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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Our government is determined that we shall be numbered and identity carded no matter how long it takes or how much opposition has to be ground down, and if they can’t do it by persuading adults, they’ll do it by habituating (and I can think of ruder words than that) children.
Every child in England is to be given a credit card-style ID number in reforms aimed at preventing a repeat of the murder of Victoria Climbie, the Government has announced.
The long-awaited Green Paper on children’s services also included a proposal to create a Children’s Commissioner for England, whose job it will be to speak up for under-18s and ensure their views are “fed into” Government policy.
It set out a large number of changes to the structure of children’s services, which will see education, health and social care combined and dispensed from neighbourhood schools.
Tony Blair said the proposals were a “significant step” towards ensuring there was no repeat of the Climbie case.
One thing is very certain about this new ID numbered world which they are determined to create. It will still contain outbursts of evil like Victoria Climbie’s murder. ID numbers won’t stop that. → Continue reading: ID numbers and Hidden Europe
The public wants compulsory ID cards, but doesn’t like their cost, says Stephen Robinson of the Telegraph:
The public overwhelmingly supports the idea of compulsory identity cards, says a YouGov opinion poll published today in The Telegraph. But it strongly objects to having to pay £40 for them.
Seven per cent of those asked were so opposed to the cards that they said they would refuse to acquire or carry one. This suggests that if the Government introduces legislation for cards this year, as expected, the police would have to act against some three million “refuseniks”.
In other words, the costs of compulsion could be a lot greater than the public now realises. When the public realises a few years down the line that the benefits of it aren’t that great either, how will they feel then? Let’s hope we can explain the meagreness of those benefits to them now, soon enough to stop this thing.
The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule.
– H. L. Mencken
A report in The Times suggests that the Police Superintendents’ Association (PSA) will this week call for a compulsory national DNA database. Kevin Morris, chairman of the PSA, insisted that “people were not as fearful as politicians believed”.
He’s wrong.
The article also stated that Big Blunkett hopes to announce this month that he is to go ahead with his plan for compulsory National Identity Cards for innocent British citizens.
Call me cynical but I suspect a smokescreen. The row over a compulsory DNA database could obscure the arguments over Identity Cards. The tactic appears to be to set up the DNA database as a bogeyman so that compulsory ID Cards don’t seem as bad.
Now is the time to write to your MP about Identity cards. Next month could be too late.
Partly cross-posted from The Chestnut Tree Cafe
I can not tell whether this is real or a joke. It could very easily be both of course.
Fuss has recently been made about an amphibious sports car, which seems genuine enough, if rather extravagant. But this, linked to by BoingBoing, is an amphibious bus, and is strictly for the luxury end of the bus market:
John and Julie Giljam, a married couple from South Carolina, created a first-class motor coach that doubles as a yacht.
The Terra Wind is an amphibious 42 ½ foot motor home. The RV can cruise down the highway at 80 mph, and when it hits water it becomes a yacht … with just a few maneuvers.
What it looks like when in water is a drowning bus caught in a flood. I seriously wonder how seaworthy it is. So how well is it doing?
The Giljams said there has been a lot of interest in the amphibious motor home. They plan to show it off at boat shows, RV shows and yacht shows.
Oh dear. “A lot of interest.” They “plan” to show it off at shows. This is salespeak for no one wants to buy the bloody thing. → Continue reading: Floating luxury bus anyone?
That’s RFID as in Radio Frequency Identification for Business.
News.com’s Eric Peters explains the point which RFID has now reached:
Earlier this summer, Wal-Mart announced that by January 1, 2005, radio frequency identification technology would become a requirement for doing business with the world’s largest retailer. A line was drawn in the sand: RFID was going to happen.
More recently, Wal-Mart said it would not put RFID technology in retail stores, and a flurry of “not ready for prime time” RFID responses followed. But Wal-Mart’s retreat from shelf RFID tags neither suggests a retreat on its earlier commitment to RFID nor a signal for the halt of adoption.
Product level RFID tagging may be years away, but a technology inflection point has been reached. Many companies are now extremely interested in the technology, and the potential is just too attractive to ignore. Globally, RFID will not sell more razors or bars of soap. What it can do, however, is redistribute the market share of the different companies that sell razors and bars of soap.
The costs of not making your supply chain RFID-compliant far outweigh the costs and obstacles of implementation. As with other high-impact technologies, the early adopters will get a disproportionate share of the wealth, and the laggards will be the companies who suffer lost market share.
So RFID (like surveillance cameras) is (are) here to stay, and will have to be lived with.
My thanks to David Sucher of City Comforts Blog for emailing me about this piece.
Every time there is even a semi-serious debate in this country about the provision of health care and reform of the NHS, the reactionaries cry ‘Do we want to be like America?’. It is the British equivalent of ‘Do you want Farmer Jones back?’.
Well, do want to be like America?
Patients who have major operations on the National Health Service are four times more likely to die than Americans undergoing such surgery, according to a new study.
The difference in mortality rates was blamed on long NHS waiting lists, a shortage of specialists and competition for intensive care beds.
One of these fine days, that plaintive, theatrical and bogus rhetorical bleat is going to result in a resounding ‘yes’.
Dot com. The phrase is synonymous with failure and self-delusion. But some people are making money out of the internet, even if it is only the city slickers who set up this deal.
Lastminute.com announced yesterday it had raised €103m (£74.6m) through a placing in convertible bonds which the online travel agent will use to continue its acquisition spree and develop products.
The rapidly expanding company said last month that it expects to post its first net profit by 2005. It has spent about £98m in the last two years on purchases, including the acquisition of the travel company Holiday Autos.
The bonds, which will mature in 2008, will convert into shares of Lastminute.com at 364.5p, 28 per cent more than Monday’s closing price, the company said in a statement.
Well I don’t know what all that means, but it sounds to me like someone reckons that lastminute is doing some real business.
My reaction to the story was to go myself to the lastminute.com website itself, which I’d never got around to doing before. A tenner for a theatre ticket? Hey, these guys are ticket touts! (Of the nice kind, who lost their bet.) I might have some of that myself, and then maybe I could write about it and double my theatre-going pleasure. Normally London theatre is nearer thirty quid, which is beyond what I’ll pay for something that only might be excellent.
The internet continues to work its economic magic. It isn’t just for give-it-away pulpiteers like us.
Freedom is a basic value but its champions and its expression will appear in many different forms. White Rose, understandably, has recently concentrated on the technological developments that may undermine our civil liberties, in conjunction with the connivance of the authorities.
Other freedoms include the capability of fulfilling one’s desire to pursue research in the sciences, whether natural or social, without suffering repression from the state. Abdolkarim Soroush, a noted Iranian intellectual, can claim to be the founder of studies on the history and philosphy of science in Iran. However, as the biography on this website delicately notes,
Soroush’s lectures in this mosque continued smoothly for six years. Then owing to certain sensitivities, the weekly programme was suspended and attempts to resume them have so far proved unsuccessful.
Soroush was one of the moderate supporters of the 1979 revolution who attempted to find an Islamic structure that would support his religious beliefs and the values of academic research that he had learned in the West – a project similar to that professed by President Mohammed Khatami. However, his historical writings stressed the contingent nature of Islamic knowledge and invited attention… → Continue reading: Reaffirming the Freedom to think
Over at Instapundit, Glenn Reynolds has linked to a fascinating paper on Orientalism. The paper, a debunking of Edward Said’s anti-Western/Eastern-victim diatribe, is to be found on the web site of the admirable Institute for the Secularisation of Islam.
Besides duking it out with an icon of the victimology crowd, Ibn Warraq also presents a fascinating history of the interactions of Europe and the Middle East. It is quite long but well worth the read.
Be sure to put the kettle on before you start!
Report in today’s Telegraph:
Tony Blair is facing a Cabinet revolt over the introduction of compulsory identity cards as senior ministers press him to tone down his radical agenda in the run-up to the next general election.
Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, and John Prescott, the Deputy Prime Minister, are leading the Cabinet opposition to the cards. They would cost individuals about £40 each and would be required before any of the benefits of the state could be obtained.
You get a Poll Tax feel about this, don’t you? I don’t know if Brown and Prescott really, really object to compulsory ID cards. But they do make a very good stick to beat Blair with just now.
There is a good interview with Bruce Schneier in Businessweek, discussing whether tradeoffs of civil liberties for increased security are effective (generally no) and the problems of overreliance on technology rather than common sense. I have written here about Schneier before. Suffice to say he is a very smart guy – a leading expert on electronic security – and it is worth paying attention to what he says.
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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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