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This BBC story tells us that the recent visit by Olympic Game officials to inspect London about its chances of winning the bid to stage games in 2012 cost 680,000 pounds. Come on ladies and gentlemen, surely you can do better than that. What is the point of being on the Olympic committee if you cannot itemise your bills in the millions? They are not even trying. It goes without saying that I fervently hope that Britain does not host the event. March 13th, 2005 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for pointing me to this horrid little tale:
There is more to it. Much more. The Saudi’s have changed trial dates to keep reporters out; they have arrested the defense attorney… read the linked article above for more of the long litany of stupidity. I really wonder how long these people can survive in the modern world. A friend and sometimes co-worker of mine, a member of the old Hashemite line, does not think the Saud’s are among the brightest lights in the Muslim Times Square. This ham-fisted approach to democracy activists seems to show the truth of his belief. As Glenn and others suggested several years ago, we would all be better off if the cultured and educated Hashemites were once again in charge of Mecca. March 13th, 2005 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
In one of his recent entries, Brian Micklethwait referred to that small but intruiging part of historical scholarship, the “what-if” variety, in which writers conjecture what might have happened if a particular event, such as a political assassination or piece of intelligence, had not taken place. What interested me was that one or two comments suggested that this was a pure “parlour game” of no significance and that grown-ups should not bother themselves with such playful nonsense. Ah, play. The idea that history, philosophy or art could involve play and other frivolous activity is offensive to a certain type of person. I happen to think quite differently. Playfulness is in fact often very useful in the realm of ideas. When a good writer wants to illustrate a point or an argument, he or she can often do so highly effectively through such gambits as a “thought-experiment”, or through borrowing from supposedly unrelated branches of knowledge. A good example of this was the late libertarian author, Robert Nozick, who shamelessly borrowed from game theory, science and much else to make his arguments. He famously crushed egalitarian arguments for coercively redistributing wealth in his “Wilt Chamberlain” case by showing the injustice of taking wealth from a man who had earned it from the volutantary exchanges of people starting from a completely egalitarian starting point. Maybe it is a product of puritanical Christianity, but our culture still revolts against the idea that ideas could, and should, be fun. I find that rather odd. March 13th, 2005 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Visiting London without a camera is like visiting the Lake District without climbing boots. – said to me by this northern lady yesterday in Parliament Square  March 12th, 2005 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
Kudos to German media watch blog Davids Medienkritik for getting Stern magazine to change its text describing the Italian intelligence officer killed at a US military vehiclular checkpoint as having been ‘murdered’ by US soldiers. The fact this powerful magazine reacted quickly to David’s sharply critical remarks shows that more and more of the mainstream media are now well aware of the blogosphere’s ability to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on such things. Nice one, David! March 12th, 2005 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Here are the first two paragraphs of a BBC report about a report, from a Commission:
I cannot help suspecting that there may be something of a contradiction there, between paragraph one and paragraph two. Is the way to root out corruption to double the amount of money you are chucking at it? This, it seems to me, might be problematic. I mean, how do they intend to persuade Africans to refrain from being corrupt? Bribe them? March 11th, 2005 | 41 comments - (Comments are closed)
Patrick Crozier writes about MRSA, which stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus:
Indeed. The second this gets you to this:
I daresay readers of and writers for Samizdata could come up with the odd reason or two. March 11th, 2005 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
The American regions of the blogosphere has been reverberating after Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated that blogs must be regulated in order to comply with US campaign finance laws. However I do not propose to add my voice to the myriad of other commentators decrying this or explaining why it is such a bad idea, as regular readers of this blog can pretty much join the dots to guess The Samizdata Position on that issue. What I will do though is point out that as well as being a threat to freedom of expression, this has huge positive potential as well. There are few things more corrosive to the power of the state than for it to decree something and then be seen to be unable to enforce its writ. So let Colleen Kollar-Kotelly do her worst. You want to link to a Democratic or Republican campaign site regardless of what regulations say you can or cannot do? Simple… off-shore hosting. Host your blog outside the USA and post using a pseudonym (like maybe “Tom Paine” or “Ben Franklin”) and then link to whoever the hell you want to. Moreover put a banner on your blog saying “This Blog is in wilful violation of US Campaign Laws and there is not a damn thing you can do about it”. Hell, my ‘inner capitalist’ is whispering in my ear as I write this… I just might talk to some chums of mine who are hosting experts with a view to setting up Samizdata.net branded non-US based hosting, available for bloggers across the political spectrum who want to stick their thumb in the eye of those people who want to control free political expression. Anything which weakens the authority of the state, shows the limits of political power and makes enterprising folks some money whilst helping people to do all that is too good for me to pass up. Yeah, I really hope this travesty becomes law in the USA… stay tuned <evil laugh>  March 11th, 2005 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
This NASA PSA works on so many levels I hardly know where to begin. It does not at any point say “only socialist space programs can get us there”. You could infer that if you saw it in certain contexts, but then again, if you saw it at a space entrepreneurs get together you would not. The underlying message is a good one and I thoroughly applaud it. We will reach for the stars. We will colonize the solar system. We will leave the cradle. The infant is a young Paul Allen or Bob Bigelow or Burt Rutan… not a future employee of the State. Ed: You may need to down load the mpg and play it locally. March 10th, 2005 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
According to a number of articles sent out by the SMCCDI, government forces have touched off riots in a number of locations. Rather than give you news third hand, I will just let you read for yourself: Violent clashes rock Oshnovieh March 10th, 2005 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Since I am already on the subject of Mars… the X-Plane flight simulator now includes a number of Mars ports at which you can land your SpaceShipOne. Here is a recent announcement of the Mars extensions to the X-Plane product:
You can find out more about it here.  I wish I could afford the hardware upgrade so I could play too! March 10th, 2005 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Jim Plaxco of the National Space Society tried some creative processing of Mars image data with artistic rather than scientific goals in mind. Some of the results are quite to my taste; others are more for lovers of the abstract. I cannot help but imagine art such as this in the lobby of some Martian corporate headquarters or perhaps in the Marsport Bigelow reception area. Jim has a website for his artistic renderings. This is a web site under-construction and at present contains only a fraction of his work. I recommend you check back every few weeks.  March 10th, 2005 | One comment - (Comments are closed)
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