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I’m watching the evening news while I eat… or perhaps I should call it the evening non-news as there has been very little time allocated for News tonight. With Iran in the midst of potentially historic changes, demonstrations against the dictator wannabe in Venezuala and with the Iraq situation moving towards endgame…. we get the Blair’s family business. The top news in the UK is whether the wife of the Prime Minister had help on a family mortgage from a con artist who was going out with her best friend. I’d like to know: “Why on EARTH should I give a flying f**k?”
Journalism has across the board sunk to the depths of super market rags. No garbage is too insignificant to be turned into a headline.
Minutes later: I give up. Television off. Garbage news on two channels, journalists rabbiting on about the importance of the utterly banal and unimportant. If everyone just turned the telly off now and told them how idiotic they all sound, I wonder if they’d get the point and give us News?
Thank god for the internet where I can go find news that actually matters.
Following up another story about the extermination of some weird garden weed (don’t ask), I came across news from the BBC of a public meeting tomorrow afternoon organised by Privacy International on the subject of those compulsory ID cards that our government is so determined to introduce willy nilly, by hook or by crook, or by any other cliché that will work the trick. Bottom line, at the end of the day, when push comes to shove, they’re probably going to go the final five yards on this and bring home the bacon, but let’s at least put a spoke in their frying pan, eh?
In July, the Government announced a six-month public consultation on proposals to establish a compulsory national Identity Card to establish entitlement to benefits and services, including healthcare, welfare benefits, education and public housing. The consultation period ends in January. This event at the LSE will be the only public meeting during the consultation exercise.
The proposals involve issues of vital importance for everyone living in the UK. The government envisions a compulsory registration of the entire population, backed by a national database of “biometric” identifiers such as digital photographs, fingerprints and retina scans. The scheme will form the basis for the matching of personal information between government and private sector organisations, and will involve a legal requirement to produce the card in a wide variety of circumstances. Failure to disclose your card will result in denial of access to a wide range of essential services such as healthcare and education.
Wednesday 11th December 2002, 2.15 – 5.30, The Old Theatre, London School of Economics, Houghton Street, London WC2A 2AE. Chair and session summariser: Simon Davies, Director of Privacy International. Speakers: Lord Falconer of Thoroton, QC, Minister of State for criminal justice; Baroness Sharples (Conservative); Simon Hughes, MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary; Dr Nick Palmer MP (Labour); Charles Moore, Editor, The Daily Telegraph; Dr Ross Anderson, Computing Laboratory, Cambridge University; Peter Lilley MP, former Secretary of State for Social Security (Conservative); Terri Dowty, Joint national coordinator, Alliance for Childrens Rights for England; Dr Clarence Lusane, Director of Social Research, The 1990 Trust.
Finally, there’ll be a Q&A with Stephen Harrison, Head of the Entitlement Cards Unit, Home Office. (For more information about the Entitlement Card proposal, see the Privacy International UK ID Card Page.)
Admission free. To reserve a seat, please email london2002@privacy.org or call 0207 955 6579. Media enquiries to 07947 778 247.
Good news: it wasn’t merely some US policy wonk/adviser/pundit doing the calling, it was a Muslim. Bad news: it got him a death sentence. Good news: this death sentence has been and continues to be big news.
I know I’m following tracks trod by many, many others. Nevertheless I here add my little vocal chords to the chorus of support for thoughts along these lines, and of complaint that the man has been sentenced to death for voicing them.
I’ll spare you any further profound thoughts from me about Islam, exact nature of, menace of, blah blah blah, except to say that it seems to me a particular moral duty that those, like me, who have complained about such things as the “inherently beligerent” nature of Islam should note at least some evidence to suggest another interpretation of Islam’s nature, at least potentially, as and when it crops up.
So here’s a quote from the man himself, Hashem Aghajari, from his already much quoted speech of June 2002 that got him into all the trouble:
The Islam of today is different. It is very clear that we have a different understanding of it in all areas, including economics. It has to suit the thoughts and realities of today. Just as people at the dawn of Islam conversed with the Prophet, we have the right to do this today. Just as they interpreted what was conveyed [to them] at historical junctures, we must do the same. We cannot say: ‘Because this is the past we must accept it without question.’ This is putting too much emphasis on the past. This is not logical.
For years, young people were afraid to open a Koran. They said, ‘We must go ask the Mullahs what the Koran says,’ [since] it was used primarily in mosques and cemeteries. The new generation was not allowed to come near the Koran; [young people] were told that [first] they needed [training in] 101 methods of thought and they did not possess them. Consequently, [the young people] feared reading the Koran.
Then came Shariati, and he told the young people that these ideas were bankrupt; [he said] you could understand the Koran using your own methods – you could understand as well as the religious leaders who claim to have a ton of knowledge. The religious leaders taught that if you understand the Koran on your own, you have committed a crime. They feared that their racket would cease to exist if young people learned [Koran] on their own.
Ignoramus that I am, I have no idea who “Shariati” is (comment please).
Follow the link above, and you also find Thomas Friedman in a New York Times article (“A story worth watching”), reproduced by The Iranian, saying this:
What’s going on in Iran today is, without question, the most promising trend in the Muslim world. It is a combination of Martin Luther and Tiananmen Square – a drive for an Islamic reformation combined with a spontaneous student-led democracy movement.
And there are plenty of other enticing links. Follow. Copy. Paste. Comment. When the words “Hashem Aghajari” are typed into a search engine, let the hit number just keep on rising and rising.
I got this far by going to IndyMedia from (who else?) Instapundit, who has long been saying, for example here and then a few days later here, that all public Muslim moves in the right direction deserve the blogosphere’s support. Indeed.
Paul Staines says that British Chancellor Bordon Brown is, to put it bluntly, full of crap
I try not to bore Samizdata readers with shop talk, but the markets are saying that Gordon Brown is a liar, all the research I get (for what it’s worth) is saying blatantly that Mr Brown’s underwear is warm. “Liar, liar knickers on fire” goes the old English schoolground skipping rhyme. Typically:
“Sterling had a weak start in NY trading on a combination of overall dollar buying and the IMF report just released on the UK, expressing the Fund’s cool reception to last week’s pre-budget report on the grounds that it is “weaker than previous reports , causing it to affirm its 2.25-50% GDP forecast for 2003, which is below the government’s own forecast of 2.5-3.0%. The IMF criticized Chancellor Gordon Brown’s assumptions, which laid out the foundation of his revenue projections. The Fund noted an especially skeptical note on Brown’s decision to finance his revenue shortfall through borrowing.
UK November retail sales rose 2.0% year on year at their slowest pace in 2 years, following October’s 4.9% jump. The British Retail Consortium attributed the weak rise to unusually strong November sales last year, adding a hopeful note that that the poor figures may entice the BoE to cut rates. Unlike, the Fed, ECB and BoJ, the BoE has not eased its monetary policy, since last November.”
The British state is, pre-election cycle, going to raise government borrowing to finance a spending binge without raising taxes (too much for voters) and everyone knows Gordon is lying.
Paul Staines
You don’t stop violent crime by devoting resources to making excuses look less reasonable.
– Alice Bachini
Christmas will soon be upon us, and along with television adverts advising us not to drink and drive, hangovers from office parties and late-night shopping, another regular feature rears its reliable head – the condemnation of commercial Christmas.
This time, the nags against Christmas free-market fun come from Germany, which in its current over-taxed and economically sclerotic state, could use all the commercial fizz going, I would have thought. But no, a German priest wants his patch to be declared a “Santa-free zone”.
Like the late Ayn Rand, a devout atheist, I always think that one of the very great things about Christmas – which after all started off as a midwinter pagan festival to give us all a good excuse to eat and drink excessively – is its commercial character. The glitz and colour of this time of the year provides much of its “point”.
So come on Santa. Sprinkle a bit of Christmas happiness over our a glum Teuton neighbours. Right now, they need it.
The Ministry of Defense released a paper for public discussion (pdf) on missile defense today. Mr. Hoon would like the public debate on the issues to begin now because deployment will take many years here from the start of such discussion.
The media reports claim there is currently no threat. I was surprised not even Mr Hoon pointed out how even an existing short range ballistic missile can be fired from a tramp steamer outside of the UK territorial waters.
I hope to find some mention of this in the aforementioned document which I have not yet had a chance to read.
You may email your comments to the UK MoD on this subject at:
Missile-Defence@mod.gsi.gov.uk
Dec. 3, 2001 Prototype Kill Vehicle
launch from Mecklin Island.
Courtesy US DOD
Self-defence is not necessary because we have the police to protect us, right. That’s their job. That’s what we, the tax-payers, pay them to do. So, we can all sleep safely in our beds at night, knowing that the agents of the state will keep us safe from those who would do us harm.
That’s the theory; this is the practice:
“Police have launched an inquiry into why it took officers an hour to respond to an emergency call from a Jewish couple who were the victims of a terrifying burglary at their Southgate home.”
Well, as long as there’s no ‘hate speech’ involved, it probably isn’t a real emergency.
“Officers eventually arrived at 6:40am, long after the intruders had driven off with their haul in the couples’ two Mercedes saloons.”
Laughing their arses off, I’d wager.
““Although I am disgusted with the police who should have been there to help us, they have been very supportive and efficient since. It was just a break-down in communication and it shouldn’t have happened.”
‘It shouldn’t have happened’!!. Oh, that’s all okay then. As long as this kind of thing ‘shouldn’t happen’, we can all go back to sleep again.
The French economy is deteriorating, so much so, that the French themselves admit that the growth of 0.2% between July-September 2002 is worse than expected, according to Nicolas Claquin, economist at CCF bank.
“We can expect [the weakness] to continue at least until the start of 2003, confirming our forecast of gross domestic product growth of 1.4% next year. The government’s growth target (2.5%) for 2003 is too high.”
So far not a surprise deserving a mention on this blog – it is the ability of the French to manage an arrogant spin of their worsening economic situation that is astounding:
“The figure confirms that France is not immune from the slowdown affecting our European partners and the United States.”
Perhaps Mr Cavalier, a Credit Lyonnais eurozone economist, failed to notice that despite the other countries’ economic problems the French economy is doing still worse than Germany and Italy in the last quarter and far worse than the UK and the US.
Jul-Sep 2002
UK +0.8%
Germany +0.3%
Italy +0.3%
France +0.2%
US +1.3
But, of course, let’s blame it all on the Americans.
It’s healthy to have a small amount of paranoia, but these guys have more than their fair share. Regrettably they no longer produce material but that said there is still nine years worth of the funniest (and sickest) cartoons I have ever run across to while away a lunch hour.
I think the terror most people are concerned with is the IRS1.
– Malcolm Forbes, when asked if he was afraid of terrorism
1 = for non-US readers, IRS is the Infernal Internal Revenue Service, the United States’ theft enforcement arm
One of the things I like about America, is that Britain is far too stuffy, po-faced and politically-correct for this kind of thing. (Media player required)
[My thanks to Samizdata reader Boris Kuperschmidt for the link]
[Update: the link seems to have been withdrawn]
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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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