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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More ‘social justice’ from Brussels.
[From UK Times]
WITH business-class air fares paid and an all-day limousine service on tap, Euro MPs had only to pay for the taxi home after dining out in Brussels’ vaunted restaurants. Now they have eliminated even that small cost.
Blithely ignoring charges of “moral corruption”, MEPs have voted to give themselves an allowance of up to €50 (£34) a week to cover the cost of getting back to their Brussels pads after the free limousine service ends at 10pm.
It’s the concern for the poor and needy that makes European politics so progressive.
Many thanks to Glenn Reynolds for pointing out this Reuters story. It seems Polish force have found some brand spanking new 2003 dated French Roland missiles in an Iraqi arms dump.
It just goes to show: where there’s a customer, there’s a way.
All these dreadful things I never knew about Arnold Schwarzenneger.
First off, he’s a ‘sex beast’:
The actor, who hopes to be voted in as Governor of California in next week’s election, apologised after six women accused him of sexual harassment between 1975 and 2000, in an article in Thursday’s Los Angeles Times.
And allegedly he’s also a ‘closet Nazi’:
Women’s groups and religious leaders worked feverishly Friday to galvanize opposition to Arnold Schwarzenegger after he acknowledged treating women badly and responded to reports that he told an interviewer he admired Adolf Hitler.
I never gave Ah-nuld much chance of winning this election. Unlike California Democrats who are clearly convinced that they cannot beat him.
This is an article about a movie that I rather like, but it is also about how not to write a film review.
I am werewolf, hear me roar… No, I am sure I remember that name of that daft Helen Reddy song all wrong, but that does seem to be the message of a review of Underworld in the Sierra Times by the colourfully named RadioFree Rocky D… this movie is just a pinko feminist tract.
To which I say… nonsense.
Underworld, the film in question, is in essence a version of Romeo and Juliette, but set against the backdrop of a war between not Montagues and Capulettes, but a clan of werewolves and a clan of vampires! This has everything for the trash movie aficionado: monsters, perpetual gloomy atmospherics, high tech weapons, chick-in-latex-with-guns (the breathtaking Kate Beckinsale)… need I say more? As an extra added bonus, it even has a decent and fairly complex storyline!
The review on the worthy Sierra Times dislikes this movie because it was being ‘politically correct’:
Women and men are physical equals. Anything a man can do, a woman can also do. Anyone who points out that men are physically stronger than women should be forced to undergo government-sponsored sensitivity training. Worse yet, telling the truth just may be sexual harassment. I know this, because Hollyweird tells me so.
I’m guessing that Beckinsale weighs in at a whopping 115 pounds – including her bootiliscious leather getup and her ho’ boots. I warm up with more weight than that. Be-otch come near me, and I’ll squish her. Good thing for her she carries twin Glocks.
Well for a start Selene, Beckinsale’s character, does not go mano-a-mano with the werewolves when she can avoid it… in fact she runs like hell to put some distance between them so she can shoot the hell out of them with silver bullets. And for another, she is not a 115 pound woman, she is a 115 pound immortal vampire, so why the hell should she be constrained by the limitations of a normal woman? I am sure that mighty jock RadioFree Rocky D could kick Kate Beckinsale’s delectable behind, but I doubt he is bulletproof regardless of how much weight he warms up with, so who cares?
The fact she casually steps off a ledge 20 floors up is a
fair indication the movie does not expect you to see
Selene as a feminist representation of ‘everywoman’
But then the review gets really weird:
More PC oozes out when someone wonders aloud, “Who started this war …?” This is Hollyweird’s way of saying that all wars are stupid and meaningless. Nothing could be further from the truth. Tell any veteran the war he fought in was for nothing, and you’ll get a face full of knuckles – and you’ll deserve it. Hollyweird has its hate-America-first panties in a bunch over the fact that President Dubya was the man at the helm when our troops totally stomped Saddam’s jackbooted civilian-killers into the sand. Where were the liberal’s objections when Weak Willie was Presidunce and sent troops to Bosnia, Somalia, Rwanda and Haiti? Where were the socialist street protests then?
Huh? Now I quite like the Sierra Times and no doubt RadioFree Rocky D and I would probably agree on a great many issues (I was an outspoken supporter of the armed overthrow of Ba’athism in Iraq for example), but this review is what happens when one’s ideology starts to distort everything one sees. That paragraph seems to suggest that to question the legitimacy and sanity of any war makes you some pabulum puking whining pinko. I guess RadioFree Rocky D must have thought any Russian who questioned the wisdom of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan was some sort of weak kneed girly-boy.
And from this position he takes the view that questioning the wisdom of a war between vampires and werewolves is somehow criticism of the US/UK invasion of Iraq. Funny but I must have missed the ‘No Blood For Oil’ speech coming from one of the vampires (vampires… blood… get it? Oh never mind).
Use GUNS when fighting werewolves!
Anyway, this review tells us a lot about the author who rejoices in the name of ‘RadioFree Rocky D’ but tells us jack shit about the movie called Underworld… which happens to rock big time.
The ayes eyes have it!
Scaled Composites has carried out the third drop test of SpaceShipOne and moves ever closer to the first private manned suborbital flight. The test objectives were:
Aft CG flying qualities and performance evaluation of the space ship in both the glide and re-entry or “feather” mode. Glide envelope expansion to 95% airspeed, 100% alpha and beta and 70% loadfactor. More aggressive post stall maneuvering and spin control as a glider and while feathered. Nitrous temperature control during climb to altitude and performance of upgraded landing gear extension mechanism and space-worthy gear doors.
These were mostly met, but the flight uncovered some minor control problems:
Launch conditions were 46,800 feet and 115 knots and produced a clean separation. First stall entry maneuver resulted in an un-commanded nose rise before reaching the wing stall angle of attack. Lateral/directional controls were used in conjunction with forward stick to effect recovery. This aft-cg stall characteristic was worse than predicted and will likely require aero modifications to fix. The feather entry was not explored and the rest of the glide flight used to assess the handling qualities of the vehicle leading to an uneventful landing. The White Knight’s heating system was able to keep the Spaceship’s nitrous oxidizer conditioned during climb, such that the maximum N2O pressure variation was less than 6 psi.
This is not unusual for a test flight. After all, that is why they are called test flights! One of the beauties of composite airframes is that even major changes can be made relatively easily. When I visited the Rutan facility it was pointed out to me how Rutan and his merry band had modified the tail of one aircraft with a chainsaw. After cutting out the bits they didn’t like, they laid up a replacement structure.
Since the main engine has been undergoing tests and SpaceShipOne seems well along on glide trials, it really may come down to whether the government approvals come through in time for the Wright Anniversary date.
Credit for my tour goes to Jeff Greason. This was long before the blog, back when he and Rand Simberg worked for Gary Hudsen’s Rotary Rocket and I showed up at the Mojave Civilian Test Flight Facility and bothered them for a day. Perhaps someday I’ll find an excuse to do a pictorial on the place as I’ve several rolls of film from the visit.
According to our good friend Iain Murray, the Russians have really put the boot to cherished theories at the World Climate Conference.
According to Iain, the head of the Russian Academy of Scientists said the only effect of dropping Kyoto “would be on several thousand people who make a living attending conferences on global warming”.
The time has come for the government to take firm action.
Yesterday:
A shopkeeper who was shot dead in a robbery stepped in front of her killers to save her daughter, said her husband.
Thieves killed Marion Bates, 64, in front of her daughter Xanthe in an attack at their family-run jewellery store in Arnold, Nottingham, on Tuesday.
Today:
A man has died and another has been injured after a drive-by shooting in Hertfordshire.
Police say the two men came under fire – possibly from an automatic weapon – outside the Physical Limit Health and Fitness Club in Brewery Road gym in Hoddesdon.
This must never be allowed to happen again. How many more lives are going to be sacrificed to the cowboy, wild-west gun culture that has gripped this country? How many more families are going to be destroyed? When is this government going to do something to make our streets safe again?
We must get guns out of private hands. All handguns and automatic weapons must be banned completely. We must have strict laws against possessing these kind of deadly weapons backed up by draconian sentences. If it saves even one life its worth it.
Enough is enough. Britain needs gun control now!
Update: I have just been advised by my eagle-eyed team of researchers that, in fact, Britain has the strictest anti-gun laws in the developed world and that handguns and automatic weapons were banned years ago! I told them that this cannot possibly be true but they assure me that it is. Well, back to the drawing-board to find a new campaign. Any suggestions?
It is perhaps only a matter of weeks now before the Chinese become the third government with proven manned orbital capabilities. This article by Len David (with quotes from sci.space alumnus Jon McDowell) summarizes their current status. It also contains a discussion of the Chinese government’s plans for going beyond LEO (Low Earth Orbit).
Poverty is a miracle, created by governments
– Leon Louw, Director of Law Review Project and Free Trade Foundation, South Africa
One of my favourite films, when I was growing up, was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, that strange children’s classic written by James Bond creator, Ian Fleming. Every Christmas it came on the telly some teatime or other, which my memory recalls as being just after that year’s screening of The Great Escape, another all-time classic, or just before an omnibus edition of that year’s Doctor Who series.
Anyway, enough of nostalgia. The most disturbing character in Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was the ski-slope nosed Child Catcher. He was nearly as bad as a Sea Devil for pure evil intent, rounding up children on behalf of a child-hating Baroness.
And now, in this wonderful sceptred isle of Tony Blair’s modern Britain, we have an equivalent, the school truancy protection officer. Not content with taking over private charity schools and ideologically convincing the majority of the docile British population that the one-size-fits-all state propaganda farms, also known as comprehensive schools, are far better than any alternative, the do-gooders just can’t rest.
Because, God forbid, children aren’t willingly attending these educational swamps, despite being able to get an A-grade Mathematics exam pass for knowing how many beans there are in a ten-bean bag. And what’s worse, their parents are often ‘colluding’ with them, by helping them with their truancy. Those nasty people! And apparently this is not good enough for ‘Society’, so we’re going to have slap £100 pound on-the-spot fines onto these sadistic child-destructive malcontents. → Continue reading: Revenge of the Child Catcher
I am glad to see that the august publishing house, the Oxford University Press, has recently published a monster-length encyclopaedia of the Enlightenment. For those who can stump up more than three hundred pounds, this would be a most impressive addition to any library. From David Hume to Diderot, the book is a treasure trove of facts and articles about the folk who helped shape our world and mostly for the better.
Let’s hope university libraries stock this book as essential item since it is bound to be beyond the financial means of most undergraduates. And perhaps the OEP could make a gesture of sending a few copies to the nascent academies I trust will be springing up in post-Saddam Iraq.
We’ve warned before about the dangers of functionality creep with Identity Cards. Now it appears that Big Blunkett is actively seeking such extended functionality in order to force compulsory National Identity Cards on innocent UK citizens.
The Evening Standard reports:
David Blunkett is poised to strike a multi-billion-pound deal with the major banks which would see compulsory ID cards double as credit cards.
People could choose to use the ultra-secure identity cards to pay for shopping, reducing the amount of plastic clutter in their purses while dramatically cutting fraud at the tills.
How long before that “choice” ceases to become a choice and is instead mandatory?
Cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe. Why not join the mailing list?
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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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