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]
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The modern Conservative Party goes from feeble to worse. In a week when the Government has never been so vulnerable, the Opposition Leader’s friends are attacking their own party chairman.
Down in Dartford, a grasp of free market economics is beyond the mental reach of local Tories. This report comes from the Bexley News Shopper.
Meanwhile, Conservative Dartford Council leader Councillor Kenneth Leadbeater said he was concerned about the density of developments and how to ensure new communities integrated with existing ones.
But he welcomed the extra money, especially the “wonderful boost” for the town centre.
He said: “We need some sort of anchor store in Dartford and this money gives us a real chance in attracting another major store.” Kent County Council (KCC) Conservative leader Sir Sandy Bruce-Lockhart said the amount of money heading to Kent as a whole only constituted one per cent of the £10 billion KCC needs to build the 20,000 homes and necessary infrastructure.
But he said: “The North Kent news is really welcome because much of it is for land purchase to build on waste industrial land.”
“This will take the pressure off greenfield sites and fits our commitment to protect Kent’s countryside.” However Kent Wildlife Trust warned about the loss of habitat and insects on brownfield sites along Thames Gateway.
Pass the recyclable sick-bag!
hehehehehehe. Just click the damn link, I am laughing too hard to write anymore.
Welcome to Samizdata.net, a place where reality gives us an unfair advantage.
– Brian Micklethwait
It has been reported that Iranian dissident TV programmes being broadcast into Iran via satellite from the USA are being jammed… from Cuba! Of course I have no doubt that the Communist Cuban government will deny they are responsible.
Fair enough. As a result, it would be really… interesting… to see some equally non-governmental action to stop them. I wonder how much it would cost to lash up ‘private sector’ anti-radiation missile with just enough range to reach the jammer in Bejucal, (near Havana) from not-too-far-into Cuban airspace? Let’s call it a ‘Rattlesnake’ (as in Don’t Tread on Me)
As tactical surprise would be complete, the ‘Rattlesnake’ would not need to be fast (more akin to a cruise missile than a Shrike or HARM), just so long as it had enough range. A simple aluminum airframe with little wings to minimize the propellant requirement, perhaps a stripped down off-the-shelf GPS unit for cruise guidance and a tuned passive homer for terminal guidance (you know, the sort of gear the US government pays hundreds of thousands for and which can be bought in Radio Shack for a few hundred bucks). If the weapon was accurate enough, a small 10 lbs improvised pre-fragmented warhead would probably be sufficient. If the whole thing could be kept under 250 lbs, it would be easy to modify all manner of private airplanes to carry it.
A 15 mile engagement envelope for a Hi-Hi-Lo stand-off attack would probably be adequate: skirt Cuban airspace, suddenly turn in for the attack, shallow dive for speed to maximise range of the missile, release the ‘Rattlesnake’, then dive for the deck at just under the speed your wings will fall off and run for Key West (or elsewhere) at wave-top level long before you develop any MIG or SAM ‘problems’…but obviously the longer the range of the weapon, the better.
Key West, Mexico and a zillion little islands are only a few minutes flight time away for a low flying private airplane and, as I am sure any trafficker in ‘herbs and spices’ in that part of the world will tell you, there are an awful lot of small airfields in the Caribbean.
It is just an idea, of course… pure fantasy…I would not dream of actually inciting anyone to do this. That would be bad. I mean, if people started doing that sort of thing, folks might get it into their heads that it is okay to shoot at tyrants wherever they are found… and we wouldn’t want that now, would we?
Link via Zem
Sharon Stone is getting divorced. Not good news for Sharon but a significant chunk of the rest of the planet rejoices at the news she is ‘back on the market’.
45 years old and still hot
Update: As a commenter reminded me… “Consider that a divorce”
A clean hippo is a happy hippo…
and remember: safety first –
never stand between a hippo and a dishwasher
A Message to the British People:
Jacques Chirac wants to thank you
for saving France on the beaches of Normandy
by giving you
10% unemployment
the Napoleonic code
a Franco-Belgian style military defense
vive le UK
– Clio
I am not sure that there’s any libertarian principle that objects to planned failure in DVDs, or that there’s any logical distinction in the comparative consumer rights between DVD rental and DVD self-destruction. For that matter I’m not sure that there’s a logical distinction between (the much maligned) software rental contracts and leasehold on real estate, not while there is Copyright protection, anyway.
I am sure, however, that a great many people of all stripes, including the most avowedly propertarian libertarians, hate the tendency in the entertainment and consumer software industries to enforce their intellectual property rights and create new, lesser rights in their products in which to sell licenses. I am also sure that Copyright is simply losing the minimal respect that is required for a law to be effective. That libertarians should be part of this too should tell us something. After all, we seem quite happy to take un-PC views on the side of big-oil, big-pharmacy, big-tobacco, big-corportate-bogeyman-of-the-week – and revel in how contrarian we seem, how opposed to the “idiotarian” received wisdom. Why not do we not support big-Hollywood too? → Continue reading: The death of copyright
Government departments are named after whatever it is they are trying to put a stop to, hence ‘Department of Education’
– David Carr
So… megacorporate musicland wants to attack people’s computers, with state sanction, to stop them doing things they dislike. This could be interpreted by the vast army of hackers and script kiddies out there as a declaration of war that is tantamount to painting a bullseye on the side of the RIAA servers.
Of course I would hate for anyone to construe these remarks as actually encouraging people to do to the RIAA what they are planning to do to millions of other people. No, that would be….bad.
On May 4, 1626 American Indians agreed to sell Manhattan island to European settlers for $24 in cloth & buttons. As with most free market transactions, all parties involved were satisfied with the deal: the settlers got land to homestead, the Indians received exotic manufactured goods that were beyond their ability to produce.
Respecting the sovereignty of Iraq was nothing more than respecting the sovereignty of Saddam Hussein, at the expense of the people who would have been tortured and killed for not voting for him!
– Alice Bachini
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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