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

Environmentalism is the banging shithouse door that the socialists are finally going to find themselves able to barge through and screw us all.
-Anonymous

Samizdata quote of the day

How I feel about Africans is not relevant. Even if I hate them, it is not relevant. Trade barriers are relevant, and removing them is crucial.
-David Carr

Samizdata quote of the (Christmas) day

The goose is nothing, but man has made it an instrument for the output of a marvellous product, a kind of living hothouse in which there grows the supreme fruit of gastronomy.
-Charles Gerard, L’Ancienne Alsace À Table

Samizdata quote of the day

These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape.

– Mars rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, explaining that “something” has been cleaning the solar panels of the rover Opportunity while it was parked during the Martian night, and that as a consequence its power levels are much higher than was expected at this stage of the mission. Two observations. (a) It looks like the Martians are friendly. (b) I wish I could have “exciting and unexplained cleaning events” in my bathroom.

(Link via slashdot).

Samizdata quote of the day

Self defence, wrote William Blackstone, the 18th-century jurist, is a “natural right that no government can deprive people of, since no government can protect the individual in his moment of need”. This Government insists upon having a monopoly on the use of force, but can only impose it upon law-abiding people. By practically eliminating self defence, it has removed the greatest deterrent to crime: a people able to defend themselves.
Joyce Lee Malcolm

Samizdata quote of the year

This is depressing. Especially when I think that I survived communism without ever being fingerprinted…
– Adriana Cronin

Samizdata quote of the day

Next time I’m at a party and I meet someone who works for a publishing company, I’m going to get him in a headlock and push his face into a cake.

– Some consumer feedback from Harry Hutton – something about British books being made with the wrong sort of paper.

Samizdata quote of the day

Some people will forever be chasing the chimera of better government. This shields them from the idea that the only option is less government
Peter Gordon

Samizdata quote of the day

There are many men of principle in both parties in America, but there is no party of principle.
– Alexis de Tocqueville

Samizdata quote of the day

I said that the power of detention [without charge or trial] is at present confined to foreigners and I would not like to give the impression that all that was necessary was to extend the power to United Kingdom citizens as well. In my opinion, such a power in any form is not compatible with our constitution. The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.

Lord Hoffman’s opinion in A(FC) and others (FC) (Appellants) v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent), also reported by the BBC.

Samizdata quote of the day

“It is outrageous, and amazing, that the first free and general elections in the history of the Arab nation are to take place in January: in Iraq, under the auspices of American occupation, and in Palestine, under the auspices of the Israeli occupation. . . .”

– Salameh Nematt
Washington bureau chief for the London-based daily Al Hayat November 25

Quoted by Bill Kristol in the Weekly Standard,

[Thanks to Instapundit for the pointer]

Samizdata quote of the day

A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.
– John D. Rockefeller