A Merry Christmas to all of our loyal readership and most especially to those serving the cause of liberty in far and dangerous corners of the world.
|
|||||
|
The little iPod portable sound system that allows you access to thousands of your favourite tunes is likely to be flying off the shelves this Christmas. No wonder. The device is a marvel and one of those trendy “must-have” items that our modern capitalist system seems to excel in. Apple’s sales growth has gone up tremendously over the past year partly as a result of the gadget. Interestingly, this emblem of shameless materialism is also finding uses in the field of medical science, if this story, which I came across via libertarian author Virginia Postrel, is a guide. Medical researchers use the device to help them keep records of medical data and relay it back. Clever. It shows how certain types of technology that start off in a supposedly frivolous field like portable music gadgets can accomplish something more serious, as Postrel points out. Side point: I wish she would increase the font size of her blog. It is killing my eyesight. As I pointed out a week or so ago, another product of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, the eBay auction site, has been used by buyers as unusual as the London Underground for the purposes of getting obscure spare parts. I think what this demonstrates in general is the yawning gap between the dynamism and creativity of the private sector and the plodding performance of all too much of what goes under under the aegis of the State. It also reminds us a bit I think of the good news that continues to be out there, if we want to look for it. Let’s be honest, a lot of what we have written about lately, such as the ID card issue and free speech infringements, makes for dark reading. Let’s not lose sight of the ways in which free enterprise is still on the march. On that cheery note, have a very merry Christmas and happy 2005, and hopefully, a prosperous and peaceful one too. Thanks to my fellow contributors for making this blog so much stimulating fun. December 24th, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I would not say that education (I hate that word) is the subject. It is about freedom of choice and the desire to encourage your children in the subjects they enjoy and/or are good at. I will now give a potted history so you can see how we got where we are today with the LEA. Peter started playing chess when he was 5 years old. The rapid progress he made showed us this was way above the expected level of the average 5 year old. When Peter became 6, for a period of around 6 months, he had one day a week off school to study chess more in depth. Every week we had to write a letter to the school asking permission for this, after this period we decided to request that this was made a permanent arrangement, this is where it all started to go wrong. The school granted us a maximum of 15 days per year, stating that Peters’ education would suffer otherwise. As he had just taken his SATS tests and achieve above average marks in all bar one subject, this argument did not hold water. We wrote back stating that this was not acceptable to us. We subsequently received a letter from the LEA’s Barrister stating that the offer had to be withdrawn as it was illegal to allow children time off from school. This is absolutely incorrect as Hampshire LEA’s website states that discretionary leave is entirely at the discretion of the Head . At this point we made the decision to withdraw Peter from state school and teach him at home. → Continue reading: Carol Williams on why she does not now want her son Peter to go to school December 24th, 2004 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
These exciting and unexplained cleaning events have kept Opportunity in really great shape. – Mars rover team leader Jim Erickson at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California, explaining that “something” has been cleaning the solar panels of the rover Opportunity while it was parked during the Martian night, and that as a consequence its power levels are much higher than was expected at this stage of the mission. Two observations. (a) It looks like the Martians are friendly. (b) I wish I could have “exciting and unexplained cleaning events” in my bathroom. (Link via slashdot). December 24th, 2004 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
Personally I read the first Harry Potter, then started the second one and said: enough, I am too old for this. Nor are Harry Potter movies the kind of movies I now like and I have seen none of them. So, I am a Muggle and proud of it. But for all that, I am very impressed by this:
It is the sheer economic scale of the phenomenon that I find so amazing. How many people, I wonder, now make a permanent living from the Harry Potter books, and associated industries? This is the sixth book, and there is another one due, plus there have already been three movies, right? So, four more to come? And will they then just carry on making HP movies with their own made-up stories? It would make sense. (Not that the JK Rowling ones are un-made-up, but you get my point.) It reminds me of an earlier British cultural export-stroke-industry, as I am surely not the first to have observed. Seriously, there must be interesting parallels between the Harry Potter phenomenon and the James Bond phenomenon. Both use magical toys. Both battle against evil, set in architecturally impressive surroundings. Both were made into mega-successful movies. But, what do I know? Or care? I leave all that sort of chatter to those who have read it and seen it. Of whom there are, as I say, quite a few. Maybe, when JKR has ceased her labours and has simply parked herself in a deck chair under her personal banknote Niagara, I will even give the books another go myself. Okay that was originally the end, but here is another thought. JK Rowling should build herself a gigantic castle, made of huge lumps of stone, with turrets and battlements and flying buttresses and bridges high up in the sky, like they used to build in Scotland and like Mad King Ludwig used to build in Bavaria. It really is about time the construction of places like that was resumed, and for real rather than just in Disneyworlds and such places. And she is just the woman to do it. God knows, she can afford it. December 23rd, 2004 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
And here (just in case you missed the comments on the previous posting) is yet another circumstance where an armed populace would have really helped:
“History of mental illness” is today’s euphemism for maniac, it would seem. Personally I believe that people would not even think of behaving like this if they knew that everywhere they went on such rampages they would be confronted by the armed and the respectable. And I further believe (although I would welcome intelligent contradition about this) that this includes maniacs, who (and I believe there have been quite sophisticated experiments about this) are actually quite responsive and rational about altering how they conduct themselves, when faced with predictably different rewards and predictably different punishments. What maniacs lack is not rationality; it is merely any semblance of good manners. See also: Hungerford Massacre. This slaughter was caused by gun control. It was not only caused by gun control, but it could not possibly have occurred in the way that it did without gun control. The police had to get guns from London. And it all happened at the precise historical moment when, for the first time since cheap firearms were invented, a country town like Hungerford no longer contained any. Simultaneously, crime throughout the British countryside was rocketing. The response to Hungerford was to tighten the screw that had illegalised self-defence in the first place. This good woman has already been linked to from here today, but there cannot be too many such links out here in Blogland, I say. I know that, for some, the way we here at Samizdata.net keep banging on, so to speak, about gun control (iniquity and fatuity of) is a bit dreary and predictable. But there is actually a bit of a buzz in Britain now about this issue, and any decade now this country might see some big changes in the right direction. Provided we keep buzzing and banging on. December 23rd, 2004 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)
Self defence, wrote William Blackstone, the 18th-century jurist, is a “natural right that no government can deprive people of, since no government can protect the individual in his moment of need”. This Government insists upon having a monopoly on the use of force, but can only impose it upon law-abiding people. By practically eliminating self defence, it has removed the greatest deterrent to crime: a people able to defend themselves. December 23rd, 2004 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Today, while wandering along beside the Thames, I came across a plaque, which said the following:
You learn something new every day, if you keep your eyes open and your brain open. A camera helps too. Photographs of where I was in London, and of the plaque itself, and further linkage, here. December 22nd, 2004 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Home Office minister for race equality, Fiona Mactaggart refuses to condemn the fact Sikhs have used intimidation and violence to force the closure of a play they find offensive because…
So British culture is better off because rioters have forced the closure of a play they disagreed with? Britain is clearly governed by people who are either immoral or demented or both. But I am curious… would the ‘minister for race equality’ have thought it an equally healthy sign that British theatre is alive and well if a mob of angry white Scotsmen has stormed the theatre, smashed windows and forced the plays to close because they found something in the works of a Sikh playwright offensive? Well given that Fiona Mactaggart is the ‘minister for race equality’, I guess she would take the view that all races are equally permitted to use violence to prevent freedom of expression, right? Right? I mean, the races would hardly be equal if only when Sikhs riot is was “a sign of a lively flourishing cultural life”. December 22nd, 2004 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
James Hammerton lays into Charles Clarke and his feeble argument for ID cards in the UK. He unearths some hillarious points, well would be hillarious if not for the topic, about the cost of the wretched scheme:
James concludes:
Go and read the whole thing. December 22nd, 2004 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
The England cricket team is doing really rather well just now. They are not the best. Australia are the best. But England are well on the way to establishing themselves as the best of the rest. Yesterday they completed a fine victory against South Africa, in the first of the series of five test matches they are playing down there, having earlier in the year, in England, beaten New Zealand in 3 games out of 3 and the West Indies in 4 games out of 4. Before that they toured the West Indies and beat them 3 games out of 4, with the last game drawn. In other words, England have won 8 out of their last 8 test matches (more than any England side has ever won consecutively before), and it would have 12 out of 12 had it not been for that final game draw in the West Indies. Recent England recruit Andrew Strauss, who batted superbly, both in the game against South Africa that finished yesterday morning and throughout last summer, has now played in just 8 test matches and has been on the winning side every time. This is amazing. All of which means that, what with England doing so well, now was a very good time for the England cricket authorities to be renegotiating the TV rights to cricket matches, and here is what they have done:
In other words, I and millions of other BBC License Fee payers will not be able to watch test cricket live on the telly without paying extra. → Continue reading: Who owns English cricket? December 22nd, 2004 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
Michael Howard’s Conservative Party is planning a U-turn over identity cards – but not until after the General Election. According to a senior Conservative Party MP, the plan is to support ID cards at present in order to look tough on law and order, but they will drop support on ‘practical grounds’ when public opinion edges away. Cynically, Michael Howard’s office has already drawn up plans to flip-flop in the summer. I believe this is called ‘conviction politics’. December 22nd, 2004 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||