Are you uncomfortable enough? Good. Welcome to my world.
– Adriana Cronin-Lukas, on dealing with day to day annoyances of Eastern Europe’s post communist legacy
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December 22nd, 2005 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The best possible antidote to ignorant and irrational Indonesian Muslim clerics forcibly imposing Sharia and claiming the tsunami was punishment for women not wearing veils would be for people to respond to their violence in kind and simply run the bastards out of town.
This is an encouraging start but they need to get rather more serious than flicking a few cigarettes at them. December 22nd, 2005 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
As I sit in the Coffee&Co café in Bratislava (a town I am rather fond of visiting) taking advantage of its offer of free wireless broadband (ah, no more OWLS for me)…  …I am yet again struck by what changes are being wrought by the internet, and what amazing possibilities it opens up. Although I studied Russian many years ago when the Cold War was steering me in certain directions, that knowledge has long since been flushed by my brain. Yet the other night just before I left London for Slovakia, I was exchanging e-mails with a chap in Moscow, translating (or more accurately transliterating) my Latin script English into Cyrillic Russian via a free on-line system and similarly translating his replies into English. The results were rather crude and took a bit of smarts to interpret but we were able to conclude our business most satisfactorily. It really did bring home to me that even though we are only at the very start of the communications revolution (and revolution it is), the ways the internet will change everything are incalculable. The social, scientific, economic and political implications are so far reaching that I am sure the world twenty years from now will be hard to recognise. Perhaps that is just stating the obvious but for me at least it is the very fact I am now so blasé about all the things the internet makes possible for me that makes it is useful to sometimes stand back and marvel at what an astonishing thing it is. Of course just as we take electric light as a given and only appreciate it when the power goes out, I might be unusually appreciative because at the moment I do not have my usual 24/7 broadband access and there is nothing like withdrawal to make you value getting a ‘fix’. December 22nd, 2005 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
December 22nd, 2005 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Mark Thatcher was involved in a failed but very commendable private sector attempt to oust an African tyrant, no doubt motivated by personal gain (an entirely reasonable motivation) and as a result, Prince Albert has decided that Mr. Thatcher is not a suitable person to have his residence in Monaco. Somehow this is part of a new ‘ethical’ approach to running the Principality. So let me get this straight… trying (but failing) to overthrow some petty ruler who treats his country as a personal possession make you un-ethical? So does that mean being supportive of the government of Equatorial Guinea would make a person… ethical? One might almost think that Prince Albert just does not like the idea of people overthrowing any ruler of a pissant country. I wonder why that might be? December 21st, 2005 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am travelling in Slovakia and the Czech Republic at the moment and internet access is rather hard to find. This all too brief internet lifeline is a welcome fix to help alleviate my OWLS (On-line Withdrawal Lamentation Syndrome). Horror is a foreign keyboard.  But at least the locals in the deepest rural Moravia are helping me get over the internet withdrawal shakes by stuffing me full of splendid pastries, for which this part of the world is rightly famed.  Interesting glimpses of the recent communist past abound but are becoming less visible by the year.  Remember a time before the internet? Hard to believe, I know! My hosts used this to listen to broadcasts from the West.  I am with the original samizdat people from whom I took so much inspiration and the reason I came up with the name for this blog. December 21st, 2005 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
Pity Samizdata.net does not have a catagory for articles called “Treason & Betrayal”. December 19th, 2005 | 76 comments - (Comments are closed)
It has always puzzled me why the state pays ‘compensation’ to victims of certain crimes. Why are fellow taxpayers robbed to compensate an individual for a misfortune? Surely that is a job for an insurance policy. There are now calls for victims of international terrorism to be financially compensated and again, I cannot quite figure why the general public should be required to stump up for this. Whilst ‘acts of war’ and terrorism are often specifically excluded from insurance policies, it is possible to find policies which include even that if you are willing to pay premiums. It just seems odd to me that folks should have any expectation of a non-charitable, non-insured payment from fellow national subjects. December 19th, 2005 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Almost uniquely amongst nations, the United States takes upon itself the super-ownership of its subjects even when they are not within the territory over which it claims sovereignty. Even if you live and work outside the USA, you are required to file tax returns and have US tax liabilities. It would appear Americans cannot escape the enveloping grasp of their government and its rules anywhere on this planet. And yet as soon as you step outside the USA, even though US subjects retain their tax liabilities to the state, it would appear they loose any constitutional protection from its excesses. Whilst in many ways the USA offers the world a splendid example of defended civil liberties, in so many other ways the freedom Americans assume is theirs is really an illusion. The state is not your friend. December 18th, 2005 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Tony Blair seems to be trying to make it into that dark pantheon of truly dire British Prime Ministers of the last one hundred years. Although given the procession of craven toadies who make up that list, that is really quite a task he has set himself, he is showing considerable promise of being a real contender. Still, he has quite a way to go yet. He may have just given away £8.2 BILLION of British taxpayers money in return for nothing whatsoever… and it is nothing as all he got in return was a promise from the weak and politically toothless French government to review their huge farm subsidies in return for the UK actually giving up a huge chunk of money (yes, seriously, the French gave up a promise to do nothing more than review how much they get from the EU)… but he is still in the shadows of those who went before him. Of course, Blair is minor league in his endless pursuit of surrendering British interests compared to such luminaries as Neville Chamberlain (he after all gave away Czechoslovakia, rather than a few billion quid, in return for another European leader’s empty promises), Ted Heath (The Three Day Week and First Great Betrayal to Europe) and the evil twins of Harold Wilson/James Callaghan (joint award for the astounding destruction of British liberty and economy via wholesale nationalisation),. As in all things, Blair is just… lacking… compared to these guys. But he sure shows willing, you got to say that. In truth, this may well be a good thing in the long run as it brings that day of some sort of ‘Glorious Revolution’ closer, and for all you history buffs out there, no I do not mean a Dutch backed coup d’etat, I am thinking more along the lines of what Thatcher just hinted at. Let the enemy class squeeze harder and harder and until the nation that constantly votes them into power starts to choke on its entirely democratic stupidity. December 17th, 2005 | 82 comments - (Comments are closed)
Michael Totten, who has clearly been having some interesting times in Lebanon, has a fascinating article in LA Weekly about his first hand experiences attending a Hezbollah event as the ‘Party of God’ is trying to improve its image in the West. He does a good job of giving a sense of what these people are like and what their ideal vision of the future would be. December 15th, 2005 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is good to see opposition to the absurdly named ‘Patriot Act’ but as expected, there are many who want to see this monstrous legislation extended. Looks like the best chance here is for moves to extend the provisions of the act falling to a filibuster and therefore allowing many of the more egregious aspects to expire. Much was made much of ‘sunsetting’ aspects of the Patriot Act when it was initially passed so one would have hoped Congress would be happy to see those parts of this draconian and intrusive law wither away. However the eternal trouble with giving the state more power is that ’emergency’ provisions inevitably become the norm from that point onwards as those in power are loath to ever accept a reduction in their ability to exert control over people. December 14th, 2005 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
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