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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While elections for the British national government are not due until 2006, there are lots of less important elections. This week, we get to vote for the mayor of London, various other local government positions, and for the European parliament. As television and radio political advertising is illegal in Britain (yes, really) we are not bombarded with media political campaigning the way people are in the US or in my native Australia. But one gets to see bits of campaigning just the same.
As it happens, I was today having lunch in a cafe in Tottenham Court Road in central London. As I was doing so, a large open topped double decker bus with lots of balloons on it, and various people standing on top came down the street. Yes, it was the RESPECT coalition, George Galloway’s bunch of anti-war anti-American anti-Blair pro-Saddam Hussein idiotarians. And there was George himself standing on top.
Delightful. I was sitting in the sun, having a pleasant lunch, and I was given the added opportunity to make rude gestures at George Galloway, which I proceeded to do. I would have also liked to have shouted something along the lines of “Go to prison you treasonous money grubbing genocidal dictator loving scumbag” or something like that. However, I was sitting with an Arab friend of mine with whom political discussions are sometimes interesting and who had been nice enough to pay for my mushroom ravioli, and I really didn’t want to cause a scene.
Sadly, the belt buckle on my digital camera’s case recently broke, and as a consequence I did not have the camera with me and I thus did not manage to get a photograph of this tremendous piece of political action. Remind me to get the strap fixed.
A year ago, the student union at the University of St Andrews denounced the Royal Bank of Scotland, along with a plethora of other companies and products, for being unethical. The arguments were generally spurious. In the case of RBS, it involved the fact that they had invested in or given bank accounts – or something – to biotech companies, if I remember correctly. RBS was the most unethical banking choice students chould make, the union claimed.
At around the same time, the Left, led by the One World Society, ran a referendum campaign on whether the union should only invest ethically. The union had already decided to only follow the ideas of ethical investment, but they wanted the student body to vote on it in a referendum so that it would get more publicity. Over 90% of voting students were in favour.
A year later, the union has evaluated its financial position, and has decided to move its money into an “ethical fund”.
With the Royal Bank of Scotland.
“Don’t become a novelist; be a statistician, much more scope for the imagination.”
-a cartoon man drawn and given a voice by Mel Calman in How to Lie with Statistics
“Our landings in the Cherbourg-Havre area have failed to gain a satisfactory foothold and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based upon the best information available. The troops, the Air and the Navy did all that bravery and devotion could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone.”
– Memo composed by General Eisenhower, 5 June 1944.
Today, we commemorate one the most glorious chapters of German arms: the lightning-fast response of 21 Panzer Division to Eisenhower’s overconfident thrust, a response that rolled up the British left flank and culminated in the annihilation of the British and American invaders.
How appropriate it is that, lacking the the confidence in race-destiny that comes so naturally to the Germanic peoples, the Allied commander had actually composed his memo taking responsibility for failure beforehand!
Despite the somewhat tense international situation, the commemorative ceremonies have proceeded with our customary German precision. It is certainly a sign of how the bitter memories associated with the dawning of the atomic age over Hamburg, Smolensk and Manchester all those years ago have faded that for the first time we have welcomed to our remembrance the President of France, speaking from Vichy by audio-visual link, and the General Secretary of the British Communist party speaking from London. Many have seen in this technical and political triumph a sign of a possible convergence between the two great systems, National Socialism and Communism, that currently dominate our world.
There is now an NSS Chapters blog online. It is just in its infancy but could become a very useful source of information for the whole space community.
I had several chats with George Whitesides, the new NSS Executive Director, about the need for such a beast and am pleased to see it happen.
I will be reporting on my six weeks on the airways as soon as I have my film developed.
This is the question exercising the chancelleries of the European Union, as well as the larger horizons of the Beltway. However, one position concerns the elected leader of the free world; the other is the appointed non-entity of the slow-motion car crash vacuuming the vestiges of freedom in Europe.
Who should be the next president of the European Commission? You could argue that the whole enterprise is irredeemably corrupt, and should instill an appropriate reflex: fight or flee. Nevertheless, in the real world, what would be the preferred qualities of any candidate?
Dennis MacShane, Britain’s Minister for Europe, has outlined a few:
MacShane said the successor to Commission President Romano Prodi, who EU leaders hope to name at a summit in Brussels later this month, need not be a former EU leader. “He has to be able to communicate a vision of Europe, he has to see himself not as Europe’s king but as its servant, and he does not necessarily have to be a prime minister,” MacShane said.
“A strong commissioner or a strong minister would probably be the best choice,” MacShane said. “A Commission President must also not be seen as anti-American,” he added.
The candidate should have strong political experience and international influence; the ability to communicate well; and the desire to draw the United States of America and Europe closer together. As a libertarian, I would prefer to see a political and economic liberal who shows an understanding of and a willingness to argue for free trade and welfare reform, two areas where the EU has failed to progress, with deadly consequences for Africa and Asia.
Do the current candidates fit the Bill? If any reader has ever heard of and thinks that Guy Verhofstadt, Jean-Claude Junckers, Wolfgang Schuessel or Chris Patten are promising candidates, stop reading now and go seek professional help.
The European Union has an opportunity to demonstrate that it will choose the next President of the Commission on merit. That is why these obscure clones from the European parasitical classes should be ignored. They should appoint an American, one person who is more liberal and more right than the current crop: Step forward:
William Jefferson Clinton
Four people were bragging about how smart their cats are. The first was an Engineer, the second an Accountant, the third was a chemist, the fourth was a Government Worker.
To show off, The Engineer called to his cat, T-square, do your stuff. T Square pranced over to a desk, took out some paper and pen and drew a circle, a square, and a triangle.
Everyone agreed that was a pretty smart cat, but the Accountant said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, Spreadsheet, do your stuff. Spreadsheet went out into the kitchen and returned with a dozen cookies. He divided them into 4 equal piles of 3 cookies each.
Everyone agreed that was really good, but the Chemist said his cat could do better. He called his cat and said, Measure do your stuff. Measure got up, picked up a 500ml graduated cylinder, walked over to the fridge, took out a litre of milk, got a 300 ml glass from the cupboard, measured and poured exactly 275 ml of milk into the glass without spilling a drop.
Everyone agreed that was good too. Then the three men turned to the Government Worker and said, “What can your cat do”?
The Government worker called to his cat and said, Coffee Break, do your stuff. Coffee Break jumped to his feet, ate the cookies, drank the milk, pooped on the paper, screwed the other three cats, claimed he injured his back while doing so, filed a grievance report for unsafe working conditions, put in for compensation, and went home on sick leave.
[My thanks to Dr. Chris Tame who posted this to the Libertarian Alliance Forum.]
One of the better ways to learn about policy trends, in any policy area, in any country, is to read something by someone who disapproves.
This article, about what its author thinks is wrong with all the various directions which Indian education is heading in, reads to me like a catalogue of all that is right about it.
Two trends in particular struck me as especially encouraging. First this:
A self reliant India needs very different intellectual support from the kind of intellectual labour envisaged by a government that in its enthusiasm for selling out to multinationals could only dream of bringing some outsourced functions of these multinationals into our country. …
“Self reliant” reads to me like “futureless backwater”. So, what I take this to mean is that Indian education is now turning out people who are very employable indeed, and on the world market where the real money is to be made and where so much of India’s economic future will be created.
And second, there is this:
A self reliant and democratic India also needs its citizens prepared for the globalised world not as cogs in the wheel, fulfilling some technical function, but as thinking beings able to defend and safeguard democracy. …
… which the guy put in italics of his own, meaning that this was his biggest point. “Preparing for the globalised world not as cogs in the wheel” sounds to me like preparing them against the globalised world. So what this all says like to me is: “The education system isn’t turning out enough political mischief-makers.”
There is also much complaint in this article about “para-education”, which sounds to me like free enterprise education, rather than the state-provided shambles which most Indians were stuck with until recently.
So, then: India doing really well. This has been one of the decade’s great Global Stories. Long may the story continue.
During the last few days, the British media, all of them, have been making much of D-Day, and quite properly so. The survivors from among those who fought that day who still remain with us now will mostly be gone ten years hence, so now is the last big moment of public thanks and public acknowledgement for these gents. And today will surely not pass without further mentions here of the sacrifices made on June 6th 1944, and the great purposes for which those sacrifices were made.
But the bit of the story that I keep thinking about is … the weather. How pleasing that one of our great national obsessions should have proved so extremely pertinent, at that time of all times.
The story is well known. The weather during the first few days of June 1944 was vile, and Group Captain Stagg, the man whose job was to analyse and present the weather news to those in charge of Operation Overlord, was the bearer of these bad tidings. On June 4th, D-Day, ready to happen on June 5th, was postponed, because of the weather, by one day.
But it could not be postponed for much longer than that. Too many men were revved up to go. A serious postponement would do dreadful things to that most crucial of military variables, morale.
Then, the miracle. Stagg discerned a magical moment of calmness in the middle of the weather system that was causing all the headaches, and through the eye of this meteorological needle Supreme Commander Eisenhower was able to thread the Normandy Landings. And they were all the more of a success for the fact that the Germans knew for certain that they just could not be done when they actually were done. As it turned out, the weather for D-Day was perfect, and all the more perfect for having seemed to be so imperfect.
My main purpose here is not to salute those ageing D-Day survivors, although I do salute them in passing, of course I do. No, the point I want to make here is that weather forecasting is one nationalised industry that really does seem to work, and to have been working well for some time now. → Continue reading: Weather forecasts are up there with dentistry
Compared to the length of time it took to hike up the taxes on tobacco, alcohol and petroleum, the great ‘junk food’ shakedown has been completed in remarkably quick time. HMG is clearly honing its modus operandi down to a fine art: [note: link to UK Times may not be available to readers based outside the UK]
BRITAIN’S biggest food companies are to be told by the government to pay an “anti-obesity” levy to fund new sports centres or face punitive laws restricting advertising, marketing and labelling.
Firms such as McDonald’s, Walkers and Cadbury Schweppes are to be asked to contribute tens of millions of pounds towards the sports facilities. The government is set to provide £1m for the scheme for every £3m pledged by the food industry. It will be used to build sports centres, gyms, football pitches and tennis courts.
The food industry confirmed this weekend that it was preparing to co-operate with ministers and could provide hundreds of millions of pounds to fend off regulation.
Of course, I knew this was coming but not even I was prepared for the ugly truth to be revealed quite this rapidly. The Treasury must be desperate for the cash. → Continue reading: The big pay off
When Ronnie wrote his letter to the people telling them that he had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s, I didn’t really know or understand what that meant. I really didn’t. But I found out. Those with Alzheimer’s are on a rocky path that only goes downhill. Ronnie’s long journey has finally taken him to a distant place where I can no longer reach him. We can’t share the wonderful memories of our 52 years together, and I think that’s probably the hardest part. And because of this, I’m determined to do what I can to save other families from this pain. And now science has presented us with a hope called stem cell research, which may provide our scientists with many answers that have for so long been beyond our grasp. I just don’t see how we can turn our backs on this.
– Nancy Reagan, speaking last month.
President Ronald Reagan has just passed away about an hour ago.
One of the few politicians that went into politics because they believed in something. This was a president who in his inaugural address in 1981 said:
Government is not the solution, it’s the problem.
He will also be remembered as the Vanquisher of Soviet Communism, whatever the revisionists of all flavours may say.
Rest in peace.
Update: For more information here. Some notable quotations from Reagan here.
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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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