My suspicions have been confirmed! Now I know what a large proportion of car (and van) drivers are thinking when I ride past them on my motorbike during rush hour traffic. 
Adriana had a calming effect on the drivers in the traffic jam
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August 16th, 2002 | Comments are closed
 Remember when mum and dad used to get you to mow the lawn as punishment for skimping on the washing up? Well, those days of pushing a mower along the lawn while sneezing with hayfever are over, thanks to this great new development. Proves that one of the great motivators of human ingenuity is sheer laziness. August 16th, 2002 | Comments are closed
It appears the story that a number of Conservative MPs are thinking of breaking off from the main Tory party and are part inspired by the views of novelist and philosopher Ayn Rand has triggered some comment. In the right-leaning weekly journal the Spectator, writer Michael Harrington attacks the late Miss Rand and all she stood for in an article so full of bile that he succeeds in raising her in my estimation, even though I have problems with bits of her philosophy. Let’s take a look:
True (heroine actually). But the libertarian meme is spreading in the UK, and Michael, be very afraid.
And your point is?
Eh? I am not aware Rand thought of the novel’s essential structure as being an inversion of the Bible. What exactly is malevolent about her doctrine of Man’s right to live for his own sake rather than sacrifice it to others? Come on Mr Harrington, don’t be shy. Give us some reasons why you think Miss Rand’s brand of ethical egoism is wrong. After all, an egoist could justly claim that benevolence towards others is in fact often very ‘selfish’ since it still means doing something of value to the actor as well as the beneficiary. Ultimately, the rational (as opposed to non-rational) egoist believes life is not zero-sum, either in a material or non material sense. I fear that Harrington has missed the essential point of what Rand is about and why she continues to motivate libertarians, and Conservatives, to this day despite any criticisms we may have of her views. The essential point is that she made it clear that the case for liberty cannot just be won showing that it produces X more GDP than socialism or some other ‘overall good’. Ultimately, the case needs a moral foundation, and Rand provided a pretty powerful one. August 16th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I should be interested in this idea. I have been a member of the Conservative Party since 1980, and even when I went to join the party at the offices of the Kettering Association, I stated that I was a libertarian and have stated so often since then (oddly enough it is the older members of the association, some of whom have since died, who tended to know what a ‘libertarian’ actually was). However, nothing I have heard so far attracts me. I would be interested in a party that wanted to cut taxes, government spending and regulations (I do not expect them to understand to monetary policy, the only people I have met in the Conservative party who understood monetary policy were very old indeed and are now almost all dead). People who call themselves ‘centre left’ and declare that the “debate is not about economics” do not interest me at all. Aping the ‘New Left’ by trying to construct a politics based on an obsession with “race, gender and sexual orientation” (the Herbert Marcuse idea of building a new alliance to make up for the poor revolutionary showing of the old working class) is not sensible – although it may be profitable (there are lots of central and local government grants available for such activity). When I pointed some of the above out to the Conservative group Connect (in reply to unsolicited e-mails) they did not reply. Had they replied I would have asked them the following question:
If the reply to the above is “no we do not support the repeal of the anti discrimination laws, the closing down of the various government race and sex agencies… [and so on]” then please spare us all the rubbish about being in favour of ‘civil liberties’. Paul Marks August 16th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Although he is not the first to comment on the large (and growing) rift between the USA and Europe, James Bennett delivers up a superb analysis of the role of Tony Blair in trying to act as a bridge between them and why he may well end up as political hamburger as a result:
Jim is spot on. For all his blather about ‘modernisation’, Blair has both feet firmly planted in the past, seemingly unaware of his inability to bridge the gulf between the two civilisations and equally oblivious to the harsh fact that the gulf may not be bridgeable at all. This is not just about the Middle East or Iraq; they are merely symptoms of a divergence that is economic, political, cultural and even spiritual. In some senses, the EU and Radical Islam have more in common. Their respective visions are, for sure, not the same, but they do share the quality of being a settled view about the way the world should be and neither can really brook any meaningful alternatives, lest their own visions be undermined. For Radical Islam, the answer is endless Jihad; for the EU the answer is the Kyoto Protocol, the ICC and global regulation. In both cases, the message to America is the same: submit. For the EU elite, America is like a rebellious teenager that they simply don’t understand. How can they insist on sovereignty when it obstructs ‘progress’? How can they insist on the right of self-defence when we know that true security comes only through concessions and negotiation? How dare they cherish Western values when we know that all values are equal? For the Eurocrats, America is not just mystifying, it’s offensive. But there is also a deeper, darker cause of Europe’s mistrust. The political classes of Europe may disagree on many things but of on one issue there is no dissent: the European Union and the overriding importance of creating a country called ‘Europe’. Everything else, all policy, all laws and all effort must be focussed on melding together a continent’s worth of fractious nations into one monolithic political and social entity with one government, one flag, one currency, one voice etc. They can’t do it and they know in their hearts that they can’t do it. So instead of having an identity, they are creating an anti-identity and that anti-identity is anti-America. It is how the EU will define itself, being unable to define itself by any other totems. Regardless of the fate of the Iraqi regime, America will most likely get more American and, Europe, with the cancer of post-modernism coded into its DNA, will get more anti-American. Cold War it may not be, but it will be cold. Freezing, in fact. August 16th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Anyone following British news of late cannot helped but have notice that the main story gripping the folk of these islands at present is the deeply distressing disappearance of two little girls from their home village in rural Cambridgeshire. After nearly two weeks, there is still no trace of them and nobody seems to have the first idea of where they are of what may have befallen them. I think it is fair to say that everyone is hoping and praying for the best but fearing the worst. But some are just hoping and praying for pork:
Will the establishment of yet another state agency lead to the discovery of the whereabouts of these two children? Will it deliver them unharmed back to their respective homes? Will it stop this kind of thing happening again? The answer in all cases is ‘no’ but that doesn’t matter. What matters is that no trial or tragedy is missed as an opportunity by fans of big government to propose even bigger government as a solution. If it transpires that some unspeakable ghoul has harmed these children, they have also harmed the civil society of which we are all a part. Those who seek to exploit this as an opportunity for a bit of bureaucratic empire-building are the ghoul’s fellow travellers. August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
The cause of a free market in energy has been given a right bashing from the collapse of US energy trading firm Enron and the electricity blackouts in California. But it seems the guys and gals in Texas are showing that a properly deregulated energy market can really work. Here’s a chunk of a report in the Financial Times (not availiable on FT website):
I would contend that the key to this success is that Texas has gone for full deregulation, rather than the dog’s breakfast of a mess created in California. In California, wholesale distributors of electricity were allowed to set their prices in a market but the retail distributors had their charges capped. When electricity prices went into hyperspace over a year ago, a lot of California’s power retailers saw their balance sheets blow up. Ultimately, if the price mechanism is not allowed to work properly, how is rising consumer demand going to create the incentive to increase production? Of course another problem in California has been the baleful influence of the Green movement, killing things like nuclear power, but that is another argument for another time. August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
Right. I’ve had enough of American women whining about why English chaps are such terrible dates. It is surely up to us, or at least those of us who are single guys, to step up to the plate, so to speak, and bury the issue once and for all. The latest of American ladies to lambast the English male, the delectable New Yorker and frequent visitor to these shores, Gwyneth Paltrow says she hardly ever gets asked out for a date when she is over here. Come on male Samizdatistas of London. Let’s do our duty. We could even get Gwynnie to start a blog.  Seriously in need of an Englishman August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
I always enjoyed the Village Voice. It’s one of those publications that may gladden or infuriate, sometimes in the same issue, but will always tell the truth as they see it. They are invariably interesting to read, far more so than the bland uptown (well midtown: NY Times overlooks Times Square) papers. It was also my neighborhood paper for a good part of two years, so I got in the habit of reading it over a morning coffee at the Sidewalk Cafe. Today I ran across this fascinating article. I have long wondered, and by long I mean twenty years or more, whether the city as we know it can survive the amplification of capabilities of “one man working alone”. My own suspicion is the combination of information technology and nanotechnology will allow humanity to disperse at the same time low density becomes a matter of safety. But even under the more dire of possible future histories, I cannot see us doing without places like New York. We need the energy and creativty and well, life of it. Many cities may die, but the cultural centres will live on, even if they have to be rebuilt and repopulated once a generation.  Hollywood film crew on street below August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
There is a lengthy article on USS Clueless about why the US military is the best practitioner of high initiative warfare, tracing it to the empowering influence of the First Amendment of the US Constitution. I disagree on many levels starting with the fact I do not think the US military is the best (or even particularly remarkable) at ‘high initiative warfare’. The US military does not achieve its results as Steven Den Beste suggests, by empowering individual soldiers and harnessing their brains and initiative more than any number of armies I could mention, but rather it achieves results by maximising its true advantages: firstly a huge economy and therefore sheer firepower (it can afford to shoot more bullets/drop more bombs) and secondly, its advanced technology (it can make its aeroplanes hard to shoot down and therefore safely drop smart bombs on people they don’t like from 20,000 feet). In simply wins by dumping large numbers of expensive smart bombs and cruise missiles on the enemy where it hurts most, followed by precise massed artillery if required. The job of America’s infantry and tank jockeys is to pick their way through the crater pocked remnants to what gets left over after the aerial (and maybe artillery) bombardment. Factor out the high tech long range bombardment capabilities, which is unique in the world at the moment, and whilst the US army is a fine one, it is not particularly exceptional in the way it fights compared to many other armies. There are many armies in the world who are better than the US at the sort of small unit tactics that rely on ’empowered’ soldiers at low level (such as Israel, Britain, Germany, Australia, New Zealand). Frankly France’s 2eme REP is probably more optimised for what Steven thinks is a “new approach” to fighting than the much higher firepower US 82nd Airborne, precisely because it has less firepower and thus is forced to rely on élan et cran as well as to fight smart… and with very little help from 20,000 feet. It is in the ‘big stuff’ that no one can match the US, i.e. when it comes to the Godzilla-like ‘grid square removal’ that characterized the Gulf War.  This is not to denigrate the US military, far from it actually: that is a highly rational way to fight if you can afford it. But please realise that the way the USA fights is just the confluence of technology and economy, added to a particularly American political horror of friendly casualties, rather than some emerging ‘First Amendment Powered’ super soldiers. The German Fallschimjägers landing on Crete in 1941 displayed all the characteristics of low level high initiative fight smart upward info-flow empowerment yet it would be safe to say they were not benefiting from the First Amendment of the US Constitution or democracy. August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
After many years I’ve finally ‘gotten around to’ reading Richard Dawkins famous book “The Extended Phenotype”. I’m only in the early chapters as yet, reading about his explanatory struggles. He has battled for years with those of little comprehension. They simply cannot seem to “get it” that genetic change can create conditions which modify or encourage a behavior but does not determine it. I sat back and pondered his predicament awhile. I ran through a number of thought experiments. Rejected a few… and settled on this one. Perhaps poor Dr Dawkins will find it of minor assistance the next time he discovers himself cornered by slow learners. Imagine an alternate world in which early Smurfs are predated upon by a rather strange alien beast. The creature is sort of protoplasmic and wimpy but hides in trees and cliffs just out of reach and sight of the average purple hunter gatherer. It likes to drop on them and kills rather quickly if it succeeds. If it misses it still has a second chance because it can move very fast and agilely for short distances, perhaps a few tens of meters. The best strategy for our little band is to spot the beast as it peaks over the edge of its perch and bounce a good size rock off the tree trunk or cliff behind it to squash it before it drops. The second best strategy is to run and dodge like hell until it slows… and then kill it. If we fast forward a few milleinia, we find that selective pressure has made our little tribe taller so they can see the critter first; great shots with a large rock; and incredibly fast and nimble runners with a lot more endurance than the predator. More than that, they get a great surge of endorphins and pleasure at running and jumping and throwing. Mr Dawkins detractors would have you believe our purple Jordans have no choice but to become basketball stars. Purple Globetrotters all! To which Mr Dawkins would reply: “That is not the case”. Our 3 meter smurfs might find the game pleasurable, but their genes would not require them to play it. August 15th, 2002 | Comments are closed
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