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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The notion that the US blogosphere is going to allow the US state to require it to register certain content is something that has me wondering if some cunning conspiracy was not at work by a shadowy cabal of Good Guys (who inexplicably did not let me in on the plan) luring the enemy into a sort of virtual Teutoburger Wald by playing to hubris and Imperial overreach. These people do not really even understand what the internet is I suspect.
I can not tell you how delighted I am. When a body like the Federal Trade Commission commits itself to an unwinnable fight against an almost literally endless enemy with the ability to vanish and reappear at will, it is a clear sign that terminal stupidity has set in, which is really rather good news.
Oh and by the way, all you US based corporate drones looking for a few blog harlots to review your magic widgets in return for some free samples, there are large numbers of blogs based outside the USA with extensive US readerships who will be happy to openly invite the FTC to stick their regulations up their collectives arses… that said, US blogs who like to review products are almost certain to completely ignore the FTC, with the more nervous ones just reorganising how they do things (trivially easy: change names/host overseas) to make these absurd regulations worthless.
“The fact that there is some populist anger in the country these days is not a shock. The surprising thing is that there is not a lot more of it.”
Arnold Kling.
It’s no secret. No secret at all. Every second or third blog I read has stuff about it. Film Director Roman Polanksi (Repulsion, The Pianist) did something bad of a rape-like nature to a teenage girl several decades ago, and lived in Europe from then on.
But now they are going to extradite him or not as the case may be, from France or Switzerland (somewhere European), and big cheese lists of Hollywood big cheeses are saying he’s a great artist and therefore regular morals and laws and suchlike don’t apply to him, ease up, forget about it, freedom of artistic expression, it wasn’t really rape (“rape-rape” as Whoopi Goldberg (Ghost, Girl, Interrupted, Rat Race) has famously put it), it was her fault, it was her mother’s fault, it was the judge’s fault, blah blah, and the rest of us are saying: bullshit you evil bastards.
If you care about the details you now know them. I care about the details, a bit, and I too am of the bullshit you evil bastards tendency. Not my point here. No, what interests me about this ruckus is how the internet has so completely changed the rules of such debates, and so completely wrong-footed the big cheese evil bastard team. → Continue reading: How the internet has put Roman Polanski and his idiot Hollywood defenders in the spotlight
From an interview in the latest Radio Times. Interviewer: Jane Anderson. Interviewee: singer and entertainer Andy Williams.
Although Williams is a life-long Republican, he was happy to hit the campaign trail with this buddy, RFK, and was the the Los Angeles rally where Kennedy was gunned down in 1968. “I was very close to Bobby and he asked me to be a delegate for him when he ran for president. He knew about me being a Republican, but just laughted and said, ‘Sign in as a Democrat and then change back afterwards’. Sadly, I never got to do that.
“I stayed at the hospital that night. I just kept thinking of my buddy … a young man who was full of life. I was very close to Teddy Kennedy, too, and his death recently brought it all back. What a tragedy. Had he lived, I think Bobby would have been a great president.”
Does he think Obama will make a great president? “Don’t like him at all,” Williams says gravely. “I think he wants to create a socialist country. The people he associates with are very left-wing … one is registered as a Communist. Obama is following Marxist theory. He’s taken over the banks and the car industry. He wants the country to fail.”
Er, we’ll take that as a no, then.
I actually read this first in the Radio Times, which I purchased earlier this evening, and am now somewhat disappointed to discover that I am not the only one who thinks it worth paying attention to. Nothing like. The Andy Williams website has stopped working, although could just be me.
It was canny of Williams to preface his remarks with all that stuff about how he loved the Kennedys, and I’m glad the Radio Times included it. I think this could hurt Obama. It could really get this meme out there, where it belongs, beyond mere anti-lefty blogs like this one. It could get interesting watching all the lefties explaining how it ain’t so. The thing is, Obama was sold to America as Mr Nice. If his attack dogs go after Andy Williams for saying this, well, they risk looking like attack dogs. But if they don’t, well, you know, people might think that Williams is, as it were, right. People who hadn’t done so before are bound to start wondering.
Two questions. How are those Mainstream Media in the USA reporting this? And how long before someone calls Andy Williams a racist?
Michael Barone in the Washington Examiner asks: Can the Republicans win the House in 2010?.
Might I suggest this is actually not the right question or at least not a very interesting one to ask.
How about “Would it actually make much difference if the Republicans win the House in 2010?”
Until the Big State Tax and Regulate schmucks like McCain, Romney and their entire ilk are explicitly repudiated and figuratively (and in a perfect world, literally) thrown into Boston Harbour, I will tell you what difference re-electing the party that gave the world George Bush (either) will make… No meaningful difference at all.
Obama is the bastard child of the both parties, make no mistake about it. Nothing he is doing now would have been even within the realm of political possibility if the state had not already been vastly expanded with Republicans in the Whitehouse.
No child left behind indeed… they will be paying for this legacy for a very long time.
No one who gives a damn about liberty should even consider supporting the Republicans until they have had a profound and merciless internal blood-letting and made themselves worth voting for by throwing the Big Staters out. They are not even close to that point yet.
Now is very much the time to call for as much Republican disunity as possible because so much hangs on what happens now. If the mega-statists keep control of both parties as completely as they have over the last twenty years, there will be no way out of the deepening hole.
“To anyone who pays more attention to Ben Bernanke than Ben Affleck, walking away from a prime gig like Palin’s was virtually incomprehensible, signalling either imminent scandal or incipient dementia. To the rest of America, Palin’s move made perfect sense, firmly cementing her status as perhaps the one politician who truly feels our ennui. First she cheerfully admitted that she had no idea what the vice president actually does all day (just like me!) Then she stared blankly when asked to reveal her thoughts on the Bush Doctrine (the what?) Then, after earning even higher Nielsen ratings in her first big prime-time showcase than the American Idol finale, only to return to Alaska and the dull reality of mulling over potential appointees to the Board of Barbers and Hair Dressers, she bailed. Sorry, politics, she’s just not that into you.”
– Greg Beato.
He’s talking about how the media/political establishment was befuddled by Sarah Palin’s resignation from the Alaska governorship a few months ago.
“We’ve heard ample warnings about extremist paranoia in the months since Barack Obama became president, and we’re sure to hear many more throughout his term. But we’ve heard almost nothing about the paranoia of the political center. When mainstream commentators treat a small group of unconnected crimes as a grand, malevolent movement, they unwittingly echo the very conspiracy theories they denounce. Both brands of connect-the-dots fantasy reflect the tellers’ anxieties much more than any order actually emerging in the world.”
Jesse Walker, talking about how the likes of Glenn Beck and other conservative commentators are being targeted by an increasingly jumpy “liberal center”. This is a good article and it has a certain relevance too here in Britain. If something like talk radio or a UK equivalent of Fox were to take off, just imagine the commentary from the MSM.
My favourite banner [registration required] from the Washington DC protest last Saturday which did not happen, judging by many media outlets, was a few “tens of thousands” of right-wing protesters, according to the Washington Post, but drew rather a bigger crowd, according to the Daily Mail, than the new Messiah’s botched swearing in ceremony.
What I would like to know is when “we want less” became an extremist position?
A 9/11 “truther”, appointed to a government job by The Community Organiser, has resigned. The guy was, among other things, a communist.
Of course there are causes we might have supported in our youth that we would rather not put on our employment CVs. But there are causes and there are causes. And this guy seems to be a fully paid-up moonbat.
“If your child is incapable of handling a 20-minute haranguing from a self-important public servant, he will be tragically unprepared for the new world. (Whom do you think he will be dealing with when he needs that hip replacement in 60 years?). Even if you oppose the president on a political level, it is empirically evident that the more one hears his homilies the less inclined one is to trust him. And Obama’s penchants to lecture us endlessly, to be the center of attention endlessly and to saturate the airwaves and national conversation are clear indications that he believes government is the answer to every societal, religious, economic, and cultural question we face. Why should your kids be immune? . .Why should we deny that he can elevate our schoolchildren from the abyss so they finally, after decades of neglect, can learn again? And who better to dictate the lesson plan than the president’s secretary of education, Arne Duncan, a man who left Chicago’s school district with a meager 40 percent dropout rate? Honestly, if I’m going to be badgered and browbeaten by the president every day, kids should suffer a bit, as well. “
David Harsanyi, commenting on the recent Obama broadcast to American schoolchildren.
The US Securities & Exchange Commission, which regulates US-based financial institutions, has been blasted by a report for failing to act to stop the massive Ponzi scheme fraud of Bernard Madoff, who has been jailed after admitting his crimes. The SEC, like Britain’s own Financial Services Authority, has not exactly covered itself with glory during the financial crisis.
A point worth making – since I doubt it will occur to much of the MSM to make it – is that this episode will hardly deflect policymakers from the idea of loading even heavier regulations on financial services. Our own Financial Services Authority, in the form of its chairman, Lord Adair Turner, recently reminded people of how bureacratic mindsets work by calling for a tax on financial services which he says have become “too big”. Politicians and commentators routinely describe the crisis as somehow proving that “unregulated capitalism” has failed. And yet the SEC failure over Madoff proves a very different point: you can have all the regulations in the world, but if you don’t enforce them, and financial watchdogs are run by people lacking a bit of common sense, then the regulations will be useless.
As I keep reminding people, the credit crisis and the subsequent fallout occured, primarily, right under the noses of the world’s most powerful regulators and central banks, and not some obscure Caribbean tax haven or Alpine principality. And yet the impression given is that we have lived through a sort of re-run of a Wild West movie. The truth is very different.
I came across this gem of a comment by an Obama supporter – assuming the commenter was sincere and not a troll, and it is just too good to go unremarked. The comment was made on a suitably acerbic column by Matt Welch, one of those Reasonoids who have gone very sour indeed on the US president.
Here is the comment:
“I´m american and not angry. i´m happy with our new president. vladimir putin likes him, too. looking forward to his next 3 years as president.”
Priceless.
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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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