David Carr and I are off to take pictures of the Pro-Saddam Hussain/Anti-Liberation of the Iraqi People demonstration in London this afternoon… I hope to have a report up this evening.
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I have a message for all British cigarette smokers and for those thinking of taking up smoking: when you next pop down to the supermarket or your local tobacconist for a packet of smokes, why not try Richmond Superking Lights for excellent quality and flavour at a very competitive price.  You may also be interested to note that, since I am not making this recommendation in the course of a business, I have not broken the law:
Like most other petty prohibitionist tyrranies this one has been foisted on us by Brussels. Inspired and enacted, I daresay, by people who think of themselves as the ‘great and the good’ and believe themselves to have been charged with the task of rescuing us from our own atavistic tendencies towards self-destruction.  I realise that I can do nothing to deflect them from their mission, but I can do my bit to help undermine them.  February 15th, 2003 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
 One of the best things about the British Channel 4 television slot is its history programmes. I recall watching a number of programmes about the Napoleonic wars, and they ended with a remarkably Euro-sceptic take on the different visions of social order as evinced by British Prime Minister Pitt the Younger and politician Edmund Burke on the one hand, and those of Robespierre and his fellow totalitarian psychos, on the other. So maybe Channel 4 is not quite the haven of idiotarian marxoid nonsense I used to think after all. Further proof of that view came last night in the end of the series Empire, a series on the British Empire by historian Niall Ferguson, who also has a good book out. Anyway, last night’s programme ended with a comment much to the effect that for all its faults, the British Empire spread the English language (good thing), the rule of law (same), capitalism (yep, good thing again), and team sports (ditto). And although it eventually broke up, our influence is still large, albeit indirectly, via the US, although the US dare not call its reach of influence an empire. In other words, Ferguson has gotten the Anglosphere bug. This meme is spreading fast. Where will it go next, I wonder? February 14th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
Last weekend I watched some good tennis from some young British players. True they were hammered by the best male tennis player in the world, one of the fastest servers in the world, and one of the all-time great doubles players. But the Australian tennis team would have fancied their chances against any comers on a surface of their own choosing, in front of a partisan crowd. An Australian paraded a banner which listed a series of sporting indignities heaped upon the British in the previous year: massacres in the cricket, rugby league etc. But neither football (soccer), nor rugby union were mentioned. Patrick Crozier, writes about the novel indignity of being beaten by the Australian soccer team: nicknamed the “Socceroos”, so what they call the England team I shudder to even think. However, Patrick, like many British people goes from one extreme to the other. Just because the English invented soccer over one hundred and forty years ago, there is supposed to be something shameful about defeat to a newcomer. The same attitude exists in all areas of British endeavour since the mid-19th century. First it was an inferiority complex with Germany and the USA, later with Japan, then Germany and “Europe”. In most cases whether it is the navy, the health system, schools, food, beer, state television, industry, Britain is always assumed either to be “the finest in the world” or it ought to be. If there were anything remotely approximating the amount of effort put into achieving these ideals as there is spent on moaning about failure, perhaps these delusions would at least be productive. Instead we get whingeing succeded by overbearing gloating, then back again. Little wonder that for any foreigner that regularly competes against the English, there is great pleasure in victory. But this time things have got truly out of hand. The England rugby union team has been beating the supposedly superior New Zealand, South Africa and Australia teams for several years. The latest round of matches was a professional execution of southern hemisphere pride. So instead of bleating about a soccer match, English sports fans would do better to find out what the rugby team is doing right. England deserve to be favourites to win the rugby world cup this year. Sadly [not!], the English rugby team faces a truly superior force tomorrow at Twickenham: the French national side, who I have no doubt, will rub snotty English noses into the cold Middlesex mud. I shall of course observe this with my usual detachment… and resist wrentching my phone and pestering every English rugby fan I know for at least two minutes. Then you’ll have something to moan about! February 14th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
No right-thinking Englishman can fail to be shocked by the unspeakable events that took place at Upton Park on Wednesday. Wednesday 12th February 2003 will long be remembered as a day of national shame; the day when the flower of English manhood, opened a can of beer, sat down in front of the television and watched aghast as its champions, men they trusted, allowed themselves to be beaten by Australians at football. There will be those, ignorant of the ways of the world, who will say “Hey, the Aussies beat us at cricket, rugby, tennis and just about anything else so why should we bothered about a game of football?” Oh Lord, have mercy on them for they know not what they do. Football is far more than just another sport. Football is sport. All others are mere distractions. Literally. The whole purpose of inventing minor sports was to give undesirables something to do and Australians something to win at while we, silently and imperiously, continued to hog the main prize. Now, even that is under threat. There have been worse times to have been an Englishman. Oh, hang about, there haven’t. But we have been humiliated before (remember Norway, remember Calais?) and we recovered then. The task now is to pick ourselves up, dust ourselves down and prepare for the fightback. Quite simply we must show the World who’s boss. We must begin by conducting a full enquiry into what happened. We must look at all aspects that led to this defeat with the intention of ensuring it never happens again. We must end the club versus country conflict. We must allow our champions to rest. We must consider whether it is time to rid ourselves of clapped out has-beens like David Beckham, Rio Ferdinand and Michael Owen and find room for the young stars of tomorrow. We must put pride aside and scour the world for the coaching techniques and tactical savvy that will restore our game to its proper place. No stone must go unturned. No sacred cow unslaughtered. And having restored our team we must right the wrong. We must put piffling concerns such as European Cups, European Championships and Gulf Wars to one side. We must challenge the Australians to a series of footballing tests (perhaps we could call it a Test Series). Anytime, anywhere, any number of games. Let them choose the ground so that when we beat them none shall doubt our superiority – just like the Canadians did in ’72. There are dark days ahead but we can take inspiration from the words of Field Marshal Haig in 1918: “With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end. The safety of our homes and the freedom of mankind alike depend on the conduct of each one of us at this critical moment.” February 14th, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am no expert on the general state of current events, national politics, etc., so I will (try to) keep this short. Basically, I was watching This Week on BBC1 last night, and they (Michael Portillo, Diane Abbott, Andrew Neil) were saying that Tony Blair is in real trouble. We have become so used to Blair being badmouthed by his lefties that this time we might be missing that it may actually matter. I believe that the underlying story is that the Conservatives are now in such unprecedented disarray, or are thought to be, that the lefties now reckon they will have a five-to-maybe-even-ten-year run of doing their worst before the voters come to their senses and switch to someone else – someone else dull, sexually bizarre, bald, embarrassing, in a word Conservative, but someone else. Whether the lefties are correct about this isn’t the point, it’s what they now think. The same underlying fact explains why Labour now feels that its stealth taxes don’t any longer need to be so stealthy. Blair’s problem is that he has done such awful things to the Conservatives that the Conservatives no longer function as a threat to wave in front of his lefties, the way they have since the mid-eighties until about three months ago. In other words this could be another of those “sea changes” you read about, the last one being when Labour got its act together in the late eighties. Now the Conservatives are regarded as more hopeless than ever before, and the lefties are getting bored with merely humiliating them. That’s no fun any more. They want some lefty action. Glenda Jackson (Oscar and bar but now also MP) did a very dramatic soundbite type speech in the Commons yesterday, along the lines of: “I’m not ashamed of my Party. It’s my government I’m ashamed of.” The times they may be achanging. There’s to be a big demo tomorrow in London against the “war”, and it may actually be quite big. Portillo (who does very well on Newsweek by the way – he is now the one true Conservative heavyweight performer, in my opinion) reckoned that if the UN doesn’t oblige with another anti-Saddam resolution Blair might be f*%*ed. Only Chirac can save him, quoth Portillo. Which, it occurs to me, is not only an extremely bad position for Blair, but also for Britain (i.e. for all of us anti-EUers). Chirac: we support your Guerre, you support EUrope on everything else. Blair: okay. Parenthetically, it was also much discussed that the New Labour reputation for spin, culminating in that embarrassing “report” that was cut and pasted from something on the internet and then doctored embarrassingly, has resulted in our government simply not being believed about all this Heathrow security flapping. Just when they really need to be able to face the cameras and say this is for real, and be believed, they are being accused of using the Army as theatrical stage props. Are you allowed to say at the end of a posting that you don’t know if any of the above is true, but that in the meantime it sounds like it might be interesting and important? I hope so, because I just did. February 14th, 2003 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
All I can say is that the comments confirmed to me what I had to keep to myself all semester: that most of you mental midgets are the most immature, sheltered, homophobic, sexist, racist, lying sacks of s—t I have ever met in my life. … Seton Hall may be kissing you’re a—es now, but out here in the real world, brats like you will be eaten for breakfast. February 14th, 2003 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
The above is also the title of a piece by Eamonn Butler of the Adam Smith Institute, about the principle of road pricing in the light of the London scheme (£5 per day) that is just about to come into force. I’m not such how long Eamonn’s piece has been up at the ASI website, but thanks to Alex Singleton for bringing it to my attention. Like Eamonn Butler, I’m strongly in favour of road pricing, for all the reasons he itemises, and which I have been going on about for many years. But also, like Eamonn, and like Patrick Crozier of Transport Blog, I am uneasy about the effect Ken Livingstone’s London will have on this debate. Eamonn and Patrick both fear the worst. Says Eamonn:
I’m a pathological optimist, so discount the following if you aren’t, but I suspect that the logic of road pricing is so overwhelming, and the utter absurdity of any other road regime in places like central London – right under the noses of the people who will decide about the overall future of road pricing in Britain – so palpable, that there is nothing that even Ken Livingstone can do to stop this idea. On the contrary, the fact that he is at least attempting it will be what counts and what will get (is getting) the idea out there into the heads of intelligent people everywhere, and if the idea is regarded as not having worked for London, yet, the culprit will be identified as the way Livingstone did it, rather than the idea itself. So what should have been and should be done about road pricing? → Continue reading: Price Roads! Cut Taxes! February 14th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
So you thought that the impending war in the Middle East was about oil? Hah!! Or did you think it was all about zionist aggression? You dolt. Thanks to Ron Liebermann, Illuminatus and Whistle-blower par excellence, the truth behind America’s plans in the Middle East have been revealed to us: it’s all about Euros:
No war for wicker furniture, that’s what I say.
Why only the other day he declared it to be the ‘Mother of all Currencies’.
And to which the Arabs replied,’Sorry we can only take Mastercard, or we will bill you’. Besides if that message was ‘secret’ how does Mr.Liebermann know about it?
Mr.Liebermann, anyone with a packet of wax crayons and a photocopier can print Euros. Oh but just hark at me quibbling with an analytical giant. Just read through to the end of the article but, a warning to you Americans; Mr.Liebermann has got some seriously bad news:
Don’t say you weren’t warned. [My thanks to Richard Poe for the link] February 14th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
In response to a contention that I made in the comments section of an earlier Samizdata.net article that ‘wealth redistribution’ was intrinsically immoral, a commenter replied:
Well I happen to believe in objective (albeit conjectural) truth, and hence objective (and yes, conjectural) morality, so the subjective views of other matter little to me when deciding what is and is not a moral use of violence. I understand that statist people think it is ‘moral’ to take my money under threat of violence. I also know that some people think it ‘moral’ to prevent mixed marriages, ‘moral’ to kill Jews, ‘moral’ to treat women as chattels, ‘moral’ to jail people for sodomy. So what? To say my property is there for others to help themselves to is to negate the very existence of several (i.e. ‘private’) property, which is of course what paleo-socialists are quite up front about wanting to do and modern socialists want to do in the fascist manner (i.e. allow ‘private’ property whilst regulating its use to the point ownership becomes a meaningless notion). Yet without several property, there is no modern western civilisation, let alone liberty, so taking my money is not just theft, it is an assault on civilisation itself, and I have no objection to using violence to defend it. I am all in favour of shooting burglars that a home owner finds in their house, so my views on tax collectors and the people who sent them (i.e. anyone who legitimises what they do) should not be hard to figure out. The only reason I am not out shooting people and putting bombs in cars is a purely utilitarian cost/benefit analysis that it is not the most effective way to secure my liberty and the liberty of others. Those who love liberty can (mostly) play a waiting whilst economic reality has its way with the nations just as it did with the Soviet Union, but that does not mean fighting figuratively and literally for liberty is not moral. In fact, it is really one of the most moral reason for fighting there is. February 13th, 2003 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
Here are four pieces of advice. The first two are evil, the last is prudent February 13th, 2003 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
Well, the days roll by and the uncertain drumbeat of war continues. Counting myself as a marginal pro-war type, I must say I have begun to wonder about how far and for how long a military campaign in the Middle East will spread. Will Bush’s pre-emption doctrine end with Iraq, or be applied to other nations? (France – heh-heh!). What about Saudi Arabia? And there are dozens of other countries, not especially chummy with the West, which could be places where folks are cooking up WMDs which could get into the hands of thugs of various descriptions. Just how far could the war on terror go? 100 years? Here’s an idea: I think one key strategy for encouraging people to depose odious regimes and bring in something better must be a continuous push for greater free trade. I am not being naive, I think. Trade is the great solvent of social strife, while protectionism tends to be the harbinger of such strife. For example, I’d be happier with the case for going into Iraq if it were tied to a clearly-stated willingness, on the part of the US government and its allies, to immediately lift ALL restrictions on imports of Iraqi goods (such as they are) in the event that Saddam and his thugs fall from power, as in “We will bury Saddam for you for a fistfull of dollars”. And given that Iraq is probably one of the most secular states in the Middle East, a concerted campaign to promise Iraqis that they can join the capitalist party once Saddam has gone is sure to make it easier for his regime to crumble under pressure. This sort of policy may even encourage people in Iran, for example, who are currently trying to depose the Mullahs, to re-double their efforts. There’s been a lot of debate about how much “stick” we should apply to defeat terror. I don’t think it idiotic though, to debate the merit of a bit more “carrot”. February 13th, 2003 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
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