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]
|
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.
“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]
A friendship founded on business is a good deal better than a business founded on friendship.
– John D. Rockefeller
Two years ago a South Korean woman reportedly asked a North Korean why President Kim Jong Il was the only fat man in the country, and was detained for several days as a result.
– from a Christian Science Monitor report about a small tourist enclave in North Korea, run by the Hyundai Coporation of South Korea and visited mainly by South Koreans.
Yeah. I just realized something. Something that really never occurred to me before. We’re going to win.
– Buffy the Vampire Slayer. (Probably really Joss Whedon).
One senior administration official said Treasury Secretary John W. Snow can stay as long as he wants, provided it is not very long.
The Washington Post reporter Mike Allen, reporting on a possible shake up of President Bush’s economic policy team.
Do you really think that if this were a symbol for a man’s most sensitive organ, we would cut one end and set the other end on fire?
– Ray, a character from Blowing Smoke movie, talking about cigars…
‘Consultancy’ is the middle class word for unemployment.
-Richard Samuel, highly paid consultant, as related to me by former Daily Telegraph city editor and current business commentator Michael Becket
No interrupting when I am interrupting!
– Adriana Cronin
Style is usually all that matters, when you have no control over the substance.
– Adriana Cronin, in conversation about French culture
What makes dictators dictators is not that they don’t believe in the power of the majority but that they don’t believe in the rights of the individual.
– Adriana Cronin
Blogs are the c[e]rebrum of the Net.
– Doc Searls
|
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.
|
