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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I see on Guido Fawkes that arch-Europhile Denis MacShane is to be investigated by the police. He has had the Labour Whip withdrawn.
To give him credit, he did once call Hugo Chavez a “ranting, populist demagogue”. On the other hand he was once Minister of State for Europe.
This article gives a sample of his thought.
Commenters are requested to bear in mind the principle that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Yes, even a man who said:
In 2004, a major step forward was taken with the creation of a European arrest warrant
Whatever pious comments George Osborne, UK finance minister, or David Cameron might make about encouraging savings for the long term and less reliance on borrowing, blah, blah, blah, this sort of policy, assuming it is true, shows that this government does not give a rat’s arse about encouraging savings. Coupled with the new top tax rate of 50 per cent, reduced tax-free allowances and other adjustments, the enterprising class of those who work to build up pension pots for themselves just got a serious setback.
At a time when there is so much talk about a pensions “time-bomb”, this sort of announcement is also disheartening since it sends out the message that pension schemes are a contrick. My own managing director at the firm at which I am now a small partner does not bother with pensions and intends to rely on his own business/properties to pay for his old age. When announcements like this come out, who is to say he is really wrong?
Tim Congdon has thrown his hat in the ring to become the next leader of UKIP and that means UKIP could possibly end up with a leader whom I dislike even more than David Cameron (hard to believe, eh?).
I have disliked Tim Congdon long before I knew who David Cameron was. I remember him at a conference long ago – his reply to my suggestion that lending should be from real savings, and that governments should not subsidize or bailout banks (via such methods as the Bank of England lending them money) was to suggest that I supported a ban on overseas trade that (he stated) the Ming dynasty in China had imposed.
“Paul only you could hold a grudge over something like this” – not if the man had changed his opinions, but he has not (it is still corporate welfare all the way with him). Nor has he changed his manner – he does not debate, he just claims that foes do not understand banking.
If he means do not understand how to get paid lots of money for being an apologist for subsidies to the banks then he is right – although “understand” is not the correct word.
Rand Simberg makes a subtly profound little point, in an email to Instapundit, as reported by Instapundit in an addendum to this posting, which links to a piece about newspapers that provide a spew of complicated reasons for not printing stuff that Muslims might be offended by, omitting only the real reason, which is that they’re scared.
“So who are the ‘Islamophobes’ again?”
The point being that the Islamophobes are clearly not those who publicly defy Islam’s threats and attacks and who just go ahead and publicly criticise it anyway and publicly mock it anyway. Where’s the “phobia” in that? No, the phobia – the fear – is being shown by those who refrain from such criticism and such mockery, because they are afraid, and are afraid even to admit that they are afraid (because that too might be interpreted as an implied criticism of the thuggishness of that which they are refraining from criticising or mocking).
Although I have long been irritated by the suggestion that to fear Islam is in any way irrational, I had truly never thought of this particular point. Next time you dare to criticise Islam for being, oh, I don’t know, evil, or something along those lines, and somebody says you are an Islamophobe, say: “Well, yes, I am a little bit scared of Islam because it is indeed scary. But you are even more scared of it, so scared that you dare not admit the truth of what I am saying. You are even more of an Islamophobe than I am.”
This is a meme that deserves to get around.
With apologies to all those who had worked this particular thing out years ago.
The European Union has paid out vast sums since 2001 to improve Sicily’s infrastructure. What has Sicily to show for it? Nothing. No, less than nothing:
€700 million to improve the water supply? In 2000, the water supply was “stop-and-flow” for 33% of Sicilian households, now 38.7% have water worries. Incentives to entice off-season tourists? Cost €400 million, enough to buy up an airline. And yet the ranks of those thankless tourists haven’t swelled, but petered out: from 1.2% in 2000 to 1.1% in 2007. And as to the €300 million invested in alternative energy projects great and small: it’s true, there isn’t a single hillock without its windmill now, but Sicilian output is stuck at 5% of total consumption, as against an average 9.1% for Southern Italy as a whole.
The quote is from a translation of an article in the Italian daily La Stampa and I found it via Jim Miller On Politics. Jim Miller himself comments:
And we should recognize that the best money of all to waste — from the point of view of a pork-barrel politician — is someone else’s money. There would have been less wasted in Sicily if the money had come from Italy, rather than the whole European Union, and even less wasted if the money had come from the places where it was spent.
The European Union, corrupt as it is, is on average less corrupt than Sicily. Idealistic Sicilians possibly hoped that getting their state largesse via the EU would result in less theft and waste. A vain hope, as Mr Miller or Professor Friedman could have told them.
Today’s Times has the headline:
Allies at odds over death of hostage in bungled rescue
The story is behind a paywall. It does not matter. I am only interested in the headline and whoever wrote it.
Do these people have any idea at all of what life-or-death fighting is actually like? I do not demand that they have actually done any before writing about it; little would ever be reported about war if that were the test. But they could at least have read a few memoirs, or talked to their grandfathers. Reading about the Dieppe Raid might put things in perspective.
Hint: it is not like planning a dinner party. With that sort of thing if you make a careful list of Things To Do and do them all in good time you generally can be reasonably confident that it will work out OK and if it does not work out OK, say the soufflé does not rise or the wine was too sweet, it probably was because someone bungled.
Military small group operations – by which I mean small group killings of people who can also kill you – are not like that. They always hang on a knife edge. The most skilled soldiers in the world frequently die young and frequently fail. A hand is a fraction of a second too slow on the trigger – a human mind is a fraction of a second slower than another, hostile, human mind to make sense of the confusion – and a comrade dies, or a hostage dies, and a lifetime of agonized mental replaying of that moment of failure begins.
Six hours later a headline writer in an office far away expresses his displeasure.
As I noted yesterday, Scaled Composities carried out the SpaceShipTwo drop test. Rand Simberg linked to their video.
She really looks lovely in flight and the pilot really did grease it in. I can tell from the closeup of the touchdown that the pilot had a bit of crosswind component and it did not cause any problems at all.
I have been busy travelling lately, so not much opportunity to post much on the site at the moment, but I could not resist this.
I have received notice that SpaceX will be running an engine test firing on the pad pretty soon. The second test flight of the Falcon 9 includes a full up Dragon capsule and they will be attempting their first test of the re-entry and recovery of the cargo (and later on passenger) capsule.
I suspect the political situation may have caused them to wait awhile on this, although the time since the first test flight is not overly long ago, only a matter of a few months. I am assuming that Elon would not want to risk a test flight failure during the time when the porkers in Congress were in a frenzy looking for any ammunition they could find to keep all funds flowing to the Ministries of Aviation rather than purchasing services from commercial space providers.
Since the House voted by a very wide margin to accept the Senate bill (which did not cut private space usage nearly as deeply), SpaceX can now risk a second flight.
I give the second flight about 90% chance of attaining orbit like the first flight and 50% chance of a successful re-entry and recovery of the Dragon capsule.
I will keep you informed as I hear more…. oh, and by the way. there was a successful drop test of SpaceShipTwo today.
There is always room for cheese
– Guy Herbert
Is this how the EU got a Yes to Lisbon from the Irish? asks Mary Ellen Synon in the Irish Daily Mail, reprinted in the British one.
Ireland and the other eurozone countries might be suffering savage spending cuts, but the EU self-publicity budget thrives: in 2008 the Open Europe think-tank calculated that the EU was spending at least €2 billion a year on ‘information’.
Much of it bent, which is to say, propaganda. The commission actually admits that its information is bent. One of its publications declares: ‘Genuine communication by the European Union cannot be reduced to the mere provision of information’.
Perish the thought! Reducing communication to mere provision of information might mean that journalists got a handful of leaflets rather than a stay at the…
Hotel Manos Stephanie (‘the Louis XV furniture, marble lobby and plentiful antiques set a standard of elegance rarely encountered,’ the hotel brags, and so it should since the rate is listed at €295 a night for a single room).
I would love to hear from AEP, or from Prof Congdon, exactly how creating money is supposed to create wealth.
If the Central Banks of the world buy private sector bank debt, they create new demand-deposit money that the private sector banking system can then lend. So more money units chase the same goods and services? Where is the new wealth?
– Toby Baxendale
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