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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Samizdata slogan of the day

· Slogans & Quotations

Most of academic economics is polluted by the dangerous notion of ‘perfect competition’. It is dangerous because it is so utterly unlike the real world. Capitalism’s great duty is the taking of risks. Success is measured not so much by the virtues of the product but its place in a subtle flux of prices and alternatives. Perfect competition, with its associated poetry of ‘equilibrium’ is a romantic folly.
– John Blundell, Institute of Economic Affairs

July 23rd, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)

Lana likes chewing gum and wants to learn more about Singapore

· Education & Academia

Two comments have appeared on a long ago posting of mine here about the menace to Western Civilisation posed by people dropping chewing gum all over the damn place.

Comment 1:

i like chewing on gum^^ It should have neva been banned!!! I feel sooooo sorry for the singaporeans….owell beta get on wiv my english assignment nowz…byebye 🙂

Lana

Comment 2:

Hi its me again (Lana) if anyone noes any interesting facts about Singapore then can u plz email me qt_mashi@hotmail.com, bcuz this is for my english assignment and its very important THANK YOU 🙂

Lana

You know what? Lana likes chewing gum, and I like her. She has her own individual take on English spelling, although maybe it’s her whole generation and they all spell because bcuz. But, she seems to be able to spell in the regular manner when she wants to (“any interesting facts about Singapore”) or when she is forgetting not to, plus she has a nice ingratiating manner and understands the value of a smile. I think she should be encouraged.

So, if anyone has any interesting facts about Singapore, please email them to her.

July 23rd, 2003 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)

What 1776 was really about?

· Historical views

I have been enjoying the television documentary of the American war of Independence shown over on the BBC (yes, that pinko channel!), presented by military historian Richard Holmes.

Bestriding around the countryside, Holmes is excellent. He even looks the part with his bearing and military moustache – you could imagine him in an army officer’s uniform circa 1940.

During his trip Holmes asked some locals on a bus travelling near Charleston about what the war meant to them. One elderly lady gave an articulate take, arguing about the issues of taxation, representation and liberty. And then he spoke to a young guy, probably in his early 20s, who came out with this gem. I paraphrase slightly:

Well, it was all about rich folks, who just did not want to pay their taxes. If it hadn’t been for them, we’d be British, and enjoy (!) socialised medicine.

So there you have it. Some of the younger American generation wish that George Washington had lost so that all Americans could use the National Health Service.

Don’t know whether to laugh or cry, really.

July 23rd, 2003 | 80 comments - (Comments are closed)

A letter from Brussels

· Identity Cards

A Telegraph reader from Brussels writes:

As a Briton who has lived in Belgium for more than 26 years, I am possibly more “identity card conscious” than most and can see where these things can lead. Apart from the references to a photograph (which my card bears) and biometric data (which my card does not), I have seen no reference to other information to be recorded on the proposed British card.

My card also shows my marital status, my address and an expiry date. References to the £39 fee for the card have all implied that it would be a one-off charge – however, if it follows the pattern of cards here, this charge will be payable for a new card whenever one moves house, marries, divorces or is widowed, or, if none of those things occurs, after a certain number of years.

In addition, since here the card is issued at a commune (borough) level, moving to a different commune can involve the requirement to produce such things as a “Certificat de Bonne Vie et Moeurs” (Certificate of Good Character) from the police in your last commune.

As if this wasn’t enough, the system then requires policing. A friend of mine, a woman living alone in a large house, decided as a safety measure to add a couple of fictitious names to the doorbell, to make the house seem more populated. She then discovered that the commune employs people to go around noting the names on doorbells, and comparing them against the local register. The only way she could stop the commune hassling her about these two “illegal residents” was to remove the names.

July 23rd, 2003 | Comments are closed

“We have an obligation …”

· Civil Liberties

Here’s a link to an article in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution about the War on Terror.

So you think there’s no chance that you’d be quizzed by FBI agents about what you read or who you pal around with?

Well, just ask Atlantan Marc Shultz, who works in an Atlanta bookstore. According to an account Shultz wrote in Creative Loafing, he was interrogated by two FBI agents because he’d been reported as reading something suspicious in a coffee shop.

That suspicious something was an article by Hal Crowther, “Weapons of Mass Stupidity,” in a Tampa alternative newsweekly. The Crowther piece is a scathing criticism of corporate media, such as Fox News, in the post-Sept. 11 environment.

Atlanta FBI spokesman Joe Paris wouldn’t comment on the Shultz story or even confirm it. He merely said, “We have an obligation to follow up on any information we get of a terrorist-type nature.”
A terrorist-type nature?

There’s an important principle involved here. Well, plenty of principles, but one in particular that strikes me. It’s the combination of individuals being allowed – and I’m guessing: encouraged – to inform the authorities of their suspicions, and the obligation – that’s the word FBI man Paris uses: obligation – to investigate the matter. This means that person X who has, for some reason of his own, taken a dislike to person Y can invent some plausible suspicions about Y and phone them in, and the powers that be have to be all over Y with their investigations.

Practised political stirrers aren’t going to be too bothered, and may even rather enjoy it. Either way they will exploit it all for the publicity and the fifteen minutes of fame, the way this Marc Shultz guy seems to be doing, and good for him. But for other less public souls, this could surely be very bad.

I mustn’t exaggerate, but this is the sort of thing that happened in Stalin’s Russia, in logical structure even if not remotely as bad in scale or intensity. In place of a decade in an arctic camp ending in premature death, substitute a week or two of anxieties at the hands of the government, and maybe a rather scary legal bill because you figured, best let my lawyer keep track of all this.

The point is the authorities not having any power to drop the matter, but being obligated to go through the motions demanded. To begin with, the policemen doing this are only doing it because they have to. But what we are liable to end up with is an altogether different kind of policeman, the kind of policeman who really likes these scenarios, who truly believes that scaring regular citizens half to death is the heart and soul of good government.

July 23rd, 2003 | Comments are closed

The internet in China – and government monitoring of it

· Technology

Here’s an interesting BBC story about internet usage in China. White Rose relevant paragraphs:

Now there are more than 68m Chinese people on the net.

…

These figures make China the second-largest net-using nation on the planet after the US. In the first six months of 2003, almost nine million Chinese went online for the first time.

…

The China Internet Network Information Center gathered the figures and said that the slowdown in numbers could be due to the imposition of strict regulations on cyber cafes.

Over the past few months the Chinese Government has worked hard to close down illegal cyber cafes following a fire in an net cafe last year that left 25 people dead.

The government has also asked legitimate net cafes ones to step up their monitoring of what people do online.

July 22nd, 2003 | Comments are closed

The mother of all category errors

· Science & Technology

Bill Thompson wrote a rather histrionic article over on the BBC1 site about the recent incident in which a former US Marine went off on a, ehem, ill advised magical mystery tour with a 12 year old English girl. The bit I just loved in Thompson’s article was:

Shevaun’s disappearance was the net’s fault and we have to accept this. She would not have had any contact with her 31-year old ex-Marine if it had not been for the easy access to e-mail and chat that today’s children seem to demand as a right, and we should not pretend otherwise or blame inadequate supervision.

…that is like saying if the child had being dragged into a car and kidnapped:

Shevaun’s disappearance was the M25’s 2 fault and we have to accept this

Make our communities safe for children…ban roads and sidewalks I say! Ban them all!

So if ‘The Internet’ kidnapped this girl, then why is Toby Studabaker the one on trial for it and not this wicked fellah called The Internet?

Ok, Thompson says that this girl got into trouble (or at least everyone else feels she got into trouble, she never did seem to show much sign of thinking so herself from what I read), and she did this because she had access to a computer, which her parent have provided and thoughtfully equipped with a modem, over a phone line which they pay for, but somehow we must not blame inadequate supervision by the parents.

Goodness no! I mean, if we did that, next thing you know people might be saying it was a bad idea for parents to leave their loaded shotguns around their teenager’s room. Instead we must impose sweeping bans on who can use chatrooms! And why is that, pray tell, Bill? Ah… I understand… you write for the BBC of course! Never suggest a sensible private solution at the family level if an excuse can be found for some wonderful collective state intervention! Silly me. For one blinding and foolish moment I actually thought parents might be responsible for their children’s welfare!

1 = Link via our favourite statist technogeeks at iSociety

2 = The M25 is London’s orbital motorway (freeway)

July 22nd, 2003 | 38 comments - (Comments are closed)

We’re Brians and we’re proud

· Arts & Entertainment · How very odd! · Independent sites & social media · Opinions on liberty · Sexuality · Sports

Today I received the following email:

Brian,

Brian has started a webring of Brians with blogs. If you would like to join us, go and sign up here.

Brian

What is a webring? If I signed up to it, would the rest of my life be ruined? The Brian who sent me this email seems to be gay. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, consenting adults, some of my best friends…, I’m personally in favour of gay marriage, blah blah blah. But if I sign up, will I be bombarded with gay porn for the rest of my days?

In general, I feel that it is good that we Brians are getting together, and if a webring is what I think it may be, we can perhaps sit on one, in a circle, perhaps somewhere in the countryside, and discuss the Brian Issue. That is, we can discuss why cuckolded husbands, send-up substitutes for Jesus Christ, etc. etc., in the movies, all seem to be called Brian. Brian is not a cool name, is my point. Maybe we Brians can get together and change that. (The danger, of course, is that by getting together in such ways as these, we might merely confirm all the existing anti-Brian stereotypes, and cause Brianphobia to become even more deeply entrenched.)

Meanwhile, how many indisputably cool Brians can be assembled? I offer two outstanding contemporary sportsman: the West Indian cricket captain and ace batsman Brian Lara, and the Irish rugby captain and ace centre threequarter Brian O’Driscoll.

July 22nd, 2003 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)

FLASH: Uday and Qusay Hussein killed?

· Middle East & Islamic · Military affairs

Reports are coming in that both of Saddam Hussein’s mass murderous sons may have been killed during an attack by US Forces on a house in Mosul in Northern Iraq. Early reports said ‘seized’ but SkyNews is currently (17:40 GMT) reporting live from Mosul saying US reinforcements are “pouring into the area” and bodies at the house “have a strong resemblence to Uday and Qusay”.

Let’s hope the reports are confirmed soon!

Yes! it is being confirmed that Uday and Qusay are dead. Good riddance to two of the most evil psychopaths to walk the earth in recent times…

…and to the US forces who did it: way to go, guys!

July 22nd, 2003 | 33 comments - (Comments are closed)

Blair for President!

· Anglosphere · Humour

hehehehehehe. Just click the damn link, I am laughing too hard to write anymore.

July 22nd, 2003 | 39 comments - (Comments are closed)

James Woolsey on security versus liberty

· Security

There was an Interesting article by former CIA Director James Woolsey in the Guardian over the weekend, about “World War 4”. The White Rose relevant paragraphs, so to speak, are these ones, I think:

Liberty and security

If that is who is at war with us and why, what do we need to do about it, both inside our own countries and in the Middle East? Inside the US, during the Cold War and the decade of the 1990s after it, we became very used to the proposition that liberty and security do not conflict, that we do not need to worry about that. Liberty we had plenty of, or as much as almost any reasonable, modern society could, and security was something that the navy, the Central Intelligence Agency and so on dealt with overseas. September 11 rather changed that.

The US at least has to understand that for a number of years we will have to face conflicts between liberty and security that did not occur before. We really did have people who were legally in the United States training in aircraft simulators to work out how to kill thousands of Americans. There really were terrorist cells in places like Lackawanna, Pennsylvania.

So we are going to do things that are effective against terrorism, and which may involve steps like special scrutiny of Wahhabi-backed charities, for example, that would not have happened prior to September 11. We also have to realise who we are. We are not a race or a culture or a language. We are creatures of fourth US President James Madison’s Constitution and his Bill of Rights. We can never forget that.

These two conflicting concerns – security and liberty – are going to be with us for a long time. They will conflict in ways they did not appear to before September 11. We have to choose wisely and remember both. We cannot forget the need to be effective, not just politically correct, in the way we deal with the real threats to us. We also cannot forget the Bill of Rights.

This is the X is important BUT argument. The “but” turns everything before it upside down. So look out X, which in this case means look out liberty.

I’m not saying that this man is totally wrong. I’m just saying: he’s saying it.

July 22nd, 2003 | One comment - (Comments are closed)

Another incredible Armstrong

· Sports

Dale Amon on these pages rightly notes the anniversary of the Moon landings of Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Well, it seems that another Armstrong is pushing back the boundaries of the possible on a slightly lower-altitude setting, in the current Tour de France.

Yes, I know, and before any churlish types feel the urge to carp, cycling is not exactly the most visually exciting sport around. But anyone who has actually taken part in competitive cycling, or seen, as I have, such folk shoot past on a French mountain pass, can only gasp in astonishment at what Lance Armstrong has achieved.

And being nice to the French, there can be few doubts that the Tour is one of the most physically demanding sports events known to Man.

Mind you, the next time I go to France, I am taking the autoroute.

July 22nd, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
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