The lastest blog to be listed is Moira Breen‘s interesting Inappropriate Response. I had been meaning to add it to the list for a while as it is well worth a daily visit. She points out in my diatribe against Star Trek’s Federation that I had missed some important facts, such as that Worf’s teeth are clear evidence of socialist healthcare and there is something deeply sinister about Deanna Troi. Eminently tupable but sinister nonetheless, I would agree.
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No doubt fearful that having Al Qaeda members floating around their country is going to result in US military action against Yeman, it seems that the government of Yeman has decided to not be the next ‘Taliban’ on the US hit list. Pravda reports (As usual in Pravda the English in the article is a bit bizarre)
It may well be that the best thing to come out of the destruction of the Taliban in Afghanistan, due to the presence of Al Qaeda, is a message has been heard loud and clear throughout the Islamic world: playing host to third parties who engage in the mass murder of Americans can be extremely hazardous to your government’s health. A tip of the turban to Charles Tupper Jr for pointing out the Pravda article December 17th, 2001 | Comments are closed
 It is good to hear that Dmitry is finally free to return to Russia. What puzzles me about this case is how did a US court even feel they had the appropriate jurisdiction to try him? The way I understand it, he wrote the decryption software in Russia, for a Russian company, ElcomSoft. The software is entirely legal in Russia and yet somehow because the program can crack codes in ways prohibited by the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, Sklyarov was arrested when he visited a conference in the USA. Imagine for a moment that a US citizen, living the USA, writes an article in the Wall Street Journal (a newspaper which is sold world wide). Say that in this article, the US journalist makes remarks that are illegal in Russia (a nation not known for its free press) but in the USA are protected by the First Amendment and hence entirely legal. How would the USA react if, when that journalist makes the mistake of going to Russia to attend some conference, he gets arrested by the Russian police, thrown in jail and charged with a crime because the Wall Street Journal with the offending remarks was also available in Moscow hotels? Would some US lawyer care to explain how that works? December 17th, 2001 | Comments are closed
Just a few gems from Tim Blair‘s unmissable idiosyncratic daily round up of who is declaiming about what on which blog.
To make sense of it all, visit Tim Blair’s blog and receive your free can of Fosters. Excellent. December 16th, 2001 | Comments are closed
You may be wondering ‘which Federation is that?’ Russia? Mexico? No. Star Trek’s Federation. What is more, my problem is more with the Star Trek shows than their fictional interstellar political entity. It is not the stories I object to, which are adequate though often highly derivative. It is not the acting, which is generally satisfactory and occasionally quite good. It is not the dialogue, which is adequate for the most part with only intermittent trips into the creative quicksand. It is not the special effects, which are seamless and superior (no, not the first series). All these things are okay for the various Star Trek shows such as Next Generation, DS-9, Voyager (I have not seen Enterprise yet), which are collectively the Sci-Fi ‘franchise’ that more or less defines the qualitative median line through the genre. Like any long running series, the Star Trek shows have had their ups and downs: The first few Next Generation were embarrassingly badly acted but they eventually pulled together as a company of actors. Voyager was for quite a while the ‘lemon’ of the franchise (Trek Fan One: “You wanna hear a Star Trek joke?” Trek Fan Two: “Sure” Trek Fan One: “Voyager”). Yet once they added the sublime Jeri Ryan and gave their script writers a firm kick up the arse, it belatedly became quite a good show (yes, I admit it: Jeri Ryan’s unusually named ‘7 of 9’ pushed pretty much all my buttons in all the right ways). Other shows do the genre better for sure (Stargate absolutely, Babylon 5 for the most part, Farscape & Earth: Final Conflict intermittently) whilst still others do it worse (Andromeda) or far worse (SeaQuest DSV)…and of course there is the demented Lexx (imagine Voyager, but while stoned on peyote) which is in a class all its own that transcends mere notions of ‘good’ or ‘bad’. So what do I have against the Federation? Well simply put, it is an authoritarian collectivist quasi-communist society (the government is clearly paramilitary) with a totally non-monetary command economy. That they have invented a state like that is not my grouse. I do not doubt there will be authoritarian states in the future just as there are now and so why not posit them? Fine… my problem is that somehow the Federation are held up to be the good guys! There is little sign of any counter-culture within the Federation and what there is are mostly shown as being violent unreasonable terrorists (the Maquis, who in reality are just fighting to prevent their land being occupied as a result of a Federation sell-out). Also, aspects of their military culture are frankly beyond belief (particularly when compared to shows like Stargate or Babylon 5, which actually understand the essential logic underpinning the military mindset). Do these guys ever fire first? And how often has Jean Luc Picard surrendered his ship in various episodes? That is the Star Fleet Flagship we are talking about! Likewise it seems that insubordination, even under fire, is almost the norm! Sorry but with a culture like that, the Klingons, the Romulans , hell, the Tellytubbies, would have smashed the Federation long ago. Yet it is clear that the Federation’s agents are the very essence of violent interaction under other conditions. Most striking was one episode of Next Generation called Unification, Part II. Commander Riker (Jonathan Frakes) enters a saloon seeking information. He encounters a female piano player whom he suspects might know what he needs to discover. She suggests he might like to ‘make it worth her while’. In a voice dripping with disdain, he says “I don’t carry money”. He then falls back on sweet talking her and eventually she reveals a Fenegi merchant nearby may actually have the information (the Ferengi are little arch-capitalist gargoyles with large ears. Good little Von Mises fans that they are, they insist on payment in ‘gold-pressed latinum’, none of this fiat money crap for them!) . As charm is not going to work on a Fenegi merchant, Riker roughs the puny unarmed merchant up and threatens him in order to extract the information. Now keep in mind that we are being told to regard Riker as the good guy. A Feregi will sell anything yet rather than even try to buy or barter for the information, Star Fleet’s armed uniformed thug just resorts to violence. This is just one of the more stark examples of why it really bugs me to hear Sci-Fi fans hold Star Trek’s Federation up as some sort of ‘better society’ in the future. And yes, I really do always cheer for the Klingons. December 16th, 2001 | Comments are closed
There is an excellent article on the Ludwig von Mises Institute website by Sean Corrigan called Worse than Recession.
This is ‘economics for grown-ups’. Read the whole article, it is good stuff. December 15th, 2001 | Comments are closed
All e-mails to the Samizdata are indeed read and passed on to whomsoever they pertain. We try to answer them all either directly by e-mail or via a follow up posting. As we have had several annoyed e-mails regarding Samizdata reader Sarah Walker’s remarks which were mentioned in a post, let me state that a reader’s views are just that: a reader’s views. If we find them germane and interesting, we might sometimes publish them with or without comment from a Samizdata editor, but they remain the reader’s views… and no…under no circumstances will we give out their e-mail addresses! December 15th, 2001 | Comments are closed
I missed these excellent brios first time around, but on the theory that highlighting any negative exposure for ol’ Sauron can never be a bad thing, let me commend these well researched exposés to you all. Over on Front Page, David Horowitz systematically exposes Noam Chomsky to the light of day in The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky. He drops his second daisy cutter The Sick Mind of Noam Chomsky: Part II Method and Madness to complete the mission. A job well done, Dave. December 15th, 2001 | Comments are closed
After much poking around, I cannot find any particular significance about 11 Sept 1970 that Natalie was wondering about. The dates of any significance I found were: On 6 September 1970 the PFLP carried out one of the most memorable hijackings in history prior to September 11 2001. This was the simultaneous hijack to Jordan of a Swissair DC-8 and a TWA 707. On 12 September, this was followd by the hijacking of a BOAC VC-10. All aircraft were forced to land at Dawson Field, outside Amman. At the same time another group of PFLP hijackers hijacked a Pan American 747 to Cairo and blew it up there. The Jordanians were deeply divided on what to do about the hijackers. The day after the destruction of the hijacked planes King Hussein declared martial law and sacked his pro-Palestinian prime minister. As far as I can figure, it was 14 September when it all finally went horribly pear shaped. The Jordanian army and Palestinians directly came to blows when the Jordanians attacked the Palestinian base at Zarqa. On the 19 September, Palestine Liberation Army and regular Syrian army armoured units invaded northern Jordan, driving towards Amman, with Arafat declared northern Jordan a ‘liberated area’. After initially loosing ground, the very professional Jordanian army counter-attacked the Syrian/PLA forces and pushed them back. On 22 September an Arab League delegation arrived in Amman to broker a deal between the Jordanians and Palestinians. On 24 September (or 25 Sept in one accounts I found) no sooner had the Arab delegates returned to Cairo to announce a political deal than Arafat rejected the settlement and renews his calls for the overthrow of the Jordanian Hashemite monarchy (in spite of the fact the Jordanian Army was now starting to get the upper hand throughout the country). On 27 September King Hussein arrived in Cairo for more peace negotiations with Arafat. These came to nothing and eventually Arafat’s forces were finally completely crushed and ejected from Jordan by July 1971. Does any one else know if there was anything special about September 11 1970 that I might have missed? If so, e-mail and tell us. December 15th, 2001 | Comments are closed
The demented Hollywood Investigator reports on the fact that due to the marvels of modern technology, Britany Spears has been ‘upgraded’. As you can see in the pictures, they are talking about her, ahem, microphones. I wonder if David Deutsch is aware of Miss Spears’ less well known talents in the field of Quantum Theory? December 15th, 2001 | Comments are closed
There is an interesting piece on the Afgha website about US and British Special Forces moving around Kandahar openly and the curious rather than hostile reaction of the local Pashtun population. December 14th, 2001 | Comments are closed
I have had a wave of interesting e-mails from Samizdata.net readers about the fallacious Jonah Goldberg missive ‘Freedom Kills’ and my reply to it. Whilst there were a variety of incoming views on the matter, it does seem everyone is queuing around the block with their baseball bats eager to take a swing at the dangling Goldberg piñata. Let me address just two of the e-mails. Sarah Walker from New Zealand writes (excerpt):
Mark Wells similarly bristles at the Goldberg article but he also takes issue with one of my remarks in which I said “Almost everything [Goldberg] ascribes to libertarianism is in fact its antithesis”. Mark writes (excerpt):
I think both Sarah and Mark make good points even if not all libertarians would subscribe to all their views (many libertarians are indeed Christians). One of the reasons I said “Almost everything he ascribes to libertarianism is in fact its antithesis” [emphasis added] is that he is correct about a few things but grossly misinterprets what they actually mean. Libertarians do not view all ideologies as equal, however they take a non-dogmatic approach (at least the Popperians like Sarah do, pace Ayn) and as free thinkers are willing to examine a wider variety of cultural influences than Goldberg seems to think is healthy, seeing as we view choice as having intrinsic value. For example when Goldberg claims:
Yet it is clear Virginia Postrel is indeed making a judgement, just not the particular one that Goldberg thinks is at issue. What she is saying simply does not pertain to either Christianity or porn and contrary to what Goldberg thinks, that is far from being a lack of “willing[ness] to say that one is any better, or any worse, than the other.” Au contraire, Jonah. I do not know Virginia Postrel personally yet it is abundantly clear what she means. It is a clear statement that what is of value here is not the porn or the Christian books but the value of a society based around having THE CHOICE. It’s that whole liberty thing again. December 14th, 2001 | Comments are closed
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