Salam Pax has posted again. Well, not quite. Someone has posted in his name. Interesting observations, insider story, basically a gripping read straight from Baghdad. Go and raed…
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– Labour MP David Taylor explains “Why I’ll defy party line over reforms” and vote against foundation hospitals, in today’s Evening Standard (print edition only) May 7th, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The Anglosphere is divided over the metric system… sure, it makes vastly more sense but, damn it, it is just too damn French! But do not despair! That scholar and wit, the inimitable Diamond Geezer, has come up with a new and vastly superior system of measures suitable for the 21st Century. For example:
And who says genius is dead in Britain? Oh, yeah, that was me. Sorry. Update: As usual, blogspot’s archives are phuked up, so just go here and scroll down. May 7th, 2003 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
So… megacorporate musicland wants to attack people’s computers, with state sanction, to stop them doing things they dislike. This could be interpreted by the vast army of hackers and script kiddies out there as a declaration of war that is tantamount to painting a bullseye on the side of the RIAA servers. Of course I would hate for anyone to construe these remarks as actually encouraging people to do to the RIAA what they are planning to do to millions of other people. No, that would be….bad.  May 7th, 2003 | 41 comments - (Comments are closed)
Michael Totten has written an interesting article about the difference between ‘liberal’ (in the US sense of the word) and ‘conservative’ views of the world, called Builders and Defenders.
But clearly as someone very well read in genuinely foreign history and affairs, Michael is a member of a pretty tiny minority everywhere, not just on the left. Perhaps he would be less of a minority amongst a certain species of neo-conservatives in the USA, but he would still be one. In my experience, Michael would also find the situation amongst American capital-L Libertarians more akin the one he finds on the left. Which brings me to another point… Michael is certainly a thoughtful commentator but he suffers from that exasperating bipolar disorder common to those on both the statist left and statist right: there is a great deal more to the world than just ‘liberal’ (in the US meaning of democratic regulatory quasi-socialist) and ‘conservative’ (in the US meaning of democratic regulatory quasi-capitalist). That someone with a blog should fall into this meta-contextual trap is all the more grating for a libertarian such as myself, given the sheer number of neither ‘liberal’ nor conservative blogs there are within the ever expanding blogosphere. Even the mightily Sir Glenn of Instant Punditry describes himself as a ‘Whig’ rather than a ‘liberal’ or conservative. The truth is that what Michael is describing is more of an American phenomenon than a left or right one, and even then it is only slightly less applicable to us ‘more cosmopolitan’ British and Europeans. There is an old joke, which like so many is all the more amusing because it is essentially true…
May 7th, 2003 | 10 comments - (Comments are closed)
You may think the Belgians are a bit presumptuous by granting themselves jurisdiction over the entire planet in the matter of alleged war-crimes, but they have nothing on our Home Secretary David Blunkett who is trying to turn everyone in the developed world into lab rats:
I realise how much this sounds like wishful thinking but it does sound to me as if Mr.Blunkett’s G8 counter-parts were humouring him. As indeed they should. Not only is the technology referred to unlikely to work in the way that Mr.Blunkett has suggested or at all, but it is also to be hoped that his counter-parts have recognised this scheme as merely the latest manifestation of New Labour’s neurosis. As per usual, the British Home Office has its portentious-sounding reasons. They have shuffled through their pack of disposable justifications and come up with stopping ‘illegal immigrants’ and ‘terrorists’ as the raisons du jour and I can only assume that they are blissfully immune to the hollow ring which has now grown resonant enough to shatter glass. If such technology could indeed prevent some terrible terrorist atrocity then it would, at least, be worthy of consideration (if not necessarily implementation) but surely everybody knows that it will do no such thing. Mr.Blunkett may as well claim that his biometric passports will reduce sun-spot activity, prevent child abuse and turn base metal into gold without being any less plausible. Overwhelmingly, illegal immigrants and potential terrorists originate from Third World countries where no databases exist and few people have genuine passports let alone biometric ones. So they will continue to swan in to collect their welfare cheques in South London and plan bomb attacks in Manchester without so much as let or hindrance while the law-abiding, tax-paying British holidaymakers and business travellers get turned into day-release prisoners; watched, tracked and monitored feverishly to no end whatsoever. But this is all a part of the game we play in Britain. Our political masters work night-and-day to come up with frightfully impressive techno-whizzbangs while we all turn away and pretend not to notice the godawful, augean mess they have made out of every single thing they have laid their hands on. New Labour politicians are like the idiot children of wealthy tycoons, skilled only in lavishing around vast sums of other people’s money in a squalid attempt to purchase popularity and self-esteem. Scratch the surface and what you find is stupid, loathsome and incompetent. They are deserving of nothing except our unalloyed contempt. May 7th, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yesterday’s post about the mean and stupid RIAA has created some debate in the comments section. And in the meantime, the RIAA has a few more nasty tricks up its sleeve. ZDNet reports:
To those who argue that laws should be obeyed ‘coz that’s what they are there for:
To those who venerate the Constitution and let it inspire their opinions about the changing reality of copyright enforcement:
Perhaps legal intimidation, coupled with ‘aggressive’ technology may be effective for a while, but the ‘problem’ with technology is that somewhere, quite soon, one or more clever little buggers will find a way around it. Turning nasty to those who want to listen to music, i.e. record companies’ actual markets, does not strike me as the best business strategy. Free markets mean that the players are able to freely satisfy the demand they identify. It does not mean violation of property rights and free-for-all but I cannot accept that is what the RIAA is fighting against. Their desperate efforts to recoup losses has far more to do with overpriced contracts with top chart artists, bloated marketing budgets and costly advertising wars about places in the very top charts that make the artists so expensive, than with any copyright infringements. If you are a business in free markets and a new phenomenon emerges that may just jeopardise your distribution system (in this case, internet and P2P replacing CDs and other off-line media), you do not go around intimidating your current, former and potential customers. You find a way of accommodating that demand, adjusting your business model or finding an alternative way to satisfy it. That’s free market to me! As Michael Page, an attorney who represented the defendants in the Grokster and Morpheus case predicts:
Perhaps, unless you think you have enough muscle to try to curb the markets and customer behaviour and make sure that your oligopoly prevents any new entrants from making impact on the balance of power in the industry. Oh wait, that sounds just like the RIAA… This debate is not exactly about copyright and intellectual property. The reason we are having it is that it is easier for the RIAA to go the route of legal intimidation and obstreperousness (the US is, after all, the land of lawyers) than giving in to more uncertain and painful pressures of market forces and customer demand. Oh, and of progress and technological development… Note to our ‘in-house’ entertainment industry expert: Is this what you had in mind, Simon? Surely not. May 7th, 2003 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
Brendan O’Neill has been lamenting the postponement of elections in Northern Ireland, pointing out this is profoundly anti-democratic. He is of course entirely correct. However as long as the state is allowed to have more or less unlimited potential power over civil society, it cannot be unexpected that in a tribal place like Ulster, folks in a given community are going to be terrified of The Others having their hands on the levers of power. I suspect trying to share so much power is at worst a futile hope leading to more violence and at best, a Mexican stand-off. Surely at least part of the solution is to simply bind ALL political power in Northern Ireland hand and foot with a written constitution that places pretty much every aspect of life that really matters off-limits to the vagaries of democratic politics. Worried about those ‘dirty Fenian Tagues poisoning our schools’? So abolish state educational conscription completely and leave it to churches, community groups, socialist-group-hug-collectives, business guilds, whoever, that way the ‘Tagues’ do not have to worry about the ‘stinking Orangemen’ doing the same to their children. Just apply this to all the centralised power functions (such as planning and land use) for full juicy goodness. Once you have done that, it would seem to me that much of the reason to try and bomb people into/out of power becomes… well… pointless. Democracy is fine, just as long as the people being voted for cannot actually do anything. Think outside the (ballot) box. Be a radical. May 7th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
Dutch politician Pim Fortuyn was assassinated by an eco-terrorist, ending what was a truly interesting period of business-not-as-usual in the Netherlands. Fortuyn was a fascinating man, easy to misunderstand. Both David Carr and I had initially mistaken him as just a Dutch version of French fascist Jean-Marie le Pen, but in fact nothing could have been further from the truth. To have even labelled him as ‘right wing’ was profoundly uninformative and in many ways down right misleading, revealing more about the commentator doing so that anything about Fortuyn. One year on and sadly the people who reaped the ‘benefit’ of Pim Fortuyn death have proved to be the same grey men and women of the orthodox Dutch left and right who have enervated that once dynamic nation, hanging on to an electoral party list system that amounts to the political equivalent of Henry Ford’s ‘choose any colour, as long as it is black’. The weed has been pulled out by the roots and nothing disturbs the monoculture of blood red poppies adorning that graveyard which is the political status quo. May 7th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Burglars and street robbers are to benefit from new rights under proposals announced today by the government. The extension of the existing rights regime is contained in the Employment (Non-Lawful Activities) Consolidation Act 2003 which has passed its second reading in the House of Commons and is due to take effect from 1st January 2004. Under the new legislation, all burglars are street robbers will be entitled to a maximum of six weeks paid paternity leave and a similar period of statutory sick pay. If any burglar or street robber is a member of a gang or criminal organisation, they will also now be able to claim compensation for unfair dismissal. A government spokesperson rejected criticisms of the new legislation:
The Equal Opportunities Commission broadly welcomed the new legislation but said it did not go nearly far enough. Spokesperson Elaine Simper-Sweetley said:
Ms.Simper-Sweetley added that the Commission would continue to campaign for existing Health & Safety legislation to be extended to protect both full and part-time criminals. May 6th, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
It is nought but a small step, and a hesitant one at that, but at least some Conservatives are starting to make the right noises about the BBC:
Th irony of this being reported on the BBC news website is not lost on me but neither is the inference that the ‘growing public opposition’ is merely a Tory allegation instead of an objective fact. But even if it was a mere ‘allegation’ I am mildly encouraged that some Conservatives are prepared to level it. If this isn’t an opening shot across the bows of the hitherto inviolable shibboleth status of the BBC, then it is pretty convincing impression of one.
Not exactly the kind of radicalism I have in mind but then I am not a politician and not, therefore, worried about ‘frightening the horses’ in the way that all politicans (be they Conservative or otherwise) are. Time will tell whether the Conservatives are serious about depriving the BBC of its tax-cushion or whether the Tories infuriating paternalism is leading them to look for a less visible way to maintain the distorting state-subsidy. But I will refrain from damning in advance and settle for some measure of satisfaction that the BBC’s reservoir of goodwill is rapidly dwindling away even among the political classes and if it is dawning on the Conservatives that we do not need ‘public service broadcasting’ then perhaps they may also realise that we don’t need ‘Culture Spokesmen’ either. Still, given the circumstances, that is a quibble that I will reserve for another day. May 6th, 2003 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
I recently saw the latest instalment of the X-Men saga, named rather unambiguously X-Men 2. I rather liked the first X-Men, which was rather a surprise given that I think the history of translating comics into movies or TV is not a happy one. Although Batman proved rather good in its first few outings, it then got progressively more dreadful… Judge Dredd was a travesty, I despised the entire Superman series, loathed Spawn, hated The Phantom and Daredevil had nothing to commend it other than the fact it had Jennifer Garner in it. Ok, The Shadow was almost rather good… almost, Tank Girl was in parts so surreal as to be fun and in other places so bad it was good, and Spiderman was really quite good indeed… but clearly the odds are that comic-based productions will prove to be turkeys. So X-Men 2 would not have surprised me if it had been far less impressive than the first one, but that is far from the case. The excellent cast remained rock solid and the story, whilst hardly Tolstoy, was entirely adequate. Although like the first movie, Hugh Jackman’s Wolverine stole the show, it would be hard to fault anyone else’s performances. The whole thing sticks with what worked last time and adds some nice touches, such as an angst-filled German teleporting mutant who looks like the devil but turns out to be one of the good guys. And then there is the always superb Ian McKellen’s Magneto, who this time… ah, but then I don’t want to give away the whole plot. Go see it… well worth your popcorn money. May 6th, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
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