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.
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Surprise surprise:
President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party today emerged victorious in the official results of a Zimbabwean parliamentary election criticised by the opposition and western powers as fraudulent.
With 84 of the contested 120 parliamentary seats declared, Zanu-PF took 51. Morgan Tsvangirai’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) won 33, according to results on the official counting screen at the Harare election centre.
The ruling party entered the race needing only 46 seats to obtain a simple majority in the 150-seat parliament, where 30 members are Mugabe appointees.
Still, at least this election has given everyone something to grab hold of, and it surely counts for something that Mugabe feels that he needs to fake the result he wants.
It is interesting how much more interest the pro-Iraq-war blogosphere is paying to Zimbabwe now. It is all because of the Iraq election. Until that happened, the pro-Iraq-war blogosphere was understandably pre-occcupied with Iraq, and other misery-spots tended to be neglected. But since the election, the pro-Iraq-war blogosphere is interested in any circumstance which seems in any way to be being influenced by that election. Suddenly, all political badness everywhere is part of the story, provided only that some locals are making democratic noises, demonstrating, etc.
I am not complaining. This just goes to show how right they were when they said, those that did, that the election would make a huge difference. It has.
However, this is interesting. It is a piece by S. J. Masty at the Social Affairs Unit blog, trashing the whole idea of spreading democracy hither and thither, in countries to which it is not suited and who have not evolved it at their own speed and in their own way. Instead of having one relatively staid kleptocracy in permanent charge, says Masty, democracy is liable to replace that one kleptocracy with two or three competing kleptocracies. “Predator democracies”, he calls these unfortunate countries. This is well worth a read, and a think. (Thanks to Patrick Crozier for the link.)
What I think is that Masty may be confusing the messenger (democracy) with the message (lots of people are now rowing about who gets to rule the country). An old fashioned monarchy, by definition, would put an end to the rowing, but can an old-fashioned monarchy survive in a country where so many more people want a slice of the action than in the old days?
UPDATE: This is the kind of thing Masty has in mind.
A while ago here I speculated that one of the effects of the Internet – blogs especially – will be to focus attention on what major public figures actually say, and not just to harrass them about their various scandals and cock-ups, worthy though that also is.
Well, according to the EU Referendum blog, Michael Howard made quite a good speech the other day about defence, which the media mostly ignored. The two main points were: that Tony Blair is too keen on EU integration and not keen enough on the Atlantic Alliance, and that he does not give Britain’s armed forces the resources to do the many jobs he demands of them.
Gabriel might even be cheered up a bit. Not a lot, but a bit.
Personally I think that Howard’s two points are closely connected. The smaller our forces are, the easier it will be for the EU to swallow them up.
You can read the entire speech here.
This BBC story could have come straight out of a comic novel:
A man in Australia tipped off police in Devon after seeing a suspected burglary on a webcam based in Exmouth.
Andrew Pritchard, 52, from Boorowa, New South Wales, saw two men run from a car to a beach-front kiosk.
After searching for the number of Devon and Cornwall police he was able to direct them to the scene of the crime.
However it turned out not to be a crime:
It transpired the pair were a man and a woman having an argument, not conducting a burglary, but the police praised Mr Pritchard for his actions.
I actually believe them. They were able to bustle about and investigate, but it turned out they had no actual criminals to deal with, so no horrid fighting and no horrid paperwork. Instead, they had a nice little story to trade with their local media.
As for the idea of people in Australia looking at pictures from our spycams, it has often puzzled me who on earth is supposed to keep track of all our spycam pictures, what with there now being about ten times as many spycams in Britain as there are people. I seem to recall that in this Libertarian Alliance publication, in the bit where I discuss how to exploit old people and thus keep them feeling important for longer, I suggest that oldies might like to do this. Let them earn their pensions. And now that we all have broadband connections, there is no need for these oldies to be in Britain. In fact, given what our criminals like to do to witnesses who grass them up, Australia is probably the ideal spot for them.
You may well have heard this point made before, and I surely have myself, but it nevertheless made me grin, again, today:
We can only ask supporters of the precautionary principle to follow it through to its logical conclusion, that is not to have it applied unless it can be proved that no risk is involved. It is up to them to prove that this principle is harmless.
Those are the concluding words of Precaution with the Precautionary Principle, published (pdf only but in both French and English) by the Institut Economique Molinari. My thanks to Cécile Philippe of the IEM for the email that pointed me to this publication, and to this conclusion.
Here are a few items concerning the various ghastlinesses of the EU.
First, a briefing paper from the Instituto Bruno Leoni, by Alberto Mingardi and Paolo Zanetto, about the Microsoft versus EU case. Pdf only, alas, but worth a look.
Microsoft stands accused by the EU of daring to supply an operating system that is too good and does too much and has been ordered by the EU to cripple it and to tell all its rivals how it does everything. Microsoft wants to call its crippled version of Windows “Crippled Windows” and the EU says it can’t so there and has fined Microsoft Z zillion euros. To add lunacy to lunacy, the EU is now saying that when a multinational corporation wants to innovate, it must convince the EU that its innovation is a good idea. Never mind about convincing mere people. First, Mario bloody Monti and all his rapacious and power-mad cronies and successors have to be persuaded. So now, guess what, the EU is taking a swipe at the iPod. Microsoft said “the iPod is innovative – go investigate that”. So the EU duly started an investigation into the iPod! No need for it. No reason. Not necessary. What’s wrong with 78s? Hire a gypsy violinist.
I embroidered somewhat there, but only somewhat. The picture that Mingardi and Zanetto draw of the EU is not pretty. Expressions like “shake down” and “sting” are hard to avoid when pondering the behaviour of the EU towards Microsoft.
I would not normally have made myself read right through this piece, because it is too depressing. But I have been told to review it for here, where Mingardi adds some further comment on the case. Apparently Crippled Windows does not work as well as uncrippled Windows. Extraordinary.
And here are a couple of EU-related pieces in today’s Telegraph.
Patrick Minford writes about the costs of EU anti-dumping rules. His title says it all: The EU’s manufacturing policies are costing us a fortune. He is finishing a book. Thanks to Tim Worstall for that link.
And here is a news report about the EU’s efforts to protect the government of Cuba from its dissidents. Do not provoke Fidel, says Louis Michel, the EU “development commissioner”.
The EU would do better to concentrate on developing itself. I live in hope that the influence of the recent Eastern European additions to the EU, of countries where they take economic development seriously and seem to have quite a solid grip on what does and does not promote it, will improve the EU. But reports like those above make such optimism hard to cling to.
I will start this posting, having written the rest of it already and therefore possessing foreknowledge of what it contains, with a warning to easily offended Christians. This posting contains ideas that may offend easily offended Christians. So, if you are an easily offended Christian and sincerely do not wish to be offended yet again, best to stop reading now.
Christians are perfectly free to be offended by my anti-Christianity, just so long as they realise that I am likewise disgusted by many of the things they keep on proclaiming, mostly with no objections from me, both for its barbarity and for its contempt for normal standards of truth-seeking or logical argument. The offence is mutual.
Okay. Today being Good Friday, I have taken it upon myself to give the talk at my last Friday of the month meeting. Getting another speaker at such a time, and then perhaps having to soothe him or her because only three other people showed up, is more bother than the looks-bad factor of me doing the talk myself. (I did the same on the last Friday of December 2004, which happened also to be New Year’s Eve. That went okay.)
And since it is Good Friday, I will be talking about Pain: its history; how that history might explain why Christianity, and in particular the crucifixion story, has done so well down the centuries; the fact that recently pain has abated for lots of lucky people in lucky countries like mine, and the fact that this might do something to explain the recent decline of Christianity in lucky countries. Christianity thrives in adversity, but wilts in comfort, not least physical comfort, which is why completely wiping out Christianity has proved so hard. Communism tried, but the more you torment Christians the more like Christ they feel. Meanwhile Communism, lacking a story that makes any sense for those unfortunates caught up in its numerous failures, is itself rapidly crumbling, not least at the hands of Christians.
Most histories of pain seem to be histories of pain relief, which is understandable. But what effect on life generally did the prevalence of pain have, in all the centuries when pain was prevalent? And what has been the effect of the recent and remarkable abatement of the pain, for millions upon millions of fortunate people, like me, and very probably, you too, for decade after decade? → Continue reading: Some Good Friday thoughts from an atheist about pain and its history
Long ago, when I was “reading architecture” at Cambridge University (it turned out that you had to do more to architecture than merely read it if you wanted to become an architect), I remember noting the name of Japanese architect Kenzo Tange. The majority of the architectural gods we students were then offered as objects of worship turned out to be deluded fools, but Tange was, I believe, the genuine article.
And now he has died, at the age of 91. I had no idea that he had lived this long.
I think he deserved to, and that if for some reason he did not look back on his work with a sense of pride and accomplishment, he should have and was entitled to.
I know that many readers here loathe the architectural modernism that is being done now, just as they loathe the architectural modernism that was done in the sixties and seventies. But for me, there has been a sea change. Style is back. Expressiveness is back. The Great Lump style is being abandoned, and often dynamited.
If they look at these pictures, I think that at least some readers here may agree that this man was way ahead of his time. Now, modernistic buildings which look interesting rather than deadly dull, which celebrate the expressive possibilities of modern building technology instead of merely using it to erect giant blocks of boredom, are all the rage.
Tange did perpetrate quite a few concrete lumps, but on the whole, he did better than that.
How many other architects were making buildings as interesting and dramatic looking as this, in the nineteen sixties? Not many.
I am not the world’s leading authority on what Young People Are Getting Up To These Days. Nevertheless, today I spotted what looked to me like a new hairstyle, in Charing Cross Road in central London. And, on the off chance that it really is rather new, I photographed it from the top deck of the London bus I was in at the time, for Samizdata readers to wonder or sneer at. They were a group of five Asian boys, of whom three had their hair done thus:
At least two things may be wrong with this post. First, this hairstyle may already be old hat, and Asian boys have been swanning around for years with their hair done thus. Second, so what anyway? As to the first, well, I will take that chance. But re the second question, I think that human inventiveness and individuality is always worth a respectful nod. And yes, I daresay these were indeed juvenile delinquents, but that is always where these things seem to start.
How soon before David Beckham is to be seen thus adorned? Or maybe he has already sported such a hairdo and I missed that also.
Harry Hutton mostly does sarky, misanthropic humour, so this on the spot reportage from Colombia might very well get missed by a lot of more earnest types than him who would appreciate reading it.
Here is John Pilger arguing that American military aid has caused a humanitarian disaster in Colombia. The trouble with this is that, since the really huge flows of US arms and money began, the level of violence has plunged.
Kidnapping fell 42% last year, and 26% the year before that; the number of massacres was down 53% in 2004, and murder fell 17.7%; street crime, the number of displaced persons, crime against taxi drivers… all down. And every single Colombian I have spoken to, without a single exception, has told me that the situation has improved. I had dinner with some foreign human rights workers, who told me that this was also their strong impression.
Harry’s commenters have mostly concentrated not on whether the above reportage is true, but rather about the rights and wrongs of legalising the drugs, the proceeds of which are so much a part of the problems of Colombia. Or maybe not, because Colombia has always been a violent place. I favour total drug legalisation for all the usual libertarian reasons, but whatever you think about that, this is an interesting piece of reportage.
A few other commenters have also pointed out what a lying twat Pilger is. It is good that such drivel as his can now be challenged quickly by bloggers who, unlike Pilger, actually know what Pilger is talking about. Had I come across it by some other route, I would have dismissed Pilger’s piece as almost certainly being made-up rubbish, purely because of who it is by, but it is nice to be sure.
I’m all for equality. I am. That’s why I let my female staff work longer than the men so they can earn the same.
– the Pub Landlord on telly last night
I always thought that NGO meant Non Governmental Organisation. How come any of them get money from the state?
– thanks to Natalie Solent for spotting a good point made at The Road to Euro Serfdom
Instapundit has already just linked to it, and to other responses to the same story, and copied and pasted the first two paragraphs. It being a CNN report about how Forbes has included Fidel Castro in its list of the world’s richest people, and about how Fidel Castro is not amused. This story will soon be everywhere, but I do not care. Count me in, if only as one delighted heckler among millions.
Funny as those first two paragraphs are, I think this sentence is my particular favourite:
Castro, 78, and in power since a 1959 revolution, said he was considering suing.
I cannot believe he really said that, but in the event that he did… you go grandad.
This reminds me of Danny de Vito’s line in Mars Attacks, where he says (if memory serves), to the invading Martians, something like: “You want to take over the world. You’re gonna need lawyers, right?”
Not that Fidel is trying to take over the world any more. It is just the idea of a hitherto unreconstructed Marxist-Leninist trying to protect what’s left of his revolutionary reputation by calling in the lawyers.
It is, alas, far too much to hope that he will really do it.
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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.
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