http://www.samizdata.net/blog/ A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. en-us tom_hedley2002@yahoo.co.uk Fri, 03 Jul 2009 17:55:03 +0000 http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/07/a_crackerjack_o.html Thanks to our vigilant commentariat, I read this excellent, pithy demolition of central banking by Jamie Whyte, the banker and writer on philosophy and other subjects. Good on the Times (of London) for running it. It's a healthy antidote to the flawed semi-Keynesian nonsense of Mr Kaletsky.... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/07/samizdata_quote_510.html "When I stacked the shelves at my father's grocery store, and I finished bringing the boxes up and emptying them and pricing everything, I wanted to see the shelves just sparkle. I called my dad over - I had a great father - he’d pat me on the back, “Fantastic!" Ed Snider, American sports entrepreneur and philanthropist, from an interview with Stephen Hicks. This quote, I hope, gives some flavour of the zest and energy... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/07/we_need_identit.html ...says the person calling himself the Right Honourable Alan Johnson MP. Amusing comments.... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/07/the_economist_a_1.html A friend (you know who you are) informed me that the Economist magazine was "getting better", for example it had a lead story denouncing government debt. Of course this was the government debt that the Economist had urged government to take on (to bail out banks and other corporations and then to "stimulate the economy"), but it was good that it was denouncing the debt. So I decided to give the Economist a chance and... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/how_do_you_comp.html There is a bit of a debate going on over at The Corner, the National Review's group blog, on whether the 150-year sentence meted out to Ponzi scheme fraudster Bernard Madoff is excessive. Well, given that the man is 71 years old, it is academic anyway since he will die in the slammer. But clearly, the length of the punishment is symbolic, though the judge could be accused of grandstanding - it might have been... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/an_important_uk.html Some speculation is already generating about who might get the top job at the Institute of Economic Affairs, the think tank in the UK that is, in some ways, the grand-daddy of free market think tanks in the UK. John Blundell is going, having been in the post for some time. Guido has some rather barbed comments about Blundell. Guido mentions an old journalist friend of mine, Allister Heath, as a candidate. Allister would be... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/a_filmmaker_get.html I rather like the recently-launched magazine of UK current affairs, Standpoint. This item on Ken Loach, the film-maker, is particularly good. I wish the magazine success and it should give publications such as The Spectator, Prospect and The New Statesman a run for their money.... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/brown_and_lying.html "Brown's claim that he'd increase public service spending year after year is not an exaggeration, it is a lie. I cannot think of any modern Prime Minister who has based his strategy on a demonstrable lie - but Brown thinks no one can add up enough to expose him. After all, he got away with it as Chancellor. Why not now? As I have said before I believe the internet will hound him. We have... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/samizdata_quote_509.html I feel sure that early man would not have embarked on the road to civilisation if he had thought that, one day, humankind would arrive at a point where one man has the right to determine how much beer another man may take into a field in the middle of the night. - Jeremy Clarkson, on the over-policing of midsummer at Stonehenge.... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/its_my_right_to.html Is there no U-turn that this shameless government will not indulge, helped by their handmaiden, the Daily Telegraph? At least, Brogan fences the slurry in, although it oozes and drips through the cracks in the fence. Now, casting my mind back, I seem to recall that targets, micro-management and huge public expenditure without gain are all hallmarks of one G. Brown Esq. So how can this 'target culture' be derided as Blairite? In an interview,... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/samizdata_quote_508.html Did you hear that Michael Jackson has gone to meet his other maker? - Adriana Lukas, delivered deadpan during luncheon.... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/michael_jackson.html A nice piece by Jesse Walker at Reason about the late Michael Jackson. I think Off the Wall was one of the first pop albums I remember listening to, and of course Thriller, with that unbelievable video, was the one that helped propel MTV as a vehicle for music. Those two records remind us not only of what a great performer Jackson was in his heyday, but also of the musical genius of Quincy Jones.... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/samizdata_quote_507.html "Orwell was right. It was Wells who made it respectable, even before World War I, for liberals in England and America to demean their own native democratic culture in the name of an imagined antidemocratic World State. And it was Wells, with his stature as the prophet of the future, who taught upper-middle-class liberals that they were entitled to govern in the name of social evolution." Fred Siegel, writing on HG Wells. It is fair... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/booze_and_burqa_1.html In France a group of MPs has said that France ought to investigate the possibility of banning the burqa. In Britain, 'More than 700 "controlled drinking zones" have been set up across England, giving police sweeping powers to confiscate beer and wine from anyone enjoying a quiet outdoor tipple.' If you want to keep your freedom to drink what you please on the public street then fight for the freedom to wear what you please... http://www.samizdata.net/blog/archives/2009/06/samizdata_quote_506.html If [UK Government] spending since 1997 had risen no faster than inflation, we would be spending a third less than we do now, and could abolish income tax, VAT, and council tax entirely. - Eamonn Butler, writing in the Daily Telegraph on what I am relieved to discover the Adam Smith Institute has renamed Cost of Government Day....