verb. To use one’s blog to beg for assistance (usually for information, occasionally for money). One who does so is a ‘blegger’. Usually intended as humorous.
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Tonight the cream of the British and European blogerati is descending on Chelsea once more for one of our famous Blogger Bashes… and thus there may be rather less output than usual on this blog (and quite a few others) tonight.
but hopefully not too much… July 5th, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
 noun. RDF is a web content syndication format. Acronym which stands for Resource Description Framework July 3rd, 2003 | Comments are closed
Used as noun or verb. The willful omission of one or more words so the meaning of the statement is no longer understood but that the statement suits the needs of the writer in launching an ad hominem attack whether or not the construction is truthful or grammatically complete. Named after Maureen Dowd, based on her manufacture of a quote attributed to President Bush in her May 14, 2003 column (as first reported by Robert Cox on TheNationalDebate.com). The term and the practice are often found in the Blogosphere. (Coined by James Taranto) July 3rd, 2003 | Comments are closed
When Hong Kong was handed over to Communist China by the British state, to much joy and acclamation by credulous Chinese and Gweilos alike, the totalitarian gerontocracy in Peking pronounced soothingly that Hong Hong would retain its relatively liberal order under a doctrine ‘One nation, two systems’. Tens of thousands of people have marched in protest at a planned anti-subversion law aimed at an EU style ‘harmonizing’ of Hong Kong law with that of the rest of Communist China. One nation, one system it would seem.
Well it comes as no surprise to me that these patent lies only took six years to be revealed. I look forward to hearing the people who rejoiced at the surrender of Hong Kong’s people to China recanting their folly. I am not holding my breath however. 
The Chinese way of dealing with effective protests (WSJ link via Combustable Boy) July 1st, 2003 | Comments are closed
When Hong Kong was handed over to Communist China by the British state, to much joy and acclamation by credulous Chinese and Gweilos alike, the totalitarian gerontocracy in Peking pronounced soothingly that Hong Hong would retain its relatively liberal order under a doctrine ‘One nation, two systems’. Tens of thousands of people have marched in protest at a planned anti-subversion law aimed at an EU style ‘harmonizing’ of Hong Kong law with that of the rest of Communist China. One nation, one system it would seem.
Well it comes as no surprise to me that these patent lies only took six years to be revealed. I look forward to hearing the people who rejoiced at the surrender of Hong Kong’s people to China recanting their folly. I am not holding my breath however.
The Chinese way of dealing with effective protests (WSJ link via Combustable Boy) July 1st, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
We got a mention in The Times (link may not work if you are outside the UK) today in an article about blogging by Michael Gove. Excellent. And they go our URL completely wrong. Bugger. I called up The Times this morning and asked them to at least correct the URL for the on-line edition. And did they? Nope. It seems the wheels grind extremely slowly at The Times. Oh, and Michael… I ready don’t think our antipathy to statist solutions to most things makes us ‘right wing’ as social conservatives we ain’t. June 30th, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Like some undead zombie in B-grade horror movie, we have pumped the hideous thing full of lead from our rifles and shotguns… it falls riddled with logical holes and yet somehow the creature staggers to its feet again with bits falling off, lurching forward once more. Gauche is clinging remorselessly to the term ‘Libertarian Socialism’
Well on one point I am in complete agreement with Gauche… his view is utopian. In fact, the notion that a state which redistributes wealth by force and provides ‘education’ to its citizens can be a minimal state is more than just utopian, it is fantastical. Wage control? Nationalised healthcare? Nationalised education? Nationalised housing? And how, exactly, would this be different to the non-libertarian modern socialist (i.e. social democratic) states found all over the western world? The answer is it is exactly the same thing. The only liberty in Gauche’s libertarianism is the liberty to take the money of others by force without prior consent and to run the economy on political, rather than social, interaction. Sure, there is a long history of people calling themselves libertarians. But so what? Liberty means not having one’s life under the force backed direction of others… socialism means using force backed politics to direct people’s life in accordance with socialist political ends. The two are antithetical. 
Arrrggg… I’m a…libertarian…too! June 28th, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
As Gabriel Syme wrote earlier today, the objective on this blog is to argue for a ‘broad front’ push to regain some ground lost to successive governments in the struggle for individual civil liberties. But as a hard core free market individualist who opposes collectivism in all its left and right flavours, it would fair to say that when I write for Samizdata.net, I tend not to make many friends amongst socialists, social democrats or statist conservatives. And yet… on White Rose I try to leave some of my narrow political views at the door as the aim here is about forming a much broader front in the resistance to the diminution of individual liberty. Gabriel was right to point out the excellent article by Stephen Robinson in the Telegraph in praising left winger John Wadham for his stewardship of the human rights group Liberty. I have recently been taken to task by libertarians and conservatives for praising George Orwell, because he was a socialist. Yet it would be hard to overestimate the importance of 1984 and Animal Farm in estabishing a popularised meta-context in which the true nature of tyranny could be understood by millions of people across the world. It is my desire that people reach the conclusion that the state is over-mighty and that its actions pose a clear and present danger to individual liberty… I am far less concerned how they reach that conclusion. If Orwell felt his socialist collectivism could be squared with an abhorance for tyranny, well fine. I may not see it that way but Orwell made many of the right arguments nevertheless. We must take our friends where we find them. The need to resist the tide of the regulatory state’s smothering of individual rights has appeal far beyond the narrow confines of libertarianism or any particular -ism, and if we are to ever roll back the trend towards a panoptic micro-regulated ‘society’, to quote Benjamin Franklin, we must hang together, or surely we will hang separately. June 27th, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
When reading about the many and disparate anti-globalisation activists who protest against international trade, one often gets the impression that the writers discussing their antics think that what motivates these folks is a relatively new phenomenon. Not so. The desire to replace free trade with politically controlled and above all, domestic trade has long been a central aspect of collectivism of all flavours. 
Adolf did not much care for global trade either At its root, all forms of collectivism have more in common than its supporters might be comfortable admitting. June 27th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Simon Davies of Privacy International organised an event this evening here in London in order to honour George Orwell and hoist a drink or three to one of England’s greatest writers on the occasion of his birthday.  Now I know a lot of you have read Orwell’s sundry works… 1984… Animal Farm… etc… but how many of you have drunk a ‘Black and Tan’ at Orwell’s favorite pub, the Newman Arms on 23 Rathbone Street…  …followed by walk to the Elysee Restaurant, around the corner at 13 Percy Street, which was one of Orwell’s favorite eating places? The default dish here has to be Moussaka, as Orwell ate it on nearly every occasion that he visited this place. A splendid evening was had by Gabriel Syme and myself (the wicked and iniquitous Johnathan Pearce was a no-show) amidst an impressive collection of privacy and civil liberties activists from across a .. ahem… wide range of the political spectrum. Cross-posted from Samizdata.net June 26th, 2003 | Comments are closed
Simon Davies of Privacy International organised an event this evening here in London in order to honour George Orwell and hoist a drink or three to one of England’s greatest writers on the occasion of his birthday. Now I know a lot of you have read Orwell’s sundry works… 1984… Animal Farm… etc… but how many of you have drunk a ‘Black and Tan’ at Orwell’s favorite pub, the Newman Arms on 23 Rathbone Street… …followed by walk to the Elysee Restaurant, around the corner at 13 Percy Street, which was one of Orwell’s favorite eating places? The default dish here has to be Moussaka, as Orwell ate it on nearly every occasion that he visited this place. A splendid evening was had by Gabriel Syme and myself (the wicked and iniquitous Johnathan Pearce was a no-show) amidst an impressive collection of privacy and civil liberties activists from across a .. ahem… wide range of the political spectrum. June 25th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
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