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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I swear I was not going to bash the Tories this week!
I was actually trawling the French news and looked forward to writing about some appalling corruption scandal. Well this [link in French] is close enough.
It seems that the European People’s Party (to which the British Conservatives belong) has done a deal with the European Socialist Party (to which the British Labour Party belongs) to ensure the election of a Socialist leader of the European Parliament: Josep Borrell Fontelles. In doing so they voted against the Polish former dissident Bronislav Geremek, who if this Communist denunciation is anything to go by, was obviously the right candidate to back.
So all the protestations that the Conservatives would defend British interests are a load of cobblers. These people are an insult to invertebrates.
It gets better, the French report says that the new President of the European Parliament (elected with the support of the European People’s Party) is a man who comes from the left-wing of the Spanish Socialist Party and who had to quit Spanish politics because of a series of unfortunate misunderstandings over large sums of stolen taxpayers’ money. I seem to recall that this was when the Governor of the Bank of Spain was filmed carrying suitcases of freshly printed bank notes to the Spanish Socialist Party Headquarters. The story was extensively covered at the time in El Mundo, the Spanish conservative daily newspaper. I forget if our new European Parliament President was personally involved (though the discreet shuffling of news reports suggests he may have been), but he certainly had to quit over that affair.
So the British Conservatives are fighting our corner within the European People’s Party? Nice one Michael Howard, I know exactly where we stand on the Conservative Party’s policy on Europe.
Support hard-core Socialists! Give fraudsters a second chance! Support even more European regulations and taxes! Vote Conservative!
Bill Clinton’s former national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is being investigated for trying to steal classified documents that tend to make him and his boss look a little cavalier in their handling of the Islamist terrorism threat.
Berger’s home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (news – web sites) agents armed with warrants after the former Clinton adviser voluntarily returned some sensitive documents to the National Archives and admitted he also removed handwritten notes he had made while reviewing the sensitive documents.
However, some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration’s handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing, officials and lawyers told The Associated Press.
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed the handwritten notes by placing them in his jacket and pants, and also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio.
Funny how the documents still missing are the very ones that make Clinton and Berger look like feckless idiots, no? Not only did Berger steal the first copy of the embarrassing reports, when Archive staff made a second copy, he stole that one, too!
Needless to say, Berger is a lying sack of crap:
“In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives,” Berger said.
He “inadvertantly” stuffed top secret documents into his pants? Suuure, Sandy. Although I have to admit this is an interesting twist on the usual pants-related Clinton administration scandal, it still doesn’t pass the smell test.
The punchline? Berger is one of John Kerry’s advisors. Since he also has Joe Wilson on his team, Kerry seems to be playing collect-the-set with lying sacks of crap. The Bush team can truly prove their incompetence by giving Kerry a pass on the fact that he is relying on both these clowns for advice on how to beat the Islamists.
But hey, a former national security honcho who repeatedly steals top secret documents by stuffing them down his pants? Give the man a job! He’s obviously plenty good enough for government work.
Today is the deadline for the Home Office consultation period on ID cards bill. Phil Booth of Infinite Ideas Machine and No2ID campaign draws our attention to the fact that there are still a few hours left…
Just in case you need any inspiration he has published the full text of his e-mail submission to the Home Office consultation on ID cards.
He also points his readers to Spy Blog’s excellent annotated blog of the Draft Bill, Mark Simpkins’ equally excellent blog of the entire consultation document. For those with some time on their hands he recommends reading Stand.org.uk’s submission [219KB MS Word document].
Please do send something (even if it’s just a simple ‘I am against the proposed scheme and legislation’ type mail) to identitycards@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, making sure the words ‘consultation response’ appear in the Subject line.
Thanks.
Cross-posted from White Rose.
Phil Booth of Infinite Ideas Machine and No2ID campaign draws our attention to the imminent deadline for the Home Office consultation period on ID cards bill, 20th July 2004.
He urges us, correctly, to send individual objections to the Draft ID cards Bill and I would like to pass that on to White Rose readers. There are still a few hours left!
Just in case you need any inspiration he has published the full text of his e-mail submission to the Home Office consultation on ID cards.
He also points his readers to Spy Blog’s excellent annotated blog of the Draft Bill, Mark Simpkins’ equally excellent blog of the entire consultation document. For those with some time on their hands he recommends reading Stand.org.uk’s submission [219KB MS Word document].
Please do send something (even if it’s just a simple ‘I am against the proposed scheme and legislation’ type mail) to identitycards@homeoffice.gsi.gov.uk, making sure the words ‘consultation response’ appear in the Subject line.
Thanks.
I do not imagine that Samizdata readers spend a lot of their spare time reading Arena magazine (it does not appear to be available online). It is a chap’s monthly publication that fancies itself as being at the more intelligent end of the man’s magazine world, mixing glossy advertisements for insanely expensive wristwatches and fast cars, not to mention pictures of minor French actresses in a pleasing state of undress, with post-modernist ironic pieces on anger management, etc. I get the impression that it is the sort of publication that pitches to the sort of man who reads the Guardian or Observer but who wants to indulge his blokeish tendencies with a clean conscience – in short, to have his low-fat steak and eat it.
Occasionally the tension shows. In the August edition, for instance, we have a largely gushing and Bush-bashing film review of the latest Michael Moore propaganda effort, sorry, ‘documentary’, Fahrenheit 9/11, which contains a remarkable admission by the obviously pro-Moore reviewer that the filmaker had a “cavalier attitude to such niceties as facts” while stating what a swell film it is. Facts eh, who gives a damn about em?
But what really did it for me was an article (page 77) containing one of the nastiest attacks on a group of people in a magazine that I have read for some time: the overweight. The writer, Giles Coren, whom I have heard of before, rants against overweight people in terms of amazing verbal violence. Words such as “mountain-arsed”, “the great lumps”, “these pigs”, etc, are sprinkled around. Witty, no?
Now I accept that there is something dumb about those who are overweight trying to present themselves as victims. However, I also have nothing but contempt for the way in which the fast-food industry has been targeted for assault by an unsavoury mixture of ambulance-chasing lawyers, moral scolds and sundry bores who would legislate our pleasures out of existence rather than rely on our own self-restraint and personal responsibility. Coren’s article, in particular, seems to be steeped in a sort of fashionable puritanism and also draws on a deeply suppressed need to be able to hate a particular group. Let’s face it, hatred is out of style. There are laws against it. If our demented British Home Secretary, David Blunkett, gets his way, it will not be possible to express anything more than polite scepticism about the irrational superstitions known as official religions. But humans love to hate, or at least some of them do.
I very much fear that the overweight among us are in the cross-hairs of our fashionable haters. Of course, one should not make too much from a single article in a pretentious guy’s magazine, but Coren’s piece is all part of a trend.
To hell with him, I am sending out for pizza with extra cheese.
Greg Nemitz has been a ‘love him or hate him figure’ within the space community for quite some time. Many have wondered what he could possibly accomplish by claiming the Asteroid Eros and charging NASA parking fees to leave their probe on its surface. Some were outraged when he took NASA to court for the failure to pay… not outraged because they felt it was silly; outraged because they thought he might generate bad case law.
Now Greg is on to the next step up the legal ladder. I am beginning to see the outlines of what may be a fascinating and outrageous (in a good sense) plan to settle the issue of extraterrestrial property rights in the US Supreme Court.
I will let Greg speak for himself:
→ Continue reading: Forcing the issue
Today is the 60th Anniversary of Claus Schenk Graf von Stauffenberg’s attempt to assassinate Adolf Hitler and remove the Nazi Party from power in Germany. In the 12 long years of the Third Reich, it was the only serious attempt that was made to remove Hitler and his vile regime.
Graf von Stauffenberg was a mid-ranking Colonel who had been severely injured during service in North Africa but he was a talented officer so he was sent to Berlin. to fulfill a staff role in the ‘Home Army’. As part of his duties, he was to give briefings to Hitler at his Rastenburg headquaters.
On the day itself, Colonel von Staufffenburg hid a bomb in his briefcase and made sure he left in in Hitler’s main working room. It was placed so that the blast would be lethal to the dictator. But another officer found it was in his way and moved it, critically, so that a leg of the heavy table that the papers and maps for the briefing was between the bomb and Hitler. So when the bomb went off, although many were killed, Hitler himself survived.
Colonel von Stauffenburg had planned his escape well, and flew back to Berlin, blissfully unaware that Hitler had survived. There, he tried to organise his co-conspirators into taking power, but their attempt was feeble, and once word reached Berlin that Hitler was still alive, the attempt failed miserably. Colonel von Stauffenburg was shot that night; a merciful end compared to the barbaric fate that awaited some of his collegues, and many more who had done nothing.
The ramifications of the affair sent shockwaves through Germany until the total destruction of the Nazi regime. Although it is not well remembered, Germans now honour Colonel von Stauffenberg and his collegues who tried to actually do something about the hideous regime.
The Government of the Philippines, like the Spanish government before it, has stared into the face of evil… and capitulated.
They are pulling their troops out of Iraq to appease terrorists and keep head on shoulders of one of their citizens. One can make many arguments pro and con about the decision they, as a sovereign nation, have made. I am not going to fight those one way or the other. I merely wish to point to consequences which will almost certainly follow hard on the heels of their decision.
Unlike Spain, the Philippines have not bought even a temporary respite by their action. They have a local flock of Islamist nutcases to worry about in Mindanao: the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF). The MILF operate far to the south of Manila perhaps… but perhaps not far enough. This home team watches television, reads newspapers and follows the internet just like every other revolutionary group on this planet.
MILF leaders will already be pondering tactical changes. How much might they accomplish by kidnapping a few high profile persons? Would al Jazeera be willing to send a camera crew that distance for a beheading? How far will the government cave in? The government in Manila has made its choice. Now they must live it.
Actions have consequences.
Yesterday we has a Samizdata.net Bash (rather than a general Blogger Bash) to greet fellow Samizdatista Frank McGahon on the occasion of his visit to London… and seeing as it was also Waterloo Day, we were delighted to have a guest at the party whose name is Wellington!
For once the London rain was conspicuous by its absence!
We have started a policy of recruiting Samizdata.net contributors as early as possible in their careers
Some familiar faces and some new ones from downunder
As usual there was a plague of digital cameras
Much booze was disposed of…
My last posting has provoked a storm of comment, which I hope relfects the controversy of the issue and not any inflammatory tone on my part. I tend to let the commentators discuss the issue, because frankly they do a very good job!
However, adam raises a very interesting point:
Isn’t this kind of argument fallacious, as you’re assuming the phrase “assumed consent” has the same moral status in all circumstances?
Compare with other phrases, eg “killed”. “I killed him cause he got in my way” – moral status = bad. But, “I killed the rabid dog because otherwise it would have eaten those poor babies” – moral status = good.
Now this could invalidate my argument if I had used euthanasia as an example of ‘presumed consent’, because then the motive for killing becomes central.
However, I was pointing out that someone having sexual intercourse with a minor or a person with diminished mental faculties would want to defend himself of herself of the charge of ‘rape’ by claiming ‘presumed consent’.
The point is that sexual intercourse is not a criminal offence, despite the attempts of puritans of both Left and Right to make it so. Therefore it is the question of consent that is central, and whether a person’s inability to give consent allows other people to take decisions for them. Because minors and persons with diminished mental faculties are generally unable to give their consent, we have a presumption that consent is not given in such cases, hence the notion of ‘statutory rape’.
The main moral issue about statutory rape is that an age of consent will not protect some immature adults whilst unreasonably assuming a lack of moral faculties for fast-devlopers.
To blur the distinction between a crime based on the lack of consent (rape) and an abhorrence of sex to create the concept of (sex crime) is something straight out of Orwell’s nineteen eighty four.
I find it fascinating that a commentator should jump from sex to murder. One is a crime. The other is not.
Yes. The day approaches. Tech work all across planet Earth will grind to a halt. Programmers will twitch in their sleep (if they sleep at all). Network centers will groan under the load and there will be no answers from helpdesks. All this and more will happen in a mere fifteen days. A bit more than two weeks… DOOM 3 hits the stores on August 3rd!
Linux and OSX versions are to follow soon thereafter.
Used with the kind permission of Idsoftware
Addendum: Buying Doom3 makes money for Idsoftware. One of the Idsoftware founders is John Carmack. John Carmack founded Armadillo Aerospace, perhaps the number two contender for the X-Prize behind Scaled Composites. So… buy Doom3 and support your capitalist future in Space!
Candida Moss, writing in the Spectator, suggests that ‘presumed consent’ ought to apply for donating organs. On the basis that my comments my not appear in the magazine, here’s what I wrote:
Presumed consent is not consent. If it were, then minors or people suffering from dementia might not enjoy the protection from sexual assault that they do at present. Sexual predators could no doubt claim “presumed consent” for their crimes.
There is a difference between medical expedience and morality. There can be no doubt that there would be enormous medical benefits from performing vivisection on human beings, instead of on animals: dosages, differences in metabolic rates etc. would be far easier to calculate.
Rightly, we abhor this and consider controvertial using the results of Nazi experiments on Jews, because it can be considered the partial condoning of horrific actions.
Is it Candida Moss’s wish that the state (probably at EU level) ought to nationalize our bodies and redistribute organs according to need? At least Gordon Brown only wants my money.
I might add that the issue of designer babies giving their own consent to being used as experimental animals is another current topic. It seems pretty sick to me.
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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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