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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Photoed outside Parliament this afternoon:
Another year starts… and we shall be there to blog the bits we find interesting (once we get over the effects of tonight)…
Some more strange outfits were observed…
Our lawyer demonstrated he was as quick with a six-gun as he was with a legal writ…
Adriana selects the Target For Tonight…
Quick! Pour it now or we’re going to miss Big Ben chiming!
Wassail! Happy New Year…
…from all at Samizdata HQ Champaign for our real friends, real pain for our sham friends. Good health to those who love liberty.
Although I am in a tryptophan (or more likely, just gluttony) induced haze, let me quickly file an after-action report from the front…
The menu was sort of ‘Anglo-Slavic’… sauerkraut soup followed by pheasant,
parsnips, carrots, ‘tats and red cabbage… followed by a Slovak chocolate-coffee-sour cream layered cake…
Some bizarre items of clothing were encountered…
An excellent Lebanese wine was discovered…
…examined…
…and consumed in considerable quantity. And then…
strange Christmas presents were exchanged
As Dale has already added his greetings from Ulster, Adriana and I would like to wish all our readers and contributing Samizdatistas a hearty Christmas, well provisioned with all the goodies capitalism doth provide.
Thirty one stalwart samizdatistas plus assorted friends and allies descended on Samizdata HQ last night/early this morning for our celebration of five years on the front line of the blogosphere.
Two of Samizdata’s editors presided over the festivities
The damn paparazzi were everywhere
People tended to congregate around the alcohol
As the hordes started to pack into Samizdata HQ, others took up defensive positions on the stairs
Our fearless editor seemed strangely surprised that her spray-on
leather pants caused people to have an irresistible urge to touch…
…or spank…
… or smack
Yet people seemed quite uninterested in Brian’s rear-end
Kamal demonstrated how to do anatomically improbable things with corks,
yielding gasps of admiration from enraptured onlookers
The food from Penni Black was excellent and greatly improved the ability of
the assembled samizdatistas to absorb the waves of high quality alcohol
Guido Fawkes reminded us all why we blog (however there
was some debate as to whether he meant ‘freedom’ or ‘beer’)…
But Jax was in no doubt that the answer was indeed ‘beer’
Guido demonstrated his patented “grab ’em by the googlies an’ squeeze” tactic to
Peter Briffa but Jonathan Pearce seemed more interested in communing with
his Martini (shaken, not stirred)
As the evening wore on, Paul Coulam shared his technique for remaining upright
(i.e. frequently look to see which direction the floor is)
The ‘sitting down’ method of avoiding unexpected non-verticalness was also widely adopted towards the end
On November 2nd, 2001, I rounded up a posse of disgruntled hyphenated libertarian types on three continents and an island, telling them they were henceforth ‘samizdatistas’ and offered them a way to get their ‘gruntles’ back that was far more effective than cursing at the television every time the news came on.
We started off initially on blogger.com along with many other so-called warblogs, before eventually migrating to Moveable Type.
We drew our initial inspiration from Glenn of Instapundit fame (and duly got Instapundited quite a few times) as we raged anti-idiotarian fury against the mainstream media’s editorial absurdities.
We coined a few terms which seem to have gained wider currency, such as Moonbat and Tranzi. We learned the fine art of fisking, slew some trolls, stomped on a lot of blogroaches, fact-checked a few asses and we wrote more than a few blogapotamus postings.
Putting one in the eye of The Man yields many benefits and millions of page views, a couple crashed servers, 8,651 articles and 129,117 comments later, Samizdata.net once again proves that not only is blogging far more fun than gainful employment, it is a great excuse for throwing parties… and thus tonight at 7:00pm London time we hold our Five Year Blogger Bash, therefore expect light blogging from the UK contingent and possible heavy casualties by tomorrow morning.
Friday night saw yet another party at Samizdata HQ; it has indeed been a busy summer for such gatherings. This one was in honour of Tracy Sheridan, CEO of podcasting company Waxxi. I was fortunate to meet Tracy at the inaugural Techdirt Greenhouse event in Silicon Valley earlier this year, and since then have had the pleasure of her company twice more in the Bay Area. I promised her that if she came to town, we would throw her a party, and – what do you know? – she took me up on it. We are glad she did!
Yes, it’s a living manga character/Samizdata editor.
The Algonquin Roundtable crowd had nothing on this bunch.
Someone had just told me that Ken Livingstone was hanging from a light pole outside; seconds later, the truth emerged and my smile disappeared.
The Three Blogateers: JP Rangaswami, Adriana Lukas, and guest of honour Tracy Sheridan
See more pictures of the festivities on Flickr.
When Silicon Valley’s youngest dot-com dynamo (and all around delightful guy), Ben Casnocha, told me that he was coming to Europe for his gap year travels, I knew he could not leave London without the full Samizdata experience.
Of course, first an offering to the Hippo God had to be made…
Elena and Perry performed their synchronised hand-jive performance to an adoring crowd
PooterGeek found something else to applaud – guesses on a postcard, please…
I tried not to show how revolted I was by the unsightly growth that had suddenly sprouted from Elena’s head
What could possibly have these capitalists so rapt with attention?
But of course…
There are more photos at Flickr.
Yesterday, the skies over London were often dark and threatening torrential downpour. These were particularly ominous as I and fellow Samizdatistas Antoine Clarke, Perry, and Adriana had received our innoculations and taken our passports to suburbia for a barbecue at the home of our friend Scott Norvell, European bureau chief of Fox News.
You know you are at a higher class of barbecue when the host leads guests in chugging fine wine instead of beer.
Recently acquired Samizdata party fixture (and Huffington Post blogger) Greg Gutfeld is laughing now, but has no idea that an assassin lurks.
Sadly for we overextended Samizdata party throwers, Scott’s cooking sets a new, much more elevated standard for barbecue fare.
Adriana collects evidence to support Perry’s future ‘not guilty by reason of insanity’ pleas.
It was a splendid evening with delicious food, lots of laughs, and the usual plans for world domination. (Don’t worry – you are in safe hands!) More photos at Flickr.
Or, rather, Independence Evening, which brought a motley crew of celebrants to Chelsea for some of Adriana’s salad, Nancy’s pasta, and some rather scandalous conversation. What is said at Samizdata HQ stays at Samizdata HQ, but a few of the photos can – as ever – be shared…
Three authors, an editor, an engineer, an actress, a Cambridge student, and a Brian
Two patriotic pavlovas (with thanks to Nigella)
Now that she had cleaned her plate, Jo hoped to be granted a refill of vino
Thanks to all who braved the heat to come along, and do not worry – your secrets are safe with Samizdata…
Last night in Chelsea, Samizdatistas from around the globe gathered at Samizdata HQ for some of Perry’s famous chilli con Chelsea, his ‘secret recipe’ cheesecake, and plenty of wine from Stormhoek and other fine producers.
The hostess with the mostess
Funny, I always imagined that Perry was completely oblivious to any sport which did not involve firearms
The newest Samizdatista, Hillary Johnson (visiting London from Los Angeles), was the guest of honour
So this is what a group of bloodthirsty free marketeers looks like…
Take me drunk, I’m home!
A fantastic time was had by all, and there are more photos from the party on Flickr.
Instapundit Glenn Reynolds has been out promoting his new book. In order to demonstrate how well connected to the world ordinary people now are, how much choice they have, and much information they have easy and inexpensive access to, he has repeatedly brought up the example of the bar he likes to work ” with 27 kinds of beer on tap, a nice patio and… a free wireless Internet hookup,”
It sounds reasonably good.
As it happens though, Jonathan Pearce and I went to Porto in Portugal last weekend in order to get pissed have a stimulating weekend. On saturday night, we ended up in a bar with a choice of over 200 kinds of port. There was something work related that I had to get done reasonably promptly, so I got out of my laptop and joy of joys, the bar was providing free wireless there too. I was able to get my work done. It certainly beat spending time in the office. It beat a mere 27 kinds of beer too.
So what can I say? Samizdata 200 – Instapundit 27. We win.
For what it’s worth, in front of me I have a dry white port, a fruitier white port, a reserve, an unfiltered L.B.V, two tawnies, and a 21 year old colheita. (The colheita in particular was just divine).
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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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