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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Stupidity at this level is nearly criminal. The US Army dismissed six Arabic language translators on grounds which had nothing to do with their ability to serve and protect the USA.
Yes, the US military does need some transformational changes. Some of its’ people need to be transformed into residents of the 21st Century – instead of the 19th. I want a military whose first concern is accomplishing their mission. One uses the resources at hand whether one likes them or not.
Nothing else matters worth a damn but winning this war before millions of us die.
I don’t smoke. I don’t like the whiff of a cigarette and frequently will come back from a certain pub, cursing the atmosphere in the boozer for making my clothing reek of ciggies. I think that so-called ‘passive smoking’, while it may not cause cancer or other health problems, is certainly unpleasant. I prefer to sit in the non-smoking bits of a restaurant if at all possible and ask people in my apartment not to smoke. So there it is.
And yet, and yet… I loathe the cultural jihad in the West that has been going on against smokers. The latest lunacy has been the decision by New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg to ban smoking in all public places. All of them. So even if the owner of a private restaurant or bar (which are of course private property) says it is okay to smoke, and the customers are okay with that, the ban must be imposed nonetheless. Never mind that no one is forced to go into a bar or restaurant if they dislike the atmosphere. This is a clear violation of property rights. Of course with true public spaces which have been funded out of tax, the situation is a bit different and with subways, safety issues to do with fire can be used to justify a ban, or partial one.
But Bloomberg, owner of a some sort of news company  , is showing a total lack of proportion. Since September 11, 2001, New Yorkers have occasionally had many reasons to steady their nerves and enjoy the indulgences of this fleeting life. For some, it may be the taste of a delicious bagel, or a sip of a beer. But for many citizens of that great city, it has been about lighting up a cigarette.
…does not mean it is not true!
In Brian‘s earlier article about why railways are the width they are, there has been much commenting about the veracity of the theory that it can be traced back to Imperial Roman times. But in those comment, it was claimed the English V-sign is also of largely mythical origin. I disagree.
The meaning of the V-sign is quite well known and I have not seen any better explanations.
The US gesture of extending the middle finger is clearly just a phallic reference (i.e. “f**k you”), but the English V-sign, which has some similar connotations (i.e. it is not a sign of endearment), has historical roots dating back to the 1400’s. If the middle finger is a gesture of anger, the V-sign is a gesture of defiance and above all, a threat. “It is with these two fingers that I use my longbow!”… Up yours, with an arrow!
Of course as with anything of this nature, it is more or less a matter of folk lore yet I have not seen any evidence to contradict the contention that the V-sign was indeed a gesture of defiance by common English soldiers towards the French, though my understanding is that it was not just associated with the Battle of Agincourt but was in general use during the Hundred Years War.
 
Both versions of the gesture made perfect semiotic sense and
were calculated to resonate with the ‘common man’ circa 1940
Since World War Two the V-sign, knuckles inwards, has come to mean V-for-Victory far beyond the shores of Britain. Knuckles outwards, it retains its more ‘earthy’ meaning. Yet Churchill would have been well aware of both the gesture’s significance and history. He intended to coopt both to use against Nazi Germany: Defiance and, to put it bluntly, Up yours.
The V-sign considerably pre-dates the European Union…
but do not think it is can only be aimed at foreign enemies
Jack Bell makes a timeless point and leads many at Samizdata.net wonder if not just Iran but some Western societies are not well overdue for Jefferson’s prescription.
Reason has an editorial everyone should read. It discusses the story of Dr. Hashem Aghajari who is facing a death sentence in Iran because he called for secular and religious reform. He has turned down a negotiated appeal with the religious courts of Iran because, as Dr. Aghajari says
“… those who have issued this verdict have to implement it if they think it is right or else the Judiciary has to handle it.”
Basically he is willing to die to make his point.
In these days of jihad where our focus is on the religious fanatics and their facist fellow travellers, it is good for us to know that there are also those in the Middle East who share our belief in the rights and dignity of man and the liberty of the individual. In freedom from religous and secular tyranny. Share it strongly enough to pay the same ultimate price as was once paid here in America to secure those very rights for us.
I wonder how many of us will be standing up for the count in a decade or so if (when) the apparatus of protection we are so busy erecting is used for darker purposes? Personally I think Thomas Jefferson said it best:
“What country before ever existed a century & a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it’s liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon & pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants. It is it’s natural manure.”
Jack Bell
All change in China this week, as the ‘old guard’ of the ruling Communist Party step down in favour of younger, more vigourous leaders.
So change only in terms of personel, not policies. The new boys would not have been allowed within light years of the reins of power were they not commited to continued rule by the Party.
But that doesn’t mean that it is going to be easier for them to do so. For the last 20 years or so China has been moving from command to market economy and now over 50% of the GDP is generated by the private sector. The changes have been formally recognised by the decision to allow ‘capitalists’ to join the Party so that their interests can be represented as well. Yes, that is absurd but how else are the ruling elite going to cope with changes and stay in power?
Capitalism in China now appears to be irreversible so the big question is how long the present political architecture stand erect against the hurricanes of economic change on the ground.
In case anyone else has noticed… there seems to be a failure of DNS for Glenn Reynolds Instapundit. The company “DNS Services” seems to not be answering queries. He is still reachable by IP
I wonder if he realizes it… HEY GLENN, IF YOU FLUSH YOUR LOCAL CACHE YOU MIGHT LOSE TOUCH WITH YOUR SERVER!!!
Later… 0400 GMT: All seems well again over at Instapundit.
The US DoD is studying whether to continue with its’ current broadband satellite systems or to move on to a global space laser com relay network. According to Undersecretary of the Air Force Peter Teets at a DoD News Briefing on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2002, they hope to be ready for a decision by December 2004:
“Just exactly that way. We will progress in the development of the laser comm. technology between now and 2004. In 2004, we will decide whether or not we have confidence enough to deploy — whether we have confidence enough to not procure AEHFs 4 and 5 and, rather, rely upon a high bandwidth relay network of some kind using some form of laser comm.”
They seem primarily interested in space-space links, but I predict usefulness for space-ground links as well. Laser links have many admirable characteristics for this if you can get the pointing right. They do not have the extensive sidelobes or wide footprint of radio signals1; they are difficult to jam2; they can carry enormously more data3; and left entirely unsaid at this briefing… they are amenable to quantum cryptography4.
Oh I just love the future!
1 = This makes it very difficult to intercept. Even tightly beamed microwaves have enough off axis signal to be read miles away as the Russians did in New England in the 80’s. They purchased an old country house as a diplomatic site, stuck up a bunch of antennas and started picking off White House and other phone calls. At that time the exchange number was part of a clear text header, easily filtered for out of the massive volume of long distance voice traffic. It goes without saying US ELINT sats can pick up the faint leakage of microwave links from orbit.
2 = Someone will certainly comment about the effect of fog, clouds etc. It is not as much of a problem as you think, and most especially for point to point orbital communications. Even on ground links, much depends on the frequency in use. Water vapour does not absorb at all frequencies.
3 = Think of live two way hiresolution video links between pilots in theatre and control centres elsewhere in the world; perhaps even holographic 3D heads up data displays. The possibilities are staggering.
4 = Even without encryption, quantum tricks lets them make sure undetected “man in the middle” attacks are literally impossible.
Our Debian Linux-based server is undergoing a software update this afternoon (GMT) so please excuse us if any problems arise. Remote system upgrades are always “interesting” affairs.
Time passes…
All clear. Other than one near disaster with a critical library that got automatically de-installed when it shouldn’t, all seems to have gone smoothly.
This is an absolute classic, picked up and copied in full (I think) by Natalie Solent. Which is a good thing because the link to it supplied by Natalie was also a horse’s arse when I tried it.
The piece in question is both an utterly convincing and an utterly hilarious explanation (based on the size of the standard horse’s arse) of why the standard railway gauge throughout the world is 4ft 8.5 ins, and it has a delightful space age postscript.
Increasing the chances that everyone on earth reads things like this is one of the basic purposes of Samizdata, as far as I’m concerned. Instapundit: do your thing, if you haven’t already. UK Transport (quiet at the moment – I believe Patrick Crozier is moving house) eat your heart out.
For the last few days various people have been asking me what I thought of the big LA/LI conference last weekend that several of us have been going on about, here and in other Britblogs. How good was it? (Lowered voice: What was wrong that should be better next time?)
What I think is that these things are hard to organise, and especially so if you also have a life you’re fighting with full time. Since I have little in the way of a life to fight but did little to help, I’m not entitled to criticise. LA Director Chris Tame (who has a very aggressive life to contend with but who nevertheless did the bulk of the organising) deserves all the credit going for what went well, and none of the blame for any defects.
Nevertheless in this posting, I want to focus first on my one big regret about this event. Things happen the way they happen and all that. Some speakers let you down and others have to be juggled, and so on. But, I wish that Richard Miniter‘s speech at the final dinner, so well described here by David Carr, had instead been one of the conference talks that it was originally intended to be. First, if it had been there would have been a chance for questions. And second, if there had been questions I believe it would have become clear that although this man undoubtedly spoke very eloquently and interestingly, he did not really speak for the libertarian movement as a whole, and in particular, not for the European libertarian movement, which is just as split about US policy towards Iraq as libertarians are in the USA.
→ Continue reading: That conference – I salute Our Great Leader Tame
Medact, the British affiliate of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, released a paper on Tuesday which predicts that an invasion of Iraq could lead to a ‘human catastrophe’. The document is called Collateral Damage: The Health and Environmental Costs of War on Iraq.
Environmental Costs? Environmental Costs? These people are talking about the environmental costs of removing the man who ordered the systematic torching of all of Kuwait’s oil fields from power. I have some news for you, guys… there is already a ‘human catastrophe’ in Iraq. Killing Saddam Hussain and exterminating Ba’athism and its supporters is the only way that will ever end.
It is interesting that the ‘International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War’ think the best way to do that is to leave Saddam Hussain alone long enough that he can develop or acquire nuclear weapons of his own. One must remember that these are the same people who wanted the Soviet Union and NATO to disarm… but of course the West should do it first.
I will start taking these apologists for mass murdering tyranny seriously when they publish a paper called “Willful Murder: The Health and Environmental Costs of having a Socialist Dictator in Iraq”.
I do not know whether the news of the fire service strike has travelled beyond the UK, but in case anyone is interested, here is the truth behind it: Today’s London firemen’s strike is the most outrageous bid for money since the Fleet Street print disputes of the 1970s. The system is being milked of money, and the public of sympathy. I admire the firemen’s gall and enterprise. They need no sympathy.
[…]
The Fire Brigades Union demand for 40 per cent in the face of the Bain Report may seem outrageous. But money is not really the issue. The issue is reform. Were the present shift system to go, 40 per cent is probably fair compensation and cheap at the price, especially if other Spanish practices go too.
[…]
Last year’s Tube strikes ended in capitulation by London Underground after a preelection call from a terrified Downing Street. This call sent an excited tremor through every London trade union. Tony Blair was an intervener. He would give in if pushed. The fire strike is the result.
It’s worth reading the whole article – it is the best analysis of the wave of strikes hitting London and the UK. London is chaotic at best of times, it is beyond chaos during strikes, but words fail me to capture the situation with an increased threat of terrorism thrown into the bargain…
Update: John Blundell of the Institute of Economic Affairs has some suggestions about how to run fire brigades.
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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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