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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Using a Playstation controller to fire a machinegun in combat… no, really!

· How very odd! · Middle East & Islamic · Military affairs · Science & Technology

Talk about ingenuity! That thing does not looks very RPG-resistant, so it very wisely has a top mounted camera so it can fire from behind cover!

But guys, it is an improvised armoured ambulance, not a ‘tank’.

October 5th, 2014 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)

The alchemy is settled!

· Environment · How very odd!

The words “climate change” have taken on occult significance.

Chant “the science is settled, the science is settled, the science is settled” over and over again, whilst arranging an arcane pattern on the ground with a ritually blessed hockey stick inscribed with the words “Gaia” and “Al Gore”, and if you do that on a solstice, the spirit of Karl Marx will appear!

There is no other explanation for some of the gonzo articles that get written.

October 4th, 2014 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)

Bono

· Economics, Business & Globalization · How very odd! · Humour

Bono is annoying. This was supposed to be a post in which I gloated about how, if I had an iPhone, I would be making use of the U2 removal tool, too, the story being that Apple gave away the latest U2 album for free and enough people complained that they had to offer a way to remove it.

And I would support my argument with stupid Bono quotes. But it turns out he is harder to pin down than that.

If globalisation means a better life for more people, we’re all in favour of it. If it means a better life for less people, we’re all against it.

Non-commital but hard to disagree with. And then there is this analysis:

While Bono has become synonymous with campaigns such as Drop the Debt that fit his right-on rock star image, he also has a well-developed sense of how capitalism works. U2 has acquired a business empire with an estimated worth of nearly (EU)700m. Much of that is due to their artistic talent, but a substantial portion has come from careful management of business opportunities.

Bono’s idea for helping the Third World involves the destruction of trade barriers and protectionism, and investment in the development of self-sustaining businesses. His economic instincts are pro-globalisation, but in a perfectly sensible business way. One of his big ideas to help the Third World, the launch of the ethical brand Product Red, with partners such as Motorola, Gap and Giorgio Armani, is based firmly on capitalist principles.

That is from an article criticising him for tax avoidance, of all things.

I am almost starting to like him. It is very annoying. Still, I do sympathise with @twitflup via The Daily Poke:

Just woken up to find U2 downstairs watching TV and eating my biscuits. Will their presumptions that I want them in my life ever end?

September 16th, 2014 | 36 comments - (Comments are closed)

The invasion proceeds according to plan

· Hippos · How very odd! · UK affairs

thames_hippo

September 3rd, 2014 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)

Our Chavez, who art in heaven

· How very odd! · Latin American Affairs · Religion

Progressive Venezuela has rediscovered the benefits of Emperor worship:

“Venezuelan Socialists rewrite Lord’s Prayer: ‘Our Chavez, who art in heaven'”

No doubt, like Claudius, the Divine Hugo will be worshipped by the more gullible among the British tribesmen. As Seneca wrote in the Apocolocyntosis,

Is it not enough that he has a temple in Britain, that savages worship him and pray to him as a god, so that they may find a fool to have mercy upon them?”

September 3rd, 2014 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)

Planning for the Zombie Apocalypse…

· How very odd! · Military affairs · North American affairs

This is certain to cause much mirth:

The U.S. military has always been the one place in government with a plan, forever in preparation mode and ready to yank a blueprint off the shelf for almost any contingency. Need a response for a Russian nuclear missile launch? Check. Have to rescue a U.S. ambassador kidnapped by drug lords? Yup, check, got that covered. How about a detailed strategy for surviving a zombie apocalypse? As it turns out, check.

Awesome!

August 29th, 2014 | 28 comments - (Comments are closed)

Peculiarly named menswear stores – an occasional Samizdata series

· Central & Eastern Europe · How very odd!

wncs

Minsk, Belarus. May 2014

Ah yes. Marc O’Polo, the great Irish explorer who travelled to and returned from the O’Rient.

August 25th, 2014 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)

Central planning causes empty shelves in Cuba, say BBC

· Economics, Business & Globalization · How very odd!

Years after the collapse of the USSR, Cuba remains a bastion of communism, central planning… and shortages of basic goods.

I am not surprised that there are empty shelves in Cuba. I am surprised to be reading such things on the BBC.

despite Cuba’s proximity to the US, Washington’s 50-year-old trade embargo – which was designed to squeeze this island’s communist government from power – means there’s no American investment here. There’s no Starbucks, no Coca-Cola plant.

Some might see that as a good thing. But they might not find shopping for essentials quite so quaint. I once approached my big local supermarket full of optimism. I now know I’m likely to find a mixture of half-bare shelves and ones stacked with a single product: cheap ketchup, say, or adult incontinence pads.

Basic items disappear whenever Cuba struggles to meet its import bills. For weeks there was no toilet paper or cartons of milk. Now even the delicious local coffee is “lost,” as Cubans say – “esta perdido”.

Mind you there’s plenty of “partridge in brine,” should anyone fancy that. I’ve seen the same pile of cans on display for more than two years at $25 apiece. Perhaps a central planner ticked the wrong order box.

The story is even promoted from other stories under the banner “in today’s magazine”.

August 19th, 2014 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)

This would make a hell of a movie!

· How very odd! · Middle East & Islamic

My reaction upon reading this story was “wow, this would make a hell of a movie!”

When Mohammed Abu Ali went to bed on August 8, he was living in Makhmour, a Kurdish-populated town near the border of Iraqi Kurdistan. When he woke up the next day, he was in Makhmour, an abandoned town under the control of the Islamic State

Time to stay calm and think very carefully before saying anything!

August 15th, 2014 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)

Samizdata quote of the day after tomorrow

· How very odd! · Science Fiction & Fantasy

The real conspiracy is hiding the fact that the US government has had FTL and time travel technology since the 1950s. The first sightings were USAF space-time machines being tested on backwards jaunts of about 5 to 10 years. Navigation was a problem in the early days.

Why keep it a secret? Would you want the Soviets to get that technology or face average Americans rushing off into the void to claim their own planets? Real smooth way to crash the economy and get a bunch of people lost in space and time.

But now that NASA has gone public with their starship program and the astronomers have started naming ‘earth like’ extrasolar planets it’s only a matter of time before they announce a FTL breakthrough. How do I know all this? I pulled it out of my ass and why would my ass lie to me?

– Commenter “AlfredHerring”, trumping this Guardian article claiming that the real UFO conspiracy consisted of the US government faking their existence.

August 14th, 2014 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)

Am I misunderstanding something here?

· How very odd! · Middle East & Islamic · Military affairs

From a couple days ago, I just noticed a story from Breitbart Network claiming the government of Israel was being criticised for not sharing Iron Dome technology with Gaza’s government (i.e. Hamas) so that Hamas could defend its population from bombardment… presumably by Israeli attacks.

Please read the article and then tell me if I have misunderstood this. It seems rather like criticising the government of the United Kingdom in the 1943 for not sharing centimetric radar technology with the German government so that the German government could better protect their population from bombardment… by the RAF.

Either Breitbart Network have got the story wrong or the world is an even more absurd place than even cynical old me realised.

August 3rd, 2014 | 61 comments - (Comments are closed)

Fuck Banksy

· How very odd! · UK affairs

It is graffiti for goodness sake, and here we have assorted people arguing about whose graffiti it is. Oh what a strange world we live in.

It is an amusing work I grant you, and if someone can find a mug who wants to lift it off and buy it for real money, I can see why the lawyers get called in… but please spare me the “Banksy is a National Treasure” crap. He is a talented criminal who does not think ‘crimes against property’ are really crimes (and the reason they are is because the crimes are actually not against ‘property’, they are against the owner of the property).

I wonder if he expects anyone to respect anything he owns, such as his legs for example? Fortunately for him not everyone thinks the way he seem to.

That said, where he to find himself in a prison cell for said ‘crimes against property’, he should probably be given a brush and some paint to pass the time.

June 29th, 2014 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
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