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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ATTN: THE SAMIZDATA TEAM
FROM: THE HONOURABLE PRESIDENT
OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, ROMANO PRODI
Dear Sir/Madam,
Good day Sirs. I hope my letter does not cause you too much embarrassment as I write to you in good faith and the transaction is of mutual benefit. Based on the contact address given to me by a friend who works at the Nigerian chamber of commerce attached to your embassy in my country.
Please excuse my intrusion into your private life. I am Romano Prodi, the appointed President of the European Commission and my friends and I are in danger of losing a lot of money due to vindictive investigators and their friends in the media who are bent on ruining us financially. Consequently, my friends in the Commission have asked me to seek for a foreign partner who can work with us to move out the total sum of €75,000,000.00 ( seventy five million Euros), presently in their possession.
This money was of course, acquired by my friends through hard work and enterprise. The Swiss government has already frozen all our accounts in Switzerland, and some other countries would soon follow to do the same.
This bid by some political rivals to deal with this my friends and I has made it necessary that we seek your assistance in receiving this money and in investing it on behalf of our behalf. This must be a joint venture transaction and we must all work together. Since this money is still in cash, extra security measures have been taken to protect it from theft or seizure, pending when agreement is reached on when to move it into a secure and anonymous territory pending on our agreement.
I have personally worked out all modalities for the peaceful conclusion of this transaction. The transaction definitely would be handled in phases and the first phase will involve the moving of €25,000,000.00 (twenty five million Euros).
My friends are willing to give you a reasonable percentage of this money as soon as the transaction is concluded. It will, however, be based on the grounds that you are willing to work with us and also all contentious issues being discussed before the commencement of this transaction. You may also discuss your percentage before we start to work. As soon as I hear from you, I will give you all necessary details as to how we intend to carry out the whole transaction. Please, do not entertain any fears, as all necessary modalities are in place, and I assure you of all success and safety in this transaction.
Please, this transaction requires absolute confidentiality and you would be expected to treat it as such until the funds are moved out of Europe to where you intend to receive them.
In compliance with this you are to forward to me the following details: your complete names and addresses, confidential telephone and fax numbers, bank account details and all relevant account numbers. This is to enable me perfect all the necessary documentation with the security firm and move this money across to your country of choice.
Please, you will also ignore this letter and respect our trust in you by not exposing this transaction, even if you are not interested.
I look forwards to working with you. Thank you.
Truly Yours
Romano Prodi.
In a shock move, last night, the UK’s Defence Secretary, Geoff Hoon, spectacularly failed to resign when given an open goal opportunity to do so. In a powerful and sometimes moving soliloquy from the floor of the House of Commons, Mr Hoon looked on as someone else made a dramatic speech demanding the Defence Secretary’s resignation. This was Mr Hoon’s reply:
I don’t know what all the fuss is about. I didn’t fool anyone important when I lied to the intelligence and security committee, just the proles.
Under strong media pressure, UK Premier Tony Blair also defended his beleaguered colleague:
Come on, guys, look, well, you know. Geoff can’t resign now, I need him to resign when the Hutton Report comes out. If I throw his body out the back of the plane before then, there’ll only be me left to carry the can, and I’m not having that. Don’t worry, you’ll get your scalp, but only when Mandy, Alastair, and I decide you will. We’ve got all the ‘least worst’ resignation moments mapped out on the grid, and it’s not Geoff’s turn yet. So can we draw a line under this, guys, and move on?
When pressed on whether it was a disastrous though retrievable situation for British troops to be in the line of fire, in Iraq, while their Ministry of Defence Chief hid in a hole in the ground in London waiting for his resignation grid appointment, a furious Mr Blair went on to add:
Look, come on, do you really think Geoff Hoon is the real Secretary of State for Defence? He’s just a stooge, a figurehead, a nobody. I’ve got one of my Downing Street boys running the real operation, and he’s reporting back directly to me. It makes the lines of control much easier.
Mr Archie Scroggins, 17, a former apprentice gas-fitter from Lewisham, was later revealed as this vital kitchen cabinet insider. His mother, Mrs Olive Scroggins, was as surprised as anyone:
Archie got this job installing a new boiler, in 10 Downing Street, and Mrs Blair took a shine to him. Archie’s been there ever since. He told me he was an assistant masseuse, when I saw him on telly in the back of a car with Tony. But to find out he’s Secretary of State for Defence is a mum’s dream come true! I’m made up for him! And he hasn’t even started shaving yet!
Archie Scroggins was later said to be unavailable for comment, as he was on a plane to Iraq to discuss British and American troop deployments. His father, Mr Reginald Scroggins, 74, was said to be down the pub.
Where archaeology meets politics – on the banks of the Potomac, of course:
Archeologists digging near the Potomac River report they have found a partial human skeleton from the Magnusregimentumian era, also called ‘the era of big government.’
Scientists have dubbed the creature Homo Republicus.
“The cranium is rather large, but the spinal column doesn’t seem strong enough to support it,” said an unnamed archeologist working at the dig site. “Despite its impressive thinking capabilities, it apparently crawled along on its belly, often carrying opportunistic vermin on its back.”
Scott Ott of Scrappleface generally hits the mark with his satire, and in the fine tradition of going after the big slow targets first, his mark is often governmental fecklessness and political cowardice.
While academicians fruitlessly debate the influence of cosmic rays, water vapor, and so on, it looks like the true source of global warming has been identified, and it is . . . France!
A Met Office spokesman said: “There’s very hot air over France, which has engulfed the Channel Islands, and we are expecting it over here.”
Astute consumers of British journalism will note that this story, which was broken in the Sun, is appropriately illustrated in the Sun’s inimitable style.
Alex Singleton respects Peter Cuthbertson enough to bother trying to set him straight.
But Cuthbertson has two problems, the first of which being that he seems to think that all authority comes from the state (therefore we need must laws on which hand to hold our forks in when eating fruit salad, and whether to set boiled eggs on the Big or the Little End).
But the second problem is if anything worse. Recently I was in the coffee bar area of the swanky suite of offices where I make a living (at the tax-payer’s expense) whilst two fortysomethings were sorting out teas and coffees for a business meeting taking place on the same floor, but with a different (private sector) company. The woman, was better dressed in her brown-checkered suit than most British female politicians (which is to say that she didn’t look like a dressed-up showjumping horse on steroids or an English sheepdog with dyed hair wearing Nancy Reagan’s padded shoulder suits) without being a glamorous trendy. She was chatting to the man, who was dressed rather like my bank manager did ten years ago. As I was scrambling for teabags, milk etc, the man described how his daughter had invited her boyfriend to meet the parents. The woman then asked if it looked like a serious relationship and did the man approve.
After saying that it could be a promising relationship the man hesitated before adding “He’s quite a promising chap: he’s got a good well-paid job, drives a nice car, has a home in a nice neighbourhood, he looks presentable enough…” The father’s voice trailed off.
The woman interjected: “…but…”
And the man blurted out: “He’s a member of the Tory Party!”
And the woman said: “Oh dear!” with sympathy. The conversation ended: the poor man’s daughter was sleeping with a weirdo.
This story ends on a happy note. Last week I saw the man and he seemed to be in good spirits: it looks like daughter wised up…
Not that there is any Deep Libertarian Significance to this story, but no opportunity should be missed to revel in the humiliation of a bureaucrat.
Superintendent of Schools Wilfredo T. Laboy, who recently put two dozen teachers on unpaid leave for failing a basic English proficiency test, has himself flunked a required literacy test three times, The Eagle-Tribune reported Sunday.
. . .
Laboy, who receives a 3 percent pay hike this month that will raise his salary to $156,560, recently put 24 teachers on unpaid administrative leave because they failed a basic English test, which has been required since voters passed a law last fall requiring English-only classrooms.
[State Education Commissioner David P.] Driscoll said he is willing to give Laboy more time to prepare for another retest.
”He’s not a native language speaker, so a formal test is something he needs to prepare for,” Driscoll said. ”It doesn’t mean anything now. It will mean more as time goes on because there’s an expectation that he’ll pass.’
I suspect the really scary part of this is that the Lawrence school district had 24 teachers who lack basic English proficiency. The other scary part is that the failure on multiple occasions to demonstrate basic language skills “doesn’t mean anything” if the individual in question is already enfolded in the forgiving arms of the civil service.
This is from the ‘The Basra Rose’, the Iraq deployment section of the Red Rose, the newsletter of the 1st Battalion The Queen’s Lancashire Regiment:
WEATHER
Mon – HOT
Tue – VERY HOT
Wed – UNBELIEVABLY HOT
Thu – SO HOT YOU’LL CRY
Fri – AS HOT AS THE SUN
Sat – SO HOT LOCALS BURST INTO FLAMES
Sun – AS HOT AS THE DEVIL’S SCROTUM
In other words, it is a tad hot in Basra. Just so you know.
Sometimes, the gods of the internet just give you a gift.
A new panel charged with finding ways to make Connecticut government run more efficiently will release its report six months later than scheduled.
Yeah, I want to take advice on efficiency from these guys.
hehehehehehe. Just click the damn link, I am laughing too hard to write anymore.
In reverse order, they are:
10. You can trade an old .44 for two new .22s
9. You can keep one handgun at home and have another for when you’re
on the road.
8. If you admire a friend’s handgun, and tell him so, he will probably
let you try it out a few times.
7. Your primary handgun doesn’t mind if you have a backup.
6. Your handgun will stay with you even if you’re out of ammo.
5. A handgun doesn’t take up a lot of closet space.
4. Handguns function normally every day of the month.
3. A handgun doesn’t ask “Do these new grips make me look fat?”
2. A handgun doesn’t mind if you go to sleep after you use it.
AND…..THE NUMBER ONE REASON WHY A HANDGUN IS BETTER THAN A WOMAN….
1. You can buy a silencer for a handgun.
[My thanks to Dr.Chris Tame for posting this to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
Following the recent diplomatic spat between Italy and Germany, the EU Commission has moved to ensure that there is no repetition of such unfortunate incidents with a ‘Draft Directive on Cross-Border Insults’.
The new directive sets out a regulatory framework which will, in future, require all citizens of all EU countries to follow appropriate guidelines before publicly uttering any sort of cross-border insult.
The guidelines provide:
- Any insult which includes reference to national stereotypes can only be directed against a person or persons who is/are permanently domiciled in or citizens of the country to which the said stereotype is applicable. Insults may not be directed at persons who are merely resident in such countries.
- Insults which include reference to multiple stereoptypes such as ‘Arrogant beachtowel-hogging Schnitzel-brained Kraut metalbasher’ and ‘Pizza-munching dago wop greaseball monkey’ shall first obtain a written approval to utter the insult from the appropriate licensing body in the jurisdiction in which the insulter is a citizen or permanently domiciled.
- For the purposes of enforcement of these provisions, each member state of the Union shall establish an appropriate licensing body.
- In the case of a person wishing to utter a cross-border insult for reproduction in any print or electronic medium they must first provide a draft copy of the proposed insult to the proprietors of the said medium not less than three days before publication of the insult is due. This is to ensure that fair representations can be made by the person or organisation against whom the insult is directed.
- In the case of general insults or non-national stereotype abuse, the words used by the insulter must be words or terms that are recognised as being of an abusive or insulting nature in at least one or more Union member state. The use of Americanised insults such as ‘dickwad’, ‘dog-breath’, ‘asshat’ and ‘freakazoid’ are strictly forbidden as being inconsistent with European cultural values.
- Once a cross-border insult has been uttered (in accordance with these provisions) the person or organisaton against whom the insult was directed shall have a right of reply. In order to permit such right to be exercised the insulter shall allow a period of at least seven days before uttering any further insults.
French EU Commissioner Bertrand Maginot expressed his satisfaction with the new rules:
“We cannot simply allow insults to be traded in this uncontrolled cowboy fashion. If they are not subject to proper democratic control they could disrupt the harmony of European institutions.”
Critics of the new rules say they do not go far enough as insults that remain within national borders are still totally unregulated. However, a Commission sub-committee is expected to convene early next year to examine methods of regulating domestic insults as well.
Samizdata.net’s many spies have told us that these are being stockpiled in Iran for use during the coming ‘transitional times’.
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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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