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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It is no secret that I think Rowan Williams, the archbishop of Canterbury, is a twit and indeed possessed of some very destructive and morally inexcusable views (why mess around with fiddly things like moral culpability or moral choice leading to charity when you have state power to simply take and redistribute, eh?).
Well I suppose his latest utterances should come as no surprise then…
Children are being forced to grow up too quickly in a culture which refuses to recognise that human beings are naturally dependent on one another, the Archbishop of Canterbury warned today.
Dr Rowan Williams condemned the pressure on children to become “active little consumers and performers” at the earliest opportunity.
Never mind the fact our culture works hard to infantalise adults and the notion of a profound differentiation between childhood and adulthood is a very modern and rather weird idea. But as he is an unabashed statist leftie. I can see how fostering a sense of dependence would appeal to such a person and it is to be expected he would deprecate the fact many people hold up independence from others as a virtue.
Alicante, Spain. January 2009.
Sofia, Bulgaria. February 2009.
Madrid, Spain. March 2009.
Galway, Ireland. March 2009.
Zadar, Croatia. April 2009.
Port Vendres, France. April 2009.
Krakow, Poland. April 2009.
Poznan, Poland. May 2009.
Nanterre, France. May 2009.
Kiev, Ukraine. June 2009.
Pripyat, Zone of Alienation. June 2009.
Antwerp, Belgium. June 2009.
Calais, France. June 2009.
TimiŠŸoara, Romania. July 2009.
Belgrade, Serbia. July 2009.
Marstrand, Sweden. August 2009.
Hellnar, Iceland. August 2009.
Versailles, France. September 2009.
Ben Nevis, Scotland. October 2009.
Bremerhaven, Germany. November 2009.
Krobielowice, Poland. November 2009.
Cluj-Napoca, Romania. November 2009.
Huelva, Spain. December 2009.
Serpa, Portugal. December 2009.
Olivença/Olivenza, Iberia. December 2009.
Some people whip themselves for thrills… me, I watch Congressional votes – no doubt for similar mental reasons.
Anyway the vote was not quite how it would be in a Paul Marks doom-of-horror fantasy – no triumphant cries of “Death to America” and “Obama is the Living God” from the leftists (although Durbin and some others were no doubt thinking at least the first of these two things) as they waved copies of the Economist magazine. However, there were some noteworthy moments.
My favourite was when Senator K.K.K. Byrd shed tears during his vote saying it was for “his friend Ted Kennedy”.
The late Senator Edward Kennedy is presently burning in Hell for the manslaughter of Mary Jo and other crimes (none of which he ever repented of – and repentance, contrary to Hollywood, must include openly admitting one’s guilt and accepting punishment). But it is some seasonal comfort to me that Senator Byrd will be joining Senator Kennedy in Hell, reasonably soon.
Greetings from Samizdata HQ and best wishes to friends of liberty everywhere.
Tonight we feast on a roasted beast upon which Adriana has worked her sorcery, celebrating all the wonders that our modern technological society has wrought.
Wishing a year of champagne for our real friends, and real pain for our sham friends. Have a splendid Christmas, be it Godly or godless, as is your wont.
Perry de Havilland, Alec Muffet, Adriana Lukas, Michael Jennings & Brian Micklethwait behind the camera
This headline and lead paragraph in the Times (of London) deserves a sort of award:
Thrifty families accused of prolonging the recession –
Anxious families are repaying debts instead of spending in the shops, amid concern over the uncertain economic outlook. The share of income saved in banks and building societies has risen to its highest level in more than a decade, heightening fears that faltering consumer demand could prolong the recession.
This is a sort of reflexive crude Keynesian message at work; the laziness of the assumption that recessions are ended by people spending more – never mind where the money comes from – continues to hold a grip on the MSM. In fairness, maybe what the writer is trying to say is that saving is a good thing but if everyone saves “too much” (however one can define that), then in the aggregate, it drags everything down. But that does rather ignore the situation that has built up over the years, and the disruption to the economic system caused by excessively cheap credit. People who try to reduce their debt, save more and decide to forgo spending money they haven’t got are not “prolonging the recession” beyond some point that can be marked down on a graph. The current economic Snafu was caused – as the author of this newspaper item must be dimly aware – by a country hooked on the drug of cheap credit, beguiled by the idiotic notion that whenever the drug wore off and the hangover kicked in, that that nice Dr Greenspan and friends would administer yet more of the drug, to get yet another high. That way lies the equivalent of liver poisoning.
It may seem a Scrooge-like message for this time of year to point out that you cannot spend money that you don’t have; businesses cannot invest money that has not been already saved, and that interest rates must reflect the balance of supply and demand for savings. The “Austrian” economic insight that money is a claim on resources, and that two people cannot hold the same claim on a resource at the same time, needs to be relentlessly rammed home.
The best way to end a recession is to unravel the massive misallocation of resources caused by printing money as soon as possible, to let labour markets clear, to cut public spending and cut taxes, and where necessary, recapitalise banks speedily. (Check out this paper for a good course to steer). Such a process is inevitably painful. In the short run, the pain is worse than the sort of dragged out situation we have now. But ask yourself this question, dear reader: what is the more compassionate policy – a short, sharp recession and closure of failed banks, followed by a rapid 1921-like recovery, or a Japanese-style multi-decade of stagnation?
On that note, this makes a good Christmas present for those interested in economic affairs, if you still have the time to get it shipped.
“I have only one firm belief about the American political system, and that is this: God is a Republican and Santa Claus is a Democrat. God is an elderly or, at any rate, middle-aged male, a stern fellow, patriarchal rather than paternal and a great believer in rules and regulations. He holds men strictly accountable for their actions. He has little apparent concern for the material well-being of the disadvantaged. He is politically connected, socially powerful and holds the mortgage on virtually everything in the world. God is difficult. God is unsentimental. It is very hard to get into God’s heavenly country club. Santa Claus is another matter. He’s cute. His nonthreatening. He’s always cheerful. And he loves animals. He may know who’s been naughty and who’s been nice, but he never does anything about it. He gives everyone everything they want without thought of a quid pro quo. He works hard for charities, and he’s famously generous to the poor. Santa Claus is preferable to God in every way but one: There is no such thing as Santa Claus.”
PJ O’Rourke. (Page XXii of Parliament of Whores). Of course, now that the Democrats are led by a Chicago machine “Community Organiser” who is prepared to throw inconvenient former allies under a proverbial bus, it is unclear if O’Rourke’s relatively charming portrayal of the Democrats really holds any more. But hey, any excuse for a Christmas reference.
Hilarious (H/T, Glenn Reynolds).
Mr Rudd made it clear that the deal had been an exercise in saving the international climate change process.
“As of 24 hours ago, these negotiations stood on the point of total collapse … at midnight last night, we were staring into the abyss,” he said.
He said the “big step forward” in the talks came with rich and poor countries agreeing to the goal of containing global warming to 2ºC.
Hmmm… Staring into the abyss… and then a big step forward. Not often you hear a politician speaking the truth!
(via Francis T, quoting The Australian)
I occasionally come across comments, usually expressed with a sort of “how terrible!” undertone, that more people recently voted in the X-Factor singing talent show on the ITV station in the UK than voted in the 2005 General Election. But there is another way of looking at it: the fact that more people care to vote for their favourite singer than the various types of authoritarian statist twerp in fact shows that the Great British public have a healthy set of priorities.
In case any commenter sniffs at my possibly making nice comments about the X-Factor, I don’t like the show, although I find that there is something gruesomely compelling about Simon Cowell and some of the acts.
Finally some meaningful gestures I think we can all support…
Simply… delightful.
Rand Simberg posted the news that XCOR has closed a deal with Yecheon Astro Space Center to provide Lynx II flights. The Lynx I they have been working on will now only be used as a test article to work out design issues before moving on to the fully suborbital Lynx II. Previously their plans were to fly passengers in the Lynx I at a price and altitude somewhat comparable to adventure flights in advanced Russian fighter planes. The income was to have been ploughed into the development of the Lynx II, the true suborbital spaceship. Thus there will be at least two companies flying passengers into space in the near term, Virgin Galactic and XCOR.
If you are reading my posts in expectation that I am a neutral observer of this industry rather than a deep insider passing on tidbits of info then you must be a new reader. Lessee… Rand Simberg and I are in business together in Wyoming Aerospace. I know a bunch of the Virgin Galactic High Command and work with them through the National Space Societies ‘Space Ambassadors’ program. As to XCOR… well, not counting that I have known some of them for up to 30 years… I wrote software under contract to them which was used by their aerodynamics guy for the initial rough planform design of the Lynx.
So yeah, I have dogs in this race. All of them. And I am damned proud of whatever tiny contribution I have made to the industry over my lifetime and ecstatic that I am actually around to see it all come to fruition.
Ad Astra and Merry Christmas to all of my aerospace family. May you reverse the adage about aerospace and fortunes and break the surly bonds of gravity and self-induced poverty. And while we are at it… may a now minuscule Wyoming aerospace company also make a bloody fortune for its owners!
Declaration of interest – I know a guy who works on an oil rig. That’s my credibility shot then.
– Bishop Hill muses on how any link to Big Oil however tenuous means that your climate scepticism can be ignored by the AGW True Believers.
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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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