It looks like Congressman Rangel is at it again.
I guess he just thinks enslaving your fellow man is a great idea.
Our thanks to Glenn Reynolds for the link.
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As regular readers here all know, the state is not your friend… but sometimes its petty tyrannies and inanities are bloody funny:
A quick check and sure enough, these people fail to mention their sausages are not in fact made from dragon meat (which I had assumed was ‘self-smoking’). Hell, I only bought them because I thought they contained the ultimate in ‘endangered species’. November 19th, 2006 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
 A brigadier general (retired) writes to The Times:
Read the whole thing. It is not long. I am reminded that we are only a fortnight since St Crispin’s day.
What did you do in the “War on Terror,” Daddy? November 18th, 2006 | 35 comments - (Comments are closed)
I wonder why this has not set any fur flying yet?
Is it because the French did it first? Possibly. Though it does seem to me that the Dutch prohibition is much broader than the French one. Perhaps it is something to do with the fact that France is a more prominent and important country than Holland. Anyway, whatever the reasons, this news from the Netherlands remains (for the moment at least) on the mere periphery of the radar. The more interesting question, as far as I am concerned, is whether this is (a) an unacceptable state repression of personal liberty and freedom of choice or (b) a necessary and welcome bulwark against the growth of radical Islam in Europe? November 18th, 2006 | 46 comments - (Comments are closed)
NO2ID has demonstrated how it is possible to clone the Home Office’s wonderful new ePassport while it is still in the post, without taking it out of the envelope. The Home Office is unconcerned: with classic disingenuity its spokesman told The Guardian, which carried the first part of an unfolding story:
But of course the Home Office does not care. If there is a conflict between your personal security and official convenience in logging the details of passports at borders – which is what it means by ‘improving the security of passports’ (note plural) – then there was never any doubt which would win. An Anonymous Coward on slashdot pinned it down:
Thank you, Admiral Poindexter. November 17th, 2006 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Milton Friedman has died at the age of ninety four. Others will list the vast number of honours that he achieved in his life time and will speak of him as a husband, father and friend. I remember Milton Friedman from my youth via the mainstream media, because he belonged to a time when it was still possible (although difficult) for a free market thinker to have large scale exposure in the mainstream media. I remember the interviews, I remember the television series (Free to Choose – and the book of the same name being in every bookshop and library in the land), and I remember the articles in Newsweek magazine. Milton Friedman replaced Henry Hazlitt, but he was given an article only every two weeks (Hazlitt had a weekly spot), These days of course it would be almost unthinkable for a free market thinker to be given such space in a main stream magazine – and it is not really a question of modern free market folk being inferior writers to Professor Friedman (it is the message that is no longer tolerated, not a higher standard of writing that is demanded). If ‘conservative’ voices are heard in the mainstream media it is more likely to be voices like that of President Bush who was speaking today (in Singapore) – the normal confusion of ‘freedom’ with ‘democracy’ and the normal promises of aid from the Western taxpayer to various governments in return for these governments ‘investing in people’ (“schools ‘n’ hospitals” and the rest of the standard speech). Milton Friedman refused to meet President Bush, perhaps this was intolerant of him (for all I have written above President Bush is not a bad man and he means well), but Professor Friedman’s argument was that as he had tried for eight years (during the Reagan Administration) to explain the basic concepts of liberty to George Herbert Walker Bush, to no effect, he was not going to waste what little remained of his life talking to the son. As for Milton Friedman’s message I (and many others) could argue over many matters. Were “right to work” statutes (i.e. bans on the closed shop) really bad things (as Professor Friedman believed) or were they a counter weight to pro-union laws (as some of us political folk believed)? Was the ‘negative income tax’ really a good way to save people from poverty, or would it lead to people not working if they could not find a good job? Were education vouchers a way of combining freedom in education with support for poor parents, or would they corrupt private schools? The arguments were endless, but they (by all accounts) tended to be debates conducted in a good spirit – and Milton Friedman always at least held his own in debates (against anyone). → Continue reading: Milton Friedman RIP November 17th, 2006 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
If you cannot state a proposition clearly and unambiguously, you do not understand it. – Milton Friedman November 17th, 2006 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
After an hour or so scanning the ‘Region A’ which Jeff Bezo’s BlueOrigin’s environmental impact statement says is the launch area, I have found one reasonable possibility. If anyone else feels like doing some detective work and having a bit of craic, feel free to carry on and report back to Samizdata HQ on your findings. November 17th, 2006 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
“The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that’s why it’s so essential to preserving individual freedom.” He forced back force by the power of argument. His epitaph might be: the pen is mightier than the sword. November 16th, 2006 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
When I write, self-comfortingly, that Britain is a very irreligious country indeed (for all its other vices), many of our more conservative readers are not at all comforted and don’t wish to believe it. Now comes some very impressive support for my view, from a proper poll conducted on behalf of a Christian think tank. “42% think faith is as evil as smallpox” is the stunning headline from UKPollingReport. November 16th, 2006 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yesterday I watched the Queen’s Speech – where the government lays out its plans for the new session of Parliament. I have always had mixed feelings about this event. I like the colour and ritual, but I do not like the fact that a person (the Queen) has to read out a speech full of plans that they may not agree with, and I do not like the fact that the speech is often full of lies and the plans are often very bad. Yesterday’s speech was indeed a mixture of lies and bad plans. For example, the government will continue its policy of ‘sound finance’ (in reality there is a vast government spending deficit, and there is also a vast credit money bubble produced from the ‘independent’ Bank of England). There are to be about 30 new bills to be presented to Parliament, mostly on subjects that the government has legislated on often before. It is like watching the latter days of a Greek city state, or the decline of the Roman Empire – every problem needs a ‘new law’ and if this measure does not work (or makes things worse) then there is another measure and another. Some of the new measures are nasty (such as yet another effort to get rid of trial by jury in fraud cases), but many are just silly and have been done before. The leader of the Liberal Democrat Party (‘Ming’ Campbell) was correct when he said that the Labour party had come into office saying “education, education, education” but had followed a policy (on all matters) of “legislation, legislation, legislation” with hundreds of new statutes and thousands of Statutory Instruments (measures that have the force of law, but are put in place by Ministers and Civil Servants rather than Parliament) being created since 1997. Of course Sir ‘Ming’ did not point to the source of a lot of the regulations the government has put in place (the European Union), and he tried (as ‘progressive’ politicians tend to try to do) to be anti C02 emissions and anti-atomic power at the same time – but he had made a good basic point. Passing laws does not solve problems, indeed it often makes them worse or creates different (and worse) problems. Before anyone points it out, I fully accept that things were much the same under the last Conservative party government (that of John Major). November 16th, 2006 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
A couple of days ago the Congregation of the University of Oxford voted to give outside professional managers more power over the university (it is not a done deal yet – but the plan is now well under way). The vote showed how things are done in modern Britain. Half way through the debate a letter from the government was produced (by some ex top Civil Servants who are now Oxford dons) and read out – basically the message of the letter was simple, the government has not pushed ahead with ‘reform’ of the university because it expected the people there to “reform” the place, but if they do not do so… So change will be “voluntary” in the sense of an “offer you can not refuse”. Scholars have been living in Oxford for a long time, perhaps there really were some there in the time of Alfred the Great (as the old stories say). First on an informal basis and then (in the 13th century) in organized ‘colleges’ – communities of scholars who ran their own affairs. There has always been some government involvement in Oxford. Grants of property (as capital) by various Kings to start up some of the colleges (although private individuals financed the creation of others). Parliament (under the influence of various monarchs) laying down rules concerning religious practices. Even sometimes changing the structure of the university (as with the reform measure of Gladstone). However, the basic structure of Oxford remained. Colleges as groups of self governing scholars. I can remember when the only non academic staff at Oxford were the cooks, cleaners and the men who guarded the gates of the colleges (who also kept important records). → Continue reading: A bad day in Oxford November 16th, 2006 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
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