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]
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Patrick of Transport Blog links to this story, drawn to his attention by this promising rival/collaborator to/with Transport Blog.
So that, when trawling through the Samizdata archives in 2085 you may learn what this story was about, it is an advert by a car making enterprise called “General Motors” featuring a bus with “CREEPS AND WEIRDOS” on its sign machine instead of saying its destination. (I know what you’re thinking: what’s a “bus”?)
“Truth in advertising” says Patrick. Indeed. This advert says something extremely true and important about public transport, which is that not all of the public are very nice or companionable people. So obviously the advert can’t be allowed and General Motors have been made to withdrawn it. But it looks like the blogosphere will immortalise and universalise the message. Congratulations GM. I shouldn’t be at all surprised if they provoked the row deliberately, in order to help them make their point wihtout having to go on paying for it to be said. And in Canada! The horror.
GM is famous in public-transportophile circles for having bribed and corrupted buses and trams into perdition in the USA and replaced them all with the hated (by everyone except the non-creep non-weirdo public) motor car. The more I study this argument, the more I think that GM is the messenger being blamed for the message, the message being that most Americans prefer cars to buses and trams and for good reasons. Whereas buses and trams are quite good for getting new American places to live and work in started, they are not very good for serving all the people who subsequently go to live in these new American places, because American places are, generally speaking, big dispersed smudges rather than arranged in neat bus and tram friendly lines.
And the rest of the world is now following America into this argument. The only “public” transport issue of import now is not how to replace cars, but how to make the car system far, far better, which can’t happen while the infrastructure remains in “public” hands, which can’t be changed until the public sector is bullied into introducing road pricing, because that way there’ll be an income stream to privatise.
One of the many benefits of the new London road pricing scheme – crude and intrusive though it undoubtedly is – is that London buses now go a bit less slowly.
I hate blogging sometimes. You start out doing something short and frivolous and fun, and you end up with something long and profound and wearisome. It’s a bit like life, isn’t it?
Megan McArdle (linked to by Instpundit) probably speaks for many on both sides of the Atlantic, but especially in the USA, when she asks: what is Chirac up to? She doesn’t know. All he seems to be achieving is to antagonise the USA, to no apparent purpose.
She’s right about what he’s doing. But maybe the answer is that he is doing this deliberately, for local reasons.
It was said after 9/11 that you couldn’t understand Al-Qaeda’s thinking if you thought only about what they were trying to do to the USA. You had to look at their local picture. What if they were really trying to impress fellow Muslims, and to increase their power not so much in the world as a whole but within the Muslim world?
I believe that something similar applies now to France. France’s main concern now is to get the sort of Europe it wants, namely a centralised European state, with France playing a very prominent part. → Continue reading: What France is playing at – a conjecture from and about L’Europe
What do you think these are?
feg – jes – vok – gop – ruch – dez – thob – cag – shug – wiss – miff – sleck
Words that used to exist, but which have fallen out of use? Words that ought to exist, to describe things that exist, but now have no word attached to them so that we can talk about them? Douglas Adams produced a little book called The Meaning of Liffe, or something similar, full of such concepts, with suggested words to describe them. “Pimlico – the pool of stale beer into which the barman deposits your change” etc. etc. Ruch – to vomit or cough violently, while still trying to rush for a bus or appointment. Sleck – to refrain so ostentatiously from performing one’s duties that even very, very posh people, who hardly do any work themselves, notice. And miff? Well, isn’t that a word already? Are we not “miffed” if things don’t happen as we wish? So miff must be the verb of that, surely. And “gop” is the Republicans, isn’t it?
sprell – creld – splind – fland – blim – flut – smez – shrid – sprund – shrong – brost – flamp
Still don’t know? Clue: it’s to do with learning to read. These “words” are to be found on page 17 of the latest Newsletter, No. 50, from the Reading Reform Foundation. → Continue reading: “… doilible … snoiggal … wacespink … disclorping … thription .. illarptacture …”
One of the strangest things to have happened to twentieth century Britain is that pop music done by British people is almost all of it now sung in an American accent. It really is very peculiar to watch, say, the Frank Skinner TV show here in Britain, and to watch a man (Frank Skinner) as English as the House of Lords or an Ealing comedy sing the song “Fun Time Franky” as “Fern Tum Frankair”. Then he finishes singing the song, and goes back to talking in his normal midlands English voice, and no one present, not a single solitary person, thinks that this is in the slightest bit odd. Me, I find it very odd indeed.
There are a very few, very eccentric British pop singers who sing with their real accents. The Proclaimers (“I would walk five hundred miles …”) not only hailed from Scotland. You could actually tell this by listening to them sing.
Many Irish singers sound Irish, as opposed to American, although the Irish accent is well on the way to being American, to my English ears. For example that loathsome humanoid who sings at the front of The Pogues, the one whose teeth make my teeth look like Julia Roberts’ teeth – he sings like an Irishman rather than an American. Or he used to. I like to think that he’s dead now.
→ Continue reading: The American Voice in Britain
That’s not just a metaphor, let me tell you. Many is the England rugby team to have been ground into the mud of Ireland. After a several happy games scampering about in the sunshine of southern England, or Wales, or even in Paris, England then go to Dublin, try to carry on throwing the ball about, drop a few scoring passes, start to worry, drop some more passes, encourage the crowd, who yell at the Irish team, who then score an interception try, or a breakaway, or some such oddity, and suddenly it’s only five more minutes left and Ireland are leading by a handful of points and that’s how it stays.
But not today. The sun is shining, and England are leading by 30-6, three tries to nil. Ireland may get one try, or even two. They won’t get four. The England defence looks impenetrable. Grand Slam England. Ireland have been good for longish periods, but England have been better.
I’ve been taping it, and pacing about chez moi doing displacement activities. How did all that washing up get done?
Yep. There she blows. Greenwood scores an interception try. Ireland 6 England 35. Greenwood actually ran away from the posts, to make the conversion kick for Jonny Wilkinson harder and Wilkinson just missed it. Greenwood is like that. He often thinks about how to celebrate before actually scoring, and I remember England’s Napoleonic little scrum-half Matt Dawson giving the giant Greenwood a severe talking-to for being a bit exuberant when celebrating another try before he’d completed the formality of actually scoring it.
And in the middle of all this, my brother pops by with some books he thought I might like to have, including – wonder of wonders – a copy of Terence Kealey’s The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, which I have been seeking vainly for months, ever since I heard Kealey speak at a conference. I don’t remember telling Pete I wanted this. It’s a beautiful day in London town.
England are pressing and look like scoring again. Yes! Try by Dan Luger. Five tries to nothing. Unbelievable. “Nobody said it would be a stroll like this, but England have strolled.” 40-6. Five-nil. And Wilkinson won’t miss this conversion. No he doesn’t. Final whistle. Ireland 6 England 42. Now I can watch the tape of it, secure in the knowledge of a happy ending, like a Meg Ryan movie. Moral: don’t count your chickens before they hatch, and they’ll hatch. Then count them.
Well, if Jennings can wallow in the Aussies winning the cricket, I can wallow in this.
I wonder if Saddam Hussein is a rugby fan.
Natalie Solent links to a typical education story from education.guardian.co.uk.
A six-year-old boy has become one of the youngest children to be permanently excluded from school, following an 18-month reign of terror that left some of his classmates psychologically traumatised.
The boy was thrown out of Ashton Vale primary school in Ashton, Bristol, after worried parents wrote a letter to governors demanding his removal. They reported him urinating on fellow pupils, stamping on children’s heads and scratching classmates’ faces. One parent claims he bullied her son to such an extent he needed speech therapy, while another victim began wetting the bed through fear. However, his father, a BBC technician, yesterday blamed the school for exacerbating his son’s bad behaviour and not acting quickly enough. “I think they’ve gone the wrong way about it,” he said. “At home he’s as good as gold.”
What’s this? The Guardian making a BBC employee look like an idiot?
He did, however, admit that his son had been given “more than enough chances” and had “taken it too far” at the school. “He’s always been naughty. He fights everyone all the time but doesn’t know when to stop – he just carries on.”
The boy was known as a trouble-maker at nursery, but the frequency of violent incidents has risen steadily and he has been suspended numerous times.
His father fears his unusual domestic environment may have had an effect on Troy’s behaviour. He has split from boy’s mother, but they still share the same home, despite the fact she is now expecting a baby with her new boyfriend, who lives in the Birmingham area.
Yes, that doesn’t sound good.
But to get more serious, here’s what Natalie says about this boy’s expulsion. → Continue reading: Including Troy and excluding Troy – Britain’s current education policy
I think this is one of the best summaries I’ve encountered of the bias problems that media people are having with this war. It’s from an emailer to Natalie Solent:
When you’re told to talk about the war for hours every day and only a finite amount happens in a day, you tend to exhaust rational remarks and reasonable questions and, after doing all you can with repetition of the obvious, must ask unreasonable questions and explore less likely contingencies. In this mental state, prejudices are apt to come more to the surface as the commentator’s mind searches for something else to say.
That’s a better explanation of what is going on than to suppose that it’s all some great big conspiracy. It is quite a lot of little conspiracies, although maybe “networks” might be a better word. And it’s a great big zeitgeist, that is to say a conspiracy that is all out in the open. And that has the results described above.
But the main thing these people are biased in favour of is keeping their jobs. If you can help them do their jobs while you do what you’re trying to do, they won’t necessarily stop you. Zeitgeists can be changed.
At my last-Friday-of-the-month meetings chez moi, my computer – and especially its round-the-clock Internet connection – tends to degenerate into a tragedy of the commons illustration.
And thus spake Antoine at Brian’s Friday…
…and his adoring audience rejoiced
But sometimes I come across vaguely good stuff this way. This, which found itself on my screen as things began to wind down last night, is quite good. It is a Richard Littlejohn Sunpage, and sports as its main headline the following: “You’re Salford Shi’ite and you know you are.” That’s about the British Muslim captured in Iraq, fighting against Britain.
That headline is the world crisis in one phrase. Daft Muslims do daft things, and by the time the abuse has settled, all the other Muslims have been insulted.
Next to that story was another, in a grey box on the right hand side. That looks like a Samizdata story I said. Yes it does, said someone else closer even than I to the heart of things Samizdatarian. So here it all is. It doesn’t deserve to be swallowed up in the pay-per-view maw of the Murdoch archives.
If he were a few years younger, Patrick Hamilton would be on the front line in Iraq today.
A former paratrooper, he is a Falklands veteran and served seven tours of duty in Northern Ireland.
He spent 25 years in the Army ready and willing to lay down his life for freedom and justice.
Today, he must be wondering why he bothered. When Mr Hamilton, 52, saw his 16-year-old daughter Catherine being menaced by a gang of hooligans, he rushed to her defence.
She was being threatened by a gang of teenage boys and girls who followed her back from her part time job at McDonald’s, in North Shields, Tyne and Wear.
Mr Hamilton gave chase, grabbed hold of one of the gang and tried to make a citizen’s arrest.
When police arrived, he called out: “I’ve got one, I’ve got one.”
But the police weren’t interested in nicking the troublemaker or going after the gang.
Instead, they arrested Mr Hamilton, handcuffed him and drove him away in a police car. He was held at the local police station for an hour before being released without charge.
Mr Hamilton, who now works as a college lecturer teaching youngsters who want to join the police or armed forces, was livid.
And rightly so. He said: “I can’t believe the police treated me and my family like this. It’s disgusting. I can’t believe the police protected these scum.”
I can.
The police have gone from being on the side of the law-abiding, through being neutral, to actively siding with vermin.
Mr Hamilton’s arrest is par for the course.
The Old Bill can’t be bothered to go after thugs, either because they’re frightened of getting a kicking, or because they’re scared of the Left-wing, legally-aided lawyers who infest our so-called justice system.
So they take the easy option and nick the good guys.
Tens of thousands of British servicemen and women are risking their lives in Iraq because they believe in freedom and justice.
But, on the home front, exactly what kind of “justice” can they expect?
It could be a long war.
I’ve just been watching the weekly highlights of the Johnny Vaughan TV show which is on BBC Nobody-watches-that 3. One of his guests was complaining about how depressing the Oscars show was. Said Vaughan:
“I had to switch over and watch some war coverage just to cheer myself up.”
The trouble with the TV coverage of the war isn’t just that the various TV stations have their various biases. It’s that most of the time nothing is happening. Long periods of boredom, and short bursts of total panic. Mostly nothing happens, so they recycle old stuff. But you still tune in to the nothing just in case something happens, and for the same reason they don’t like to switch to anything else either.
How much more convenient is the televising of sport! You know when it will happen, and the excitement is spread reasonably evenly over a set period. Only one thing can happen at a time. Imagine if a rugby match, for example, took place over such a large area that it needed half a dozen different commentators simply to give you a rough idea of what is happening. And imagine if the players spent half their time holding press conferences to tell lies about who’s doing best.
Well, rugby fans can see where I’m going. I’m going to Lansdowne Road, Dublin, where Ireland will play England in a Grand Slam shoot-out in the final game of the Six Nations rugby tournament, which has been televised in its entirety by the BBC, and very well they’ve done it. Ireland and England have both won the first four of their five matches, so it’s winner take all. → Continue reading: Operation Grand Slam
Michael Jennings links to this, at William Gibson‘s, which Gibson heard on Sky News:
“Umm Qasr is a town similar to Southampton”, UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons yesterday. “He’s either never been to Southampton, or he’s never been to Umm Qasr”, said one British soldier, informed of this while on patrol in Umm Qasr. Another added: “There’s no beer, no prostitutes, and people are shooting at us. It’s more like Portsmouth.”
Jennings also prefers Southampton, for real ale reasons. I wouldn’t know.
I get the feeling the Brits are doing quite well out there. Is this the impression they are making in the USA? Or are our soldiers merely seen as doing menial stuff while the USA guys win the war?
In accordance with its already stated policy, Samizdata.net offers the comment section under this item for discouraging messages to our BBC TV reporters serving to attack our freedoms and to encourage tyranny over the people of Iraq and the world. The many TV media personnel who read Samizdata.net regularly are sure to forward this to their colleagues.
[Note: If you are supportive of BBC TV coverage in Iraq or elsewhere, you are welcome to post a comment under a relevant story, but please leave this comment section to those who want to heap discouragement, abuse, hatred and curses upon our BBC media personnel.]
Concerning a recent posting from humorous internet content provider Scrappleface, inviting Scrappleface readers to comment in support of US service persons involved in the current war, a Samizdata.net spokesman had this to say:
Scrappleface has established itself over the last few months as a fearless provider of jokes and piss-taking. By its unflinching refusal to take the serious issues of the day seriously, it has built itself a growing reputation for triviality. It is thus especially disturbing to see this hitherto wholly frivolous media organisation rise to such heights of normality and decency. Let’s face it, blog-readers, one solemn and serious Scrappleface posting is one solemn and serious Scrappleface posting too many.
He added:
I suppose when Scrappleface does lapse into profundity like this, it’s up to the rest of us to pitch in and take up the slack and fill the hole in the dyke with it. We in Britain have a special role to play here. What we lack in numbers we can make up in irony. We must step up to the plate and break it into fearless bits with the straight bat of British satire. We must adapt their piety and earnestness in order to make other worthwhile points, thus pricking the worldwide balloon of pomposity with the fearless banner of sit-down comedy.
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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.
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