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So that explains it!

· Indian Subcontinent · North American affairs

I had a good chuckle after reading this over on Goat in the Machine:

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is concerned that her Pakistani hosts have failed to grasp the nettle of good governance, and reminds them of the high purpose and duty for which democratic societies entrust their representatives with the sovereign power:

“We (the US) tax everything that moves and doesn’t move, and that’s not what we see in Pakistan.”

That sure explains Pakistan’s little handful of problems at present. I’m ashamed I never thought of it. I had some childish intuition that they might have something to do with a civil society sufficiently dysfunctional that making a living by taking other people’s stuff off them, was far too easy in comparison to getting paid for producing stuff they wanted.

How could we have been so blind? The Taliban and Al Qaeda are pissed off at the world because they are under-taxed! Oh the humanity.

The creepy thing is I am sure that really is, in essence, what Clinton thinks.

November 3rd, 2009 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)

Samizdata quote of the day

· UK affairs

Today, I will give this cast-iron guarantee: If I become PM a Conservative government will hold a referendum on any EU treaty that emerges from these negotiations.

– David Cameron in 2007.

The obvious conclusion being that he must not be allowed to become Prime Minister as his “cast-iron guarantees” are as firm as limp wet paper. Pathetic.

November 3rd, 2009 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)

Scientists and their delusions of relevance

· UK affairs

Much garbage has been written about the Professor Nutt affair. The notion that governments hire scientists to make informed decisions is laughable and the fact scientists are outraged that the government fired Nutt for contradicting the official line on drugs is a measure of their self-absorbed pomposity.

Governments hire scientists for the same reason companies often commission consultants to study some aspect of their business and make a report… i.e. to justify a course of action the board already wants to do but which they need to justify to investors. Similarly the job of a scientist on the government lists is to remain torpid until wheeled out in front of a camera to drone the government line with the caption “This man is a SCIENTIST and therefore the government’s edicts are incontrovertible and must be OBEYED”.

Professor Nutt was a stage prop, nothing more, and he is a fool to be surprised he was canned for being off-message. Of course what he said about marijuana and alcohol was true, any fool can see that. But how is that relevant?

November 2nd, 2009 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)

Newsflash: Dave Cameron still a waste of your vote

· UK affairs

To the complete and utter surprise of… er… well no one really… Dave Cameron has refused to jump the fence yet again. This worthless Labour-Lite jackanapes will not give Britain a vote on the Lisbon Treaty after all.

Yeah I know he promised we would get a vote. And you believed him?

Vote UKIP rather than waste your vote on BlueLabour and the principle-free weathervane who leads it… and if the powers that be have destroyed UKIP by election day via the courts, stay the fuck home and do not dignify the worthless Cameron with a vote that will simply be an endorsement of more-of-the-same.

November 2nd, 2009 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)

9/12 pledge… or why I would not hack it as a US conservative

· How very odd!

Much is being made in some circles about this “9 Principles, 12 Values” thingie being bandied around by Glenn Beck. So as I am in the grip of insomnia yet again, I though I would run my sleep deprived eyes down that list and see how I would stack up were I an American politico, presumably running not under the Republican Elephant Banner but some sort of vaguely libertarianish ‘Don’t Tread on Me’ Rattlesnake Flag or maybe a Star-Spangled Hippopotamus Vexillum (I did warn you I was sleep deprived)…

The 9 Principles

1. America Is Good.

– America is a nation-state and even the least bad nation-state can never be more than a necessary evil. It is the nature of the beast.

2. I believe in God and He is the Center of my Life.

– Nope and she ain’t … but “Hail Eris” just in case.

3. I must always try to be a more honest person than I was yesterday.

– Um, Glenn ol’ buddy… this 9/12 shtick is addressed to politicians, no? And anyway, I think I strike the right balance between honesty and tactical duplicity.

4. The family is sacred. My spouse and I are the ultimate authority, not the government.

– The family is a pretty good idea, so yeah, but in truth I am pretty much owned by my other half as she can be pretty scary when she wants to be.

5. If you break the law you pay the penalty. Justice is blind and no one is above it.

– Justice is blind and achieving it is a vital life objective … the law on the other hand is not just blind but rather prone to be deaf, dumb, stupid and as often as not utterly malevolent. So yes, it needs to be applied to politicians good and hard.

6. I have a right to life, liberty and pursuit of happiness, but there is no guarantee of equal results.

– Hell yeah.

7. I work hard for what I have and I will share it with who I want to. Government cannot force me to be charitable.

– Amen to that.

8. It is not un-American for me to disagree with authority or to share my personal opinion.

– Indeed.

9. The government works for me. I do not answer to them, they answer to me.

– Quite so. In theory. Sort of.

The 12 Values

* Honesty

– Great idea, at least with people likely to reciprocate.

* Reverence

– Very overrated… to me ‘reverence’ is something that I only feel when confronted by a juicy medium rare Argentine steak or a 10mm that never jams.

* Hope

– Essential.

* Thrift

– As politics is about Other People’s Money and Liberty… utterly essential.

* Humility

– Nice but hardly essential.

* Charity

– Also nice but how does this fit into politics? You cannot be charitable with other people’s money.

* Sincerity

– Indeed and anyone who can fake that has chosen wisely in their decision to pursue a career in politics.

* Moderation

– To quote Barry Goldwater… “I would remind you that extremism in the defense of liberty is no vice! And let me remind you also that moderation in the pursuit of justice is no virtue.”

* Hard Work

– Essential and I intend to hire people capable of doing exactly that.

* Courage

– Essential in all things.

* Personal Responsibility

– The cornerstone of all moral calculus.

* Gratitude

– I would be grateful to get a few hours sleep at some point tonight.

November 2nd, 2009 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)

Who is the ‘leader’ of the conservatives in the USA?

· North American affairs

Sometimes a ‘leader’ is the person at the rear directing others to do things… but sometimes the ‘leader’ is the one out in front, well, leading, and the people who follow that person’s lead only after they see the way things are developing are mere ‘followers’… the bandwagon jumpers and weathervane watchers.

And that makes Sarah Palin a leader… quite possibly the de facto leader if she really wants. Certainly people who bet their party machine politics against her will think long and hard before crossing her after what happened to Dede Scozzafava, who the left wing statist press hilariously describe as a ‘moderate’ Republican. That the likes of Palin, Armey et al. can come in and kick the snot out of the established local party, even when it has the backing of people like Gingrich, will gave many pause for thought.

Of course some Democrats will rub their hands with glee and see this as the ‘Republicans tearing themselves apart’… and they are right, but wrong to be happy about it, because in truth the party that Obama beat needs to ‘tear itself apart’ and the fact it is starting to do so means the party opposing Obama could be a very different party in a few years… a party that rejects the catastrophic Bush years that hugely expanded the scope of the state and which made everything that Obama is trying to do now possible.

I suspect the reason so much effort was put into rubbishing and ridiculing Palin was an early indication that many of the ultra-statist in both parties saw what Palin represents as deeply unsettling, and not for any of the reasons usually given. Certainly I started to take Palin far more seriously the more she was lampooned by the usual coterie of dismal entertainment biz apparatchiks.

She ain’t no libertarian but she certainly ain’t no John McCain/George Bush either. I suspect her principle-over-party endorsement of an obscure New York conservative over an obscure New York Republican on the far-left of the party, may represent one of those seemingly minor events that turn out to be the precursor to something quite interesting and far reaching. Only time will tell but I think the winds of change are blowing and quite a lot of people are going to be genuinely surprised when their political careers get dumped in Boston Harbor.

Update: And to the commenter who called himself ‘Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle’ on my previous post about this issue… you said:

You know what is really funny? The Republican party candidate is not a lefty at all. She’s made nice to unions a time or two. That’s about it. She isn’t a RINO by any stretch of the imagination

Oh really? Well guess what… Republican Dede Scozzafava, who suspended her campaign yesterday in the New York 23rd Congressional District, has endorsed Democrat Bill Owens.

Yeah, not a RINO at all. This actually makes the “Palin called it right” contention incontrovertible. By doing this Scozzafava has just made Palin even stronger.

November 1st, 2009 | 53 comments - (Comments are closed)

It’s finger lickin’ good…

· How very odd!

What is the world coming to? A man who has not confiscated money from taxpayers, oppressed anyone or plundered their way into wealth was allowed to enter the UN and shake hands with all manner of sainted kleptocrats who are supposed to be there!

This is an inexcusable lapse of security… the predators of the world and their willing minions must be protected from being mocked by harmless capitalist restaurateurs! This must not be permitted to happen again!

October 28th, 2009 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)

A derangement of expectations

· How very odd!

So if you purchase a Baby Einstein for your child and he/she does not in fact attain legendary levels of accomplishment in the subjects of physics and mathematics (and become laughably inept at economics), i.e. become just like Albert Einstein… apparently you can get your money refunded.

I assume any parents who dangled a ‘Baby Mozart’ over Hank and Britney’s cribs and were rewarded with nothing but derivative Anton Salieri pastiches from their children, they too can demand Disney put them into funds to compensate them for their bitter disappointment at the mediocrity of their offspring.

A good friend of mine who purchased a ‘Baby Guderian’ for his child several years ago is now expressing some alarm that young Rupert may not in fact turn out to be the military genius that Britain is sure to need in future years when we inevitably take our final leave from the EU, not to mention liberating Aquitaine from the intolerable yoke of the French state.

Is there no end to corporate misrepresentation and malfeasance?

October 25th, 2009 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)

One rule for the establishment…

· UK affairs

… and another for ‘outsiders‘.

When the LibDems take money that is questionable, it is done in ‘good faith’ and that is the end of the matter… when UKIP does it, they are bankrupted by the Electoral Commission.

Curious, no?

October 24th, 2009 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)

Palin right, Gingrich wrong

· North American affairs

Sarah Palin has joined several other quite prominent Republicans and demonstrated that she ‘gets it’ by endorsing a third party Conservative over a Republican RINO running for the House in New York … whereas Newt Gingrich has demonstrated the exact opposite.

Gingrich stated of his backing the official Republican nomination Assemblywoman Dede Scozzafava:

“We have to decide which business we are in. If we are in the business about feeling good about ourselves while our country gets crushed then I probably made the wrong decision.”

Which means he thinks the way to revitalise the Republican Party is to nominate Republicans who are functionally interchangeable with Democrats on a great many issues.

Contrast with Palin’s view, who clearly drew the correct lessons from her experience running as McCain’s veep, has picked the Conservative Party of New York candidate over the official Republican one, as did Dick Armey and Fred Thompson:

“The Republican Party today has decided to choose a candidate who more than blurs the lines, and there is no real difference between the Democrat and the Republican in this race.”

As I have been arguing for quite some time now, this is exactly the sort of notion that needs to work its way into the Republican Party. No wonder the media hate her.

October 23rd, 2009 | 34 comments - (Comments are closed)

The Tory Party: the delusion of choice

· UK affairs

Yet again, Dave Cameron shows that far from representing an ‘alternative’ to Labour, he is as one in his underpinning world view. A vote for Cameron is a vote for “more of the same”.

So if you think that the sort of identity politics we have seen for years now is a splendid thing, then a vote for Dave makes perfect sense: you will get a younger energetic leader able to apply the ways of ever expanding regulatory statism more effectively… i.e. an end to the neurotic, sclerotic and thankfully ineffective Brown and a return to the much more effectively imposed Blairite Britain… Tory Blair.

No doubt under Cameron we will see more contracting out of government “services”, which Tories will hold up as evidence of their “free market” credentials and Labour will howl about Tory vandalism of th public sector… as if making a government “service” more efficient by changing the organisation details of who gets paid to do it in any way reduces the toxic society destroying purview of the state.

Then again, if you actually want to vote for a conservative, you can always vote UKIP.

October 20th, 2009 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)

Great science hoaxes…

· Sui generis

I followed a link I spotted for ‘great science hoaxes‘… and imagine my surprise when it turned out to not be about Anthropogenic Global Warming!

October 19th, 2009 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
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