. Roberts, discussing the Kelo ruling.