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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Speaking as someone who is really far too cynical for his own good, I shall believe this when I see it:
Voters in next month’s European elections could shock the political establishment by giving the United Kingdom Independence Party more seats than the Liberal Democrats, a poll suggests today.
A YouGov survey for The Telegraph indicates that UKIP, which is committed to British withdrawal from the European Union, is ahead of the Lib Dems among those who are “very likely” to vote.
But I really and truly hope that I do see it.
Those are the words of Simon Moores of Zentelligence (Research) writing in Computer Weekly.
In a review of last week’s London public meeting, Moores begins by saying:
Never had I seen a pillar of government policy look so demonstrably fragile and flawed.
He concludes:
Blunkett’s ID card argument is specious and really not worth the plastic it may be printed on.
Cross-posted from the UK ID Cards blog
Sad news: Economist / baseball analyst / blogger Doug Pappas has passed away at age 43, the victim of heat stroke while vacationing in Texas.
Pappas chaired the Business of Baseball committee for the Society of American Baseball Research (SABR), and his work on the history of baseball’s finances was consistently intelligent and provocative. I mention this in Samizdata because Pappas was also one of the foremost opponents of taxpayer funded facilities for professional sports and was thus a friend of liberty as well. Pappas relentlessly criticized commissioner Bud Selig’s claims that Major League Baseball needed corporate welfare to survive.
I am a SABR member, but never got to meet Doug Pappas; for more in-depth tributes from people who knew him, see the excellent baseball / war blog Baseball Crank and David Pinto’s Baseball Musings, another excellent baseball-only blog.
One of the craziest, loudest, most adrenalin-charged race events in the planet is held every year in Reno, in the United States, in the middle of September.
Cars? Nope. Horses? Nope. What you get are hundreds of aircraft, ranging from pre-WW2 biplanes through to modern jets, but for me, the absolute stars of the show are the souped-up Second World War fighters, especially my favourite, the mighty P-51 Mustang. These planes are now owned by mega-rich race enthusiasts who fly around a great circuit in the sky. Well, about 50 feet above terra firma, actually.
I once watched Samizdata television favourite Jeremy Clarkson present an entertaining show about the Reno Air Race, and have wanted to trek up to Lake Tahoe and enjoy the sights of this air race ever since. Well, this year, yours truly and his fair girlfriend will be there. I can hardly wait.
And if anyone reading this is going to be in the vicinity of Reno between September 16 and 19, and would like to meet up, please let me know via the e-mail address in the sidebar.
… and the reason I was listening to Radio 4 (see below) was to hear one of my favourite programmes, which is called Quote Unquote.
Some recycled quotes, then.
Apparently, a newspaper whose name I did not catch had on the front at the top, everyday, the following slogan:
As independent as resources permit.
I requote this in my turn because (a) I like it, and because (b) I think it says a great deal about blogging.
This was supplied by Simon Jenkins, who then went on to say that he “used to be” a pompous reporter, which also made me laugh. He did later somewhat redeem himself in my ears by reporting this motorway sign:
Emergency toilets 25 miles.
I guess emergency toilets, like newspaper independence, occur as often as resources permit.
This on the midday BBC Radio 4 news:
The Government is resisting pressure from the European Union to introduce random breath tests.
Yes, my ears did not deceive me. Here is the story in writing:
Police should carry out random breath tests as a matter of course, according to the European Commission.
Under existing laws, UK police can only carry out a breath test if they believe the driver has been drinking.
But the European Commission wants all member states to allow its police to carry out random tests.
The Home Office said introducing random testing was “inefficient in catching drink-drive offenders.”
Whenever the British Government describes itself as resisting pressure from the European Union, it is a good bet that this pressure will in due course be succumbed to.
Michael Moore must surely rank as one of the hottest properties in showbusiness. The guy only has to show up to get an award:
Michael Moore’s controversial polemic Farenheit 9/11 became the first documentary for nearly 50 years to win the Palme d’Or at the Cannes film festival last night.
The film, which contains scathing attacks on the business dealings of President George Bush as well as the first footage of American soldiers torturing prisoners in Iraq, beat off competition from more famous directors, including Wong Kar-Wai, Emir Kusturica and the Coen brothers to scoop top prize.
Moore, who was given a standing ovation by the Cannes crowd, told them: ‘I’m completely overwhelmed by this. Merci.’
So they chose a wanker over a Wong Kar but it is pointless to pretend that there was ever going to be any other outcome. And giving him yet another gold-plated bit of object d’art to place on his buckling mantlepiece is one thing but a standing ovation??!!
In truth this was not merely a nod of recognition but an act of worship by a gathering of the faithful. Nor is this starry-eyed circus any longer about the merits (or otherwise) of any particular manifestation of Moorish propoganda for the detail is irrelevant. It is the ‘vibe’ that counts.
No, this is not about the films or books of Michael Moore, it is about Michael Moore himself and what the luvvies believe he represents. He is the icon and the muse of anti-everything who tells them what they want to hear and dresses it up as revealed truth. His flock gathers at ceremonies to offer up their tributes and commune with him while he bestows his benedictions upon them.
He is St. Michael of Moore. Peace be upon him and may flowers bloom where he treads.
Paul Staines has some views on the interesting changes going on in India.
My initial disappointment (and surprise) that the world’s largest democracy had rejected the right wing BJP-led coalition for the Congress party, the former home of Gandhian-Nehruvian socialism, has turned to near joy with the news that Sonia Gandhi has stood down in favour of Manmohan Singh, a man described by the Grauniad as “the poster boy of India’s reforms, the architect of policies that turned India from a socialist behemoth into a regional economic power.”
Manmohan Singh as Prime Minister means India will have an avowed admirer of Margaret Thatcher in charge. In 1991, with India facing financial crisis, he convinced Rajiv Gandhi to implement liberal reforms in one month. He has described the changes he made:
We got government off the backs of the people of India, particularly off the backs of India’s entrepreneurs. We introduced more competition, both internal competition and external competition. We simplified and rationalized the tax system. We made risk-taking much more attractive… [and] much more profitable. So we tried to create an environment conducive to the growth of business. We removed a large number of controls and regulations, which in the past had stifled the spirit of innovation, the spirit of entrepreneurship, and restricted the scope for competition, both internal competition and external competition. As a result, in the ’90s, productivity growth in the Indian industry has been much faster than ever before.
He is pro-globalization and a critic of US and EU agricultural subsidies:
Globalization creates opportunities. As I said, freer trade, if it is genuinely free, and India’s labor-intensive products can find markets abroad that will help to get new jobs in our country. That will help to relieve poverty.
I am sure he faces many challenges, the Congress party is allied with communists, but international investors and Indian entrepreneurs are sure to welcome a man once voted “Finance Minister of the Year” by European bond investors. Indeed his first mission has been to re-assure that he would implement a “responsible macro-economic policy… We’ll bring in policies that will not hamper India’s progress – policies that are pro-growth.”
Paul Staines
The pseudonymous ‘Slowjoe’ sends in this article to ponder on the subject of ID cards. Incidentally, anyone with articles on that subject would do well to consider submitting them to our sister site White Rose, which really specialises in civil liberties issues such as this.
The Register has the story of a man jailed because of a flaw in a fingerprint identification program which appears to have been chosen as the basis of the UK ID card scheme.
A number of disturbing points:
- The victim in this case didn’t realise that the software was flawed until 4 years after he’d been jailed.
- There have been at least 97 cases where mistaken identification took place that the state of Oregon was aware of. Since these involved fingerprints, it’s likely that this means “97 cases of wrongful arrest”.
- This story appeared in the Register on May 11th. No mainstream news site has considered it worth covering. (My basis for this is are two searches at new.google.com, a search of the UK site and of the US site. For the lazy, these links show that no mainstream news organisation has gone beyond printing Mr. Benson’s press release. A couple of finance websites and trial lawyers sites seem have also run it.)
- The defendants are crass enough to ask for the suit to be dismissed because the victim didn’t know about their software bug in time.
Next time someone suggests that “fingerprints are flawless”, the kicker is, the chosen system apparently cannot distinguish between men with 10 fingers, and those with only 9. How anyone can trust such a system is beyond me.
Is anyone still in favour of ID cards?
Slowjoe
The truth about Linux is finally out. Kenneth Brown, president of AdTI (Alexis de Tocqueville Institution), claims that Linux is based on intellectual property often taken or adapted without permission from material owned by other companies and individuals. Torvalds comes clean:
OK, I admit it. I was just a front man for the real fathers of Linux: the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. They (for obvious reasons) couldn’t step forward to admit that they had gotten bitten by the computer bug and had been developing a series of operating systems on their own during the off-season.
But when they started with Linux (which they originally called Freax—they do feel like outsiders, you know, and that’s a whole sad story in itself), they felt that they could no longer just let it languish in obscurity.
They started to look for a front man, and since Santa Claus is from Finland, and thus has connections to Helsinki University, and the Easter Bunny claimed, ‘He’s got good ears, if a bit small,’ I got selected.
Since then, I’ve lived a life of subterfuge, always afraid that somebody would find out the truth. I’m actually relieved that it’s over, and that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution has finally uncovered the lie. I can now go back to my chosen profession, the exploration of the fascinating mating dance of the aquatic African frog.
Why can’t all press-releases be like this…? The world would be a happier place.
Register notes that UK public support for ID cards is declining, while opposition is hardening, and a surprising number – perhaps five million – would be prepared to take to the streets in opposition, according to a new opinion poll released today. The results, although they still show 61 per cent in support of the scheme, show committed opposition in sufficient numbers for poll tax-style disruption to be a very real possibility.
Since last month’s Detica survey, numbers strongly opposed to any kind of ID card have doubled from 6 per cent to 12 per cent. Within the opposition 28 per cent, which would translate as 4.9 million in the population as a whole, say they would participate in demonstrations, 16 per cent (2.8 million) would get involved in “civil disobedience” and 6 per cent (around a million) would be prepared to go to prison rather than register for a card. Talk is of course cheap at this stage, but this is still an indication of seriously vehement opposition just a few weeks after the scheme was unveiled, and even the more favourable (for the Government) Detica poll showed quite clearly that the vast majority of people knew practically nothing of what the scheme entailed. And the more they learn, the less they may like it.
The latest survey was commissioned by Privacy International and conducted by YouGov, and obviously its intentions differ from the Detica survey, so the results are not always directly comparable. But some of the most interesting numbers stem from the differences. YouGov found that in addition to losing numbers, support is weakening, with people less sure, and rather lower numbers prepared to go for a compulsory scheme (which, ultimately, it will be). And some of the key components are decisively rejected by the public as a whole, which is what you might call a bit of a problem. Most (47 per cent versus 41 per cent) don’t want to have to tell the government when they change their address, and 24 per cent strongly oppose revealing it in the first place.
It is of course utterly illogical for people to be in favour of the scheme while opposing aspects of it whose removal would render it (as currently envisaged) unworkable. But The Detica poll also showed that support of the scheme was based on some pretty staggering misconceptions, so perhaps what we have here is a picture of a nation on its way to an education – as they join the dots up, it’s surely rather more likely that they’ll begin to reject the scheme as a whole, rather than, say, concluding it’s OK for the government to keep tabs on your address after all.
Link via Curiouser and curiouser!
Belgium is to begin issuing biometric passports before the end of the year, while in the US (which could be said to have started all this), the State Department is to begin a trial run this autumn, with full production hoped for next year. Register speculates:
The apparent ease with which these countries appear to be switching passport standards does raise just the odd question about the UK’s very own ID card scheme, which proposes to ship its first biometric passports not soon, but in three years. Regular readers will recall that Home Secretary David Blunkett justifies the ID card scheme on the basis that most of the cost is money we’d have to spend anyway, because we need to upgrade our passports to meet US and ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organisation) standards, and that by making this investment the UK will be putting itself ahead of the game, technology-wise, and that we shall all therefore be technology leaders and rich.
The biometric passport system the US intends to use simply seems to be an addition of the necessary machine readable capabilities to the existing system. Passport applications, including photograph, will still be accepted via mail, and the picture will then be encoded, added to the database and put onto the chip that goes in the passport. As you may note, a picture is in these terms a biometric, while a camera is a biometric reader, which they are. But don’t noise it around, or you’ll screw the revenues of an awful lot of snake-oil salesmen.
Back in the UK, we are of course rather more rigorous in our interpretation of the matter, and the system and its schedule will be priced accordingly. But should we worry about losing our lead? No, not exactly. We should worry about spending a great deal of money on a system which will largely police ourselves, and which – in the event of it actually working – will probably turn out to be a huge white elephant.
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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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