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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Regular consumption of between 3 and 4 units a day by men of all ages will not accrue significant health risk.
Regular consumption of between 2 and 3 units a day by women of all ages will not accrue any significant health risk.
– ‘Sensible Drinking: The Report of an Interdepartmental Working Group’ (Department of Health, 1995) My emphasis.
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See your doctor or practice nurse if you are drinking above the safe limits and are finding it difficult to cut down.
What are the recommended safe limits of alcohol drinking?
- Men should drink no more than 21 units of alcohol per week (and no more than four units in any one day).
- Women should drink no more than 14 units of alcohol per week (and no more than three units in any one day).
– Patient UK
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There is a desperate desire for binary certainty in the authoritarian mind. ‘Safety’ is not just small risk; it is the absence of any known or projected risk. What is not defined as safe is dangerous. No possibility of a risk is permissable because if anything goes wrong the system could be blamed for not preventing it. That would be a threat to order. What is not expressly permitted is forbidden.
You have to hand it to him for sheer, brass neck: George Monbiot, uber-Green, is trying to claim that those calling attention to what he claims is Man’s disastrous impact on climate are being censored, while those nasty, capitalist running dogs, climate change “deniers”, are bully boys:
One of the allegations made repeatedly by climate change deniers is that they are being censored. There’s just one problem with this claim: they have yet to produce a single valid example. On the other hand, there are hundreds of examples of direct attempts to censor climate scientists.
As evidence, Mr Monbiot says:
Most were the work of the Bush administration. In 2007 the Union of Concerned Scientists collated 435 instances of political interference in the work of climate researchers in the US. Scientists working for the government were pressured by officials to remove the words “climate change” and “global warming” from their publications; their reports were edited to change the meaning of their findings, others never saw the light of day. Scientists at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and the US Fish and Wildlife Service were forbidden to speak to the media; James Hansen at Nasa was told by public relations officials that there would be “dire consequences” if he continued to call for big cuts in greenhouse gases.
Well, such outrageous events are entirely possible, but Mr Monbiot, in trying to claim that the Green movement is some sort of vulnerable, weak grouping ranged against the forces of evil big business, is surely testing the reader’s patience and intelligence. The thesis of Man-Made global warming is widely promoted and repeated in the MSM. To argue against it, even to argue that such warming must be mitigated rather than reversed, can often land the arguer in hot water professionally. Consider, for example, the treatment of skeptical enviromentalist, Bjorn Lomborg. Note the use of the word “denier”. Anyone who goes against the standard party line on Man-made global warming can expect to be dubbed by the Monbiots of this world as a “denier”. Consider how even the word, “skeptic”, which once may have implied a sort of admirable refusal to take certain big claims on trust without the most rigorous testing, is now almost a term of abuse in the mouths of some, if not all, climate change alarmists.
So in truth, while Mr Monbiot may have some merit in his argument, for him to claim that the green movement is operating against forces of censorship is laughable. As far as I can see, the force is very much with the alarmist case, albeit perhaps less potent than a few years ago. There is only so much panic that flesh and blood can stand.
I am an agnostic on the climate change issue, and not being a scientist, do not presume to know what the position actually is with regard to whether such warming is man-made, or not. However, my political and economic views lead me to favour approaches that work to enhance prosperity and freedom, and my suspicions about some of the alarmists is drawn very much from the fact that their agenda seems to be incorrigibly statist. Sometimes you have to go with your gut instincts.
“As for politicians’ personal conduct, I doubt it is much worse, relative to other professions, than it has always been, and it is not — or should not be — the main cause for concern. Personally, I would much rather MPs had numerous extramarital affairs, their hands in the till, or lucrative second jobs exploiting inside knowledge, than that they cavalierly abolish yet another civil liberty that took hundreds of years to establish. As far as I am concerned, politicians are welcome to be not only greedy, but also dull, unapproachable, ugly, pompous, clubby, elitist or socially inept, just as long as they do not consider it their job to reform society by making up a few more laws and rushing them through parliament as quickly as possible. Sadly, the people who agree with me appear to be a very small minority.”
Fabian Tassano. His blog is required reading, in my view.
One of the most evil books I ever read was a quite short Penguin paperback that I inherited from my father. It was written not long after World War 2, when the pre-war trickle of honest reporting about the horrors of Stalin’s USSR was becomimg a post-war, Cold War, gush. But the author of that Penguin paperback argued that, since very few of these reports were first-hand and in writing, they could be dismissed as merely malicious gossip. Beautiful. The Soviet Government shifts heaven and earth to obliterate all first-hand, written reports of its crimes. It then, echoed by persons like the evil writer of that evil paperback, declares that, in the absence of the very written reportage which it has laboured so hard to suppress, these crimes are imaginary, invented by malevolent enemies of the inevitable and noble tide of history. After I had read that evil paperback, I understood far better Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s obsession about getting the Gulag story, with its wealth of first hand accounts, into print in such voluminous detail.
I cannot now locate that evil paperback, although I believe I still own it. Such is the disorder that is my library that if I do still own it, the book is hidden from view. Contrary to the argument made in it, this does not mean that it does not exist or that its author never said what he said, or that him having said it is of no significance. On the other hand, neither does him having said what he said automatically make what he said true, for in fact what this particular writer said was evil lies.
It may seem odd to be starting a piece about medieval history with this uncertain recollection of a book which I have not recently set eyes on, concerning the recent and recently collapsed USSR. But not long ago I stumbled upon a debate about how to write medieval history which reminded me of the claim made in that evil book.
My recent interest in medieval history was provoked by the purchase of a book about a man called Mortimer, by a man called Mortimer. The overlap is potentially confusing, but surely not surprising. Had a man called Micklethwait been the ruler of England between, say, 1327 and 1330, I would have been more than casually interested. Well, Roger Mortimer did rule England between those two dates. No wonder historian Ian Mortimer got interested, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that this interest was what turned him into a historian in the first place.
I hugely enjoyed that book about Roger Mortimer. All previous attempts by me to put flesh on the bare bones of my schoolboy knowledge of those times, mostly consisting of a few history dates, had been engulfed in tedium. Yet now, I was suddenly engrossed in the fourteenth century. Partly, it must have been because I was at last ready to be fascinated by it. My historical knowledge had finally, tediously, arrived at the state where a bit of medieval detail finally had a bulky enough structure to get attached to. But there was something else going on in Ian Mortimer’s book about his namesake besides my mere readiness to take it it. I found the book to be, as they say, a page turner, something I had never experienced before with a book about medieval history. When I learned that Ian Mortimer had written a follow-up volume to his Roger Mortimer book, about the king who toppled Roger Mortimer, Edward III, about whom (not least because neither Marlowe nor Shakespeare had written any plays about him) I knew pretty much nothing apart from his presumed involvement in a couple of those schoolboy history dates (Battle of Crecy 1346 and Black Death 1349), I bought that, and immediately became engrossed in that book also. A further book by Ian Mortimer about Henry IV wasn’t quite the thrill that its two predecessors had been, if only because Henry IV did marginally less exciting and surprising things than Roger Mortimer and Edward III, but that too was pretty good, and contained many fascinating titbits. (For instance, did you know that when Henry IV ascended the throne of England, he was the first English monarch to proclaim his newly monarchical status in a document written in English? Well perhaps you did know this, but I didn’t.) And now, I am looking forward to reading this, which will flesh out another big history date. And after that one, there will be yet more. To get a sense of what Ian Mortimer is all about without buying any books, try reading one of these. (Some of these pieces I like, others not so much.)
But what was it about Ian Mortimer’s writing that so fascinated me, when so many other writings about the same historical era had failed to strike any sort of spark? → Continue reading: Ian Mortimer on the medieval biography debate
He is far from perfect, being happy to run a railway business that takes state funds, but my goodness, one has to admire the entrepreneurial brio of Richard Branson.
If true, this story suggests that his commercial space venture could be soon involved in taking up satellites. There is a distinct buzz around such ventures at the moment, which might have something to do with lessons people are hopefully learning about the flawed, if magnificent Moon landings of 40 years ago. For some extended reading, this long article by Rand Simberg is a good guide to some of the issues involved in spacefaring. In particular, I liked the way he addresses the issue of getting fuel into space and making it possible to set up the equivalent of a gas station network.
Here is also a good book on how spacefaring get back on track.
BREAKING NEWS
It has just been reported that the head gardener at The White House has been dismissed after 28 years of loyal service to the many US presidents.
When interviewed the elderly, Caucasian gardener protested his innocence and said:
All I know is I was walking past the Oval Office and I yelled out to my assistants, “Has anyone seen the spade and the hoe?” The next thing I knew I was fired.
Brian Doherty has an article slamming the record and conduct of Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke. It will not be news to the likes of us hard-money advocates, but still, well worth your time.
I like Doherty’s recent book on the American libertarian movement, by the way.
Sir Bobby Robson, former manager of Newcastle Utd, England and a brace of successful European clubs (such as PSV Eindhoven, Barcelona), has died after a brave fight against cancer. But the club that in many ways will feel the pain of his loss the most is Ipswich Town FC, the club I have supported since I was a young boy
He took this relatively unfashionable club on the UK’s east coast to the heights of success in the FA Cup and in European competition, coming also very close to winning the old domestic First Division. His teams were glorious to watch. He conducted himself with grace, good humour – apart from the occasional tiff with the media – and had an infectious love of the sport that inspired football fans and players from all clubs. RIP.
Dan Rather is calling on the state (naturally) to prop up the old mainstream media and had this to say:
“If we do nothing more than stand back and hope that innovation alone will solve this crisis,” he said, “then our best-trained journalists will lose their jobs.”
From your lips to God’s ear, Dan.
But innovation is indeed ‘solving’ this ‘crisis’ as the meteoric spread of blogs and other forms of new media are demonstrating. And Dan, if you think all those bloggers who are pissing on the ashes are trying to help put the flames out, I assure you their motives are rather… different.
(Via Instapundit)
Someone called Tara Parker-Pope in the New York Times has written about the use of alcohol in the latest Harry Potter film and I must say I find her article deeply… something…disturbing? No, not quite right… alien… yes that is it. It is deeply alien.
As Harry Potter fans crowd movie theaters to catch the latest installment in the blockbuster series, parents may be surprised by the starring role given to alcohol. In scene after scene, the young wizards and their adult professors are seen sipping, gulping and pouring various forms of alcohol to calm their nerves, fortify their courage or comfort their sorrows.
[…]
As the mother of a 10-year-old Harry Potter fan, I was taken aback by the reaction of the young people in the theater. They snickered at Hermione’s goofy grin and, later, guffawed when an inebriated Hagrid passed out. While I don’t think my daughter fully understood what was going on, I wondered how other parents, educators and addiction experts would react.
If she found funny drunk people funny, it sounds to me like her daughter understood just fine.
Liz Perle, a mother of two teenage boys and the editor in chief of Common Sense Media, which reviews books, movies and Web content aimed at children, said she was bothered by so many scenes showing alcohol as a coping mechanism.
“Hermione is such a tightly wound young lady, but she’s liberated by some butterbeer,” she said. “The message is that it gives you liquid courage to put your arms around the guy you really like but are afraid to.”
[…]
Alcohol educators say that they don’t want to ruin the fun, but that parents should be aware of alcohol’s role in the Harry Potter series, the books as well as the movies. Several studies suggest that movies influence teenagers’ behavior when it comes to drinking, drugs and tobacco.
So why is this alien? Partially because booze really is a quite effective ‘coping aid’ that people have used since time immemorial to pluck up their courage to put their arms around the object of their affections for the first time. Why? Because at the risk of stating the obvious, it bleedin’ works. Is this really shocking or alarming to “parents, educators and addiction experts”?
I rather doubt my folks would have found a drunk giant and some pie-eyed teenagers in a film all too perplexing. But then they were hardly puritans and came from a more robust generation who felt there was value in a child occasionally colliding with life’s sharp protruding edges. Nor did they get the vapours from the sight of their little treasure’s bumps and bruises or feel any need to call in ‘experts’ when I intermittently got rat-faced drunk.
And what exactly is an ‘alcohol educator’? Pointing out that drinking can make you drunk and being drunk can make you walk into lamp posts or crash cars requires a specialist ‘alcohol educator’? How did anyone reach adulthood before such people existed I wonder?
Well I learned that drinking has its downside too, not from an ‘alcohol educator’ but from puking my guts up rather too often. I recall a teacher seeing me once heaving miserably after a school event and did he send me to an ‘alcohol commissar educator’? No, he left and returned a while later to present me with a bucket and mop and rather unsympathetically said “clean up before you leave”. Quite right too. He also never mentioned it again, because what could he possibly tell me about the downside of drinking too much that I had not just taught myself?
Teachers and parents teach children many things. And many of those things are true, half true or pure unadulterated lies. And most children know when what they are taught is hogwash. As a consequence, they learn the importance of critical judgement in ways that were not really intended by the person doing the ‘teaching’.
So when we hear this…
“I hope parents can talk to their kids and tell them even though Harry Potter made that seem fun, that it isn’t O.K.,” said Dr. Welsh, the author of a 2007 article about alcohol use in the Harry Potter series, published in The Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse.
…any 100+ IQ child who has had a few beers learns something valuable: his parents, and Dr. Welsh writing in The Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse, are full of it, because for most people it really is okay and their own experiences confirm that. They sank a few brewskis, had a giggle and maybe made an ass of themselves, and 99.9% of the time, no one died, got pregnant or lost an eye.
And this is an important lesson we all learn when growing up: some of what we are taught makes sense and quite a lot of it is complete and utter tosh, and just because your parents tell you something, ain’t necessarily so. And when an ‘alcohol educator’ is trotted out to tell you something, it is because he is being paid to tell you that, and often there is quite a bit more to it than he is letting on.
There is only one kind of professional ‘alcohol educator’ worth listening to, and they are called sommeliers.
Tomorrow morning, the third test in the current five match Ashes series begins in Birmingham, weather permitting. Ashes as in cricket, between England and Australia, which is as big as test cricket (i.e. the long-drawn-out goes-on-for-days-and-days variety) in England ever gets. Both Michael Jennings and I have had a break from blogging in recent weeks, but earlier this evening we got together to record a conversation about it all, and here it is. We rambled on for just under forty minutes.
However, two blemishes should be noted. First, for some reason, there are occasional little bursts of crackly sound, of the sort that used mysteriously to afflict gramophone records and which caused all classical fans other than vinylphiliacs to switch to CDs. These noises are not that obtrusive, given that this is a mere chat between mates, but they are a mild irritation. Apparently something weird happened every now and again in Michael’s laptop, which was what we recorded into. Sorry about that.
Second, I (Brian) referred to the current England player Stuart Broad as “Chris” Broad, which is a quite common error because Chris Broad, Stuart Broad’s father, was also a test match cricketer. Nevertheless, apologies again.
Apart from that, and if you think you might like this, do what we did. Enjoy.
After working over fourteen hours today, with perhaps three hours of sleep the night before, my boss on the DC consulting job took me out for dinner at a diner, nearly the only restaurant still open in Bethesda at that hour. After dinner he asked for a Banana Cream Pie, his usual self-treat after this sort of marathon work day. The night chef told us it is no longer available. Montgomery County outlawed Trans-Fats and such pies are now contraband. For a moment I considered asking if there was a back room where one could gorge on smuggled pies, but thought better of it. Such secret places would be only for locals and those known to the Mafia, not for transient gypsy engineers such as myself.
The Morons of Montgomery.
Photo: copyright Dale Amon, All Rights Reserved
Maybe the time has come to bring back The Living Theater: “I am not allowed to eat Banana Cream Pies!!!” they could exclaim dramatically whilst standing about naked on stage. Perhaps a Three Stooges level cream pie fight is called for. Yeah, that’s the ticket! Residents of Montgomery County Arise! You have nothing to loose but your cream pies! Give your politicians the respect they have earned and deliver them their just deserts!
I hereby declare ‘The Cream Pie Revolution’, a proper descendant of ‘The Marshmallow Revolution’ (1) tradition of my youth. Yes, back to those days of yore when we hurled soft confections (probably illegal in Montgomery County) at the Pittsburgh Federal Building and Senator Strom Thurmound!
The concept of politicians with whipped cream covered visages appeals to the inner Yippee of my street theatre past. Of course, should such a terrible thing actually be done by some miscreants, it is definitely not my idea… but please send photos.
(1) ‘The Marshmallow Revolution’ was a street theatrical realization of a song from the 1970 Carnegie Mellon University Scotch and Soda Company BMI award winning original musical “Something Personal”, written by David Spangler and Mark Pirolo, with some input from Stephen Schwartz (yes, that one).
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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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