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Our new mystery contributor is actually a well known blogger in his own right by the name of… well, that would be telling. For reasons that will probably become apparent after he has posted more of his frustrations of being a libertarian and critical thinker in an environment which encourages neither, he wishes to remain behind the pixilated burqa of on-line anonymity. January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 Well, well, well! It appears that all is not quite so rosy in the Garden of EUden after all. Seems that an attack of healthy self-preservation has broken out in Italy Strangely enough though, the situation there appears to be the converse of the situation in the UK. In Italy support for the EU among the grassroots is high and it is the political elite that are growing uneasy. Still, let’s keep our eyes and ears open on this one, people. It could get interesting January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Ah yes, the glory days of school have begun again. I always love to return to school after the winter break. The crisp chill in the air fits with new smell of text books always gets me excited to learn again. However, this bliss fades as soon as I encounter that which really irks me: the whining and moaning of the first week back. “I can’t find my class room”, “I didn’t want to buy my text books, they’re too expensive”, “I don’t want to do this”, “I don’t want this homework”, “I don’t know the answer to that question”. How nice: people trying to find other people to take care of their problems. If others fail to take care of their problems, they let you know that too. What this comes down to is an inability to handle their own affairs, or in other words a level of dependency that grows worse daily. Now I sympathize with them, because finding the classroom can be hard, after all you may have to look at one of the 50 maps located in the classroom building. Throwing over $500 for textbooks is not easy, but you obviously want to go to school, so you do it. Students need to learn that level of biting the bullet and not sharing their problems. In other words, reach a level of independency; take care of your own problems. College is a darn good time to start that. But most students fail to learn that lesson, instead they continue to want more dependency, more help, and in short, they cry “I want my Mommy”. So each time I return to school I am tortured by the same question: Why are they so dependent? After two years of college, I think I figured it out: the professors want it this way. Not just the college professors but also the high school teachers. In high school, I was yelled at for being too judgmental; they wanted people to consider all options and not to make any decisions or conclusions. There is no right and wrong – people who think so (like T. Jefferson?) are full of bunk. They encouraged mental dependence: encourage explaining other people’s thoughts, but do not dare to express your thoughts. Mental independence, don’t dare – how nice. Getting so used to this in high school, it followed most students to college. When asked a question, most students answer it with “well these people say x and these people say y”. If the professor even dares to ask “Which one do you agree with?” the student is left floundering and sputters out “well x is good for a, b, c and y is good for d, e, f.” Because of this lack of requirement for judgmental thoughts, students are unable to think independently. They cannot even tell you what they think because they get trapped in telling you what others think. This lack of mental independence has spread like a cancer to all of their other activities, including finding class rooms and purchasing textbooks. Why does it stay this way? It is in the teacher’s best interest to keep their student’s mind dependent, that way they seem really smart. However this only leads to ruin and distress in the futures of those students. Boy I love returning to school… January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I hope that if evil days should come upon our own country, and the last army which a collapsing Empire could interpose between London and the invader were dissolving in rout and ruin, that there would be some, even in these modern days, who would not care to accustom themselves to a new order of things and tamely survive the disaster – Winston Churchill January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Those of you who are Unix users will be familiar with the fortune cookie program. I am uncertain when it was first written, but it is rather ancient as such things go. That is why some of its’ many thousand quotes hark to a different era of computing, political thought and even humour. Although it does nothing “useful” it is fun and one of the items I consider mandatory for any computer I work with. If you include the non-politically correct ones there are some truly fine old bawdy limericks and the occasional ROFL (Roll On The Floor Laughing) stories that take the piss of any imaginable group or subgroup of humanity. There are also many thought provoking quotes. Some make you just sit back and think. The following is one of those.
I wonder how long the study would take today? Not to mention the environmental impact statement, the regulatory battles, the labour negotiations… Sometimes one has to admit we have not advanced ourselves. We have only made complex what was once deemed simple. January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I spent yesterday evening watching a recording of an excellent two-part four-hour TV dramatisation of the exploits of Sir Ernest Shackleton. As World War I was about to tear Europe apart, Shackleton raised the money to lead an expedition to the South Pole. He never reached it. He and his 28 men, by rights, should’ve died from the intolerable cold, exhaustion, hunger, frostbite, gangrene and madness. But they didn’t. Not a single man jack of them died because Shackleton, by dint of his sheer indomitable courage, ingenuity, determination and sheer force of will managed to bring them home to Britain where Shackleton himself was hailed as a national hero God, it was all so British and stirring, damn you!! Well, I say, ‘British’ but that was back when Britain was full to the gunnels with square jaws, stiff upper lips, steely eyes, straight backs, iron resolve and not even the women were in touch with their feminine side. Mountains were there to be climbed, oceans were there to be plumbed and there was not a single square inch of this wild and windswept planet that could not be trampled all over and conquered by stout, horny British feet Would Sir Ernest still be a national hero if he’d lived today? No, I rather think not. I rather think he’d be denounced as irresponsible and an environmental vandal. He’d be reviled in the media as a danger to health and safety, for setting a bad example for our children and for failing to provide diversity training. He’d be sued by his crew for emotional trauma and be forced into bankruptcy as a result. He would lose his home, his wife would dessert him and his kids would be taken into care. On top of that he would be ruthlessly persecuted by the government who would pass laws (retrospectively) to enable them to throw him into prison and ban any further expeditions to anywhere more risky than Hyde Park God, it’s all so British and depressing, isn’t it January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Ooooo, I do love Switzerland. The place reeks with old money, refinement and smooth, rich chocolate: an oasis of sanity, an island of serene, efficient and discrete capitalism amidst the swirling adhesive gunk of Euro-scleroses. In all of Switzerland I have always liked Zürich the best. Across the river things are quite decadent and tinged with counter-culture, in that not very threatening Swiss sort of way. Lurking amidst the sex shows and ‘clubs’ there are several quite fun bars and student filled coffee houses when one is in the mood for that sort of place. Around where I am staying, on Kirchgasse, it is all great shops, nice hotels, comfortable cafés and fairly good restaurants. Storchengasse is my favourite part of all and that is where I arranged to meet my business acquaintance for dinner tonight after he offered to take me out. Other than the fact I nearly froze to death looking in the shop windows on the way to see him, everything here is wonderful. We talk business mostly, speaking in English, discussing how business must be conducted in Italy and how this must be done with that lawyer because of EU law and that must be done with this lawyer because of Italian law and then there must be a permit to do that and then we must register this and set up an account there and then we must wait for that to be approved…so on and so on and so on… and then I ask what must we do when we meet in his office on Monday for this business here in Switzerland? “Oh, that”, he says… “when you told me you were coming, I had everything drawn up, agreements, plans, everything. I will just drop them off at your hotel tomorrow. If everything is okay, sign the agreements and give them back over lunch on Monday.” Clean direct Swiss-German accented efficiency and simplicity. Oh Switzerland. I do love Switzerland. Why can’t everywhere be Switzerland? January 6th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I was supposed to be in Milan on Friday. But instead, I ended up spending a night in a tiny Austrian village and having to cancel my meetings in Italy. I was heading through the Austrian Tyrol on Thursday when after rounding a corner on a descending road, my car started skidding on ice and began spinning uncontrollably, somewhere vaguely near Bischofshofen. After several terrifying seconds I came to rest with a gentle bump against a flimsy metal barrier between me and about a 100 metre drop. And then a few minutes later, while I was still sitting there trying to calm down, a woman in an ancient Skoda with German plates did the same thing and I thought she was going to shunt me over the edge. I jumped out of my car as her slowly spinning vehicle came closer and closer… and I immediately slipped on the icy road and went sprawling. Just to add to the fun, I didn’t even have my shoes or big coat on, just a tee shirt and a little skirt. But like me she just bumped into the barrier, which was obviously stronger than it looked, missing my car by about 2 metres. I have to say I felt my lapsed Catholicism flickering back to life at that moment. My German is rudimentary and she did not speak any of my languages, but I think we were both trying to calm each other down for a few minutes and I am pleased to say that she burst into tears and not me. Her name was Hanna and while my car had only a teeny little dent on the rear bumper (I hit the barrier backwards), her car was more damaged, with both front lights broken, as she hit the barrier straight on and a bit faster. Additionally, neither her wipers nor one of her rear lights was working and her engine was making alarming spluttering sounds. → Continue reading: Unexpected detours and Austrian chivalry January 5th, 2002 | Comments are closed
On Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds touches on a matter in which true justice does seem to have prevailed. But this is indeed an issue which has long made me of the view that of the many splendid and admirable things about the United States, the US system of justice is most certainly not one of them. As a sheer matter of practical justice, it cannot be right that the winner of a legal action can nevertheless be reduced to penury by having to pay legal fees, particularly if they were not the party which brought the action. Unlike most of the rest of the western world, who operate upon the principle that the looser of an action pays the legal costs of the winner, in the United States both parties to an action are responsible for their own legal costs regardless of who wins or loses… thus a person can be unsuccessfully sued and still end up bankrupted by their own lawyers as they cannot always recover their costs. I cannot help thinking that the overweening power of the Bar in American politics is the reason this has never been addressed. The ‘pay your own costs’ principle is a licence for speculative law suits of dubious merit, a veritable ambulance-chaser’s charter, removing the cost incentive to only litigate when the merits of the case make success highly likely. Surely introducing the ‘looser pays both sets of legal fees’ principle across the board in the USA would, at a stroke, reduce the flood of absurd ’emotional distress’ and ‘tripped on a mat’ litigation as well as making it less attractive for well funded individuals and corporations to use the threat of bankruptcy-through-legal-fees to intimidate those who are less well funded. Also, less wealthy defendants who nevertheless have solid cases can approach far more capable (and thus expensive) defence counsel as upon seeing off the accusations in court, they can recover costs from the other side. January 5th, 2002 | Comments are closed
WASHINGTON, DC. According to a Cato Institute report released Monday, the U.S. has become overly dependent on foreign turmoil for its conversations and media coverage. “The American people consume as many as 60 million barrels of crude speculation every day, using it for everything from driving discussions to heating up political debates,” the report stated. “Unless we can dredge up domestic sources of turmoil, we may end up utterly dependent on the Middle East for conversational fuel.” From The Onion via Mondial Global Investors January 5th, 2002 | Comments are closed
As I read more and more stories in the press and see the astonishing images of the inferno around Sydney on the British news channels, I cannot help but marvel how well Australia is served by its magnificent firemen. Yet it is clear that what is happening is hardly less than an emergency of wartime proportions. And in wartime, a society has to do what it has to do to protect itself. Of course people might argue that a natural disaster is hardly the same as a war and that is true. But many of these fires are not natural at all, they have been set by arsonists. Just because the state is not the target of these premeditated acts, it is not regarded as an act of terrorist violence. Yet, the target of these vile nihilists is nothing less than Australian society itself, an infinitely more valuable asset than the damn state. So what is to be done with any captured arsonists? Well my vote is to handcuff them to a tree and just leave them there. That might not sound very libertarian but the way I see it, acts of violence are intolerable and can be reasonably met with acts of violence. Liberty is about being free to reap the fruit of your own actions… what could be a more elegant manifestation of that than an arsonist roasting in the fire they themselves started? Perhaps I will not feel so extreme tomorrow but seeing the images of those exhausted fireman just fills me with fury at the thought their lives are in peril through the actions of worthless nihilists who care nothing for the property or life of others. January 5th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Those wanting to delve into the odd references that sometimes appear on Samizdata might wish to point their browser to Shoggoth.net and The H. P. Lovecraft archives. These sites will provide the curious with many lurid tales that will explain the lure of ‘Old Ones’. It might interest the reader to know there are many tales linking the octopoid Old Ones and the discovery of oil. Could Riyadh merely wish to pump its oil out to free those trapped beneath it? Is this why the Saudi’s are so reluctant to cut back their oil production when OPEC wishes them to? The Saudi desert contains many ancient temples said to be dedicated to gods as old as man itself as well as oil. Is their resistance to outsiders hiding something sinister? Could the Whahabi desire to fund their brand of Islam all over the Arab world been in preparation for the arrival of someone? Many observers say that some in the Saudi Royal family have tentacle-like networks all over the Muslim world. A deliberate hint or merely a blind stumble on the truth. I think it is time for all good scholars of the al Azif*1 to re-examine the accursed tome. Has Mr Bennett stumbled on an 1000 year old scribes’ error? Andrew Ian Dodge *1 = better known as ‘The Necronomicon’ [Editor’s note: as you might have noticed, we Samizdata folks are endlessly amused by references to horror fiction written in the 1920’s and 1930’s] January 5th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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