There is nothing to the rumour that mentioning BRITNEY SPEARS increases the hit rate for a blog.
Blog me baby one more time!
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And his name is Will Quick. When Will is in full vitriolic flight, it is a thing of wonder to behold. If, like me, you enjoy savouring the savage directness possible with the English language, then read Will’s latest spleen venting invective regarding all manner of folk that grievously irk his anti-idiotarian sensibilities:
It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Read the whole article and then go put some fuel in the motor of your chainsaw. February 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 Miss Veen has a series of sublime cat haiku which will be immediately recognisable to people who live with cats. For example:
Read them all. Meow. February 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed
You have nothing to loose but your hackneyed diet of stale media…  This is a snapshot of where Samizdata visitors came from earlier today, demonstrating the truly global appeal of blogs. In the last 72 hours have had e-mails from USA, UK, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, South Africa, India, Hong Kong and Australia. And these are just the early days of blogging. Richard Bennett started the ball rolling (perhaps), Glenn Reynolds gave it a kick and the rest is yet unwriten. February 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed
The subtitle is: cryptography, censorship, copyright, thoughtcrime and this is definitely truth in advertising. Zem:blog is tightly focused on those issues, eschewing the occasional off-message flights of whimsey found in places like Samizdata. I do not mean that as a criticism however, it is just that zem:blog is very serious about focusing on what are frankly serious issues to anyone who regards civil liberties as nothing less than the bedrock of civilisation, as zem clearly does… and as do we. zem:blog tends to focus on technical issues as they relate to civil liberties and he takes a truly global view, reporting in the last few days on matters in the Europe, USA, Britain, Iceland, Swaziland and Egypt. The enigmatically named ‘zem’ is an Australian software developer in the telecommunications industry and thus knows of what he speaks. Recommended February 10th, 2002 | Comments are closed
John McGuinness chides NRO’s blog The Corner for their disinclination to link to articles they reference.
John makes a very good point. I also groused about that and why it is actually counter-productive in an earlier article. I suspect the NRO team are so steeped in old-media-think that it just does not seem ‘right’ to link to people they incorrectly view as competitors. Well the fact is that links are what makes the blogosphere and the very internet itself go around and they are a resource in themselves… and like unilateral free trade, which works even if the idiots in other nations are protectionists… I will continue to link to Corner if I quote them (and they are also in the blog side bar) because it is in my interests to do so for both the reasons I mentioned in my earlier article on the subject “Jonah Goldberg comments on the joys of group sex“, and also for the valid reason John McGuinness gives: it actually boosts credibility to be able to check the facts yourself. So guys, what are you afraid of? February 9th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Andrew Sullivan is pleased that Irish singer Bono is not slagging off drug companies. Well a word of advice, Andrew… don’t get your hopes up that Bono’s seeming conversion to the forces of reason is more than a fragile veneer. He does have this disheartening knack for seeming to make sense, only to dash your raised expectations on the rocks of reality a little further down the road, as I observed back on January 14th 2002 in the article Teeth grinding illogic and grotesque conflation…or perhaps genius?. He is either a perverse genius or a jackass. You choose. February 9th, 2002 | Comments are closed
This humourous phase was once used to describe fox hunting but could just as well be applied to the US Congressional investigation into the fun and frolics pertaining to Enron. For a rather more forthright view of this investigation, let me refer you to the blog known poetically as Gut Rumbles:
Not quite how I would have phrased it but I can’t say I disagree. February 9th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Suman Palit on the Kolkata Libertarian has some interesting links and commentary about hawala, a system of trust based independent networks for transferring money across borders completely outside ‘official’ financial systems. I have touched on the subject of hawala in previous articles and Suman points out the absurdity of US (and other) efforts to try and stamp it out
The fact is that there are millions of people who simply do not see why the state, any state, should have oversight over their business. The usual demands that people must simply ‘trust the authorities’ is seen as fundamentally irrational in many communities. Too many people have both direct experience and deep societal folk memories that such contentions are simply foolish, leading to a whole culture of economic activity occurring under the radar. The very essence of hawala is that of an audit trail-less trust within a closed and multiply redundant distributed network. Not only do I predict the US will fail utterly to regulate hawala, I expect that their actions will once again prove the law of unintended consequences is alive and well and living in a town near you. The very actions of the financial regulators will reinforce support for it by proving why hawala is still as needed as it ever was: to enable genuine free trade when princes and policemen try to restrict it, and to avoid confiscation of the proceeds of that legitimate trade by the same people. February 8th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Whilst I often agree with Glenn Reynolds over on Instapundit, there is one pet theory of his that he has mentioned several times before that I find baffling:
To which I say, and have said before, what on earth is in it for the Jordanians? Why would the Hashemites want to risk another Black September uprising against their Bedouin dynasty five to ten years down the road by adding 2 million pissed off, radicalised, impoverished Palestinians to an already complex Jordanian 5 million strong ethnic Palestinian/Bedouin mixture? Quite apart from the horrendous political and security nightmare the occupied territories would present to Jordan if they were handed back to them, they are an economic booby prize. The Jordanians have a GDP of about $3,500 per capita, hardly rich…compared to the West Bank Palestinians GDP per capita of about $1,500, which is truly dire. So whilst it might well take the pressure off Israel, so what? I must ask Glenn to say what on earth is in this for Jordan? They would have to be bonkers to want the West Bank back! [Update: Glenn responds on Instapundit. However I do not doubt that Jordan and Israel will continue to cooperate in security matters, just that Jordan will accept the poison pill of reacquiring the West Bank. The article to which Glenn links seems to strengthen my case regarding the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the Jordanian monarchy for having the West Bank Palestinians within Jordanian borders] February 8th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Ah, those famous lines from the Stealer’s Wheel. Brendan Nyhan over on American Prospect drew my attention to the fact that Ted Kennedy was not the only one making a total ass of himself over the meaning of a game of American football. Now there was a time when Rush Limbaugh was actually witty and insightful, hell I went to see his show live once in New York some years back. Yet after listening to his radio remarks (available via the Brendan Nyhan article linked above) I am forced to the conclusion that Rush has finally completed his journey from right wing punditry’s doyen to its doofus. I guess the bailiffs must have come calling and repossessed that ‘talent on loan from God’. Limbaugh contends that because the Patriots Football Team market themselves to ‘the soccer mom’s season ticket base’ as a team rather than by emphasising the individual players, then the Patriots are in fact ‘socialist’. Never mind that it is just a capitalist marketing ploy and never mind that socialism is a political system in which the means of production, including labour, are controlled by the state (unlike a voluntary football team of millionaire players). And so there we have it: Rush Limbaugh and Edward Kennedy in agreement as to what the Patriots Football Team actually represents. Two of a kind: a brotherhood of absurdity, spouting fallacies that must surely reduce anyone who actually knows what the word socialist really means to either stunned silence or embarrassed laughter. February 7th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Honourless buffoon Senator Ted Kennedy read into the Congressional Record, as a result of a sports event, the following example of breathtaking absurdity.
And so we are lead to believe that a voluntary collaboration of free individuals, working for personal profit, a great deal of profit at that, is a rejection of individualism and an affirmation of collectivism. And what exactly are these sportsmen supposed to have ‘sacrificed’ in the course of their highly paid jobs? [Update: Mickey Kaus has also picked up on this nincompoopery] [Updated update: I am glad to see everyone and their brother in the blogosphere has picked up on this floridly ludicrous rant by the dishonourable ‘gentleman’ from Massachusetts] February 7th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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