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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This is both an historical and an historiographical puzzle.
It might well be true. It would be interesting if it were.
I do not think it is of any consequence for current affairs or community relations whether it is true or not (and I could not give a damn what anyone thinks on that point either way). But I thought my naval history was pretty good, and I have absolutely no idea what he is talking about.
The BBC reports Trevor Philips speaking at an event today:
“When we talk about the Armada it’s only now that we are beginning to realise that part of it is Muslims,” Mr Phillips told the meeting. “It was the Turks who saved us, because they held up Armada at the request of Elizabeth I.”
Now what is he going on about? How would one arrange that with 16th century communications? Elizabeth certainly chartered a Levant Company, and had diplomatic relations with the Ottomans. But where is the evidence? Did the Turks hold up the Armada at all? And if so did they do it by arrangement? If so, what’s the new research that “only now” gives us this information? If not, where does Mr Phillips get the idea from?
Being the free marketeer that I am, I accept the point that an item is worth what people are prepared to pay for it, not more, not less. But some sort of gremlin in me shouts “that’s bonkers!” when I see what people are prepared to shell out for a so-called work of art. The skull, encrusted in diamonds, sold for £50m by Damian Hirst had that little gremlin shouting again in my head.
To think that some folk working deep under the earth’s crust dug out all those sparklers for this, when there are so many beautiful women out there who should be wearing things like these.
Ok, rant over.
No, not that Evil Empire – the other one!
Thanks to Nick M for providing the link; it was too good to leave languishing in this comments thread.
UPDATE: have I been had? I think it likely! Read comments for more details…
I am not a musician, but if I were a guitarist, I might fancy one of these. I like the one with the teeth.
(Via Gizmondo).
Earlier this evening I was reading the on-line Telegraph and clicked on a link about a Taliban leader being killed in a NATO air strike in what I assumed was going to be Afghanistan… and to my surprise I ended up at an article about the interminable queues at British airports! So this NATO air strike against the Taliban was where exactly?
I looked again a bit later and the links were appropriately sorted out but as someone who has just passed through the nightmare that is Heathrow, for one glorious moment I thought some public spirited member of the armed forces stuck in one of what Adriana calls “the security theatre queues” had snapped and called in a long over due air strike on Terminal 2.
Whilst it is fun to laugh at the French, in the interest of fair and balanced commentary I should add that this civil servant would find numerous employment opportunities in any of the world’s government sectors.
Ecogeek reports:
In the next 12 months, McDonald’s plans on creating enough fuel to power its 155 delivery vehicles while having enough fuel left over to sell into the public market. The fuel will be composed of 85% waste vegetable oil and 15% virgin rapeseed oil. So, while it will be 100% carbon neutral, it won’t be entirely waste oil.
It is all very well training executives in communication with the media. Somehow I have a feeling that if the guy was allow to talk normally instead of using the pseudo-technical press-release talk, this might have been avoided.
However, Matthew Howe, Senior VP of McDonald’s UK was quoted saying:”As we get better at the refinement we will be able to remove virgin rape from the process”, a line which we sincerely hope never gets taken out of context. [emphasis mine]
Now please excuse me whilst I clean the tea from out of my keyboard.
We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area
– UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer.
 Not often you see a remark quite like that.
(via Alec Muffet)
Via Reason magazine’s Hit & Run blog, here is this rather amusing item about how French motorists with clean driving licences sell their speeding points online for a fee to drivers who are in danger of using up all their points and then getting banned. Yes, yes, I can see the usual Dudley Do-Rights out there bleating that this is all terribly naughty, a sign of decadence, blah, but in fact what this demonstrates, in a slightly naughty French way, is how if you oppress people enough with laws and taxes over a period of time, it breeds such disregard for the law that even laws that have sense – and driving very fast can be bloody dangerous – get spurned. (It appears the French are smarter at getting around certain rules – look at what happened to former Spurs, Manchester United and England player Teddy Sheringham for allegedly trying to pull the same speeding-point move).
I have driven a few times along France’s magnificent, sweeping autoroutes, and am occasionally reminded that France invented Formula 1 motor racing. Maybe there’s plenty of life left in Gaul yet. If only they could do capitalism in a slightly more routine way.
Talking of such alternative markets, here is an old article about the market in air miles.
BBC Farming Today naturally took an interest in how the new food and rural affairs minister, Rt Hon Hilary Benn MP, who is a vegetarian (thus “Veggie Benn”, his father having been “Wedgie Benn”), would get on with livestock farmers. This morning an interviewer probed his convictions: –
BBC: Why are you a vegetarian?
Benn: I am a vegetarian – and I have been a vegetarian for 35 years – because of a personal decision I took not to eat meat.
A classic piece of political honesty, I hope you agree.
[An exercise for title wonks: He is ‘Rt Hon’ now, since he’s been in the cabinet for a while, and thus a Privy Counsellor. However, was he ‘Hon’ before that? Wedgie Benn disclaimed his viscountcy, which will revive on his death. Not that they would, but are his children entitled to style themselves “The Honourable” in the meantime?]
Scanning various news websites this morning, as is part of my routine, I came across this article over at Reuters. Scroll down and you will see that the item refers to a person commenting to the effect that car ownership is “immoral”. Think about that: ownership of a piece of metal, with wheels at each corner, that conveys people from A to B by the harnessing of controlled explosions in something called an engine, is immoral. Not unwise, costly, difficult or impractical, but “immoral”.
Maybe these creeps will next argue that Man’s possession of opposable thumbs is “immoral” too.
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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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