We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
|
Samizdata quote of the day As a great French historian has pointed out, the vineyards of France are perhaps the single greatest cultural legacy of the Roman empire, and it is now more than two millennia since people in Britain first became aware of the intoxicating powers of wine. In all that time, no government in history has yet thought the people so moronic that they needed to be told, on the bottle, that wine could go to your head
– Boris Johnson, discussing plans to put warning labels on wine.
|
Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
|
As, along with his beloved leader Mr Cameron, a former member of the Oxford student drink-till-you-smash-the-place-up-and-vomit-do-not-worry-daddy-will-pick-up-the-bill Bullingdon Club, Mr Johnson needs no reminder of the dangers of booze.
Mr Johnson often attacks absurd regulations. However, when the reason for these regulations is a E.U. directive (which it often is) Mr Johnson (like Mr Cameron) fails to support taking power in this area away from the E.U.
Therefore I take his anti regulation position to be nothing but a pose.
No doubt true, Paul.
Did you actually read the article Paul?
Johnson spent about the first ten paras poised to rip in to more EU lunacy, when he found that this ludicrous idea is entirely home grown.
It has obviously not occured to Caroline Flint, whos bright idea this is, that rather a lot of wine is produced outside the UK and what they choose to put on their labels is beyond our legislative control.
What does she envisage then I wonder?
Teams of non-jobbers at all the ports and airports whacking on the warning labels by hand?
Having spent quite some time in California, this comment made me smile:
Anyway, Boris writes:
…which is a wierd position to be in indeed, as I found when I used an EU document about freedom of communication in an argument with neighbours about whether other neighbours should be forced to take down their satellite dishes. I suppose you could call it playing them at their own game, but it did make me feel dirty…
Almost certainly. It will help disguise the true level of unemployment, which is what five a day officers, real nappy officers, bike-it officers and miscellaneous minority outreach officers etc are really there for.
I’m still waiting for West Oxfordshire district to send round a Slaphead Libertarian outreach officer to reach out to me, so I can do my bit to ease the government pension liability that will be falling on my children.
We already have this kind of thing. Go into a kebab shop in London in the middle of the night. Buy a can of Coke. Often, it will be an imported can of Coke, that was bought from the Polish bottler (or similar) for less than the cost of buying Coke from the British bottler. (Such imports are perfectly legal). The can of Coke will have a little sticker on it which gives the legally required nutritional information in English. It is illegal to sell the Coke without this.
At what point does the little sticker get attached Michael?
The Polish end? i.e. Bullying. Dont think of sending those cokes over here without little stickers on, or we’ll send them right back.
The British end, with my army of non jobbers
Or the supermarkets.
It would be interesting to know.
Perhaps we should just admit defeat and lobby for suitable wording on the labels? I’ll go for:
“Taken in sufficient quantities the consumption of this product may lead to pleasant feelings of intoxication, of which nanny disapproves. Drink responsibly, do not enjoy!”
Will the proposed warning notice appear on my Pint Pot?
If so, the persons responsible would be well advised immediately to commission research as to whether a glass glass or a plastic glass can be more conveniently extracted from a civil servant’s anus.
It’s an interesting comment about the Roman Empire’s legacy.
Sadly, thanks to the ravages of phylloxera in the 19th century, it’s not literally true. Most ancient vineyards (some indeed dating from Roman times) were pulled up and planted on flat ground where the bushes could be flooded during the parasite’s gestation period, which was initially the only way they could combat it. Then they were pulled up and grafted onto American roots which were resistant to it.
As a result, French wine quality was so bad at the turn of the 20th century that they added Algerian wine to make it taste better.
That’s what I read anyway, in a fairly detailed (French) history.
One of the strongest hints that I was in a different world the first time I visited the USA from NZ (in 1989) was when my host opened a bottle of bubbly and it had a HUGE ugly red sticker on it warning not to point it at anyone while opening it. ORLY?
Boris:no government in history has yet thought the people so moronic
I think it is that ALL governments think the population is dimmer than they are, and that right now we have a totally moronic government to start with.
p.s. The can of Coke will have a little sticker on it which gives the legally required nutritional information in English. It would be blank then?
If it is like the similar stickers here in the Unified States, it will state that the contents provide 0% of daily nutritive requirements, based on a 2000 calorie diet. I’ve never gotten around to extrapolating the percentage it provides of mine.
I think you are all missing the point.
The level of stupidity being catered for is not due to ‘nannyism’ or incompetence.
It is due to the absolute competence of the state in deliberately creating a race of morons.
They really want and intend for people to be that stupid.
These are their clients, their inheritors, and the only people they give a damn about catering for.
All the rest can pay ‘brain-service’ to these ideals or go to hell.
It is not confused.
It is not accidental.
It is DELIBERATE.
RAB
More that 80% of new regulations are imposed by the demand of the E.U. (German government reply – the British government refused to give the information, even when asked by members of the House of Lords and House of Commons).
When Mr Johnson says “we will take back the following powers back from the E.U., whether it likes it or not” then I will read his stuff with respect.
Till then I could not give a toss what he writes.