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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I am not quite old enough to have been a full-blooded Cold War Warrior but I can imagine what it must have been like poring over the speeches and statements that emanated from the Kremlin, searching out all those coded mendacities and gussied-up ideological postures.
The closest we come to that kind of excitement these days is by listening to someone like the Director General of the BBC, Greg Dyke:
BBC director general Greg Dyke has warned of the risks of crossing the line between patriotism and objective journalism.
Not remotely a risk for the BBC where there is not even a hint of either patriotism or objective journalism.
In a speech to a journalism conference in London, Mr Dyke denounced the “gung-ho patriotism” of one US network covering the Iraq war and said it should not be allowed to happen in the BBC.
Oh that vulgar word again! Such a rank obscenity for a member of the defeatist, vacuous, ethically crippled ruling elite.
“This is happening in the United States and if it continues will undermine the credibility of the US electronic news media.”
Credibility in whose eyes?
“And we must never allow political influences to colour our reporting or cloud our judgement.”
This, from the head of a broadcasting organisation whose chief recruitment ground is the jobs page of the Guardian.
“Commercial pressures may tempt others to follow the Fox News formula of gung-ho patriotism but for the BBC this would be a terrible mistake.”
For those of you unfamiliar with British public-sector-speak, allow me to interpret: “We must oppose a free market in information and ideas as this would severely threaten our role as paternalistic gatekeepers of public opinion”.
“If, over time, we lost the trust of our audiences, there is no point to the BBC.”
I think you ought to have a word with the crew of the Ark Royal, Mr.Dyke.
The BBC has yet to undergo ‘perestroika’.
The Christian Science Monitor, which is not exactly a regular read for yours truly, says it has further documents alleging that Labour MP and all-round jackass George Galloway was on the take from the late unlamented Iraqi regime. Well – we shall see.
A point strikes me – is a man’s views about certain issues automatically more suspect if he has been receiving cash payments? It is sometimes claimed, for example by anti-smoking fanatics, that the views of libertarians on the smoking issue are invalid if they have, for example, been working for a big tobacco firm like BAT or Philip Morris. But surely we need to focus on the validity of the views themselves, and not whether they were given by people receiving money.
Ultimately, whether Galloway did or did not receive payments will not substantially alter my views of him. Even if he had not received a single penny from Saddam, I still regard Galloway as a vile individual for his shameless defence of Saddam’s regime over many years. In some ways, if he held his views for free and was truly sincere, it almost makes it worse.
In a dramatic development, under-fire British MP George Galloway has stunned an audience of journalists at a press conference by stripping off all of his clothes and posing for photographs whilst completely naked.
The controversial left-wing MP for Glasgow Kelvin had called the press conference in order to answer allegations that he accepted substantial payments from the former Iraqi regime. However, during a particularly heated round of questioning, Mr.Galloway suddenly stood up and began to undress himself. The attendant journalists watched in bemusement as Mr.Galloway eventually got down to his underpants which he whipped off with a flourish and draped over the ITN sound-recordist’s boom-mike.
It is the only way for me to fight back against this wicked right-wing American Zionist conspiracy to discredit me…
Said Mr.Galloway who was unrepentant about his unorthodox and shocking gesture:
Sorry? Of course I’m not sorry. It’s one of the most liberating things I have ever done. In fact, I’m already talking to the Guardian about a centrefold spread as part of a special colour-supplement next month.
Mr.Galloway’s gesture was warmly welcomed by a new left-wing organisation called the Campaign for Hindbrained Political Stunts (CHiPS) which is dedicated to pursuing a variety of ‘progressive’ causes with public displays of nudity. Denouncing all clothing as an oppressive construct of late-stage capitalism the group also intends to use bodily functions such as urination, defecation and induced vomiting as a means of protest. The group’s motto is: “Other people discuss, we just disgust”.
I’ve recently been writing at my Education Blog about the noted educator and educational theorist Maria Montessori.
Montessori recommended what for her time must have been a most unusual kind of object for young children to play with. She disapproved, it would seem, of the kind of complicated toys and dolls which, then as now, many parents get for their children. Instead she recommended abstract objects. What she had in mind was that children should not be overwhelmed with excessive amounts of information. Too little information, and children get bored. But too much causes them to switch off, in sensory self defence. That was her attitude. So, instead of dolls and train sets and woolly animals, she prescribed plain geometrical objects and matching sets of things like rods all the same size but of different colours, or rods all of the same colour but of different lengths. Or Montessori children may be presented with a set of identical sized blocks which different textures on their surfaces, like the different surfaces of different grades of sandpaper.
Whether by coincidence or by cause and effect, the Montessorian view of childhood objects has in recent decades made remarkable headway. Look into a child’s nursery or playpen now, and you will see all manner of geometrical shapes and blocks and wheels and surfaces. Felt covered cubes. Wooden zig-zaggy things to put in zig-zaggy shaped holes. Lots of different colours and consistencies of plastic. And so on.
The point I want to make here has nothing to do with the educational wisdom or otherwise of surrounding small children with such objects. No, I want to offer a theory about Modern Art, or rather, a theory about the (to many) extraordinary popularity of Modern Art. By “Modern Art” I of course mean abstract art – art that is not “of” anything, but is merely itself. → Continue reading: A conjecture concerning children’s toys and the current popularity of Modern Art
Among the Notes from an Iranian Girl is a sobering reminder that she lives in a country where the kissing has to stop:
Tehran – A prominent Iranian actress has been handed a suspended sentence of 74 lashes for publicly kissing a male film director during an awards ceremony, said a report…
She despairs. Who can blame her?
I have nothing special to say, I’m just ashamed that I have to write about these news of my country, for people of the world…I’m ashamed of the place that I live in & this damn destiny…
Sentiments echoed by Hollywood actor Tim Robbins:
We lay the continuance of our democracy on your desks, and count on your pens to be mightier. Millions are watching and waiting in mute frustration and hope – hoping for someone to defend the spirit and letter of our Constitution, and to defy the intimidation that is visited upon us daily in the name of national security and warped notions of patriotism.
And, believe me, the threat of 74 lashes is as nothing compared to tale of abject horror and violent oppression to which the heroic Mr.Robbins has been subjected:
Two weeks ago, the United Way canceled Susan’s appearance at a conference on women’s leadership. And both of us last week were told that both we and the First Amendment were not welcome at the Baseball Hall of Fame.
Bush=Hitler.
[The link to Tim Robbins speech courtesy of Dumb Celebs]
Respecting the sovereignty of Iraq was nothing more than respecting the sovereignty of Saddam Hussein, at the expense of the people who would have been tortured and killed for not voting for him!
– Alice Bachini
Sometimes things cross my desk which are so interesting I have to just pass them on verbatim. I’ve been expecting this one for years. In 1999 I walked under the wings of the Proteus high altitude aircraft in the Rutan hanger at Mojave. I knew immediately that Rutan had to be thinking of this as a first stage prototype. I also knew that I would not hear about such a thing until roll out.
Rollout day has finally arrived.
Here is a press release from Huntsville L5.
Huntsville Rocket Man Key Player in First Private Manned Space Program
Legacy Ties to Local HAL5 HALO Program
In the early morning hours of April 18, before the in burning heat blasted the Mojave Desert, the hangar doors swing open to reveal yet another strange craft with the obvious signature of the designer. Burt Rutan, President of Scaled Composites LLC, thus unveiled “The First Private Manned Space Program” with the roll-out of the suborbital SpaceShipOne. SpaceShipOne will be air-launched from the “White Knight” high-altitude research aircraft at 50,000 feet. Once released, SpaceShipOne will fire its rocket engine and climb to over 100 km (62 miles), carrying a crew of three into space on a suborbital flight. The rocket engine that will enable this historic feat was co-developed by Huntsville-native Timothy L. Pickens, who served as the Propulsion Systems Developer for Scaled Composites.
Tim first met Burt Rutan (designer of the famous Voyager aircraft) at an AIAA event in Huntsville in 1998. Because of their common interests, a professional rapport developed that would lead to Burt asking Tim to move to Mojave and lead a very important part of this “history in the making.” From what started out as napkin sketches with Burt in a Huntsville restaurant became what was rolled out in the Mojave. The propulsion concept was very much rooted in the Rocket City. Tim’s contributions to the SpaceShipOne project drew extensively from his involvement in HAL5’s High Altitude Lift-Off (HALO) Program. HALO pioneered the high-altitude launch of hybrid rockets.
Tim’s SpaceShipOne responsibilities included main and RCS propulsion development, nitrous-oxide portable fill station, rocket motor test stand, ECS support, propulsion fluids, and pressurization. Two hybrid motor vendors were selected to handle the fuel pouring, injector/valve design, and engine controller. This allowed Tim to reduce Scaled’s workload, decrease costs, and focus on the complex issues of designing the hybrid rocket motor, fuel case, and nozzle.
SpaceShipOne’s hybrid rocket engine employs a solid fuel grain (HTPB rubber) and a liquid oxidizer (nitrous-oxide), providing greater safety and lower cost than fully solid or liquid rocket engines. Scaled’s hybrid motor also employs a common bulkhead between the oxidizer tank and the motor. Tim’s co-designed the case/throat/nozzle (CTN) which reduced weight and complexity. This approach saves weight and reduces complexity. SpaceShipOne will be the first venture to launch people into space without government money or government technology. Rutan claims this will be accomplished before the 100th anniversary of the first powered flight at Kitty Hawk (17 December 2003).
SpaceShipOne’s Huntsville roots can be seen in HAL5’s Project HALO. HALO’s hybrid rockets utilize either an asphalt or HTPB solid fuel grain with liquid nitrous-oxide that is kept in an oxidizer tank separated by a common bulkhead with the motor case. In 1997, HALO air-launched a hybrid rocket from a high-altitude balloon over the Atlantic Ocean into the edge of space. That HALO mission, designated Sky-Launch 1 (SL-1), is listed in the Guinness Book of World Records 2000 (Millennium Edition) as the highest flight of an amateur rocket (36 nautical miles).
Like SpaceShipOne, HALO SL-1 used no government money, nor hardware. HAL5 had tested a rocket utilizing the same motor design a year before when it launched HALO Ground Launch-1 (GL-1) from a field in Tennessee to about 30,000 feet. In 1998, the group conducted the HALO SL-2 mission from a barge in the Gulf of Mexico. Other projects that spun off from HALO included the Balloon Launched Return Vehicle (1998) and the Cheap Access to Space (CATS) prize launch (2000). The HALO Program began in 1994 with a high-altitude balloon flight, launched from Huntsville’s Space & Rocket Center Alabama. Rocket motor testing at a site just east of Maysville in rural Madison County began early in 1995, followed by dozens of high-altitude balloon flights and hundreds of rocket motor firings. Tim Pickens was the Rocket Lead/System Designer for all of those local HALO and HALO spin-off projects. He was responsible for all mechanical and system designs.
Tim has returned to Huntsville where he continues to support Rutan’s propulsion efforts on a consultant basis. He is currently a propulsion engineer working for Plasma Processes and runs his own propulsion test company called Orion Propulsion located in Gurley, Alabama. Tim has designed and built a rocket-powered bike featured in Custom Bike magazine, and he is currently working on a “James Bond” type rocket belt. Mr. Pickens, who began his serious hybrid rocket work with the HALO Program, has since worked on such noted rocket engines as the RL-10, Fast-Track, the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME), and Space America’s 4000-50,000 pound thrust LOX/Kerosene engines. HALO member Glen May currently works for Scaled Composites in Mojave, California as a propulsion technician responsible for many aspects of the program.
Tim and other members of Project HALO will be testing future rocket engines and are available for press interviews on Thursday, 24 April from 7-10 PM, at his rocket workshop located at 104 Lindell Drive in Madison. For more information on Project HALO, please see web site.
HAL5 will host a public presentation by Mr. Pickens on the Huntsville connection to SpaceShipOne at the Huntsville-Madison County Public Library main auditorium on Thursday, 1 May 2003 from 7:00 to 8:30 PM. The public is invited and attendance is free. For more information, please call (256) 971-2020.
HAL5 is the Huntsville Alabama chapter of the National Space Society. It formed in 1983 as a non-profit, 501(c)(3), space educational/advocacy organization. Members share the enthusiasm that space development can stimulate our world with immeasurable benefits in the areas of education, energy, environment, industry, resources, and (ultimately) room to grow for our society. Members believe that by educating and working with the public, the government, and private industry, we can speed up the date when routine, safe, and affordable space travel is available to anyone who wants to go. Tim is helping this to become a reality.
The National Space Society, formed in 1974 by Wernher von Braun, is an independent, non-profit space advocacy organization headquartered in Washington, D.C. Its 23,000 members and over 50 chapters around the world actively promote a spacefaring civilization.
Please note that the NSS was created from the merger of two organizations formed around the same time; Werner Von Braun’s NSI mentioned above, and The L5 Society from which myself and chapters such as Huntsville L5 came from. The two merged in 1987.
Greg Allison, the leader of the HAL5 group is usually seen wandering about the yearly ISDC
Well, the hunt is still on for possible instruments of Mass Death in Iraq, and so far, from what I have seen and read, not a great deal has yet been found.
Should advocates of military action to deal with this possible menace like yours truly be now eating vast amounts of humble pie, agree that non-interventionists like Jim Henley were correct all along? Well, not quite.
For starters, it hardly needs to be pointed out that one cannot fight or not fight wars on the basis of 20/20 hindsight. Nothing that Saddam did over the past 12 years, including his devious treatment of UN weapons inspectors, led one to think that simply keeping Hans Blix and co in situ for another year or so would suffice. And I think that Saddam’s past record, such as his gassing of Iraqi villagers, made me doubt he was either deterrable or that he could be made to bend to the will of the arms inspectors.
However (gulp) I am beginning to detect among some pro-war types a clear shift in their stance. We have, so it appears, shifted from the “war is justified to rid Iraq of WMDs and then getting to terrorists” stance to a “Let’s bring peace and democracy to Iraq”. The first stance can be clearly based on self defence, which as a libertarian I have no quarrel with, though interpretation is the hard part. The latter stance, though, however idealistic and admirable as an ideal, smacks of hubristic social engineering.
Last Sunday I did a posting about the new Rolls-Royce Phantom, and now that comments there have had as much say as they’re going to, I’d like to add just one more. I appealed in my posting for eyewitness accounts of new Roller, but commenters were only able to speculate about the new car’s appearance and about the impression it makes on people nearby from various photo-links we had found, until this arrived, from Joseph Beckner of Atlanta, Georgia:
I saw the new Rolls-Royce Phantom at the Amelia Island Councours D’Elegance in Florida in March.
Impressions:
1) It is an IMPOSING automobile. It has a massive quality to it that transcends any other car in recent memory. The grill is indeed huge and, in my mind, overbearing. it comes up to my chest and is very wide. The car is very long and wide, and seems to have been carved from a block of granite. It simply dwarfs anything on the road. The first descriptive thought that came to me was “it’s a locomotive”.
2) There is nothing stately about the car. It has what I can only describe as a “Panzer” feel to it. You’ll never mistake it for any other car in your rearview mirror. And I guarantee you’ll move over.
3) The auto oozes quality in every detail. The paint is flawless, the interior fit and finish is beyond fault, and the materials are first rate. That said, it isn’t a “warm” car. Unlike the Rolls of yore, it feels cold and unforgiving. Rather than “This is your reward, sir, for a life well-lived”, it seems to say “See, I have more cubic money than you. Out of the way, swine!”.
4) The wheels are enormous, and according to reports, the biggest tires on any passenger car. They are 31″ in diameter, and while they visually tend to make the car appear smaller in pictures, in the flesh that trick doesn’t work. With its giant grill, high beltline, and small glass-to-body ratio, it just overwhelms the viewer.
5) The coach doors in the rear (‘suicide doors’ to Americans), are a nice touch. Well integrated in the design. Whether they actually work in real life remains to be seen.
6) Everything about the car suggests that it is what the Germans believe the British think of as a “Rolls-Royce”. It’s almost cartoonish. It’s an idea that’s been filtered through BMW’s preconceived notions of the British. “You know, Hans, with their overinflated sense of “Empire” and such, the British really think they still rule the world. This is the car that reflects that attitude.”
One of the other commenters, blogger Charles Hueter linked to and quoted from this story, which happens to include at its top left corner, this photograph, which I think best illustrates Beckner’s reaction to this remarkable, but it would also seem, decidedly offputting vehicle.
I was an occasional reader of American business-technology magazine Red Herring, which has just closed down. They often carried very interesting articles, such as the excellent round up of the state of nanotechnology (by several authors), and a piece on The Company and Society by John Micklethwait (who is indeed a relative of Samizdata.net’s very own Brian Micklethwait) in the final March 2003 print version (hence no links).
However I was only an occasional reader of Red Herring because although its coverage of technology was rather good, I found its neo-conservative acceptance of statist axioms in so many articles tedious, and to be honest I am not all that interested in the details of how corporate America finesses OSHA and tax regulations in order to function, or how they get their snouts in the public trough for R&D money.
Likewise I found my eyes rolling back when I read remarks from Editor-in-Chief Tony Perkins like…
We wish the Bush administration luck in trying to change the spending culture in Washington, D.C.. State governments must also learn how to do more with less.
…because there, oh so succinctly, is why I regard neo-conservatism as something which completely misses the point. The principle problem with government is not that it takes lots of other people’s money… no… that is just a consequence of what is wrong. The root problem is that government does things it has no business legitimately doing at any cost to taxpayers.
We do not need the state to do more with less, we need it to do less with less.
There is a groundswell of anger against the Unpatriotic Act I and its’ sequel, Unpatriot II (coming soon to a Gulag near you). This very civil disobedience will soon make Herr Ashcroft’s life extremely difficult.
I was already well aware of the low esteem in which he and his slab monster laws are held in the blog arena. I quite share it if you haven’t noticed yet. Still, I was very happily unprepared for this uprising in the towns and states of America.
If your town or State has not outlawed the Patriot I Act yet, ask them why not. Show them others have done so. You don’t have to appear anti-war. You may argue we should not discard the blessings of liberty for ourselves at the same time we are bringing them to others. Defending the freedom our forefathers died for is more American than apple pie, Old Glory, mom and the 4th of July. It’s at the core of what allowed them. If we lose that unique freedom and America is “just another country”, hardly worth fighting for. Like France.
With enough effort on the part of our readers and the rest of the blogosphere, this could be the biggest rebellion against Washington since the Whiskey Rebellion in Western Pennsylvania. Unlike that one it will be impossible to put down. It is a non-violent, wide-spread effort; it is under the protective eyes of thousands of freedom loving writers like yours truly; and any attempt to kill it will make it grow.
Be a real patriot. Get out there and defy the law!
 Cry “Blog for Harry! England and St George!”.
(with apologies to William Shakespeare)
I hope to see many of the Samizdatistas at the St. George’s Day party tonight on the Thames. If anyone spectacularly misbehaves, or turns up looking particularly hot in a little black dress (no, not you David), I will try to get incriminating photos posted as soon as possible.
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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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