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 hope that nobody in Ireland was naive enough to imagine that the recent public smoking prohibition was the zenith of their government’s ambitions.
Not even close. In fact, they are just getting warmed up:
After piloting through radical laws that will ban smoking in Irish pubs at the end of the month, Irish Health Minister Micheal Martin pledged to bring in new controls on alcohol.
Martin’s smoking prohibition will mean that anyone found lighting up in bars and restaurants after March 29 will face a fine of up to 3,000 euros.
Addressing his Fianna Fail party’s annual conference, Martin said he now planned to target the country’s alcohol problem and to encourage “responsible” drinking, in particular targeting under-age offenders.
Lord only knows what else is on his ‘hit-list’ but his blood his up and his nostrils are flared with the scent of victory so its onwards and upwards to new frontiers of micro-management. His is an addiction for which is there is no ‘cold turkey’. It is a thirst that can never be quenched and neither reason nor persuasion can divert such people from their mission.
How apposite is the wisdom of C.S. Lewis:
Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.
I have posted this quotation here on Samizdata before but the age in which we live demands that it be repeated again and again.
Call me cautious if you will, but I will wait a while before jumping for joy over this potentially wonderful news:
U.S. researchers will soon publish strong evidence of a recipe to generate fusion power with tiny bubbles, which does sound like a modern witch’s brew.
The power source is ultrasonic noise aimed at a clear glass canister whose size would qualify as a grande latte in a coffee house. The sound waves rattle through a liquid solvent in the glass and, as they do, create minute (on the order of a thousandth the width of a human hair) bubbles. Further sound causes the bubbles to expand, compress and then collapse. When they do, some of the hydrogen atoms in the liquid seem to fuse and give off light and energy.
Hmmm… What do our resident gearheads make of this?
Tired of the orgy of Kerry worship from the British media, not just the BBC, but also from ITV and C4, I turned to the internet for some other news from the United States.
As expected, propositions 57 and 58 passed in California. Prop 57 being approval to borrow billions of Dollars (sorry ‘issue bonds’) in order to ‘pay for’ already agreed government spending, and Prop 58 being a promise (sort of) not to borrow money in future.
However, I came upon another proposition – Prop 55. This prop was a request to borrow (again sorry ‘issue bonds’) – $12.3 billion for government education spending on top of what had already been agreed. This bond debt to be on top of the $73 billion bond debt that the State already has.
The prop passed – I admit that it passed only narrowly (50.6% to 49.4%), but it passed.
So on the same day that Californians agreed (in Prop 57) to borrow another $15 billion (or so) for existing spending and (in Prop 58) overwhelmingly voted not to pile up more spending… they in fact did just that.
“We will not add deficit spending on to the deficit spending we already have”
…except that more deficit spending is indeed added and on the very same day.
That sums up politics – not just in California, but everywhere.
 Perry’s tinfoil hat was off for repairs, so he had to improvise.
This sounds promising:
The Tories’ flagship education policy to give parents more freedom to choose their children’s schools is to be dramatically expanded, the party has announced.
The “pupils passport” will be rolled out across England and Wales rather than just inner city areas as originally planned.
And so on. Basically it is education vouchers, but not called that.
There is even a good soundbite on offer:
“Under the Conservatives you’ll be able to go to the right school even if your family lives in the wrong street.”
Nice one. I was going to put this posting on my Education Blog, for obvious reasons. But thinking about it, I think the real significance of this announcement may be more what it says about the general attitude of the Conservatives.
Much as I dislike Tories because of the way they talk, dress, are, etc., this sounds very promising. Their problem for the last decade or so has been that they have simply stood up in the House of Commons and read out all the complaints everyone has had about what the government has done, is doing, or is about to do, regardless of whether the criticisms add up to a coherent alternative attitude to government. This tax increase is bad, but so is that spending cut. This attack on freedom is bad, yet this other attack on freedom is insufficiently ferocious. And their handling of the Iraq war has been a mess, I think. We aren’t sure about the war as a whole, but this … (fill in the detail of the week that they happen to be moaning about) … is terrible.
But this education announcement actually suggests a bunch of people who think that they might one day be the government. Three of four more announcements of this substantial sort, and the public might start to think of the Conservatives with a modicum of respect.
This is not what everyone would ideally like for education. That would be for everyone’s child to become a genius, with no effort, as a result of an infinitely powerful and infinitely nice Prime Minister with an infinitely nice smile waving an infinitely magic wand over each child’s head, causing all children everywhere to get ahead of all the other children everywhere else. But people are starting to get that a wish list is not necessarily a workable policy.
The Conservatives are never going to be liked. But people are starting to despise this government, for announcing rather too many wish lists – each one headed “dramatic new policy”, “radical shake-up”, etc. So even if people still quite like Tony Blair, they are starting to lose respect for him. If they ever start respecting the Conservatives more, then that will be a new phase of British politics, and a potentially Conservative phase.
Later today, kicking off at 4pm, England play Ireland in the Six Nations rugby union tournament.
This is, on paper, the toughest game England has faced since they won the World Cup in Australia last November. But it is also the true homecoming of the England team, because today, after beating the tournament’s two weakest sides, Italy in Italy and Scotland in Scotland, they now play the first of their two games this year at Twickenham. When England get on top at Twickenham the home crowd roars them on and, in effect, doubles the winning margin.
Several other things make me optimistic about tomorrow’s game.
England’s forwards, now without their revered but retired World Cup captain Martin Johnson, are going through changes, which makes me hope that England will really want to get points by scoring tries as well as just by grinding forward with the forwards. The England backs have looked promising for years now, and they still do, and I live in hope that one day they will blow someone completely away with a dazzling performance. Could this happen today? Jason Robinson seems to get better and better with every game – and it adds immensely to his aura and must also add to his confidence that he got England’s only try (a very good one) in the World Cup Final. Josh Lewsey is also improving. And Ian Balshaw is getting back to his best of two years ago. Greenwood and Cohen also know quite a bit about how to play rugby. Plus, there is no Jonny Wilkinson to rely on to kick twenty points, which gives England an extra incentive to play fast and furious.
In general, playing for England is now the hottest ticket in world rugby, and England coach Clive (now Sir Clive) Woodward’s ruthless willingness to sack people as and when he thinks he needs to makes competition to stay in the side ferocious. World Cup Heroes know that they are not sacrosanct and nearly men know they have a good chance of being picked Real Soon Now. So when you do play for England these days, you just know that you have to play really well to keep on playing.
But do not write off Ireland. They came within a kick of beating losing finalists Australia in the World Cup. Brian O’Driscoll played a blinder a fortnight ago when Ireland blew Wales away in what looked beforehand like being one of the closest games of the entire tournament. And England will not underestimate them. Any more than England underestimated Ireland last year, when they thrashed them last year in Dublin.
What I am saying is: (a) England’s best is good enough now to blow Ireland off the pitch, and (b) there is every reason to hope that England will indeed play at their best.
Not that you can ever be sure with sport. As I say, Ireland/Wales was supposed to be close this year. And it is a rare Six Nations when there are no big surprises.
I won’t be saying much more here about this game. I will just add an addendum here tomorrow with the score. The told-you-so-ing or egg-off-face wiping will all be happening at Ubersportingpundit.
UPDATE (5.55pm): Clang. England 13 Ireland 19. Time to scrape all that muck off my face and make an omelette with it.
Perry has I think given me the urge to buy a ticket and go to Kenya too. (Sadly, I can’t actually manage it right now). I have also been to a fair few of the places mentioned in the article, and I too am getting visions of endless plains, interrupted only be the odd 6km high extinct volcano, and a strong desire to see them again myself.
I visited Kenya in 1993. I spent some time in the countryside in some indeed gorgeous country (some of it in Tanzania rather than Kenya). Having failed to reach the top of Mt Kilimanjaro due to case of altitude sickness (which was made worse by the fact that I was suffering from an as yet undiagnosed case of hepatitis) the friend I was travelling with and I returned to Nairobi for a couple of days before flying to London. Under instructions from the IMF, President Moi had in the previous months semi-floated the currency, and it had lost about half its value against the dollar. The day before I returned from the countryside, President Moi had announced that he was not taking instructions from the IMF any more, and that he would stand up to the “third world exploiters” in the west. Therefore currency trading was suspended until he decided what the exchange rate would be. I had run out of local money, and upon returning to the city I discovered I was not legally permitted to obtain any. I did have enough to buy a local English language (and state controlled) newspaper full of rants about how poor countries like Kenya were deliberately exploited by the west so that the rich people of Europe and America could be rich. (I didn’t realise it, but this was all pretty par for the course in Kenya at that time. Telling the IMF to get stuffed once in a while was just what President Moi did).
Walking down the street, we were accosted by a tout who had previously attempted to find us accommodation, restaurants and all sorts of services, who now assured us he could take us to someone who would change our US$ travellers cheques into local money. He guided us down a few streets, into a shop selling carved wooden model animals, in another door at the back of the shop, up a pair of steps, and into a small office where there was seated a middle aged Indian gentleman. This man was quite happy to provide us with money at the exchange rate that had prevailed the previous day, and our problem was solved. We changed some money, and were able to do such important things as buy dinner. → Continue reading: No, Kenya is not a paradise, but I too would like to go back
Have you thought about learning to speak a foreign language? If so, then why not learn to speak Tranzian? A good grasp of Tranzian will enable you to rub shoulders with bureaucrats, lawyers and Outreach Co-ordinators the world over and conversational fluency is easier than you might think. Tranzian is widely used in travel, business, culture and nagging.
Not only will the ability to speak Tranzian broaden your horizons and help you to make new friends but it will also give you an air of supreme self-righteousness that opens doors and, more importantly, state purse-strings.
So, come on, let us learn to speak Tranzian. Here is Lesson 1:
Violence against women is a “cancer” in every society affecting at least one in three women, human rights body Amnesty International has said.
One in three, two out of every four, over half, the majority. The statistics are hardly worth quibbling about. This is purely an academic exercise and should not be confused with actual facts.
Amnesty’s secretary general Irene Khan urged governments to enforce laws to stop attacks on women and girls.
So, class, we see in this example that there are laws against attacking women but governments cannot be bothered to enforce them. Okay so far?
Female genital mutilation is one of the abuses being targeted by Amnesty.
The organisation says it affects 135 million globally, and these cases, along with so-called honour killings, should be treated as human rights crimes by governments.
So we have ‘female genital mutilation’ which, in English, is called ‘Grievous Bodily Harm’ and ‘honour killings’ which, again in English, are pronounced ‘murder’. However both of these English phrases translate into Tranzian as ‘human rights crimes’.
Thus we learn what a useful language is Tranzian. In circumstances where using the plain English terms will cause embarrassment or discomfort, you simply reach for the anodyne Tranzian lexicon of faux-rights to make yourself sound terribly important and caring without actually offending anybody.
Now for Lesson 2 and since you have all been such good and responsive students, I am going to give the answers in advance:
Q: Why is it that governments are not enforcing crimes like murder and rape?
A: Because they are far too busy farting around trying to enforce bogus ‘human rights’.
But parts of it are bloody close.
Laura Bailey described her time in Kenya in a splendid travel article the other day and it damn near had me ordering tickets for the next flight out there myself. I have visited many of the places she mentions, although the most recent time was over twenty years ago. However much of what she describes just goes to remind me how timeless some places like the Masai Mara are.
I recall visiting the Masai Mara for a week, a few days before the great migration (the mass movement of about a zillion Wildebeests, closely followed by sundry hungry lions etc.) arrived at where they have to cross the Mara River. The scenery itself is simply stunning but when the Wildebeests arrive en-mass across the plains which were largely empty the day before, it is a truly amazing sight. Nor have I ever smelled anything so ‘memorable’ in my life.
Thousands upon thousands of Wildebeests drown whilst trying to ford the Mara River, many within sight of a bridge (they are not known for their brains), bringing crocodiles by the hundred to pick off the weak and vultures by the tens of thousands to feast on the ex-Wildebeest as their bodies quite literally clog the river. It is a breathtaking spectacle which has to be seen to be really appreciated.
If you are looking for a holiday with a difference, Kenya is an excellent place to try for all sorts of reasons, but do try to plan your itinerary so that you hit the Masai Mara. It is certainly one of the most fascinating parts of the world I have visited.
In just over a week’s time I am to give a talk in Brussels, courtesy of the Centre for the New Europe, on the subject of Why Libertarians Don’t Talk About Culture – And Why They Should.
When you are extremely grand, you let things like this come and go with no comment from you other than the occasional “oh yes, that, yes, I think it’s on the fifteenth, I’m not sure” (it is on the fifteenth), or “oh that, yes, I’d forgotten all about it”. But if you are me, you make the most of these sort of invites. If I don’t tell everyone I am doing this talk, who else will?
Here is the blurb I sent to my hosts about it:
Libertarians don’t believe in either subsidising or censoring cultural activity, so for libertarians it often doesn’t matter what they personally think about any particular cultural object or enterprise. Good or bad, it should neither be encouraged nor prohibited by the political process. So long as you don’t infringe against the rights of others, you can enjoy “culture” any way you like, or in no way at all.
For collectivists on the other hand, the goodness or badness of a particular cultural enterprise is a burning issue, because the collective must decide what sort of culture to encourage or discourage. So, they talk about culture a lot.
The result is that libertarians often appear philistine, shallow and one-dimensional, while collectivists can seem far more cultured and attractive. So, we libertarians ignore culture at our peril.
I have already ruminated on this topic here, in this posting, and the blurb above owes much to those ruminations.
Maybe another reason why libertarians are a little reluctant to talk about culture is that we fear that quarrels about inessentials, like how good the Lord of the Rings really is, are liable to undermine team spirit amongst us to no purpose. That is a mistake, I think, but maybe some libertarians feel that.
I think that the claim in part one of my talk’s title, that libertarians do not talk about culture, may now be becoming obsolete. With the Internet, blogging etc., we libertarians now have a means of chatting away about movies and literature and stuff, in a very congenial and magazine-like setting, yet without all the bother of anyone having to put together an actual magazine – which is a total nightmare compared to running a blog. The reason we used not to talk about culture was simply that it was too difficult. It was all we could manage to bang away with our core agenda. Now, simply, we can do culture talk, and we do.
Well, those are my thoughts so far. Does anyone here have anything else to say about all this? I would really welcome the input.
UPDATE: This very recent comment on this posting might have something to do with why libertarians don’t discuss cultural themes. When they do, they get denounced by people saying things like this:
What does this have to do with libertarianism? I come to this blog to read libertarian views and issues, not artistic commentary.
This, to me, is a perfect example of a libertarian (if that is what Telemachus is) being boring and philistine.
The Americans will always do the right thing…after they’ve exhausted all the alternatives.
-Winston Churchill
Ten years ago I was at Cambridge spending too much time doing stuff on the internet when I was supposed to be working on my Ph.D. thesis. In those days the World Wide Web was fairly new and didn’t contain that much information, and Usenet newsgroups were the normal way that people on the net formed online communities. (These are now archived on Google). Newsgroups were devoted to individual subjects, and although there was a tendency for conversations to become heated and abusive in certain circumstances, civil and intellectually stimulating conversations often occurred. Knowledgeable and interesting people gained reputations, and some of these people are still prominent in internet circles to this day. At the time the net was largely paid for by universities, the Deparment of Defence, the National Science Foundation and various other government organisations, and commercial activity of any kind was frowned upon. (It may seem remarkable today, but when the Hotwired website (then the online arm of Wired Magazine) became the first website to introduce advertising in 1994, many people complained that this was contrary to the spirit of the internet and threatened to boycott the site).
However, on March 5, 1994, ten years ago today, something terrible happened. The first spam was sent. The same message was posted to thousands and thousands of different newsgroups. This came from Canter and Siegel, a two person husband and wife law firm from Arizona, advertising their services providing assistance to people who wished to enter the US Green Card lottery. We had never seen anything like it, and we were outraged. Canter and Siegel were mailbombed, and received immense amounts of abuse. However, nobody was able to stop this practice of massive crossposting, and it soon became very common. This so called “spam” was one of the reasons why Usenet newsgroups became steadily less useful in the following years.
Although there is some disagreement, this post is pretty widely regarded as the first ever piece of spam. The technique was established. Some sort of automated script would be used to send the same message to a vast number of different recipients. Spam soon spread to other applications of the internet. I remember receiving my first piece of e-mail spam a year or so later. It came from an AOL address and I was so outraged that I sent a message to the postmaster at AOL, and received a sympathetic reply saying that they were doing everything they could do to stop this. Sadly, as I now know, they could not.
What I did not expect was that e-mail spamming would grow to such an extent that e-mail would be barely useful as a tool, which is where we are today. The interesting bits of the internet would move from public forums like Usenet to private sites such as blogs, which although not entirely immune from spam, seem to be doing a better job of fighting it than did more public forums such as Usenet. Spam filters would become ferocious, eating plenty of legitimate e-mail as well as spam. Proposals on the table to fight spam involve such suggestions as authenticating all e-mail, only allowing e-mail to be sent via approved servers from big companies, charging for all e-mail, and other such proposals that typically involve a loss of privacy and convenience. Various systems (such as the Turing codes used in the comments system on this blog) are used to determine that messages were sent by real human beings and not programs. Many people now only look carefully at e-mail that comes from known recipients, which eliminates or at least reduces one of the great joys of the internet, that it is possible to be contacted and to contact interesting people all over the world without an introduction and with a general assumption of goodwill. Instead, our e-mail boxes are filled with awful crap from the porn industry and other dubious semi-criminal and indeed fully-criminal organisations.
While somebody else would have no doubt invented spam soon after if the two Arizona lawyers had not, Mr Canter and Ms Siegel have the distinction of being the people who did it. For a brief while they managed to champion themselves in sections of the mass media as brave souls who were bringing capitalism to all the hopelessly utopian hippies on the internet – I even saw them being interviewed on CNN once, and they actually published a book explaining the virtues of spamming to other people. However, it soon became clear that they were a pair of bottom feeders. Laurence Canter and Martha Siegel had been suspended from the Florida bar in 1987 for dishonesty, and in 1988 Canter had resigned permanently from the bar in Florida after being charged with “neglect, misrepresentation, misappropriation of client funds and perjury”, and he didn’t get many CNN interviews after this became widely known. Having moved from Arizona to Tennessee, he was disbarred there in 1997, and his spamming was given as one of the reasons why. He and Siegel were divorced in 1996, and Siegel died in 2000. For the first time since the fourteenth century, a new (tenth) circle of hell was deemed necessary, and Satan created this new form of eternal damnation especially for “spammers”, intially for her. (At least I hope he did). As far as I know, Canter is still alive and living in California. Although there has been speculation on the precise nature of his relationship to Satan, I think that it is relatively simple, and that he will one day join his former wife as a tenant of hell. One can hope.
(Thanks to slashdot for reminding me of the anniversary).
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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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