“Er, I can’t confirm or deny, but that’s a good guess.”

— Charles Stross, book Iron Sunrise

Source: Iron Sunrise (2004), Chapter 4, “Magical Mystery Tour” (p. 67)

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Charles Stross211

British science fiction writer and blogger 1964

Aaron Weiss

Wolf Am I! (And Shadow).
Brother, Sister (2006)

“Something you see in me I wis not:
Another heart in you I guess:
A stranger's lips — but thine I kiss not,
Erring in all my tenderness.”

George William Russell (1867–1935) Irish writer, editor, critic, poet, and artistic painter

By Still Waters (1906)

“I can’t imagine that a Republican majority in the United States Senate would want to confirm, in a lame duck session, a nominee opposed by the National Rifle Association”

Mitch McConnell (1942) US Senator from Kentucky, Senate Majority Leader

McConnell On SCOTUS Vacancy http://www.mcconnell.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?p=PressReleases&ContentRecord_id=503FB2A5-205C-4F6F-9BCE-A4473809A4DB on "Fox News Sunday" as Majority Leader of the Senate dismissing the possibility of considering the Supreme Court nominee Merrick B. Garland even after the elections in November (March 20, 2016) <br class="br">2016

“Having said that, I don't want to hug the tar baby of trying to comment on the program — the alleged program — the existence of which I can neither confirm nor deny.”

Tony Snow (1955–2008) American White House Press Secretary

White House Press Briefing http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/news/releases/2006/05/20060516-4.html (2006-05-16).

“We see again confirmed the correlation between spiritual impotence and antirationalism: one cannot deny God and retain reason.”

Eric Voegelin (1901–1985) American philosopher

in reference to Marx and Comte, p. 298
"From Enlightenment to Revolution" (1975)

“A glance at the world confirms that their utopian capitalism just can’t compete with the state. With enemies like libertarians, the state doesn’t need friends.”

Bob Black (1951) American anarchist

The Libertarian as Conservative (1984)
Context: Libertarians complain that the state is parasitic, an excrescence on society. They think it’s like a tumor you could cut out, leaving the patient just as he was, only healthier. They’ve been mystified by their own metaphors. Like the market, the state is an activity, not an entity. The only way to abolish the state is to change the way of life it forms a part of. That way of life, if you call that living, revolves around work and takes in bureaucracy, moralism, schooling, money, and more. Libertarians are conservatives because they avowedly want to maintain most of this mess and so unwittingly perpetuate the rest of the racket. But they’re bad conservatives because they’ve forgotten the reality of institutional and ideological interconnection which was the original insight of the historical conservatives. Entirely out of touch with the real currents of contemporary resistance, they denounce practical opposition to the system as “nihilism,” “Luddism,” and other big words they don’t understand. A glance at the world confirms that their utopian capitalism just can’t compete with the state. With enemies like libertarians, the state doesn’t need friends.