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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Overheard on Radio 4 this morning – a plan by Westminster Council to fine the homeless who sleep in the ‘tourist sensitive’ areas around Westminster. What a marvellous idea, fine the homeless, like they have the £500 ($750 US) proposed fine! Why don’t they just admit they want to lock them up – and cut out the court admin of chasing the fine? The state is not your friend, whether you are rich or poor…
Also, why is David Trimble really so upset with Sinn Fein spying on the Northern Ireland Assembly? Yes, there are security implications given their ‘links’ to the IRA but surely it couldn’t have come as a surprise? Is he just making political capital out of his opponents being caught with their listening devices out? Is he covering his embarrassment that his party wasn’t doing it? Or is he protesting too much to cover up the fact that he was doing the same thing?
Finally, a policeman’s take on the “after the war in Iraq” question (from a trusted source close to the police, i.e., a policeman I know):
“Iraq’s population is a combination of three different and ethnically varied races who hate one another with a vengeance. They hate us [the West] even more than each other and may be unwilling and unable to support the west should a strike occur. However, if intervention is necessary and the aftermath is about putting together a new and effective ‘junta’, then there might be a chance. If not, it will be a hell of a hole to police.”
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC), the government agency trusted with making sure that we, the people of the United States, don’t come down with the plague is ramping up an advertising campaign. Is it focusing on the threat of smallpox, anthrax, or any other bio-terror threat? How about Ebola, West Nile, or even maybe Hong Kong chicken flu?
No, the CDC has more important things to worry about. Specifically, fat kids. That’s right, American tax dollars are being put to use, in time of war, to tell kids to get in shape. Kids ages 6-17 are being bombarded with a media buy of nearly $3 million dollars (not to mention the cost of creative, the PR agency they hired, additional advertising agency fees, or the costs associated with the on-site events) between now and next July.
As a conservative guess, I would say that the CDC, while being faced with threats to real live national health, are going to be spending somewhere near $15 million dollars putting on a program dedicated to telling fat kids to shape up.
And just to make it better, they are also refusing to discuss the threats facing our nation when it’s been requested for interviews. No questions about smallpox vaccinations, the spread of West Nile – all fat kids, all the time.
And the campaign itself – VERB. That’s right, VERB. As in ‘RUN’, ‘SWIM’, ‘MASTURBATE’1, etc. Here is a list of events:
- Wild & Crazy Kids – Live staged version of the Wild N’ Crazy Kids series, pitting audience members against each other in larger than life stunts.
- Having the kids ‘SIT’ and watch other people be active. Good start. How well do you think the fat kids will do in these stunts?
- MTV Experience Tour – Interactive ‘day village’ that will encourage teens/tweens to experience VERB through a variety of current and relevant booths themed around MTV’s franchises and music.
- MTV. A TV channel. I guess ‘WATCH’ is the message they are trying to get across here.
- Paint the Town – Identify a mural, water tower or other highly visible figure and paint it to resemble a VERB activity. (e.g. Paint a water tower to look like a soccer ball with ‘KICK’ across it).
- ‘VANDALIZE’ will go well with most of the programming on MTV.
- Treasure Hunt – Kids stop at local places to pick up fun merchandise such as hats, t-shirts, etc. Tie-in with radio station, or existing promotion.
- ‘PURCHASE’ will go well with ‘DRIVE’, getting the parents involved.
- Parent Media Tours – Celebrity couple to speak with local media about the importance of getting kids involved in positive activities.
- Back to ‘SIT’ and ‘WATCH’ as celebrities get kids involved in ‘positive’ activities. Are “get busted for drugs” or “sleep with director” considered positive?
- Step Club – Online clubs for kids to participate in programs to increase positive activity by using a pedometer to measure daily steps for a chance to win VERB merchandise.
- ‘CLICK’ is now a way to get thin? Kick ass, office work will be taking on a whole new light now!
Now, I’m not a completely cold-hearted bastard, but this just seems to be a little bit over the top. Besides, most fat kids either have a genetic pre-disposition that won’t be fixed through this program, or they lose weight when they get to college or high school. In fact, this program will do nothing more than give athletic kids a chance to show off, and fat kids something to feel bad about. I understand that weight problems abound, but there have always been fat kids, there will always be fat kids, and nothing in this pork barrel will change that.
So why, at a time when we are faced with so many external threats, are we spending a lot of time and money cross-promoting MTV with taxpayer dollars?
Be sure to check out www.verbnow.com if you think I am kidding about any of this.
1 = Ok, masturbation was left off the list. Just like the state to leave out activities the kids will actually enjoy.
We do not wish our ancient freedom and the decent tolerant civilisation we have preserved in this island to hang upon a rotten thread.
– Winston Churchill, September 1935
It is necessary to guard ourselves from thinking that the practice of the scientific method enlarges the powers of the human mind. Nothing is more flatly contradicted by experience than the belief that a man distinguished in one or even more departments of science, is more likely to think sensibly about ordinary affairs than anyone else.
– Wilfred Trotter
I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed, or numbered. My life is my own.
– Number Six (Patrick McGoohan) in classic TV show The Prisoner
The debate over guns is a clash of cultures, a confrontation of different kinds of character, a disagreement over social philosophy and even, though few notice this, over free will and determinism. The contending factions don’t need guns to detest each other. They would anyway.
– Fred Reed
A few honest men are better than numbers
– Oliver Cromwell
Delectable! Her derriere is the very apogee of nadirs
– Overheard recently by Samizdata Illuminatus
They have an engine called the Press, whereby the people are deceived.
– C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, p. 292
Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add ‘within the limits of the law,’ because law is often but the tyrant’s will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual
– Thomas Jefferson
The men who really believe in themselves are all in lunatic asylums.
– G. K. Chesterton
(Photo: D. Amon)
…but who can help me identify the arcane Techno-mage, Transterrestrialist, Anglosphericaloid and, er, Pundit, who make up this sinister cabal before whom the world trembles?
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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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