Quotes of the day

The fad for washing your rubbish and putting the shiny bits in one bin and the slimy crap in another bin – something I was familiar with from previous cities I’ve lived in – is considered passé in Christchurch. We are exhorted to Love our Rubbish. Here, every house has been issued with three hulking great wheelie bins. On certain days the city looks as if it’s been invaded by legions of the daleks’ retarded kid brothers.

You can hear the metallic voices of their overlords emanating from the Council chamber: “Expropriate! Expropriate!”
- Bernard Darnton, NotPC

Think of government as a charity. From a libertarian perspective, it is a charity run by the Mafia, which will break your knuckles if you don't make your donations. It is also a badly mismanaged charity. It funnels lots of money into questionable causes, and even when the causes are good the programs that it funds tend to be very wasteful.

I would like to see government have to compete with other charities on a level playing field. I often say that government should have had to fund the financial bailouts by holding a bake sale.
- Arnold Kling, Econlog

“From our perspective, we look at this pretty thoroughly and there is always a tension around fair use … I would encourage everybody, think in terms of what your reader wants. These are ultimately consumer businesses and if you piss off enough of them, you will not have any more.”
- Eric Schmidt, Google.