We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.

Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]

As it is International Women’s Day

Samizdata quote of the day

Call a woman “shrill” and you might just end up in cage. Meanwhile, as I point out, this sort of “protection” disempowers women.

Amy Alkon, suitably reacting to this maggoty peach by Sadiq Khan.

Epic trolling by the Czechs!

Prague renames square in front of Russian embassy after slain Putin critic Boris Nemtsov

Ok, that is pretty damn good. But this…

The Russian embassy in Prague did not respond to a request for comment, nor did the Russian Foreign Ministry comment on the move. Hřib said the embassy had not responded to an invitation to attend the renaming ceremony.

Samizdata quote of the day

The fact that British Indians have been so successful and have integrated into society should be celebrated by the left. Here is a story of migrants, refugees and their descendants making notable contributions to British public life – in business, politics, media, entertainment, sport and more.

However, the identitarian left is much more interested in keeping ethnic minorities locked into a perpetual state of victimhood. The values of personal responsibility, individual initiative and self-sufficiency, which run deep in British Indian communities, challenge the left’s grievance-driven narratives. The fact that British Indians have managed to thrive also calls the widespread notion of ‘white privilege’ into question.

Rakib Ehsan

Another political question …

This time, I have a question for people who follow Irish politics more closely than I do. Why is Sinn Fein doing so well?

Following Brexit, Ireland could find itself facing some economic ‘issues’ that might prove quite serious. Is a rabidly anti-British political party more or less likely to be able to deal with such emerging problems?

What is really behind this purported surge by Sinn Fein?

Trump’s predictable triumph…

I have a question for readers who watch US politics more closely than I do these days: given how the process of impeaching a US President works & the nakedly political nature of the whole thing, in view of the cold hard number of Democrats vs. Republicans in the US Senate, what sequence of events did the architects of this venture see that would result in a different outcome?

How could this not have ended in a victory by Trump and vastly increase the chance of him getting re-elected? Anyone care to explain the Democrat gambit? I mean, they must have assumed they could successfully depose the duly elected POTUS when they started this ball rolling, so what am I missing?

For a brief moment, my heart leapt with joy…

A few days after the recent election, whilst walking down the street near Chelsea & Westminster Hospital, I noticed this sticker & my heart leapt with joy. With enormous regret, I had just voted Tory as I live in what was the most marginal Labour seat in the UK (20 vote Labour majority), and it did indeed turn blue by a narrow margin (150 vote Tory majority). Suddenly I did not feel so bad about voting ‘Conservative’.

But upon closer examination, I realised that far from being a Conservative sticker, it was without doubt propaganda designed to produce the opposite reaction to the one I experienced. Not hard to understand the thinking, as to people who produced this sticker, it was inconceivable that anyone actually wanted to see the NHS privatised. Indeed, I do not either, I want to see it abolished completely, but I would settle for genuine privatisation 😉

Sigh…

With the greatest regret, I felt I had no reasonable option but to vote Tory today. I live in a Labour super-marginal (Kensington) & as BXP has zero chance here, I had to vote against the anti-Semitic Marxist party.

I am going to drown my sorrows.

Samizdata quote of the day

If you want to wear a poppy, then do so. If you do not, then again, so be it. If liberty is to mean anything, then it means the right not to wear a poppy and the dead of two world wars doubtless wouldn’t have cared overmuch either way – being somewhat more mature than their descendants.

Longrider

Samizdata quote of the day

Regardless of the opinions of Boris, if fusion comes on line in the middle of the attempts by the likes of the Rebellion to turn the western world into a weakened communist hive that the East will invade, high profile teenagers will likely be exposed as the anti-progress communists they are rather than environmentalists.

A certain teenager wants the West to emit less carbon so the East, who already emit over 60% of if, can emit more carbon. Check out her TED talk – she says it out loud (and much of the rest of the manifesto of the people who switched to Green politics in the 80s and early 90s after their preferred ism failed).

– the delightfully pseudonymous BeamUpDenied casting his or her pearls before the Gadarene swine on the Guardian

Dear Japanese Government: fuck off

TOKYO (Reuters) – Japan aims to change the way Japanese names are written in English by putting the family name first, the same way they are written in Japanese, in a triumph for conservatives keen to preserve traditional ways in a fast-changing world. Education Minister Masahiko Shibayama proposed the change to Cabinet ministers on Friday and the government will now study how to implement it, the top government spokesman said […] Foreign Minister Taro Kono raised the suggestion in May saying foreign media should write the prime minister’s name in the traditional way – Abe Shinzo.

Shinzo Abe can fuck right off, because that is not correct when using English. Follow your own heathen customs when using Japanese, old chap, but no government gets to decide how English is used, that sort of bullshit only happens in France and Japan 😛

What is Modern Monetary Theory?

I commend this to samizdata readers, one in a series by Tim Worstall apparently:

Modern Monetary Theory is, in one sense, just reality. In the other and more important discussion MMT is a simple ignorance of the original question being asked.

Hit the link, read the whole thing.