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]
|
That is a variation on what Sir Alex Ferguson said after Manchester United sneaked a 2-1 win over Bayern Munich in the 1999 final, I think it was, of the European Champions Cup/League/whatever they call it nowadays, with two late late goals in time added on for injuries.
This morning, England were overwhelming favourites to wrap this up by a hundred odd runs, with only two tail end wickets to get. But nobody had told the Assie batsmen that they were tail enders. They batted like batsmen, in conditions which, unlike yesterday when seventeen wickets fell, suddenly looked perfect for batting again. Shane Warne, having got himself out like a pub amateur in the first innings, batted beautifully, until, unbelievably, he was out hit wicket. He kicked his stumps over! And with sixty more runs needed that looked to be it. England were about to win a meaningful test match against Australia by fifty odd runs. Hurrah! When was the last time that happened?
But Lee and Kasparowicz carried right on. There was a close LBW that might have been given. A dropped catch at third man. And suddenly Australia were only one edged four from a win that would have given them a 2-0 lead in the Ashes series and England the biggest kick in the stomach in many a year. But then, Kaspar fended off yet another short ball from Harmison, Jones the Gloves held onto it, show-off umpire Billy Bowden raised his finger, and it was suddenly 1-1 when 2-0 to the Aussies looked a certainty. Two runs. Two runs!! Second narrowest test match win ever, apparently.
This has been a terrific game, which quite blotted me off the Samizdata screen for the duration. The commentators have a concept which they sometimes wheel out called the “champagne moment” of the match. Well this match had two champagne moments at least that will live long in the cricketing memory. There was Warne’s ball that bowled Strauss round his legs on Friday just before the close (Warne’s bowling throughout was a wonder), leaving England jittery instead of confident coming into Saturday. And then there was the perfect slower ball that Harmison bowled Clarke with, with the last ball of yesterday, which seemed to make England’s task this morning easy. There was the great game-turning over by Flintoff, which took Australia from 47-0 to 48-2 (Langer and Ponting) yesterday afternoon. There were eighteen sixes in this game, which is almost two per session, i.e. two more than you usually get.
And just to put the cherry on the cake, that geek-maniac Hughes who works for Channel 4 reckons that the final Jones catch was not out, because Kasparowicz’s hand was not touching the bat when the ball hit it. That LBW, on the other hand… There have been the usual crop of umpiring disagreements with the technologically better informed commentators, and they really must give the umpires the same toys as the commentators have.
You do not have to know what hit wicket or LBW or third man means to get the idea. Just translate all of the above into your preferred sport, and slap a hellishly tight finish on the end.
It really is humiliating how much this nonsense still matters to me. I keep telling myself that it – test match cricket between Australia and England – is only a game. Which is true. And King Lear is only a play, and Asia is only a continent.
And because of this particular only-a-game game, the rest of this Ashes series is going to twist my guts around for many more weeks yet.
Plenty more on this game here.
Here is a good article in the National Interest demonstrating how private sector peacekeeping is much better than its UN equivalent. To quote,
Peacekeeping success does not come from a splendid rebirth of Western interest in these missions, but rather from the unheralded role played by the private sector doing jobs once provided by Western militaries, and from a more realistic and pragmatic approach by the funding states. Sent by donor states, private companies are increasingly providing the missing skills, capabilities and, most importantly, the actual will to carry out international mandates in conflict and post-conflict (CPC) situations. The peacekeeping success stories that get the most play by advocates rarely include the central and growing role the private sector is playing to ensure that success. Private firms filling a myriad of non-traditional roles are creating fundamental changes in the way international peace and stability operations are undertaken. From a humanitarian perspective, this is long overdue.
The article argues that the United Nations, only as good as the resources that its members bring to the table, is a useful framework for co-ordinating security co-operation, but argues that its peacekeeping capabilities should be privatised. As they say, from a humanitarian perspective, this is long overdue.
“The Central American Free Trade Agreement is just at the beginning of a century of trade liberalisation, more significant and powerful than any previous wave of liberalisation. Europe and Britain can either choose to follow the path of America, Asia and China, or it should prepare for a century of decline. If the EU is to avoid long-term economic stagnation, it has to welcome globalisation – not fight it.”
– Alex Singleton writing in The Business newspaper.
Lords Chancellors are political appointees, and certainly should not be idealised. But our Dear Leader is widely believed not to know or care about the past. So that the following dialogue is fiction should not be a problem.
…
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that.
More: Oh? And when the last law was down–and the Devil turned round on you–where would you hide? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
— Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons
Or is it more important to look tough and caution be damned?
And that is exactly what Kamal Aboukhater, the producer of the movie Blowing Smoke, has just done. He has produced the film his way – deeply un-PC screenplay about cigars, men and women using cutting-edge digital technology – and now he is releasing the movie via the Blowing Smoke blog.
So having done all that, getting good people on my side working with me, I didn’t want to become a slave to anyone. I didn’t want to wait for my movie to travel up the long and tedious chain of command until someone finally made a decision to release it.
… There will be no waiting. I can, audience willing, get immediate response and won’t be at the mercy of a movie studio or distributor. One thing I have learned about audiences, thanks to blogs, is that they are not a unified mass of “consumers.” They are individuals, choosing something (like what to watch) for many and varied reasons. Some might want to watch Blowing Smoke because they like cigars, some might be drawn to the poker, and others may want their opinions about women and men confirmed. Whatever the reason, now they can do so easily. And, if they feel like it, they can let me know their reactions and opinions.
And he really does not like the studios, but he seems to like bloggers:
Major studios seem to be the last to adopt and adapt to innovation and trends. And, just like with video and DVDs, they are again missing the boat, unaware of the new possibilities for reaching their audiences. They might have caught glimpses of the future, such as Firefly, Global Frequency, and Garden State. This is thanks to a new band of warriors, better known as bloggers, who add strength to the voice of the fans, fighting for more choice for themselves and, in the end, all of us.
The point is that he can go all the way to his audience, by-passing the intermediaries. Sure, the path is not clear, the journey may be either uneventful or too bumpy, but Kamal is aware of the experimental nature of what he has done. He is enjoying the comments from those who understand and appreciate what he is trying to do. As he said after the ‘launch’:
It’s no longer just about the movie but about an opportunity to add another dimension to the infrastructure that’s already there – the blogosphere and the internet.
It has taken a while to get to this point both in terms of understanding and then realising the idea. I feel privileged to have been part of that process and enjoy working with Kamal whose open mind has been instrumental in this adventure. In return, he can be blamed for my blossoming addiction to cigars, the quality of which would make any cigar afficionado weep with joy. Whilst discussing the final details of the Blowing Smoke ‘release operation’, I savoured a particularly good Hoyo de Monterrey. Who says the days of plotting in smoke-filled rooms are over…
I shall leave you with an exhortation: Boxed BS available now! Get your own! Oh and, BS download is Coming Out Real Soon Now!
cross-posted from Media Influencer
The government’s plans to impose ID cards on British people get wobblier by the day and at last they seem to realise that there is no point in pretending otherwise. Nevertheless, it is important for everyone to remember who cast their votes in Parliament and thereby allowed us to get this close to a civil liberties calamity in the first place. We are by no means in the clear yet but it does seem that things are going our way to some extent and so it is important to kick and stamp on this beast hard whilst it is down.
If we are to avoid this issue coming back to haunt us again and again, we need to make sure that forgiveness is left for the afterlife and use the voting record to MPs who voted in favour at any time to question their fundamental morality and trustworthiness, regardless of party. It is essential not just now but in the foreseeable future to make this issue as fraught and unpleasant as possible for all concerned. If we can make ‘the ID cards issue’ synonymous with political calamity, methinks politicos might just avoid the issue in favour of lower hanging fruit.
The bureaucratic mind at work, from the WSJ Political Diary:
“Before deploying from Savannah, Georgia to Iraq by a chartered airliner, the troops of the 48th Brigade Combat Team, a National Guard unit, had to go through the same security checks as any other passengers. Lt. Col. John King, the unit’s commander, told his 280 fellow soldiers that FAA anti-hijacking regulations require passengers to surrender pocket knives, nose hair scissors and cigarette lighters. ‘If you have any of those things,’ he said, almost apologetically, ‘put them in this box now.’ The troops were, however, allowed to keep hold of their assault rifles, body armour, helmets, pistols, bayonets and combat shotguns” — reported in the Air Finance Journal.
Matt Devereux has some very sensible views regarding the clamour in the media about the latest notorious computer game
The recent US furore over Rockstar Games Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas serves to expose the real agenda behind moralist media censorship in the 21st Century: sex. On July 27th it was announced that 85 year old Florence Cohen of New York is taking the games manufacturer to court over a hidden modification for the game entitled “Hot Coffee”. The file, downloadable over the Internet, inserts a new element into the game allowing players to have graphic sex, including a variety of positions. Cohen claims that this new element is unsuitable for her 14 year old grandchild and therefore contravenes the terms on which she bought the game. The insinuation is that had she known the game contained sexual material she would never have bought it in the first place.
Yet this is a game in which shooting innocent people in the head is actively encouraged. Drug dealing, prostitution, stealing, criminal damage, assault and affray are all part and parcel of all three GTA games. As any self-respecting GTA aficionado will tell you some of the most enjoyable activities include decapitating police officers and repeatedly driving over the elderly. How can it be that this sort of material is acceptable for a 14 year old whilst sex (in which no-one is harmed) is frowned upon? Hopefully, the District Court will see the irony.
Furthermore, the file needed to unlock the pornography was illegally hacked and distributed over the internet. In other words Ms. Cohen’s grandchild would have had to have voluntarily downloaded the unsactioned file in order to access the sexual material. If she really wants to protect her young relative she might more sensibly start by checking his internet history. Predictably, Congress has jumped on the outrage bandwagon, issuing statement after statement brandishing Rockstar as “pornographers” and “out of control.” On July 15th the Federal Trade Commission announced it would investigate the “Hot Coffee” modification.
Who is spearheading this investigation? None other than Hilary Clinton – the woman whose husband is largely responsible for the words “oral sex” being introduced to every American living room. In reality, this is just another case of business and the media being blamed for poor parenting and parental control. Rockstar Games are not responsible for keeping kids in check. Neither is the government. Do we really want our choices to be taken away by people who can not control their own children?
I implied here that I would let Samizdata readers know when a new, more inclusive 😉 anti-ID-card pledge was up and running. It is now.
We are lucky to have the charming former stand-up Franky Ma as the pledge leader. As the covers of more consumer magazines, in more countries, than it is comfortable to imagine attest, you cannot go far wrong associating an attractive young woman with your product.
You can give your word to support the nearly 11,000 ID refuseniks here and you can support NO2ID itself, as ever, here.
Sometimes talented, sometimes monumentally untalented assailants of one’s ears: yes, the phenomenon of the public “busker” seems to be alive and well on the London Underground. A guy at Chancery Lane station this evening was dressed in what must have been a hot and thick red jacket, with a sort of Elvis haircut and was belting out Sinatra hits. (Not bad, actually). The sound of Old Blue Eyes followed me down the Stygian depths of the platform until the racket of the train overwhelmed it. A strange evening. The station was full of police with their yellow jackets on on high alert four Thursdays on from the mass murders of July 7. Cops and Sinatra on a Thursday night. A rum combination.
Take note: Michael Barone has a blog. And its just as good (so far) as you knew it would be. Takeaway line from his first few posts:
All of which only illustrates my First Rule of Life: All process arguments are insincere, including this one.
And he hints at the problem that will bring the GOP down, if not next year then very likely in 2008: the lackluster-to-disastrous domestic performance of the Bush administration and the Republican Congress have given most Republicans no reason to turn out and vote for them. As Virginia Postrel said recently (sorry, can’t remember where), now that the Republicans have given up on economic freedom and markets, they are basically just the party of social/religious conservatism after all.
And if that’s all you got, you won’t win many elections in this country.
South Korean scientists have cloned the first dog, succeeding at a project where laboratories and firms in the United States had been beavering away for years. This is a salutary lesson for Europe, more than for the United States, that research in biotechnology and stem cells is increasingly taking place in the ‘Wild East’.
An Afghan puppy, called Snuppy, is now alive after this process:
The process of dog cloning remains highly inefficient, a reflection of how much scientists still have to learn about how to make mammalian offspring from single parents and without the help of sperm. Multiple surgeries on more than 100 anesthetized dogs and the painstaking creation of more than 1,000 laboratory-grown embryos led to the birth of just two cloned puppies — one of which died after three weeks.
Animal rights activists were unimpressed.
Snuppy’s birth announcement, published in today’s issue of Nature, was greeted with scorn by some animal care activists, who decried the work as inhumane and wasteful, given the global glut of unwanted dogs.
“The cruelty and the body count outweighs any benefit that can be gained from this,” said Mary Beth Sweetland, a vice president at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals in Norfolk.
Cloned pets remain unviable for some time yet.
|
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.
|
Recent Comments