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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The latest estimate of deaths from the French heat wave is up to 10,000 or so. This raises a number of issues.
- How reliable is this number, of course, and what does it really mean? Most of the dead appear to be elderly and infirm in any event, and many would likely have been carried off by the next stressful event in their lives. Nonetheless, the number appears to reflect “surplus mortality” over a comparable period, so lets take it at face value for now.
- What does this say about the state of the housing stock in France? We are told that apparently the French are unacquainted with modern air conditioning, apparently because their weather is so mild. I seem to recall during the recent Tour de France coverage a great deal of commentary about how the heat is always an issue during this event, so I wonder about this. I also lived in the American South for several years without air conditioning, so I can assure that it is possible, and that in fact lots of people have, and continue to do so, without dying.
Nonetheless, in the US central air conditioning, never mind window units that can cool a single room, is standard equipment on most new houses regardless of where they are located (leaving aside Alaska). I live in Wisconsin, in the northern tier of states, and I can assure you this is true, and that many older houses, including mine, are retrofitted for central air. It is true that Chicago suffered some excess deaths during a heat wave a few years ago, but those were confined entirely to the very poorest parts of the city.
Permit me to draw a connection here between the better condition of America’s housing stock, its stronger economy and higher GDP, and its relative lack of government interference in the economy.
- What does this say about the state of socialized medicine in France? This is a nation, after all, that prides itself on its socialized medicine and other social services, but it would appear that these are precisely what failed to prevent so many presumably preventable deaths. It turns out that the nursing homes were grossly understaffed during the August holiday period.
Allow me to suggest a connection between the chronic understaffing of nursing homes and other health facilities in France and incentives to not hire created by all the worker protection legislation there. Allow me to further suggest that the practice of allowing employees to take vacations during August is a reflection of a culture that is focussed more on the needs of the employees than the customers, a classic symptom of either government employment or suppressed competition. Allow me to suggest that the sluggish response to the changed conditions of the heatwave is typical of top-down government-run systems.
→ Continue reading: Heatwave
Yesterday, there was an article in the tabloid section of The Times (which Samizdata does not link to, although the author of the article has also written this book on the subject), on the treatment of the Uighur people in the Xinjiang province in far western China, the point of which was that this (Muslim) ethnic minority have for a long time been treated appallingly badly by the Chinese authorities, that the world largely doesn’t know about this, and that this is bad.
This is all entirely true, and the Chinese authorities are indeed a nasty bunch of thugs, but the point I am getting to is something else. For three quarters of the way through the article I find the following statement
Behind every protest at this treatment, Chinese officials see only the sinister hand of Muslim fanatics, backed by foreigners, plotting to split the motherland. And the screw has tightened since President Bush’s declaration of a war on terror after September 11.
Is it me, or is there something deeply odd about the way this has phrased? Rather than a crackdown occurring as a consequence of September 11 itself, a dreadful atrocity caused by Muslim fundamentalist fanatics, it is somehow the consequence of the fact that President Bush and America has responded to this. (America is maybe guilty of neglect in this case, but somehow implying that it is in any way George Bush’s fault is surely stretching things somewhat). And the fact is the same organisations rooted in Saudi Arabia that funded and spread the fanaticism that led to September 11 are also doing their best to spread that same fanaticism to every Muslim in the world, and very legitimate grievances such as this one are a tremendous source of recruits. Regardless of how badly they have treated their ethnic minorities (and in this case the answer is “extremely badly”) I do understand why the Chinese are worried.
The article goes on
History shows the Uighurs to be pacific, and lax in their religious observance. No doubt there are today some religious fundamentalists inside Xinjiang. No doubt inflammatory literature, not to mention weapons, is being smggled in. Certainly there are militants (especially amongs the young urban unemployed) both inside and outside who would like to overthrow Chinese rule.
But Islam should be seen as the vehicle, not the cause, of Uighur grievances, and separatism as a mark of despair at the lack of citizens’ rights or a share in their own future
This is all largely true as well. The trouble is that it is also true about the forms of Islam traditionally practiced throughout large portions of (non Middle-Eastern) Asia. Islam in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Phillippines and various other places is traditionally relatively moderate and often mixed with pre-Muslim practices. However, the flow of oil-money from Saudi Arabia to the rest of the world has led to a spread of fundamentalism and terrorism to many of these places, and has made it very difficult for the opponents of such fundamentalism to speak out. Wherever there is a grievance, this money and this influence has largely had an influence akin to pouring petrol on a fire. A war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan, which was fighting another very legitimate grievance, somehow evolved into the Taliban.
To be truthful, the situation of the Uighurs is sufficiently wretched that not much will make their situation better short of the complete collapse of the People’s Republic of China. The developed world’s neglect of this particular situation is certainly less than admirable. But a further spread of Islamic fundamentalism to that part of the world may well make it worse, and certainly won’t make it better. And a great many things we can do to minimise that spread are, in my opinion, worth it. And given that the fundamentalism has spread and is spreading mostly from Saudi Arabia, anything that can be done to reduce our dependence on Saudi Arabia and anything that can be done to isolate Saudi Arabia is likely worth it, including the invasion of and occupation of Iraq.
Mr Schwarzenegger has been avoiding stating his proposed policies, to reduce California’s debt mountain, in his play for the California state governorship role, and he’s had a public row with Warren Buffet, his economics adviser, on property taxes. But even if just for Friday entertainment value, check out these latest quotes:
“I feel the people of California have been punished enough. From the time they get up in the morning and flush the toilet they’re taxed.”
Zing!
“I teach my children not to spend more money than they have. That’s what I will teach Sacramento.”
Bosh!
Combine those sound-bites with some he delivered a few days ago:
“I am more comfortable with an Adam Smith philosophy than with Keynesian theory.”
Splat!
“I still believe in lower taxes — and the power of the free market.”
Yowzer!
Ok, until someone can actually nail him down on his policies, we must reserve judgement on the larger-than-life mega-star, especially as he keeps neatly side-stepping the really difficult questions on taxation with a “we can never say never” line. But if you retain even the slightest Churchillian belief that democracy is the least bad of all of the systems of government, things are becoming increasingly interesting in the Golden State.
And Mr Arnold “Arnie” Rimmer, of the future mining space ship Red Dwarf, is certainly getting plenty of newspaper headlines to cut out and keep, to impress all of his friends with!
Is this a case of ‘Do as we say, don’t do as we do‘?
Microsoft has made a big deal out of asserting that Linux is not fit for the enterprise. But Microsoft itself is using Linux to help protect its servers against denial-of-service attacks.
According to a post on the Netcraft Web site, Microsoft changed its DNS settings on Friday so that requests for www.microsoft.com no longer resolve to machines on Microsoft’s own network, but instead are handled by the Akamai caching system, which runs Linux.
An Akamai spokeswoman declined to comment, except to confirm that Microsoft is a customer.
Or just a case of ‘sleeping with the enemy’?
[My thanks to Boris Kuperschmidt who posted this item to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
A little boy called Arran Fernandez that’s who. This lad is clever enough to have caught the attention of the UK Times [No link – you know the drill]:
A BOY of eight has become the youngest person to receive an A at GCSE.
‘A’ is the top grade and the GCSE is a national examination paper for pupils of age sixteen.
As pupils across the country received their results, Arran Fernandez, from Surrey, celebrated the grade awarded for a mathematics paper that he took when he was 7 years and 11 months. Only 32 per cent of candidates – most considerably older – reach the same standard.
So little Arran must be the brainiest kid in his school, right? Wrong. Because little Arran doesn’t go to ‘school’ at all:
Arran, who is also the youngest person to pass a GCSE at any grade – a D in the subject when he was five – is educated at home by his parents, Neil and Hilde.
Another successful product of Britain’s small, but growing, home-school movement, I’d say.
His father, Neil, a political economist who achieved a grade A at O level maths when he was 13, is evangelical about the benefits of home tutoring.
“I believe that every child could do this, given the right encouragement,” he said. “Why are children held back in their earliest years? And why are parents, who are their best educators, discouraged from realising and exercising their ability to teach?”
Because so many generations of parents assigned those abilities over to the state, doubtless believing that the state would do a better job of it. That same state is likely to respond to the increasingly successful reclamation by trying to put a stop to it.
How frightfully decent of those splendid chaps at the Foreign & Commonwealth Office to set up an online-forum to enable the riff-raff to contribute their thoughts and ideas on the proposed EU Constitution.
Registration is a pre-requisite to participation but at least it appears to be cost-free (which is a lot more than anyone can say about participation in the EU itself).
So, is this a genuine effort to solicit and publicise pro-Independence opinion or a potemkin facade calculated to provide a veneer of legitimacy to a decision that has already been made behind doors welded shut?
Another website established by the Foreign Office may hold just a few clues.
[My thanks to Emmanuel Goldstein for both links.]
Are you ready, DVD Sports fans? Are you ready for Lord of the Rings, Part II?
It’s no good, I should’ve been a film star. Ok, so when I was seventeen I was spotty, overweight, and without any acting talent whatsoever, but I should’ve still been a film star. Under a socialist society I would’ve been spotted by now, for being an immense actor of charisma, talent, and conviction, but unfortunately, with society being still unprepared for my raw presence, under the evil rule of Mr Tony Blair, a hammish actor with only a scintilla of my ability to project compassion, emotion, and downright plain falsity, I was doomed to have to work for a living, to pay his bleedin’ wages. Damn!
Should’ve been a politician. → Continue reading: Lord of the DVDs
If only to have something of interest up here today, here’s a New York Times article from yesterday about a TV show which specialises in harrassing celebs.
It seems to me that what viewers of this show are likely to witness is techniques of harrassment and privacy violation applied to somewhat secondary and somewhat unpopular “fair game” type celebrities, which will thereby be established as reputable, or at least excusable, or okay, or done before so what are you fussing about? – for later use by anyone, against anyone.
Television is an efficient biosphere where the perfect predator evolves for every species in the food chain. If reality shows are the coral reef of prime time, then the television-oriented Web site, the Smoking Gun, is its crown-of-thorns starfish.
It was the Smoking Gun (thesmokinggun.com) that revealed in 2000 that Rick Rockwell, the beau ideal of the hit FOX show “Who Wants to Marry a Multimillionaire,” had once been under a restraining order from a former girlfriend. The Smoking Gun, which digs up arrrest records, mug shots, show business contracts and divorce papers, became a tip sheet for journalists and a cult Web site for reality show aficionados. It managed to embarrass seemingly squeaky-clean contestants on reality shows from CBS’s “Survivor” to Fox’s “Joe Millionaire.” (Most memorably, it uncovered the early bondage films of a bachelorette, Sarah Kozer.)
Whoever she is. Which is my exact point. Next in line: non-celebs. Yes, these people are probably fair game. If they can’t take the heat they shouldn’t be prancing about in the kitchen. But who’s next?
I’m not saying shut the damn show down. I’m just, you know, saying.
Blogging is unpredictable. It began as innocent posting by me about the Segway, which is a sort of mobile Zimmer frame, on Transport Blog.
Then Patrick Crozier, presiding boss of Transport Blog, made this rather more profound comment.
I have no idea whether the Segway is a good idea or not. But it strikes me as one in a long list of good ideas eg. bikes, roller skates, the C5, which might have been the answer to all sorts of our problems had it only been possible to give them the right sort of road space.
Take roller skates. Small, fast, relatively easy to learn. They should be fantastic. Lots of people should be using them. Why aren’t they? Because if you skate on the pavement you are constantly bumping into people and if you skate on the road you get run over (if not arrested).
But what if you had dedicated roller skate lanes or even dedicated roller skate highways? Different story – perhaps.
Incidentally, this is one of the most compelling reasons (I think) to want a free market in transport – because if entrepreneurs could do their own thing we might actually find out what forms of transport were actually (given all the factors) the best. We certainly aren’t going to find out so long as the state runs the show.
From the ridiculous to the sublime. → Continue reading: David Sucher on the necessity of states to contrive and maintain “infrastructure”
I’ve read the Daily Torygraph most days now, for the last decade or so, ever since that fateful day I stopped draping myself in the Grauniad every morning, as is the wont of most perennially tax-subsidised students. And pretty much most of the time I’ve found it quite a good newspaper, especially with topics such as its Free Country campaign. On the whole it has also seemed unbiased in its straight news reporting.
But then this morning I find myself staring at a this particular headline, in the news section, covering the changes to the UK’s telephone directory inquiries system:
Callers face chaos and high bills as directory rivals replace 192
For non-UK readers, this concerns the number we always used to phone to get through to directory inquiries. British Telecom, a previously government-owned telecom monopoly since opened up to competition, provided a near-monopoly service on this number, from virtually all fixed lines. → Continue reading: Free market causing chaos again
I defy anybody to refer to this guy as a chickenhawk:
A Danish pizzeria owner who refused to sell pizzas to Germans or Frenchmen because of their governments’ stance on the war in Iraq is to go to prison.
An appeal court upheld the conviction yesterday of Niels-Aage Bjerre for discrimination and his fine of £500. He said he would refuse to pay and will instead spend eight days in jail.
“I will not pay the fine but I’ll do the time instead,” said Bjerre. “It is a matter of principle.”
Now, speaking personally, I regard the boycotting of individuals as rather unfair and petty. Having said that, Mr.Bjerre should not be prosecuted for doing so.
Mind you, I bet if look the word ‘defiant’ up in the dictionary you’ll find this guy’s photograph underneath.
He said yesterday that both the courts and those who had reported him to the authorities were “traitors”.
“The judges have chosen to support those who do not support the official Danish position on the war against Iraq.”
His boycott would end only “if the governments of France and Germany change their attitude toward the United States and support Washington wholeheartedly,” he added.
He’s not just a restaurateur, he’s a neo-restaurateur.
I have just cast my beady eyes over this Stratfor article which, alas, I cannot link to (hefty subscription fee required) but here is the opening paragraph:
France is threatening to veto the consensus that the United Nations Security Council finally should lift sanctions on Libya. In the end, the French position is bluster. France cannot afford the heavy price a veto would levy. While Paris’ anti-American policies are wildly popular at home, they are affecting France in meaningful ways that will continue to impact French prestige, power and the country’s bottom line for years to come.
What follows is a detailed analysis in the impeccably objective Stratfor tradition but I reckon the above is enough to fuel a good-sized helping of thoroughly malicious glee on the other side of the Atlantic.
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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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