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Inspired by a call in Saudi Arabia for Jewish women to be enslaved, my very good friend in the USA, Ed Collins sent me this e-mail:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hubba hubba!! April 27th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 Author Salman Rushdie would have gotten a lot more attention for his comments in today’s Washington Post, but for the fact that his piece lay side-by-side with a scathing indictment of European anti-Semitism by Charles Krauthammer. Krauthammer’s piece was the hot item in the Blogosphere all day; of course Glenn Reynolds was all over it early in the day, and Tony Adragna of QuasiPundit ran with it too — but Rushdie’s comments deserve their time in the spotlight. While Rushdie can’t help but take a few irrelevant and somewhat distracting sideswipes at Dubya and at Lady Thatcher, his skewering of the French is priceless — throwing Voltaire right in their faces! Rather than confront the rising tide of economic nationalists (or whatever the favored euphemism for “fascism” is now), they tend to their gardens, while insisting that fascism engages only the fringes and not the heart of French politics. And when anti-Semitism and fascism start percolating through their politics, why, who left those things lying around? The voters blame the parties for not offering better choices; the incumbent Left blames the electorate for not being smart enough to continue voting for them. But in either case, the French have been far too busy casting judgment on the rest of the globe to take a critical look at themselves. Yes, Chirac will almost certainly beat Le Pen, but Rushdie is right to criticize the French, who for so long insisted that candidates like Le Pen only appealed to a tiny fringe element. April 27th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I seem to recall that one the tasks undertaken by our Cold War fighters was the smuggling of Bibles into the former Soviet Union. Looks like their services may be required again before too long. A British EU judge has warned that distribution of Bibles could violate proposed EU Anti-Racism Laws. Unfortunately, subscription is required in order to read the article in full but this is the opinion of Lord Scott of Foscote:
Among the literature that could fall foul of this definition, according to Lord Scott, is the Bible and also ‘Biggles’, novels about a fictional WWII fighter pilot. Looks like Perry was rather prescient when he decided to call this blog ‘the Samizdata’. April 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 My Norwegian libertarian friend Kristine Lowe has a personal interest in tattoos, and in their tax status, see above. (“Lowe” is Norwegian for “lion”, hence the nature of her magnificent adornment.) Thus alerted to any tattoo-related media item, she sent me the following report, based on a longer piece in the Norwegian Aftenposten:
Kristine has also had trouble with her legs. Now me, I’ve never had trouble with Kristine’s legs – see below. But she had a bad accident several years ago, and the original doctors didn’t catch everything. So soon she’s off back to Norway to get everything finally fixed. I and the rest of the libertarian movement wish her all the best.  April 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Private property is the basis of civil society. Whatever violence is required to defend private property against those who would steal it is justified, as to defend private property is to defend civilization itself. April 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
As part of the intellectually confused but nevertheless laudable Daily Telegraph project called A Free Country, Charles Moore, about whom I am rather ambivalent, writes an exceedingly good article called Rally on May Day to blow the whistle on the control freaks:
And that is indeed the problem: we must change the frames of reference. Time to start refusing to tolerate force backed intolerance just because it is sanctified by some notion of democratic legitimacy. April 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Canada is treating its soldiers disgracefully. The fighting in Afghanistan is not a gentlemen’s game between sportsmen, it is a fight to the death with desperate terrorists. If some dead Al Qaeda/Taliban soldier was posed for a photograph with a cigarette and a placard around his neck saying ‘fuck terrorism’ then I say so what? It is okay to kill a man, to blow a hole in his body with a 50 cal slug, to shoot him dead, at the behest of your government… but not to disrespect the terrorist supporting son of a bitch’s corpse? Ludicrous. April 26th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Many Jews in Israel want to make the lives of Palestinians intolerable so that they will wish to live elsewhere. Many Arabs in Palestine find the lives of Jews intolerable anywhere. April 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
This day of days again we keep – ‘Tis ANZAC Day Day – ’tis Anzac Day.. April 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It seems my item on Wednesday Lessons for Blair from France, pointing out the advantages of constitutional monarchy as a healthy focus for patriotic sentiment compared to the likely alternatives triggered a few harrumphs from some Samizdata readers. I cannot answer every point but here are a few: I was trying to figure out how monarchy on the British model might prove useful in some societies roiled by internal strife, such as France. My article was most certainly NOT a starry-eyed defence of monarchy as such. As a minimal statist libertarian who has flirted with the anarcho-capitalist stance, I certainly think our Royal Family should be privatised, its tax-funding status ended and the Civil List significantly curtailed. I also realise the Royal family’s role in standing atop the English class system which, while not as oppressive in the past, has its faults. I am also well aware that the U.S. is the great example of how a republic can hold the allegiance of its citizens and has worked supremely well, give or take the odd hiccup such as the 2000 Florida vote re-count controversy (“George Bush is dead, long live George W. Bush!”) and some unpleasantness during the 1860s. More broadly, I would say this: until the day comes and we can all live in a libertarian utopia with zero income tax and tiny government, or no government at all, we are likely to have states. Those states will be headed by someone or something. It really unlikely that an elected president, who is bound to be a partisan political figure, could be an improvement. After all, Royalty is a lottery for its members. They don’t ask for the job and are obliged to repay their fortune with a life of duty. (That is why royals get such stick if they are seen to misbehave, like some of the younger present members). Of course, one day we may be able to dispense with the whole affair and move on. But as a libertarian activist, getting rid of royalty is not exactly top of my priorities. I’d rather focus on cutting the government down to size. If I could pay just 10 percent income tax with the Queen remaining in Buckingham Palace, I’d settle for that rather than a social democratic republic where I’d pay 50 percent. Anyway, that is my ha’ pennyworth on the subject. For a good, thorough defence of British style monarchy, check out British journalist, blogger and aspiring Shakespearean actor Andrew Sullivan. Worth a read. April 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
To be a bit more serious about it, and having thought about it some more, I think that my fellow Brian (Linse) is probably right to talk about “soccer”, and that I should stop calling it “football”. In fact I think we should all stop calling anything “football”, without qualification, unless the context makes it entirely clear which variety we’re talking about. There are just so many different varieties. American, “Association” (soccer!), Gaelic, Australian Rules, rugby (union and league), and many, many more I’m sure. Soccer/football is, I now accept, one of those conundra that require that English – English English, I mean – be spoken differently, by the English, in order for us to make sense elsewhere in the Anglosphere. In Germany, they call soccer “fussball” with the “ss” being done as a Germanic squiggle, a word I smile at. And in the noted American TV sitcom Friends, what we here call “table football” is called “foozeball” (guess spelling). What’s that about? ( I don’t mean: horrid Americans bleah!!! I mean: what’s it about? Why “fooze”? Is it some weird USA-German thing?) Christopher Pellerito‘s comments earlier today about the relative dullness of the soccer that Americans get to see make a lot of sense. Here in Europe we note big differences in the national styles of the different national soccer leagues. The Italian league is shown regularly on British TV, on Channel 4, but I – and many others I talk to – can’t stand it. It’s too slow. It’s like watching a cross between soccer and armchair philosophy. Hugely skilful, and no doubt hugely diverting to play, but not, for me at least, any fun to watch. The British Premier League has recently gone from muddy cloggers to world class with the arrival in Britain of a mass of foreign players. A big moment in recent British social history, never mind sporting history, came recently when a British premier league club – I think it was David Carr’s Chelsea – fielded a team for a Premier League game with no English players, or even British ones. I rather think we have the European Union to thank for this. The Premier League has always been fast and furious. Now it’s also very skilful. However, the ultimate in pace and skill may be the Spanish League, if that wondrous Real-Barca game was anything to go by, which maybe it isn’t. Interesting thing about France, though. They undoubtedly have the best soccer team in the world just now. Zinedine Zidane (who scored a very clever goal for Real against Barca on Tuesday) is probably most people’s current pick as the best soccer player in the world. But, their league is financially rather feeble, and French clubs seldom figure in the later stages of the European Champions League. I think this may be an African thing. Much of the French team these days consists of players of francophone African origin. And African men, I rather think, and in contrast to white couch potatoes like me, love to play but don’t get nearly so excited about just watching. And the original French French have never been that keen on merely watching soccer, compared say, to the British, the Germans, the Spanish or the Italians. Which is why there are so many superb Afro-French soccer players now playing in Britain, Germany, Spain and Italy, especially in Britain, and especially for Arsenal (the top London club, on course to win this year’s Premier League title). Brian Linse may also be pleased to know that I also like to watch American football – cheerleaders, million dollar one-off adverts and all – and bitterly regret that Britain’s Channel 5 TV, which has extensive and often live and uncut American football coverage right up until the Superbowl, has stopped showing the Superbowl itself live, on account of Sky TV (Rupert Murdoch’s British and European satellite TV operation) having bought that. C5 only shows a few highlights a day later. The good news, for a cheapskate like me who doesn’t like paying for pay TV, is that Sky, having given “ITV Digital” such a roasting recently, is cutting back on its sports spending in the manner of a victorious army easing back on its ammunition budget. The England home games in the Six Nations rugby have lately only been shown in full on Sky. But now the Six Nations is reverting to being shown in its entirety, live and uncut, by the BBC, for which hurrah! And maybe C5 will also get the entire as-it-happens Superbowl back. If so, double hurrah. April 25th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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