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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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Well it just so happens to be Hedy Lamarr Day! I know this to be the case because Shannon Okey told me and we all know that Shannon, the veritable Lucretia Borgia of the Blogosphere, would not say such a thing if it were not so.
And just incidentally, if you are going to go and peruse the Bitter Girl site, make sure you do not miss one of the funniest blog articles in quite a while:
Tune in a decade or two from now for the year 2018 version of this post, when I take on Britney Spears’ cellulite, visible C-section scars and obvious track marks as she performs “Oops, I Did It Again!” at the MTV VMAs with Michael Jackson, who, by then, will be made entirely of plastic and have a robot monkey to guide him on and off stage.
Prescient.
I share Perry’s high opinion of Alice Bachini’s Libertarian Parent In The Countryside blog, provided only that she is able to keep it going, which it looks like she might.
Even if she doesn’t she’s already supplied many good blogules, of which my favourite so far is this, the best short explanation of the exact place of “spin” in British politics that I have yet come across:
… New Labour’s gift for spin was never what enamoured them to the British public, it’s more complicated than that; in fact, we just thought spin was what professional politicians did, and we wanted a not-totally-incompetent government to manage the economy for us, so we voted for the one that spun competently thinking maybe they were capable of adding up a few numbers as well. Or at least that they would actually be in their offices looking at a few numbers now and then instead of just hanging out in brothels wearing football shirts and hiding brown paper bags of money about their persons. Anyway, spin was the price for competence, we thought, which is why we’re still paying it.
The hangers out in brothels etc. are Britain’s Conservative Party, in case you live on the far side of the moon and didn’t recognise them. I’ve been saying something along these lines in conversation for years, but never got around to telling the universe.
The entire quoted paragraph above was in brackets in the original, a flying-off-at-a-tangent in a piece that was basically aimed at Tony Blair’s dress sense, body language, etc., provoked by a Telegraph photograph of the Great Leader.
There is a certain kind of right-wing pundit whose hatred for British Prime Minister Tony Blair is so great that, even when the man takes a stand worth supporting, such as Blair’s brave backing of Bush over the case for deposing Saddam, the rightwinger will always find some way of qualifying his support with a kind of low-tempo sneer. Sadly, Tory MP and Spectator magazine editor Boris Johnson just cannot quite bring himself to resist a barb or two in Tony Blair’s direction over this issue.
Of course, Johnson does have a valid point. If we are able and willing to oust Saddam who poses a threat to the West due to the alleged acquisition of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), then why not move to oust the brutal Zimbabwe dictator, Robert Mugabe, who has unleashed violence and mayhem against holders of British passports in that afflicted country? A fair point, but Mugabe is at least not yet attempting to get WMDs, at least as far as we know.
And on another point, Johnson omits to mention that Blair’s strong support for Bush, in contrast to that of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, is another sign that Blair is backing the Anglosphere horse rather than the Euro-federal one. And for Boris Johnson, a so-called eurosceptic, that should be cause for celebration. Or maybe Johnson is not quite such a skeptic as he makes out.
Lewinsky and Clinton have shown
What Kaczynski must surely have known –
That an intern is better
Than a bomb in a letter
When deciding how best to be blown
– Winner of a limerick contest on Long Island – the requirements were to use the two words, Lewinsky and Kaczynski (the Unabomber), in a limerick
Glenn Reynolds over on Instapundit already pointed out this post on Indepundit. It deserves to be widely read so I am reiterating it.
If anyone tells you Saddam isn’t really trying to acquire nuclear weapons and isn’t really a threat… tell them to read the above.
Jeff Jarvis is quite right, it makes no sense to turn the whole of the site of the WTC into a memorial. Croatia has not turned all of Vukovar into a memorial to what was done to the people there. Rebuild and move on. It is a sign of strength not heartlessness.
From time to time, the Lima newspapers publish stories about such and such a community’s having “invaded” properties of latifundists or miners. The informed reader knows what is happening. Disgusted with being dispossessed, lacking official justice, the Indians have decided to take through their own efforts what has always belonged to them.
– Sebastian Salazar Bondy, Whither Latin America
Several blogs have also picked up on Janet Daly’s article that Brian Micklethwait mentioned at length earlier on Samizdata.net. However the section of Daly’s piece which attracted my attention was not the section that Brian quoted:
Collectivism involves giving up your autonomy and your moral responsibility to the group. In practice, in modern political economy, that means giving them up to the state. There is nothing inherently good or ethical about this. But that is a wildly unfashionable thing to say – just like saying “No” to the euro used to be.
The way I see it, writing “there is nothing inherently good or ethical about this”, whilst most certainly true, really misses the point as it looks at the question from the wrong direction. There is something inherently bad and unethical about giving up your autonomy and your moral responsibility to the group. In fact it is completely impossible to transfer moral responsibility: that is why a soldier can be tried for any war crime that they carry out regardless of the fact they were only ‘following orders’ from their duly constituted superiors. The entire concept of ‘group morality’ is an absurdity. Individual morality is the only morality.
It does not matter what anyone else does or what ‘permissions’ you are given by family, religion or state, you are morally responsible for your actions. For it to be otherwise you must be quite literally insane.
The comedian Alexei Sayle once said very wisely that he objected to the use of the word “workshop” in any connection other than light engineering. I now feel similarly about the phrase “limited edition”, which should, I believe, be confined to publishing. Sadly, this phrase is now applied to cars, clothes, portable telephones, in fact to any manufactured product where they have to decide beforehand how many they’re going to make in each little burst of manufacturing. In other words to all manufactured products.
The latest manifestation I have observed of limited edition feaver is: limited edition potato crisps. That’s right, Walkers Crisps have just produced a six-pack “limited edition” bag, containing two Heinz Tomato Ketchup flavoured crisp packets, two Branston Pickle flavoured crisp packets, and two Marmite flavoured.
In my opinion the Marmite crisps are very nice (as are the crisps flavoured with Marmite’s deadly rival, Bovril, which have long been available), the Tomato Ketchup crisps are okay, and the Branston Pickle crisps are disgusting.
Talk of limited editions raises the question: are there potato crisp collectors? If so, do they collect their crisp packets unopened, or do they merely preserve the wrappings? If they do collect the crisps unopened how do they ensure that the crisps do not get broken inside the packet, even as the packet remains unopened, and if the crisps are preserved in mint condition, how can the crisp collector tell?
It was with questions like these in mind that I consulted the
Walkers SHOWCASE website mentioned on all the crisp packets.
At this point my posting takes a sudden lurch away from harmless frivolity and towards seriousness, because this is what I found:
Welcome to Walkers SHOWCASE!
Walkers has invited every school in England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland and Eire to post their students’ best work on the Walkers SHOWCASE online gallery. What better way to show off the children’s talents – not only across the school, but to children’s friends and relatives – and to everyone with an interest in education around the world?
If you have been chosen as your school’s SHOWCASE Co-ordinator, your first step is to register your school. This takes just a few moments – but one part of it is your agreement to keep to the SHOWCASE Charter. You can review the Charter before proceeding with registration by clicking on the SHOWCASE safety button on the left. As soon as you have registered you can start uploading exhibits – everything from collages created in Reception to interactive games devised in a sixth form project.
Have fun!
I hate this. These people take no pride in their product. I expected – well, I was looking for – testimonials from satisfied crisp eaters, discussions of the relative merits of Marmite and Bovril crisps, intricate analysis of just why it is that the Branston Pickle crisps are so horrible, news of other Walkers products. Instead we observe what is now called a Public-Private Partnership, and of the most vomit-inducing kind. If I was a teacher and they made me the school’s SHOWCASE Co-ordinator, I’d feel like a whore.
I realise that as a good little libertarian, I ought to be willing to defend everything that capitalism does however tasteless (including whores, of course), but when it comes to capitalists stalking the wastes of the public sector in search of captive juvenile audiences for junk food adverts, I’m sorry, I just can’t do it. I wouldn’t want a law against it, but surely no self-respecting school would do this.
Perhaps I should overcome my dislike of such things. I don’t know, I really don’t. I would especially welcome comments on this.
Occasional Samizdata.net guest writer Alice Bachini has been bitten by the blogging bug and has her own splendid blog called A Libertarian Parent In The Countryside.
It may well have the longest blog address I have seen (libertarian_parent_in_the_countryside.blogspot.com)!
Check it out. 
People across Europe are digging bomb shelters in their back gardens and staring skyward fearfully for the first signs of the mighty Namibian airforce.
No, not really… Afro-socialist bigot President Sam Nujoma of Namibia has added all the nations imposing the flimsy and ineffective sanctions against his good buddy Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe to the list of his usual targets for incoherent invective (i.e. homosexuals, capitalists, white people).
“I just want to make it categorically clear that if the EU does not lift the sanctions against Zimbabwe, the whole African Union will also impose economic sanctions against Europe. Either there is peace or war and we don’t want a war. Change your attitudes. If you don’t change, we are going to get you.”
I am quaking in my boots. 
This piece by Janet Daley in today’s Telegraph is of interest, and these paragraphs are the heart of it:
… there must be a lesson here for those who hold – and would like to proselytise – currently unfashionable opinions. How exactly has this happened? How is it that this stance, which has been travestied and traduced by the entire Left-liberal media behemoth, has still managed to win through to the hearts and minds of so many fashionable anti-establishment people?
And perhaps even more beguilingly, why are so many acerbic comedians and social satirists happy to stand up in public for a cause that has been largely associated with politicians who have never knowingly told a joke? …
Of one thing I think we can be fairly sure. Harry Enfield, Bob Geldof, Vic Reeves et al were not won over by Teresa Gorman’s ‘street cred’ or Norman Tebbit’s hairstyle. Neither the cut of Norman Lamont’s suits nor John Redwood’s demotic vocabulary made them think: “Hey, these guys are my sort of people. I like the look of them. What’s this they’re saying about the European single currency being a bad idea for Britain? I think I’ll join up.”
No, I believe not. They must have been – wait for it – persuaded by the arguments. Imagine that. They must have heard people who look and sound nothing at all like them, saying things that struck them as basically sound. …
I’ve been flogging away with ideas for the best part of my adult life so far, so you might expect me to greet JD’s piece with unmitigated reverence. However, one of the ideas I’ve been flogging away at is that persuading members of the Conservative Party to support something is not the kiss of life, rather is it the kiss of death. This is not an idea of the kind JD is talking about; it’s a propaganda idea, a focus group idea, an idea about how to win arguments by unfair means as well as by fair ones. It’s an idea about “positioning”, “associating”, about atmospherics rather than just about principles. (At the risk of getting too technical, much of the idea of being principled is itself an idea about atmospherics.) → Continue reading: “Opposition to Brussels is becoming fashionable” – Thoughts on The Divide
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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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