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]
|
On Wednesday evening, for reasons too complicated to explain (which partly have to do with the disaster that is transport in London), I found myself walking down the high street of Clapham in wonderfully multi-ethnic south London. (This is not the same place as Clapham Junction, which is some distance away). This area seemed to have more nice bars and restaurants than it did the last time I was there, and half way down the street I saw a place called the “Bierodrome“. Despite this slightly silly name, I looked at the menu beside the door and saw a vast number of fine Belgian beers listed. As I am a little partial to fine Belgian beer, I walked in and sat down. Most of the beers were bottled, but they had around ten on tap. I ordered a Grimbergen Blonde. This is not an especially obscure beer, but it is certainly a good one.
When you go into a bar in Belgium, every beer has its own special glass. These have the name of the beer on the side, and vary in shape depending on the kind of beer, as (it is claimed) different styles of beer taste best in different shaped glasses. Some of the weirdly curved glasses also look kind of cute. The size of the glass also varies from beer to beer. This definitely makes sense, as beers differ greatly in texture and alcoholic strength. It also gives Belgian bars some of their character. Walk into a good bar, and there will be hundreds of different glasses on the shelf behind the barman. Belgian beers are often 7%, 8%, 9% alcohol, and these are best consumed in relatively small quantities. The Grimbergen Blond was at 7% only moderate by Belgian standards, but rather strong by English standards.
When I ordered the beer, I didn’t specify a size, as I just expected that I would be given a size appropriate to the beer in question, as happens in Belgium. However, I was given a cute, curved, Belgian style glass, but very big. I asked the barman, and he explained that it was a pint. You see, I was in England. If you are in England and order a beer without specifying the size, a pint is what you get. With English beer this is excellent. In fact, it is superb. English beer is usually (but not always) weaker than some continental drinks, and lends itself to larger glasses.
That was fine. → Continue reading: English beer measures and the liberal French state.
There can be few afflictions more tragic and debilitating than blindness.
So I sincerely hope that this qualifies as some sort of breakthrough:
A blind man can see again after being given a stem cell transplant.
Mike May, of California, had been blind for 40 years since an accident at the age of three where he lost one eye and was blinded in the other.
The operation transplanted corneal and limbal stem cells into his right eye.
My very best wishes to Mr.May and to medical team who restored his sight. The possibility that this technique can be used to help blind people everywhere is something that is worth hoping and praying for.
I cannot recall hearing of such a petulant outburst from the normally stately and dignified BBC:
The controller of BBC1 launched an unprecedented attack on Rupert Murdoch yesterday, calling the media billionaire a “capital imperialist” who wants to destabilise the corporation because he “is against everything the BBC stands for”.
Sounds like my kind of guy.
Lorraine Heggessey said Mr Murdoch’s continued attacks on the BBC stemmed from a dislike of the public sector. But he did not understand that the British people “have a National Health Service, a public education system” and trust organisations that are there for the benefit of society and not driven by profit.
Methinks the executives of the BBC sense that they are in trouble. They realise that ‘Auntie’ no longer enjoys an exalted status as a national treasure and, hence, is vulnerable.
The time-honoured and global reputation for fairness, accuracy and objectivity is something they have dined out on, abused and terminally tarnished. And, even if this were not the case, in an era when the market provides so many choices, it is impossible to stem the growing discontent with the arcane and punitive television tax that funds the BBC.
But it’s all the fault of Rupert Murdoch and his band of evil capitalists. (Oh, and George Bush of course).
From the manner in which our governing elites regulate, restrict, control, prohibit and monitor every jot and tittle of our lives, it is probably reasonable to infer that they imagine themselves to be presiding over a motley and sordid collection of cut-throats, gangsters, thieves, perverts, racists, conmen and every other manner of low and untrustworthy creature.
This is the diametric opposite of the truth. On the whole, the British are civil, law-abiding and touchingly decent. Personally, I put this down to our common law heritage.
How strange, then, that there appears to be no public concern whatsoever about an organisation based in this country and whose members clearly feel confident enough to openly publish and distribute such disturbing sentiments:
Two years on then, it seems that during their customary 1 minutes silence in NewYork and elsewhere on September the 11th 2003, Muslims worldwide will again be watching replays of the collapse of the Twin Towers, praying to Allah (SWT) to grant those magnificent 19, Paradise. They will also be praying for the reverberations to continue until the eradication of all man-made law and the implementation of divine law in the form of the Khilafah – carrying the message of Islam to the world and striving for Izhar ud-Deen i.e. the total domination of the world by Islam.
Well, at least they’re not going fox-hunting (I assume).
I remain a passionate advocate of free speech. I think these people should be able to say whatever they want to say. However, and by the same token, other people are free to draw from it whatever conclusions they see fit.
[My thanks to the crew at Gene Expression for the link.]
In more traditional police-states, citizens may be blissfully unaware that they have done wrong until they are woken in the wee small hours by an ominous rapping on their front doors. In modern police-state Britain, the knock on the door is to be replaced by the thud on the doormat.
If this report from the UK Times is accurate (and it is just about creepy enough to be true) then it may be time to think about buying a bicycle:
EVEN George Orwell would have choked. Government officials are drawing up plans to fit all cars in Britain with a personalised microchip so that rule-breaking motorists can be prosecuted by computer.
Dubbed the “Spy in the Dashboard” and “the Informer” the chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. The first you will know about it is when a summons or a fine lands on your doormat.
The plan, which is being devised by the government, police and other enforcement agencies, would see all private cars monitored by roadside sensors wherever they travelled.
Who the bloody hell are the ‘other enforcement agencies’? And the very notion of an informer in every vehicle! Saddam Hussein could only dream about that level of control.
Police working on the “car-tagging” scheme say it would also help to slash car theft and even drug smuggling.
The same old, same old. Every accursed and intrusive state abuse is sold to the public as a cure for crime and ‘drug-dealing’. The fact that it still works is proof that we live in the Age of Bovine Stupidity. A media advertising campaign showing seedy drug-dealers and leering child-molesters being rounded up as a result of this technology will have the public begging for a ‘spy in the dashboard’.
Having already expressed my doubts about the viability of new government schemes here I should add that the fact that this relies on technology rather than human agency means it just might.
The next step is an electronic device in your car which will immediately detetct any infringement of any regulation, then lock the doors, drive you to a football stadium and shoot you. HMG is reported to be very interested and is launching a feasibility study.
[This item has been cross-posted on Samizdata.]
In more traditional police-states, citizens may be blissfully unaware that they have done wrong until they are woken in the wee small hours by an ominous rapping on their front doors. In modern police-state Britain, the knock on the door is to be replaced by the thud on the doormat.
If this report from the UK Times is accurate (and it is just about creepy enough to be true) then it may be time to think about buying a bicycle:
EVEN George Orwell would have choked. Government officials are drawing up plans to fit all cars in Britain with a personalised microchip so that rule-breaking motorists can be prosecuted by computer.
Dubbed the “Spy in the Dashboard” and “the Informer” the chip will automatically report a wide range of offences including speeding, road tax evasion and illegal parking. The first you will know about it is when a summons or a fine lands on your doormat.
The plan, which is being devised by the government, police and other enforcement agencies, would see all private cars monitored by roadside sensors wherever they travelled.
Who the bloody hell are the ‘other enforcement agencies’? And the very notion of an informer in every vehicle! Saddam Hussein could only dream about that level of control.
Police working on the “car-tagging” scheme say it would also help to slash car theft and even drug smuggling.
The same old, same old. Every accursed and intrusive state abuse is sold to the public as a cure for crime and ‘drug-dealing’. The fact that it still works is proof that we live in the Age of Bovine Stupidity. A media advertising campaign showing seedy drug-dealers and leering child-molesters being rounded up as a result of this technology will have the public begging for a ‘spy in the dashboard’.
Having already expressed my doubts about the viability of new government schemes (see below) I should just add that the fact that this relies on technology rather than human agency means it just might work.
The next step is an electronic device in your car which will immediately detetct any infringement of any regulation, then lock the doors, drive you to a football stadium and shoot you. HMG is reported to be very interested and is launching a feasibility study.
[This article has been cross-posted to White Rose.]
I wonder how many of our readers went to see the film ‘Minority Report’ and came away thinking, ‘Hey, what a great film’?
Contrast this with one of HMG’s advisers who went to see the film and cam away thinking, ‘Hey, what a great idea!:
Tony Blair is to announce plans to put up to half a million children deemed at risk of becoming criminals or getting into other trouble on a new computer register.
Teachers, family doctors and other professionals working with youngsters will be asked to name potential troublemakers whose personal details will then be placed on the database.
The new “identification, tracking and referral” system will allow the authorities to share information on vulnerable children, including their potential for criminal activity.
Alright, let’s get the obvious question out of the way, such as, exactly what does ‘at risk’ mean? What constitutes a ‘potential troublemaker’? Who decides these things and on what basis? Who guards the guardians?
Oh I daresay that there are answers (or, rather, great globs of state-management gobbledekook that purport to be answers) but they will almost certainly remain occluded behind the volumes of policy documents that filter through the ziggurat of state agencies charged with enforcing it all.
For the record, I denounce this but I do so merely as a matter of form. My stores of furious indignation have all but dried up leaving a residue of doleful resignation. And, to be fair, we’ve always had mechanisms for controlling the poor; this is merely the latest manifestation, albeit dressed up in the fashionable terminology of ‘caring and concern’.
The chink of light (well, a fissure really) is that this grand plan may not get off the ground at all and, even if it does, it will probably be a shambles. HMG already has far more laws, regulations, rules, plans, initiatives, schemes and regimes that it can possible see through or enforce and nothing they announce nowadays is likely to work as intended or at all.
Still, it will keep a few state bureaucrats busy for a few more years and that is probably enough.
If you like your music with a positive, pro-technology and pro-future outlook, ZIA is the band for you.
ZIA has gigged successfully in the competitive New York City scene for nearly a decade. They have had their Rite of Passage: a review by The Village Voice. They developed a following and produced a number of excellent recordings. You can download a bunch of tracks from their web site and order any of the discography.
ZIA is 1990’s music, full of sythesizers and strange instruments. If you aren’t a cultural “old fart”, you’ll love it. Even if you are, you may still love the subject matter. They talk about settling Mars, going back to the Moon, winning the X-Prize and about the simple yearning of all us spacers… to get off this frigging planet. True, ‘filkers’ cover some of the same ground, but they and their material are not suitable for a Lower East music venue. Kids who haven’t even looked up at the seven or so stars in the nightime sky of Manhattan can drink and party to ZIA.
Full disclosure: I’m not exactly unbiased since I know the writer, Elaine Walker, and work with her in the National Space Society. Remember her name. Someday she’ll be running an industrial conglomerate in space.
ZIA performance at 1999 International Space Development Conference
Photo: D. Amon, all rights reserved
PS: I understand Elaine is moving out of NYC, so I don’t know what is happening with the band. Watch their web site. I’m sure the information will show up there.
On the face of it this is good news for those of us who don’t want Britain to join the Euro:
The pro-single currency campaign, Britain in Europe, faces an exodus of staff, including the expected departure of Simon Buckby, the man who runs it.
The resignations have been prompted by frustration at the Government’s failure to take the lead on euro entry and a sense that the campaign had “lost its direction” after the Government’s assessment of its five tests for entry in June.
But there is a bit more to it than a campaign for something bad getting into a mess, which on the face of things would obviously be good. After all, this is a report from the Independent, which is not exactly anti-Euro.
Until recently, pro-Euro-ites have been paralysed by their belief that they ought not to say anything too critical of the Blair regime, on account of the Blair regime being so popular. But now the Blair regime is getting less popular. So now, pro-Euro campaigners need to separate themselves from Blairism. If they already want to, they now can.
The crisis has prompted the board of Britain in Europe to try to distance itself from the Labour government and return to its roots as a cross-party alliance.
It is felt the campaign will be better able to put its point across if it is not seen as a Blairite organisation, afraid of taking the lead where the Government will not.
Arguably, the reason why the case against British involvement in the Euro has been put even as forcefully as it has – you can argue about how forcefully that is, but at least that case has been put – is that the people putting this case have not bothered themselves about what effect this might have on the popularity of the Conservatives, there being no Conservative popularity to affect. They have just plugged away, communicating as best they could with the actual people. If anyone accused them of splitting the Conservatives in the process, they have just said: So? The pro-Euro people now look as if they are being pushed by events into doing the same smarter thing themselves, which is actually to argue their case in public, something which they have been notably reluctant to do for about the last thirty years, with the prevaricating results that they now so belatedly lament.
The reason why this pro-Euro organisation is now in difficulties is because it has been over-run with Blairites, who have been more concerned with keeping the Blairite policy of masterly Euro-indecision in place than they have been concerned with questioning that policy. But now their formerly willing – or just resigned to their Blairite fate – footsoldiers feel able to be publicly pissed off at all this Blairite vacuity, as they were formerly not able to be, and are leaving. Hence the “crisis”. This may weaken Britain in Europe, but it will probably strengthen the campaign for Britain adopting the Euro.
The point is, there is now liable to be a much more vigorous public campaign saying that Britain ought to adopt the Euro, instead of merely the endlessly repeated claim that it is going to anyway, so what’s the point in arguing about it?
Which could be rather a pity. Because once these people decide to take part in the Euro-debate, there is at least the possibility that you will win it, and actually persuade enough British people to be in favour of it, as enough British people presently are not.
According to the new FBI statistics, violent crime in the US just keeps falling. It’s down 50% in the last decade.
“Right to carry” laws also became very common in the last decade. There couldn’t possibly be a connection could there?
This has obvious White Rose relevance:
Tony Blair is to announce plans to put up to half a million children deemed at risk of becoming criminals or getting into other trouble on a new computer register.
Teachers, family doctors and other professionals working with youngsters will be asked to name potential troublemakers whose personal details will then be placed on the database.
The new “identification, tracking and referral” system will allow the authorities to share information on vulnerable children, including their potential for criminal activity.
It will be an extension of the child protection register which, at present, is restricted to listing the names and addresses of children who are vulnerable to physical and sexual abuse.
Professionals will be encouraged to include other factors, such as the likelihood of teenage pregnancy or the risk of “social exclusion”, in deciding which children should be monitored.
I think the scary thing about this is the combination of the precision and reach of a computer database with the subjectivity of some of the judgements concerning “potential” that are stored on it. Plus: Who gets to look at this database, and what decisions do they make in the light of the opinions collected in it?
The criminal law, in contrast, is (or ought to be) about what you have done, not about what someone merely thinks you might do.
But as so often here, I report, but can only speculate about those implications that we all need to think about. Perhaps others can be more definite.
I have several items in my list of ‘stories to watch’ on the Iraq campaign. The silence on two of them has been deafening. They are dogs ‘that didn’t bark’.
- What is the story on the Iraqi Salman Pak training facility? That is where an old Boeing 707 airframe was seen from overhead photography. Ground truth reports said it was used to train terrorists in the fine art of hijacking. What has been found there? Why hasn’t it been reported on? Why hasn’t someone from the army of Baghdad news correspondents been out to the suburbs to tell us?
- Where in hell are those ships? You know the ones I’m talking about. Osama’s fleet. In March we heard how they were floating around the world’s oceans and changing name and flag in mid voyage. Other reports suggested they might carry weaponry Saddam wanted both preserved and not found.
The latter seems to have slipped entirely into the black world. Did a Navy Seal team board and sink them with all hands dead?
Stories don’t go away in the blogosphere. They aren’t forgotten. They’ll keep popping up until satisfactory answers are found. Perhaps someone in ‘big media’, someone with resource enough for real intelligence work, can dig for the facts.
The truth is out there.
|
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.
|
Recent Comments