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It is not the level of wealth that makes us happy. Instead, it is the process of betterment – the pursuit of it – that makes us happy. Whether we are twice as rich today as in 1971 has little bearing on our happiness, because it is in the past. Whether people can see their lives improving in the future is what counts. That is why economic growth remains a key component in happiness, despite what the happiness researchers might tell us. – Alex Singleton, Comment is Free April 16th, 2008 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Sir Karl Popper is not really a participant in the contemporary professional philosophical dialogue; quite the contrary, he has ruined that dialogue. If he is on the right track, then the majority of professional philosophers the world over have wasted or are wasting their intellectual careers. The gulf between Popper’s way of doing philosophy and that of the bulk of contemporary professional philosophers is as great as that between astronomy and astrology. – W. W. Bartley, Philosophia (September–December 1976) April 12th, 2008 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
The BBC is under fire after altering a news story about global warming as a result of activist pressure. Tim Worstall writes that:
Will the BBC’s Roger Harrabin please put the article back to how it was before the lobbying started? Email him your views at roger.harrabin@bbc.co.uk. April 8th, 2008 | 76 comments - (Comments are closed)
It has been revealed that the Europhiles in the Tory party, led by John Maples MP, rigged the Tories’ recent primary for Members of the European Parliament in order to prevent the deselection of Europhile incumbents and to promote women that had received too few votes. ConservativeHome has the full, sordid account. April 4th, 2008 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
‘Market’ was the sixth word I ever learnt – after ‘This little piggy goes to…’ – Dr Eamonn Butler, author of The Best Book on the Market. Isn’t it great how we get children understanding buying and selling months if not years before the anti-market teachers can get their claws on them? April 2nd, 2008 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
… this guy needs to buy a cat and take some well deserved ‘chill time’ for, oh, the rest of his life maybe?
The short version: he set off a booby-trap (the old tripwire/grenade shtick) in the middle of his patrol, jumped on the grenade and his body armour and the stuff in his backpack took the brunt of the explosion. Other than getting blown through the air, this Royal Marine walked away pretty much in one piece. Fortitude and insane luck are a very cool combination. Let me offer the Lance Corporal a career suggestion: head back to civilian life and get a job doing endorsements for a certain backpack manufacturer. March 31st, 2008 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Hackers in Indonesia have defaced a government website in protest over that increasingly authoritarian nation’s plans to block internet access to porn (and what is the internet for if not porn?)… Sadly the site has now been repaired, but nice one, guys. Stick it to them! And here is a nice list of proxy servers for our Indonesian readers (yes, we do have at least a couple). March 28th, 2008 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have just received my new passport. I am not British, and I will be deliberately vague about the country that issued it. The fee for getting it renewed was significantly higher than last time. I do like the nice touch of requiring me to pay a “priority fee” for getting the new passport in a reasonable time. The idea that we should help our citizens by being prompt and efficient in the first place is gone completely. Upon receiving the passport, I perhaps discovered the reason for the higher fee. The passport has a little logo of a chip on the front cover and on the details page. There is an insert stating that “This is an ePassport. This passport contains a microchip which stores the same information that as appears on the data age. The chip can be read electronically to confirm the identity of the bearer. This document complies with International Civil Aviation Organisation standards and incorporates security features to prevent illegal access to the information stored on the chip. See the centre page of the passport for further information”. My country is the sort of place that tends to be proud of being first on the block with respect to implementing fancy new international protocols, so I suppose this does not greatly surprise me. If the chip only contains the same data as the details page, then I rather fail to see the point, given that the passport is machine readable already. If the intention is to add more data to such chips later, I am not sure that the present “This is just a new way of storing the same data” claims are entirely honest. Storing digitally signed data on the chip probably does make sense and genuinely does make such a passport harder to forge. So I will concede that point. Still, making it possible to read the passport without requiring it to be opened seems to me to rather reduce my security rather than increase it. As for the security features to prevent illegal access, surely for technology to be useful it must be made possible for every border post in every country in the world to be able to obtain equipment for reading it. Even if I made the ludicrous assumption that I trust every government in the world, I still find it hard to believe that such a widely distributed technology would not fall into private hands. So, where from here. Well, as it happens I can turn to the centre page of the passport. This page is stiffer than the others, presumably due to having a chip embedded in it. It also has information written on it. “This passport contains sensitive electronics. For best performance, please do not bend, perforate, or expose to extreme temperatures or excess moisture”. So, which of those things should I try first? March 11th, 2008 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
Hysterical Guardian readers are getting absurdly upset. The reason? A member of the Samizdata team suggested that a new tax on prestige cars was more about the politics of envy than saving the planet. March 11th, 2008 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
If I was a believer, I would be pouring a thankful libation right about now. Eliot Spitzer, one of the most nasty power crazed politicos in US politics today, perhaps second only to Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson in authoritarian thuggishness, has just shown that he who lives by the judicial sword, can oh so easily die by the judicial sword. To see a man who thought nothing of using the power of the state to intimidate those who dared cross him get caught in a Federal wiretap is… well… sweet. I love the smell of schadenfreude in the morning. Update: heh… just found an article in the New York Times which has almost the same title and sentiments Update 2: oh this gets better and better… not only has he resigned apparently, it is causing dyspepsia for his statist confrères at the Huffington Post. Happy days indeed. March 10th, 2008 | 53 comments - (Comments are closed)
[Samantha] Power is gone now – but not for the odd article this post points to. No the lady was fired because she said (to a journalist for ‘The Scotsman’) that Hillary Clinton was a monster who would do anything for power. In short the lady was dismissed for telling the truth. After all the Democrats have to kiss and make up at some point. – Paul Marks March 9th, 2008 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Just came across some footage of a Dutch Apache helicopter gunship facilitating some interesting ‘inter-civilisation dialogue’ with a couple Talibs in Afghanistan. I find myself watching YouTube more than TV these days. March 7th, 2008 | 43 comments - (Comments are closed)
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