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]
|
That 80 or more hostages have been killed is dreadful but the fact 750 were saved is a triumph.
But there are some very stark lessons here.
In 1995, a related Chechen group took over 2000 people hostage in a hospital in Budyonnovsk. After an initial attempt to free the hostages was botched with considerable loss of life by the Russian forces, a deal was cut by then Prime Minister Victor Chernomyrdin that agreed a cease-fire in the Chechen war and allowed the hostage takers to escape in return for the safety of their captives.
And of course that was proof that you can indeed get the Russians to cut a deal if you are daring enough and willing to slaughter enough innocent civilians.
Well I hope that Vladimir Putin has just signalled a complete rejection of that mind set. As terrible as it is that so many hostages have died, the fact is the Chechen terrorists who did this are now either dead or facing a very grim time indeed in a Russian jail… and were given nothing for their pains by the Russians. That is the only message that must be sent to terrorists everywhere, to do otherwise is to motivate such people to cause more horrors in theatres, hospitals and homes. The enemy may not fear death itself but I suspect they do indeed fear pointless death.
So whatever the cost, in the long run it is cheaper in lives to never negotiate (other than as a tactical ruse). Give them the death they desire but nothing that would further their aims, no matter how small.
Russian commando with SV-98 sniper rifle
For the last couple years many pundits have expected a black aircraft to have a coming out party “Real Soon Now”. It has finally happened but the new debutante is not at all what anyone expected.
It’s neat looking but only a technology demonstrator. Slow, low ceiling… and very hard to detect.
Personally I think there are a few other rather more interesting craft still in the deep, deep black of Groom Lake.
Photo: with permission, Boeing Aerospace
Russian special forces have pulled off a brilliant rescue. I was not surprised by the attempt. In fact, I was discussing this probability with a friend last night before going out to watch “The Bourne Identity”. There was simply no choice at all but to take the risk because the alternative was certain death for over 700 people.
I expected higher casualties among the hostages than what actually occured so my hat is off to the Russians. I’m also happy to hear of the death of such a large percentage of the terrorists. Thirty-six out of fifty ain’t bad shooting.
I’m really glad we’re on the same side now.
If it got under J. Edgar Hoover’s skin it’s no wonder I loved it when I was a kid.
Happy 50th Alfred!
Taking a bus to Brixton from Streatham this afternoon, I saw the Big Brother posters which assured me I was safe. Considering I was in one of London’s three murder hotspots, the posters seemed appropriate. In Coldharbour Lane the new multimedia telephone kiosks were empty yet there were queues outside them. These were the drugs hustlers who called out “Grass”, “Charlie” and “Horse” as I walked past.
Directly beneath a bus lane camera a car blocked the bus lane. I was reminded that when the security cameras were installed in Coldharbour Lane one of them didn’t work. Any guesses where a murder was committed? Yup, directly beneath the faulty camera.
In Kingston-upon-Thames a few years ago a jeweller’s shop was discovered to be the only shop in the street which couldn’t be seen from the array of cameras. A nice dark alleyway running alongside was also unaccountably off-screen. Any guesses how this was discovered? Yup, when a gang burgled the shop.
At least there is no suggestion that inside information could possibly have contributed to these crimes.
Justice Barker has a curious notion of the law. Last time I thought about wandering the streets of London with a crowbar, I remembered that if I were found to be in possession of such an object, that I would be charged with possesion of a dangerous weapon.
A Londoner was recently shot several times by armed police for carrying a table leg: that murder however was entirely justified, according to one of Mr Justice Barker’s colleagues. So presumably the intruder teleported the crowbar into his victim’s home using equipment from the 25th century.
Also, presumably I would be allowed to carry a machete, crowbar or table leg around Mr Justice Barker’s home at 3am, but not in my front garden at 3pm. Perhaps a group of squatters might like to find out where Mr Barker lives and turn up at about 3am with plumbing tools and invite themselves in for a cup of tea.
I assume that Mr Barker thinks there is no difference between this and the “right to roam”. And to think there are people who want the UK to have more common law? With barking Barkers on the judges’ benches, who could tell the difference?
Anyone believe that a future Conservative government would amnesty self-defence prisoners of conscience? Ha!
Alas poor Brendan, we knew him well…
No, Brendan O’Neill is not a dead blogger… he has not kicked the bucket, nor shuffled off his mortal coil, run down the curtain and joined the bleedin’ choir invisibile! He is not an ex-blogger!!!
The reason he has not posted on his blog for a while is that his blog publishing software has gone tits up in a big way. We will report when he is back on line and pooping all over the blogosphere again.
 Update: Brendan has fixed his technical problems and is once again ‘with blog’.
Excuse me but….I’m…I’m just a little groggy right now. I’ve stopped seeing double but my hands are still shaking. I just managed to avoid hitting my head on the desk as I went down but I hit the floor with a thud. I only hope I haven’t broken anything.
I think I have recovered just about enough of my constitution to link to this editorial in the Daily Mirror:
“The anti-American alliance is made up of self-loathing liberals who blame the Americans for every ill in the Third World, and conservatives suffering from power-envy, bitter that the world’s only superpower can do what it likes without having to ask permission.”
“But don’t blame America for not bringing peace and light to these wretched countries. How many democracies are there in the Middle East, or in the Muslim world? You can count them on the fingers of one hand – assuming you haven’t had any chopped off for minor shoplifting.
I love America, yet America is hated. I guess that makes me Bush’s poodle. But I would rather be a dog in New York City than a Prince in Riyadh. Above all, America is hated because it is what every country wants to be – rich, free, strong, open, optimistic.”
Wait a minute, did I say that was in the Daily Mirror? Let me just check [Pause]. Yes, it was the Daily frigging Mirror!! John Pilger’s dead-tree mouthpiece; Britain’s most popular left-wing tabloid. These are the people who have been running a TV ad campaign inviting the public to regard George Bush as a more dangerous tyrant than Saddam Hussein. Have the proprietors been locked in a cellar somewhere?
And what about the author, Tony Parsons? Not in the Pilger league for sure but still a long-standing, card-carrying member of the sneering leftie ‘intellectual’ classes. Well, at least he was until now. Has someone implanted a chip in his brain?
Would some functional adult please go and read the whole editorial and tell me that I wasn’t just hallucinating, because the world isn’t supposed to be like this. In truth, I am sort of hoping that I am just seeing things because if I am not then we at the Samizdata have to face the thorny problem of there being no more idiots left to denounce. What are we going to do then, for chrissakes??!!
The world knows it as Silicon Valley, a name coined in 1971 by the editor of a microelectronics newsletter; but on the Rand McNally Atlas it is the Santa Clara Valley, a 40-mile by 10-mile strip running from Palo Alto to the southern suburbs of San Jose, at the southern end of the San Francisco Bay Area. It constitutes just over one-third of the 1312-square-mile Santa Clara County. In 1950 it was the prune capital of America.
The opening sentences of Chapter 14 (“The Industrialization of Information – San Francisco/Palo Alto/Berkeley 1950-1990”) of Peter Hall’s Cities in Civilization
Thanks to Alex Knapp of Heretical Ideas for the link to this, which says that peace may have broken out between India and Pakistan. They aren’t yet talking to each other about it, but touch wood, for the time being, they’re doing it.
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – India said on Thursday it had begun pulling back its soldiers from the border with Pakistan and that the withdrawal would take about six weeks.
“The process has begun. This will take about one-and-a-half months. We are trying to do it faster,” Defense Minister George Fernandes told reporters after addressing a conference of coast guard commanders.
The withdrawal will end the longest and biggest peacetime deployment in India’s history. Pakistan has also announced it would withdraw its forces in response to the Indian decision.
The two countries massed nearly a million troops along their common border after a deadly raid on India’s parliament last December that New Delhi blamed on Pakistan-based militants fighting its rule in Muslim-majority Jammu and Kashmir.
I seem to recall not a disagreement exactly, more like a friendly exchange of his fears and of my hopes which both of us shared – “I hope I’m wrong”, “I hope I’m right”, that kind of stuff – between me and David Carr about India and Pakistan. The trouble with predicting peace and of then getting (a little slice of) it is that peace isn’t very newsworthy. War, on the other hand, gets absolutely everyone who ever told us so saying I told you so.
So anyway, I told you so.
Cue a nuclear attack by India. The Indians were withdrawing their forces because they didn’t want to bomb them. No, please, no.
Brian has commented on a left/right difference in art punditry. I differ with what he said only because I’m uncertain it matches what he does and why he does it. His High Arts (and low!) commentary has been been a breath of fresh air.
Artists, artist wannabees and art students like to write about art because that is what they do. It’s their passion. What they think about when life isn’t messily intruding on those More Important Things.
A few years ago a large part of my writing would have been in the music biz vein. I was playing as near to professionally as I could afford to. At the moment I’m spending all my time with technology and still trying – badly I might add – to make a living. At times I wonder if tech should be the hobby… but then I talk to a friend whose record label is failing and whose tour gigs are falling off and I realize it doesn’t work well either way.
Although I write a lot on technology and policy, catch me at the bar while a Rock gig is on (well, during the break when you can talk anyway – I always stand near the speakers) and I’ll talk your ear off about “the biz”. I drive my business partner up the pub wall at times. I point out the features of the electronic kit the lead guitarist is using, what keyboards they have, the qualities of various amps and speakers and of course the pros and cons of why CF Martin makes the best acoustic guitar, whether a Strat or an SG is a better electric and for what, direct feed versus amp miking etc. etc…
I would posit libertarians are more like the Left when it comes to the arts. It’s the socially liberal side of the equation which we don’t share with the Right. Some who once thought they were Conservative may disagree. I ask them: “Why do you think you were politically homeless before you found us?” It’s because you weren’t Left and you didn’t fit on the Right. The vice-versa thing heppened to me on the Left.
Libertarians are neither Right nor Left: go find a Nolan chart. We’re, well… sort of, you know… UP1. We’re the new kid on the ideological block and most of the writers in our corner have been philosophers, policy wonks and political pundits.
Samizdata is out to change all that. Libertarians have a life style as open as the philosophy itself. We’re here to show that.
1 = Extra credit for those who recognize my literary misreference.
My initial hopes, that the storming of a theatre just outside Moscow (the name of which doesn’t appear to be published anywhere, incidentally) by a gang of heavily-armed Chechenhawks was merely the execution of a piece of bizarre and shocking performance art, have now ebbed away.
“I swear by God we are more keen on dying than you are keen on living,”
“Even if we are killed, thousands of brothers and sisters will come after us, ready to sacrifice themselves,” said a female among the group, only her eyes peering from a head-to-toe black robe.”
As substitute for hope, I now have the tangibly queasy feeling that this is all going to end very badly.
|
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