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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Tomorrow’s World is a BBC TV show that features gadgets that may or may not be about to change all our lives for the better. I watched it last Wednesday (May 8th). The BBC being the BBC there was much talk about impractical and expensive looking electric cars which will probably never catch on unless forced on us by politicians, and there was a machine featured which told you just how much damage you were doing to your respiratory system by smoking, thus motivating you to stop. Be still my heart. (This being what will inevitably happen to you, they kept helpfully reminding us, if you insist on smoking. Cue lying statistics about “smoking related” diseases.)
But one gadget they showed did truly impress me, and I meant to pass it on that evening but something else must have got in the way. (Oh yes, my computer modem stopped working.) This impressive gadget was a new kind of very-portable computer keyboard.
I already possess a folding (“Targus Stowaway”) keyboard with which I type stuff into my Hewlett Packard Jornada 548, which when folded fits into a space hardly any bigger than that occupied by a Hewlett Packard Jornada 548 (i.e. my jacket pocket), and I had supposed that this was as small as a keyboard big enough to type on properly could get. Not so.
On Tomorrow’s World they showed something quite new, at any rate to me. Instead of offering you a physical keyboard, what the new gismo does is shine a keyboard onto your desk, and then watch you while you type on it. The thing itself is no bigger than a cigarette box, and soon all portable computers may contain such a thing inside them. Superb. In an earlier version of this posting I did an hour ago, I did the BBC a semi-injustice. I said they didn’t say who make this midget miracle. They didn’t on the TV. But follow the link above and you get to VBK Ltd. This is an Israeli company, and I don’t remember them saying that on the TV either.
Just thought I’d tell you. What with assassinations, European Unions, train crashes (another one here in Blighty on Friday), and all the usual politically administered misery, it’s as well to remember that some things in our flawed but fascinating civilisation are being done extraordinarily well, and ever better as the years go by.
It is not often that I use this blog as an advertising medium. In fact, I cannot remember ever having done so. So this is a first.
We Brits at the Samizdata require some help from our American readers (we know you’re out there, we can hear you breathing). We have decided that we need a change of political representation, our own having chucked its lot in with Soviet EUnion. We need to ‘clean house’ and begin again and we think we can best do this by appointing a US Senator for Britain
We think this is a marvelous way of reconnecting us with our Anglo-Saxon heritage and of bringing the two most dynamic lynchpins of that community closer together. As well as that, it will help in the drive to get Britain out of the EU and, without Britain, the EU will not survive.
We should make it clear that we do not have the time or resources to mount any sort of election campaign so we simply intend to appoint the said Senator without he/she having any say in the matter. It may be somewhat presumptuous but these are interesting times and they call for interesting measures.
We have already pledged that we will not bother add to their administrative burdens by sending letters to their office but we do intend to write open letters to them on this blog for time to time as occasion requires.
However, we being Brits and all that, have no idea to appoint and this is where our US contributors and readers come in. If you really want to stick it to the Euro-snots, then unzip your trusty computer keyboards and mail us with your suggestions for a suitable Senator for Britain and the reasons why he/she would be suitable.
Mock not. We are serious.
The worst enemy of truth and freedom in our society is the compact majority. Yes, the damned, compact, liberal majority.
– Henrik Ibsen, in An Enemy of the People
One of the things that the blogosphere provides is stories, for the mainstream media. And I’m starting to believe that the multinational pharmaceuticals corporation Pfizer – best-known in the UK, if known of at all, for producing the world-renowned wrinkly recreational drug Viagra – is a story.
The thing is, Pfizer supports the free market, with arguments and with money. The magazine Prospect, for example, now contains, on the inside of each front cover, not mere adverts for Pfizer, but essays under the heading “Pfizer forum”, frequently of a decidedly pro-free-market persuasion. In September of last year, for example, they had one by Milton Friedman.
Go to the Pfizer website. Look there under “public policy” and you get the Pfizer forum website. It turns out that one of those pro-free-market essays is by Johan Norberg and is called “In Defense of Global Capitalism”. So they’re not making much of a secret about being in favour of capitalism, are they?
I have already passed the question on through a mutual friend, of mine and of Pfizer. (He wrote one of the Pfizer forum essays.) I repeat the question here: What if the global anti-capitalist left decides to “expose” Pfizer? What if they try to turn them into corporate demons, the way they demonised Dow Chemicals (napalm, if I remember it right), and then Monsanto (genetic engineering)? What if anti-capitalist stirrers start showing up at Pfizer annual general meetings? Maybe this has been tried, but hasn’t worked.
Pfizer must have thought about this because like I say they are not supporting capitalism in secret; they are advertising that they support it. Yet if you type “Pfizer” into Google, you have to wade through a ton of pro-Pfizer material before you encounter anything remotely critical. (The first anti-Pfizer thing I spotted was Oxfam complaining about Pfizer’s attitude to their patents. I guess Pfizer believes that their patents are theirs.)
It is because most multinational corporations do not like the answers to questions like the one I am asking that they do not support capitalism other than in apologetic whispers. How come Pfizer thinks it’s good business to support it out loud? I am delighted they do. Nevertheless, why? I am sure some of this story has already been written, but not so I have noticed. And written or not, like I say, it is a story.
“If you can’t see a woman in a bikini that’s your problem. You can’t force them to cover up just because you can’t control yourself.”
-Malaysian Tourism Minister Abdul Kadir Sheikh Fadzir blasts Terengannu’s state government, which is led by the Islamic party, PAS, for its “Taliban-like” plan to ban tourists from wearing bikinis.
Hello again. I’ve had a long day. I had to get up early this morning to welcome The Man Who Was Coming To Mend My Computer, but as it turned out he overslept and only got here two hours later than he said – although to be fair, when he did get here he did mend the computer or you wouldn’t be reading this masterpiece of the blogger’s art. But he took all day and as soon as he’d finished I had to depart for a Putney Debate. These are the second Friday of the month events run by Tim Evans. This turned out very good. I’ve just now got back, and would in the normal course of things be going straight to bed. But Samizdata’s Big Cat Perry is away, and he gave strict e-mailed orders that we mice must play a lot in his absence.
I was going to do something about how the new Euroflag is a big mistake, but I fear that this is wishful thinking. True, the new flag won’t be as easy for school-children to draw (which was going to be my heading for this), what with all the different coloured pencils they’ll now need, but I don’t suppose that will stop them and they might even like that. And in general I think the new design could prove very clever. You can imagine all kinds of variants. Sticky tape. The Union Jack done with strips of the thing. All sorts of Euro-objects dancing about in front, with the stripes as a background. No, I think it could work very well, more’s the pity. And it will adapt very prettily as more nations are engulfed.
Adriana, please could you add some links from this to the two previous flag articles, i.e. this one and that one. Thanks. If she hasn’t done it yet, they were, I don’t know, whenever they were. Scroll down and find them.
This is better, although a complete change of subject. The Duke of Edinburgh, the Queen’s husband, is famed in these islands for saying something offensive every time he opens his mouth in public. But I came across this item of dialogue from the Queen Husband which I thought genuinely amusing. It was from a book I was reading (while waiting for the Man Who Was Going Eventually To … etc.).
The D of E has just got home from an airplane journey, and one of his flunkeys asks him obsequiously:
“And how was your flight, Your Royal Highness?”
The Duke sighs. You know how it is when you’re really tired. Everything seems harder to deal with. Even the simplest question can only be answered with a great effort. Finally HRH says:
“Have you ever been on an airplane journey?”
“Why yes, Your Royal Highness, many times.”
“Well it was like that.”
It is interesting how things are developing economically in Croatia now that people in the rest of the world have finally figured out it is safe to come here again. Plans have been afoot for some time to develop various regions with businessmen like famous Italian developer Richard Mazzucchelli prowling around Dalmatia and Istria looking for opportunities. I have long thought the best way to treat such unspoiled places was to develop them with the high end of the tourism market in mind rather than the mass tourism planned in places like Split or Dubrovnik. Never being an optimist by nature, I rather expected the truth of what would happen would result in the ghastly Disnification of Croatia’s magnificent coastline and islands, with a MacDonalds dishing out vile industrial food to the great unwashed of Europe in every village.
Well it seems that in spite of my lapsed Catholicism at least a few of my prayers are being answered. Apparently Princess Caroline of Monaco is going to be investing in an exclusive development in the national park island of Brijuni. Hopefully this will just be the first of many. It is a tricky thing balancing the need for development with not destroying the very thing people would want to see, namely the extraordinary, historic and unspoiled locations that make up so much of the country. One excellent way would be to allow more foreign investment and easy land ownership restrictions for overseas investors. The Adriatic and Mediterranean are filled with low end tourist destinations with far more infrastructure and easier communications than is going to be available in Croatia for quite a while so clearly the added value this country can provide is the very fact of its unspoiled nature for more discerning (and higher spending) foreigners. Lower impact higher value markets are surely where a good portion of our future in tourism should be and it just might be working out that way. Let us welcome ‘The Beautiful People’… they have lots of money!
Patrick Crozier, writer of the excellent blog UK Transport finds the issue of how parents treat their children a complex one for libertarians
On television (Powerhouse, Channel 4) just now were calls for banning parents smacking their own children.
I have to say I find myself divided on this issue. I used to just accept it as one of those things that parents needed “just in case”. But there has recently been a debate in libertarian circles – largely ignited by a talk Sarah Lawrence gave at one of ‘Brian’s Fridays’ (a monthly libertarian meeting in London hosted by regular Samizdata contributor Brian Micklethwait).
Sarah says that children are people too and are entitled to exactly the same rights as adults.
“Ah” I say “But what if a child is determined to cross the road and get run over? Got you there.” Apparently not. After all, if an adult stepped in front of a bus most of us would make some attempt to stop them. The more I heard about this line of thinking the more I liked it. It would no longer be possible to “send” children to schools – so no more juvenile prison camps. Would we end up with a generation of illiterates? Probably not. Those children who are home schooled tend to do very well. And anyway, the present system needs little help in raising children who can’t read.
But back to smacking. If it is illegal to hit an adult it should be illegal to hit a child. Unless, of course, it is consensual. Boxers knock seven bells out of one another but no one gets arrested. Likewise sado-masochists. OK, so some of them do get arrested but they shouldn’t.
So, do I think children will consent to boxing matches with their fathers or engage in sado-masochism? Probably not.
But there is an issue here. If children have rights so do adults. One of these is to throw their children out on the street. In fact this is about the only fallback that parents have if children have rights. This is pretty unpalatable – especially for parents. This is where smacking in a consensual form may come in. Rather than throw the child out the parent could offer a compromise in the form of a consensual punishment. Of course, it doesn’t have to be smacking or even physical but the point is that in a libertarian world smacking could exit.
This is not, by the way, what the anti-smacking brigade want. They do not want parents to have the power of eviction. They are quite happy to force parents to house, clothe and feed little hooligans. Indeed, it may well be the intention.
Patrick Crozier (London)
Because in the end, even Germaine Greer calls the cops, not Simone de Beauvoir, when she’s personally, physically threatened in the real world.
– Jack Robertson
Steve runs quite possibly the strangest blog in the entire blogosphere, rejoicing in the name of Scrofula (morbid condition featuring swelling of the glands), tagline: News, Rumours, Stupidity and Muck.
He is particularly adroit at, um, interesting graphics (I particularly like his ‘Conan the Egalitarian’ and ‘David Blunkett as Robocop’). Many of his works are rather splendid animated gifs: watch Robert Fisk come to grief again and again! Make sure you visit his picture archive for maximum juicy goodness. Steve has a much better idea for a new EU flag than that silly barcode…
 Uncle Joe loves EU
I imagine at least a few have noted my near absence from these pages over the last few weeks. This is the difference between those who earn their keep from their words and those who do so by other means. As I live by consultancy, I at times have very few hours left to myself. When there are other projects at hand, time allocation can get very dicey. One very big “free time” project is nearing completion and as it is part of a public event I thought I’d invite you all to come. I’m running a track on Novel Propulsion Systems at the National Space Society‘s 2002 International Space Development Conference in Denver in a few weeks.
Here’s what I’ve put together for my little corner of it:
NPS track, Sat May 25, 2002
—————————
Morning Session
====================================
0900-0925 Energy, Economics, and Space Transport: Evaluating
Alternative Space Launch Systems
Keith Lofstrom, www.launchloop.com
0930-1025 Nuclear Propulsion Systems Panel
Tony Rusi, Bigelow Aerospace
Dr. Steven D. Howe, Hbar Technologies, LLC
1030-1100 Future Spacecraft Propulsion Systems
Richard Westfall, Galactic Mining Industries, Inc
Afternoon Session
====================================
1400-1425 The Ultimate Exploration: Approaches to Interstellar Flight
Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis, NASA Glenn Research Center
1430-1455 Magnetic Sail Flight Experiment
Dr. Robert Zubrin, Mars Society
1500-1525 The Launch Loop: People and Machines to Orbit and Beyond
Keith Lofstrom, www.launchloop.com
1530-1555 Cost Performance of the Hydrogen Rocket Launcher
Dr. John Hunter, Starbridge, Inc
Herb Chelner, President of Micron Instruments Inc.
1600-1625 Tether Launch Assist
Dr. Robert P Hoyt, President, CEO,
& Chief Scientist, Tethers Unlimited, Inc.
1630-1655 Breakthrough Propulsion Physics
Dr. Geoffrey A. Landis, NASA Glenn Research Center
(presenting for
Marc Millis, NASA Glenn Research Center)
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See you there!
When bad men combine, the good must associate else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle
-Edmund Burke (1729-1797)
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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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