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]
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We bit off more than we could chew. They were just Cockney barrow boy spivs. Total thugs. I’ve never seen anyone less amenable to listening to our point of view.
– An unnamed member of a group of Greenpeace activists, who failed to stop trading on the International Petroleum Exchange yesterday, but who did succeed in having the crap beaten out of them by traders.
(Link via Tim Blair)
Freedom of speech makes it much easier to spot the idiots.
– Jay Lessig, quoted in the Wall Street Journal’s Best of the Web.
As an ugly woman, I totally agree with everything that Brian is saying. However, Pynksparx, you are a bitchass and me and my posse are coming to kick your ass. I may be ugly as sin, hairy and around 200lbs, but at least I own my own corporation, have a cushy 6 figure job at another corporation, am rich, and YOU’RE NOT.
– Brian’s Culture Blog (and Brian’s Education Blog come to that) is still non-functioning for new postings, but old postings can still be reached via the archives and can still receive comments. That, from “Tali”, concerning an August 23rd 2003 posting tactfully entitled Why expensive clothes rescue ugly men but not ugly women is the Culture Blog’s most recent comment.
People love to demonize greedy bosses who don’t care for their workers. However, after going through this bout of downsizing my company, I know that my surviving employees are not unhappy about the change, because it was accompanied by a renewed sense of discipline and focus. Employees – or, at least, my employees – have understood and responded positively to their boss’ determination to succeed financially. A boss who tolerates low financial returns will not deliver the wherewithal to provide raises and job security. In retrospect, my biggest sin was not in laying people off during my bout of downsizing – despite the pain involved – but in not demanding enough of them or myself previously. In short, I should have been more greedy … I would have been more socially useful.
– Friedrich Blowhard last Saturday, in the course of explaining why he has been obliged to stop blogging for a while
Funny that the same people to whom diversity is a holy word so often bemoan diversity of opinion as divisive. But in a democracy, politics are naturally divisive: you vote for this candidate and someone else votes for that one; you vote yes (or no) on a proposition and other citizens disagree. What’s not divisive? Saddam and his 99.96% of the vote. That’s how it went during the previous Iraqi election – an illustration of the Latin roots of the word fascism, which actually means a bunch of sticks all tied together in one big unhappy unified bunch, and not (despite what many assume) any variation from p.c. received-wisdom regarding gay rights, affirmative action, bilingual education, etc. This election was different because it was divisive, which means it was better.
– Cathy Seipp
By all means, wear pyjamas in the privacy of your own bedroom. Wear them round your own house, even. But I am frankly disturbed that the art of dressing oneself has transmogrified these days into a competition to see who looks most like they got their clothes out of a recycling bin. We don’t all have to look like the poor and starving in order to persuade others that we care. It’s a big lefty trend, and now is the time to reclaim the clothing-sphere as something capable of expressing more valuable ideas than, “I wouldn’t wear a Gucci suit if you paid me.” Improving your style isn’t about getting different writing on your t-shirt. It’s about conveying who you really are. You are not a sack of potatoes.
– Alice Bachini last Sunday (good to see she still knows how to spell pyjamas)
For you to ask advice on the rules of love is no better than to ask advice on the rules of madness
– Terence
“We’re reckless arrogant stupid dicks. And the Film Actors Guild are pussies. And Kim Jong Il is an asshole. Pussies don’t like dicks because pussies get fucked by dicks, but dicks also fuck assholes. Assholes who just wanna shit on everything. Pussies may think that they can deal with assholes their way, but the only thing that can fuck an asshole is a dick, with some balls. The problem with dicks is that sometimes they fuck too much, or fuck when it isn’t appropriate, and it takes a pussy to show ’em that. But sometimes pussies get so full of shit that they become assholes themselves. Because pussies are only an inch and a half away from assholes. I don’t know much in this crazy crazy world. But I do know that if you don’t let us fuck this asshole, we’re gonna have our dicks and our pussies all covered in shit”
– said by a member of Team America in the movie of that name. Says Christopher Price, who posted this in a comment here this morning: “Its got one of the best explanations of US foreign policy that I’ve seen in a long time. Kind of like what Condaleezza Rice was saying yesterday, but more succinct.”
Down with Kim Jong-il. Let’s all rise to drive out the dictatorial regime.
– written on a Kim Jong-il poster in a North Korean factory
Winner libertarianism is about how to make the world better, and how the world is, at least in some ways, actually getting better. Winner libertarianism explains how I can make my life a success. I am free. Yes, governments do bad things, as do others, but they can be confronted, resisted, criticised, and sometimes – quite often actually – defeated.
– Brian Micklethwait (PDF)
We have said it before, but it bears repetition, that the coming EU referendum campaign will be the first internet campaign in our history and I remain convinced that the material on the net will have a decisive impact on the course of the campaign.
– Richard North, already quoted and linked to by Patrick Crozier as a response to my gloomier posting here
In these State of the State speeches, other governors often begin by listing their accomplishments of the past year. Well, I will do the same.
The year before I took office as governor, California had 300 days of sunshine. Last year, under my administration, we had 312 days of sunshine. That’s what true leadership is all about.
Governor of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger, showing some political leadership in his “State of the State” address.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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