Official Secrets
The British Government does not seem to be able to keep anything secret. Still, this is ‘only’ 600,000 people affected, which is quite modest, when you compare it to other recent fiascos.
View ArticleBenny Lee Ferguson shows democracy has its moments
The US Libertarian Party’s candidate for Kansas State House district 104 is a little bit different. Ferguson has also filed to run for President as well. Glenn Reynolds famously declared in 2004:...
View ArticleTo the stocks!
Equity investors are having a rough time at the moment. All of Asia’s major stock markets plummeted on Tuesday morning, continuing a bloodbath in share prices that saw London’s FTSE 100 suffer its...
View ArticleDisturbing allegations
In 2004 in this space, Gabriel Syme noted some disturbing revelations from an FBI translater, Sibel Edmonds. It turns out that Edmonds had, in fact, plenty more to say, but had kept her own counsel....
View ArticleA military coup in Australia
It is not widely known even in Australia that in 1808 the NSW Corps of the British Army deposed the Governor of New South Wales, William Bligh, in a coup. This is known as the ‘Rum Rebellion’, but it...
View ArticleThese kids these days…
A long time ago, when I was a wee nip of a lad, my parents would keep me quiet by turning on the television and having me watch such classics as Sesame Street. Little did they know that what I was...
View ArticleThe Bail Bondsman
American readers will no doubt be familiar with the long standing trade of the bail bond companies. Non-American readers may not be so familiar with the system, in which private companies post bail for...
View ArticleThat is one small step for man, one giant leap for private enterprise
With all the attention being on new private initiatives in space travel hogging the headlines, it is worth noting that there is the real prospect of a new space race taking place between China and the...
View ArticleCoppers. Friends or foes?
In the Daily Telegraph, Simon Heffer gets stuck right into police forces, and especially the constabulary of Kent, for various offences against liberty and common sense. It is a rather populist...
View ArticleEuthanasia campaigner arrested in New Zealand
The controversial Australian euthanasia advocate and doctor Phillip Nitschke has been arrested in Auckland, New Zealand, and books that he had in his possession have been seized. Nitschke, the moving...
View ArticleSamizdata quote of the day
Every child should have authoritarian parents, because then they’ll grow up to be libertarians. -Oddball Australian journalist Paddy McGuinness, as recounted at his funeral this week by Bill Hayden.
View ArticleDisarray in Kabul
There was an interesting but infuriating article in The Times by Simon Jenkins today where he describes the current state of affairs in Afghanistan. The shorter Jenkins is that things are not going...
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