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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Last month, it was this:
A report published by the government predicts more than 12m adults and one million children will be obese by 2010 if nothing is done.
And this month, there is this:
Culture Secretary Tessa Jowell has called for “stick-thin” models to be banned from the catwalks during London Fashion Week…
Ms Jowell said “stick-thin” models pressurised girls to starve themselves.
Damn these wretched sheep! Can they not get anything right? One minute, they are stuffing their ovine faces with calories and the next minute they are starving themselves. Have they no pity for the suffering of the Nagging Classes?
That the BBC can earnestly report, almost simultaneously, two flagrantly contradictory agenda-driven hysterias is symptomatic of the fact that we have too many paid worriers with too little to worry about.
I am sure that ours is not the first civilisation to undergo spasms of a sociological St. Vitus’ Dance nor will it be the last. But have there ever been so many popular hobgoblins surrounding the subject of food and eating? Could it have something to do with the fact that ours is possibly the first (or maybe second) generation that is more than one rainy season away from famine? Is it all just a part of the struggle to find a cultural narrative within which to fit this apparently easy abundance?
Who can say? But the sheep will graze on regardless.
I have noticed that many writers, professional or otherwise, do not capitalise the word ‘Nazi’ in their work. I am aware that ‘Nazi’ was originally an acronym, however I believe its ubiquitous use in preference to ‘National Socialist’ has transformed ‘Nazi’ into a discrete word in the modern vernacular. According to the rules of punctuation, it should be capitalised. In fact, it should be capitalised regardless of whether it’s an acronym or not – ‘Nazi’ is a proper noun. So why is it that many writers fail to heed this rather simple rule? Is there some convention that stipulates an exception in the case of the word ‘Nazi’, because of its association with the terrible crimes of Hitler and his followers? Or is it an affectation of a group of writers, striving to express disgust at Nazism in every conceivable manner, withdrawing from it even the privilege of an introductory capital letter? Either/or, it strikes me as rather odd that people would ignore the rules of written English as part of an effort to display their disdain for an ideology. Do they see it as a linguistic equivalent of denying someone the Last Rites? How silly. What’s wrong with conveying disapproval in the manner most writers find useful; by, er, writing something disapproving?
Great respect is due to Cato’s Radley Balko, who has tirelessly campaigned against the the ‘no-knock’ search and entry powers employed by law enforcement agencies in the United States. I was surfing around the blogs and came across this story a few days after it broke. This is a glimmer, a start in what hopefully may be a change in the law. Radley’s work on the Cory Maye case is a bit of a result for blogs, too. This is a US issue, but as we know with stuff like eminent domain, it is always worth we Brits watching developments like this for signs of similar trends closer to home.
Jim Henley has related thoughts on the issue.
The fact Belgian newspapers want it to be harder to find the content they put on the internet is weird (why bother having an on-line presence at all then?), the fact they went to court to force Google to stop driving traffic to their sites is bizarre, the fact a Belgian court found against Google is insane.
This seems like a good idea
The Financial Services Authority (FSA) is to hold a six-week exercise to test the resilience of the UK’s financial institutions to an avian flu pandemic.
Starting on 13 October, some 60 banks, insurance firms and other financial businesses will take part.
The exercise will look at a number of factors including how firms could cope with a greatly reduced workforce
Yes, I know that we free market purists might argue as to why we need a big regulator like Britain’s FSA to set this up, but even in the absence of such a body, smart businesses would be looking to stress-test their systems against a potential serious problem like avian flu. And it is serious. Naysayers may jest about how much effort was expended on the Y2K technology issue (remember that?) but I am encouraged that these sorts of issues are taken seriously. The health of the London-centred financial system is critical, not just to the British economy, but to the wider trading system as well.
Tyler Cowen, hardly a scaremonger, has thoughts about possible preparations that should be taken.
Unless there is a serious updating of copyright law to recognize the changing technological environment, the law becomes an ass.
– Lynne Brindley, CEO, British Library in British Library calls for digital copyright action
Moonbat Media have some good pictures from Saturday’s demonstration in Manchester by the usual suspects… plus some coverage of an incident where Reza Moradi and a friend were removed by Stop The War organisers because they staged a counter-protest, interrupted Tony Benn’s speech. Check it out.
“What was going through your head during that second engagement?” a journalist asks me at a press conference the next day.
“A rocket-propelled grenade,” I say.
– Private Johnson Beharry VC
Much is made of bogus asylum seekers (with considerable justification) but in truth, the basic principle of countries in the west being a haven for those who are oppressed for reasons of their belief is a very righteous one indeed.
And that brings me to the case of ‘Isaac Shrödinger’, the pseudonymous Pakistan born ex-Muslim blogger who is currently seeking asylum in Canada. If ever there was something I would like to see more of in the west, it is ex-Muslims, apostates if you like, who are willing to talk about Islam and say it the way it is.
Read his article and perhaps do as I have done and drop your mouse heavily on his PayPal button to help with his legal expenses… it will give you some serious blogospherical karma points.
Those Samizdata readers who like to see Blair attacked, but do not read The Guardian paper edition – which I guess includes most of you – are missing a treat this Monday morning. Have a look at the NO2ID website, and enjoy a very crisp piece of advertising created for the campaign pro bono*. I am glad to say that the Guardian is distributed in bulk to Labour Conference delegates.
* PS – But not, unfortunately, inserted by the Grauniad pro bono. If you want to see more of this sort of thing, then you know the words of St Bob.
PPS – I did not put in any picture for copyright reasons. Perry put in the version from the Mail, which is a crude mock-up. So I have changed it back to the original version, by linking to the properly licensed copy on the NO2ID website. The Daily Mail’s crop and bland retouching destroys the entire intention and subtlety of the adveritisement.
So now before British police will carry out raids on Muslim terror suspects, they will consult with a group of Muslim ‘community leaders’ before acting (i.e. they will in effect ask permission from the same people who have so conspicuously failed to prevent the need for such raids in the first place). And of course one can only wonder at the potential for the targets of such raids being tipped off.
So tell me, did the Metropolitan Police ask for permission from, oh I dunno, the Catholic Church maybe, before raiding possible IRA terrorist suspects in London for fear of upsetting the delicate sensibilities of the UK’s Irish community?
This is beyond parody.
There is a military coup in Thailand, a crazed leader of Iran denying the Holocaust and prattling about the return of the “12 Iman”; a Venezuelan demogague brandishes the work of terrorist sympathiser Noam Chomsky; there are riots in the streets of Hungary, a major hedge fund loses billions in the gas market.
What do the world’s economic markets do in response to all this? Well, as historian Niall Ferguson notes, they do remarkably little:
The price of crude oil for November delivery fell 5 per cent last week, even as Messrs Ahmadinejad and Chávez were holding their rant-fest. On news of the coup in Bangkok, the Thai currency declined by little more than 1 per cent against the dollar – nothing compared with its spectacular gyrations during the Asian crisis of 1997. Investors in the Hungarian stock market are not having a great year, it’s true, but recent political events have barely registered. If you invested in Budapest two years ago, you have still nearly doubled your money.
To see just how far politics and economics have parted ways, just consider which of the world’s stock markets have done best so far this year. In pole position is Morocco (up 58 per cent in dollar terms since January 1). Next is none other than Mr Chávez’s Venezuela, up 49 per cent. In third place is Indonesia, where three Christian men were executed on Friday for their part in sectarian violence, sparking riots (34 per cent). Russia, where it is bankers who get the bullet, is not far behind on 32 per cent.
He goes on to argue:
investors are continuing to mistake liquidity for security. Despite the much-trumpeted tightening of interest rates by the world’s principal central banks, the reality is that monetary expansion has barely slowed. In Britain, for example, the broad money measure M4 grew at an annual rate of 13 per cent in July, a remarkable figure. Money may be dearer, but it is still amazingly plentiful. That seems to be encouraging a rather cavalier approach to risk assessment.
So it would seem.
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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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