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]
|
And his name is Will Quick. When Will is in full vitriolic flight, it is a thing of wonder to behold. If, like me, you enjoy savouring the savage directness possible with the English language, then read Will’s latest spleen venting invective regarding all manner of folk that grievously irk his anti-idiotarian sensibilities:
Where a pack of stupid, venal whores whose tarnished Olympian wares are for sale to the highest bidder in the lowest bidet can profess distaste for a minor show of honest patriotism, though if somebody had thought to keep them supplied with sufficient hot and cold running hookers, they’d have no doubt been out waving American flags themselves.
These are disconnects so blindingly obvious you’d think they’d be pointed out in every major media outlet in the United States. But they aren’t. Which means somebody else has to do it. That would be us. That’s what we’re good for. Pointing things out.
With a chainsaw.
It’s a dirty job, but someone has to do it. Read the whole article and then go put some fuel in the motor of your chainsaw.
The notorious Lagwolf comments on another tale of ‘older woman’ syndrome and replies to his detractors
Giles Brandreth confesses a “Mrs Robinson” liaison as well in today’s Sunday Telegraph. He, like the boys in the recent UK case, bragged and got his seductress in trouble. Although he does wobble a bit at the end of the editorial, it is mostly positive towards this sort of liaison. Truth be told both cases say more about men and boys who are wont to brag, than they do about the evils of older women/younger men liaisons.
My first set of scribblings on the subject of “Mrs Robinson” caused one Samizdata reader to write in. She begins:
“Lagwolf’s writing really fails to deal with the problems in either case.”
There is little doubt that the humorous twist to my rant was entirely lost on this reader. She then goes on to state:
“Lagwolf addresses none of the somewhat serious issues that arise from what is a relatively silly case.”
Serious issues, excuse me please, but the case is about a couple of women ‘streakers’ who got caught and defended themselves. One can only hope the transcript to the trial gets released.
While it is rather disturbing that men risk prosecution for participation is this collegiate right-of-passage, this is still daft. What foolish policeman decided to prosecute these two young women? Surely he should have known that he would have come up a cropper, made an arse of himself, the law of the state and the State of Maine? It is possible Maine will follow a town called Locust, PA in the US which has outlawed anything sexual in a public place. (Thanks to Instapundit for this link.)
She then takes me to task for my “its good for the boys” comment about the recent case in the UK (see above). She gives me a right drubbing for making light of the issue. Entirely ignoring my points in praise of older women liaisons, the second paragraph reads like it was written by a pressure group that has decided there is no difference between boys and girls.
The email continues:
“Should we likewise be encouraging young boys to have sex with men? Or young women to be having sex with older men? Or younger women with older women? If so, why? If not, why not?”
I make it clear in my post that I believe it is a good thing for young men to loose their virginity to slightly older women, but not for girls. The Daily Telegraph agrees with me on the grounds that boys can’t get pregnant, need to be “interested” to perform and generally stronger than women. In other words, it is impossible for a older woman to rape a teenage boy. It is possible, despite what some pressure groups say to address a particular issue, by itself.
It is worth keeping in mind that it is only in the “enlightened” West that anyone even suggests that a 14 year old is a “child.” It was appalling to see The Independent calling for the Canadian teacher to be charged with paedophile.
I never set to write an expose on all types of underage sex. It is a shame that some readers can’t take humour for it’s worth. I wasn’t dealing with problems, I was making fun of uptight puritanical types who see everything in black and white. The letter in response makes the post even more apt.
Lagwolf
Miss Veen has a series of sublime cat haiku which will be immediately recognisable to people who live with cats. For example:
The rule for today.
Touch my tail, I shred your hand.
New rule tomorrow.
Blur of motion, then-
Silence, me, a paper bag
What is so funny?
Small brave carnivores
Kill pine cones and mosquitos
Fear vacuum cleaner.
Read them all. Meow.
You have nothing to loose but your hackneyed diet of stale media…
This is a snapshot of where Samizdata visitors came from earlier today, demonstrating the truly global appeal of blogs. In the last 72 hours have had e-mails from USA, UK, Denmark, Spain, Italy, Slovakia, South Africa, India, Hong Kong and Australia.
And these are just the early days of blogging. Richard Bennett started the ball rolling (perhaps), Glenn Reynolds gave it a kick and the rest is yet unwriten.
The subtitle is: cryptography, censorship, copyright, thoughtcrime and this is definitely truth in advertising. Zem:blog is tightly focused on those issues, eschewing the occasional off-message flights of whimsey found in places like Samizdata.
I do not mean that as a criticism however, it is just that zem:blog is very serious about focusing on what are frankly serious issues to anyone who regards civil liberties as nothing less than the bedrock of civilisation, as zem clearly does… and as do we.
zem:blog tends to focus on technical issues as they relate to civil liberties and he takes a truly global view, reporting in the last few days on matters in the Europe, USA, Britain, Iceland, Swaziland and Egypt. The enigmatically named ‘zem’ is an Australian software developer in the telecommunications industry and thus knows of what he speaks.
Recommended
One of my one of my overriding concerns over the next couple of weeks is to avoid any TV coverage of the latest outbreak of ‘Olympic-itis’ from Salt Lake City. The last thing I want to do with what little and precious spare time I have at the moment is to spend it watching a bunch of po-faced fitness fanatics running up and down mountains and listening to a wailing selection of national anthems most of which sound like Turkey’s entry for the Eurovision Song Contest.
That’s what it all feels like to me: Eurovision on steroids, which is ironic given the Cromwellian intolerance of the IOC for any of their participants swallowing so much as a paracetamol lest it give any of them an ‘unfair advantage’. But I say let them take all the steroids they like. Who cares if they grow horns? In fact, let them grow six titties, four sets of genitals, a spare arse and a third leg. At least it would make the relay races interesting and that I would pay to see.
Short of that I think I’ll pass because former footsoldiers of the East German secret police dressed in sequin jumpsuits and doing triple-salkos is the very antithesis of my idea of entertainment and is it just me or is there something disturbingly reminiscent of the Nuremburg Rallies in those torchlit opening ceremonies? For sure the sight of all those glowing hopefuls being paraded around in their humiliating ‘national costumes’ with a ‘Strength-Through-Joy’ grin on their faces has a jumper-over-the-head factor of about 50. Those about to die of embarrassment, salute you!
I suppose it would be extravagantly churlish of me not to mention the transformation of Olympic events from taxpayer boondoggle to corporate sponsor-fest which, at least, has put a stop to the bankrupting of cities in which the spandex-circus was unfortunate enough to land. In those days they were not so much athletes as locusts in lycra, devastating a whole landscape before buggering off and leaving behind grand white-elephant stadia like monuments of a long lost race.
But corporatisation has had the unfortunate side-effect of morphing the games from dull and condescending expressions of post-war aspiration to multi-culti clappy-happy jamborees in which we are all supposed to enthusiastically join in North Korean style.
The Olympic Games are an expression of 20th century state collectivism; the manifestation of a time when ‘golden youth’ had to have spiffing lungs and rippling muscles in order to be productive citizens, a healthy individual meant a healthy polity and a nations worth could be accurately measured by how far its citizens could chuck a rock. The fact that the British usually collect less medals than an average French combat division is one of the many reason why I love this country.
The Olympic Games is an idea that has outlived its usefulness. At best it is arcane, at worst it is faintly sinister and, even if it were neither of those things, it would still be a dreary, nauseating waste of time.
“Don’t you ‘honey’ me, you worthless fuzz-ball you do nothing except lie around all day swatting flies and telling stupid jokes to all your moron pals while I have to strip all the meat and feed the kids. Have you ever lifted so much as a paw to clean this cage? My mother warned me about you, she said you were no good…”
[Thanks to dear friend and Samizdata reader Ed Collins for supplying the photo]
Two men have been killed and a third seriously injured after being shot by armed men in a pub in South London
On February 1st, XCor’s team of test pilots continued pushing the envelope of the world’s first general aviation rocket plane. Dick Rutan, also known for his non-stop around the world flight with co-pilot Jeanna Yeager, was at the controls.
The purpose of this test was an attempt to touch and go; however one engine failed to relight after touchdown so Rutan allowed the aircraft to roll to a stop.
Such problems are no big deal for EZRocket. The engineers will work on it, fix the problem, learn from it… and they could have flown again the next day if they had chosen. Test flights, from rolling EZRocket out of the hanger to rolling it back in again take about an hour.
With a small amount of investment, perhaps $10M or so, XCor could build a general aviation craft capable of several suborbital hops a day. They are also prepared to build flyable rocket powered reproductions of the Me163 and the Bell X1A using their now well proven engine.
So if any pilots out there have a yen for the unusual…
John McGuinness chides NRO’s blog The Corner for their disinclination to link to articles they reference.
I’m enjoying National Review’s new Blog — The Corner, but one complaint is that they don’t seem to be as diligent in linking to articles they’re referring to as most bloggers are. So it’s not always easy to tell if they’re representing opposing viewpoints fairly.
John makes a very good point. I also groused about that and why it is actually counter-productive in an earlier article. I suspect the NRO team are so steeped in old-media-think that it just does not seem ‘right’ to link to people they incorrectly view as competitors. Well the fact is that links are what makes the blogosphere and the very internet itself go around and they are a resource in themselves… and like unilateral free trade, which works even if the idiots in other nations are protectionists… I will continue to link to Corner if I quote them (and they are also in the blog side bar) because it is in my interests to do so for both the reasons I mentioned in my earlier article on the subject “Jonah Goldberg comments on the joys of group sex“, and also for the valid reason John McGuinness gives: it actually boosts credibility to be able to check the facts yourself.
So guys, what are you afraid of?
Real free trade would mean no subsidies, no trade taxes, no loan guarantees, and, for Heaven’s sake, no bailouts of foreign banks and governments.
– Lew Rockwell
Any one who migrates to Windows XP must be a very trusting soul. Pathologically trusting in fact. An excellent InfoWorld article (via Instapundit) demonstrates why if you have Win XP you are more or less granting Microsoft access to whatever they deem their business on your hard drive any time you connect that Windows XP machine to the Internet.
Use Linux, Unix, Macintosh, Windows 98 or Windows 2000…hell, use DOS if you must but for goodness sake stay away from Windows XP unless you think it is just fine and dandy for a company not known for its benevolence to have a access to your data in the pursuit of their interests. You will not even know when they are looking or what they have downloaded to your machine ‘for security’ (their security, not yours). Bill Gates already has quite enough money to live happily ever after, he does not need any more of yours. Friends don’t let friends buy Windows XP.
And while we are on the subject, don’t forget to regularly check out Privacy Digest if you happen to think your business is your business.
Just because we libertarians deplore the state’s intrusions does not mean we give the Mega-Corporations a free ride.
|
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.
|
