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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After a hard day of wearing a new butt-crease in my chair in our conference room refereeing various committees drafting policies and procedures, allow me to unburden myself of a few pet peeves regarding the use and abuse of the English language:
“Utilization” and “utilize” are a blot on the English language. They are polysyllabic abominations spawned by the regulatory/consulting complex, suffering, as well it should, from an inferiority complex that renders it too insecure to use the perfectly good word “use.”
“Literally” is never used to mean literally. Rather, it is universally used to mean “figuratively,” its exact opposite (e.g. “He literally tore my head off for utilizing bad data in my report”).
Serial commas, by contrast, are God’s gift to careful draftsman, and are scorned only by those too illiterate to comprehend that they do, in fact, serve a purpose.
When, and why, did people stop using two spaces after periods? For that matter, when, and why, do people use apostrophes before every single frickin’ terminal “s” regardless of whether it is possessive? Or should that be irregardless of whether it is possessive?
No peeve too petty, that’s our motto. Readers are, of course invited to submit their own peeves in comments.
There have been recent reports in the media that President Chirac of France has been calling for an end to the arms embargo that the European Community (as then was) placed upon China after the Tiananmen Square massacres.
The French head of state also called for an end to the European Union’s arms embargo against China – imposed after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown on student protesters in Beijing – describing it as “a measure motivated purely and simply by hostility.”
To shed some light upon the abuses that the government in Beijing continues to perpetrate upon its subjects, we can draw upon the eugenic policies followed by that state. The birth control policy of one family, one child was instituted in 1978 under Deng, with fines and forced abortions or sterilisations for those who broke the law. This was reinforced by the eugenics law that identified inferiors as those suffering from genetic disorders or, as reported, belonging to ethnic minorities.
This has provided the legal and cultural authority for local communist cadres to effect coercive campaigns to reduce the fertility of ethnic minorities or conquered peoples. Tibet has proved one of the most resistant regions to Beijing’s determination that they “self limit” their populations. As a Home Office Bulletin quietly reported in 2002:
2.11. One of the main reasons for the continuing high birth rates has been the ethnic Tibetans’ campaigning to exert their right not to be treated like the Han. Tears of Silence, a report published by the Tibetan Women’s Association, in May 1995, outlined the abuses inflicted on Tibetan women during the 1993 campaigns.
2.12. Tibetan campaigning organisations have relayed more recent accounts that Tibetan women have been forcibly sterilised, with local Chinese authorities implementing a three-child, and in some cases even a two-child, maximum policy with forcible sterilisation in some parts of the province irrespective of assurances given to the contrary.
As the bulletin concludes,
2.14. Since the mid-1990s, the mismatch between central policy and announcements, and allegations about local implementation have shown the transmission problems in stark relief. Central PRC Government announcements promise adherence to ethnic minority commitments; but local cadres and officials feel pressure to apply pressure on a highly resistant population in remote areas, who in turn relate their experience through anti-PRC organisations. Co-operation, accountability and verification are missing from the process.
The stark suffering of these families, whose futures have been robbed from them, is hidden by the bureaucratese of the British civil service. Nevertheless, we should remember that the potential of the Chinese economy does not outweigh the wickedness of the Chinese state.
…as Homer Simpson might say when not contemplating donuts.
The always interesting Stacy Tabb has a rather groovy new project called Lab- Tested that does product reviews to determine the ‘dog friendliness’ of various things. Compelling reading for dawg lovers.
When under the pretext of fraternity, the legal code imposes mutual sacrifices on the citizens, human nature is not thereby abrogated. Everyone will then direct his efforts toward contributing little to, and taking much from, the common fund of sacrifices. Now, is it the most unfortunate who gains from this struggle? Certainly not, but rather the most influential and calculating.
– Frédéric Bastiat
The Ottoman Turks
Justin McCarthy
Addison Wesley Longman Ltd 1997
On Horseback Through Asia Minor
Frederick Burnaby
First publ. 1878 (not, as stated 1898), republ. in pb by Oxford University Press, 1996, introduction by Peter Hopkirk.
The Turks have been a European problem for nearly a thousand years. The process began in the early eleventh century when the Seljuk Turks, invaders from south central Asia and converts to Islam, took control of the Abbasid Caliphate in Baghdad. Welcomed as fellow-believers, they rejuvenated the core of the Muslim world. In 1071 they broke the barrier into Asia Minor that the Byzantines had held against Islam since the seventh century. The response of Christendom, the Crusades, was inadequate and misdirected. The Turks were left to consolidate their position and, at the end of the thirteenth century, about the time the Crusaders were being finally ejected from the Holy Land, a small Turkish state was founded by one Osman or Othman in Northwest Asia Minor which by continuous conquest over the next three centuries became, and then for the next three centuries remained, the Ottoman Empire. Nomadic empires normally disintegrated rapidly: the Ottoman Empire was to be the exception.
Professor McCarthy describes and explains the events of these six centuries very satisfactorily, especially for beginners, though the more learned may carp that his text is not cumbered by any notes or bibliography. The maps are adequate and there is a sequential family tree of the sultans (unlisted, however, in the Table of Contents) on pages 45, 75, 160 and 288. If a historian can be both objective and sympathetic, he seems to have managed it, though perhaps by glossing over the devastation of conquest and emphasising the crippling financial restraints imposed by western bankers on sultans desperately trying to modernise a state two or three centuries too late and defend it at the same time.
One reason for the rise of the Ottomans was the destruction of the Seljuk Sultanate of Rum by the Mongols around 1250, and the resulting fragmentation of the Turkish presence in Asia Minor (Anatolia). This setback to Islam had been of no use at all to Christendom, which had been itself fragmented by the activities of Crusaders who had captured and sacked Constantinople in 1204 and then divided up amongst themselves those parts of the Byzantine Empire they could lay hands on. Although the Byzantines recovered Constantinople in 1261, this merely distracted their attention from their Anatolian lands which they had held while waiting for this opportunity. Less than a century later, these were all gone and the Ottomans crossed the Dardanelles to Europe – and stayed there. By 1400 they had conquered most of the Balkans – the territory now Bulgaria, Serbia, Albania and northern Greece – and mopped up Anatolia, cleverly using their Christian subject allies to do so. Even the defeat and capture of the Turkish sultan Bayezit by Tamerlane in 1402 was a mere blip (he turned east, failed to start his project to conquer China, and died in 1405). But the disruption it caused, including a decade-long succession struggle between Bayezit’s four sons, postponed the fall of Constantinople, after an epic siege, until 1453.
→ Continue reading: The rise, decline and fall of an Islamic empire
The new President of Indonesia likes to be thought of as a man of intellect. Recently he held an event where a film was shown which contrasted the view of two thinkers on the role of government.
When asked which thinker he agreed with, the now man now elected President declared that his view was “somewhere between the two”. A typical politician’s reply, so why do I think this man represents ‘progress’ in the political world?
Well the two thinkers in the film were not (say) Karl Marx and J.M. Keynes – the two thinkers shown in the film were J.M. Keynes and F.A. Hayek.
Believe me, in the context of politics, this is progress.
It looks like hundreds of British lawyers will have to repay over £50 m taken from clients in what amounted to ‘referal fees’ (an ethical no-no). I cannot tell you how sad that makes me 
Depress yourself with this:
The Home Office is spending hundreds of thousands of pounds recruiting a PR team to sell the benefits of compulsory identity cards before legislation for the scheme has been before Parliament.
It is advertising for a head of marketing on a salary of up to £66,000 to promote the ID scheme not only to the public but to MPs and public sector groups. Legislation enabling the Government to set up a population database containing the details of every citizen and to begin issuing ID cards in three years is due to be included in the next Queen’s Speech.
From 2007, all new passports and drivers’ licences will double as ID cards. By the time they have been issued to 80 per cent of the country, Parliament will be asked to make the scheme compulsory for all. A programme team has been set up to mastermind the plan, including the testing of the biometric identifiers, such as iris prints, that will be included on the cards.
I recently defended democracy here, but this is its ugly side. I mean, if a majority gets to vote, and if out of that emerges a guy who wants us all to have these ID card things, and if most people have them anyway … what the hell, right? The difference between eighty and a hundred is, democratically, insignificant. But when it comes to liberty, that difference is all the difference.
I have no definite opinions about this alleged coup attempt that alleged Sir Mark Thatcher allegedly aided by alleged Jeffrey Archer (and alleged others) allegedly plotted. I have only now learned that the object of their disaffections was the government of Equatorial Guinea. But I have seen big headlines, and big pictures of Mark Thatcher looking furtive and ashamed. Thatcher himself now apparently denies having anything to do with the alleged plot, but then he would, now.
However, I cannot help noticing that it is being taken for granted that a coup in Equatorial Guinea would have been a self-evidently bad thing.
What kind of place is this? Well, I found some answers here.
The country’s current president, Teodoro Obiang Nguema, came to power in 1979 by leading a self-initiated coup that overthrew Francisco Macias Nguema, Obiang’s uncle and the country’s first president. In 1992, the government adopted legislation establishing a multiparty democracy. Since then, Obiang has been re-elected twice, most recently at the end of 2002, but both times amid opponents’ allegations of election fraud.
Charming. You can see how this guy would be sensitive about coup attempts.
Despite rapid growth in real GDP, there is strong evidence that oil revenues have been misappropriated by the government. Furthermore, the government’s failure to direct oil revenues toward development – especially to fund urgently-needed infrastructure improvements – has undermined economic and social progress in the country. Meanwhile, the rapid increase in public sector spending has increased inflationary pressures, translating into average growth of the consumer price index (CPI) of about 7% annually for the past few years.
Not exactly paradise on earth, is it?
All I am saying is: maybe a coup might have improved things.
It has been a while since I have visited the Dave Barry blog. So I had good reason to hope that when I went back there this evening I would find things of splendour and significance. I did. This, I think, was the best thing I found.
Garry I hate to break it to you. But the world is on the brink of disaster. World crime is at an all time high. And the only thing standing between order … and chaos … is us.
And then, the bit that really got my attention:
From the creators of South Park.
Relax. This is a movie. The world is not really on the brink of disaster. It just has to seem that way for entertainment purposes. It opens, somewhere – in London also perhaps? – on October 15th.
“Hey terrorists. Terrorise this.”
Indeed.
I also found this quite encouraging.
Spiders are more scary than terrorists – at least according to a survey of a thousand Britons released Monday.
Household creepy crawlies frighten Britons more than terrorist attacks, or even death, the survey found.
Which makes sense to me, and fits in with my experience. I am, I feel, far more likely to be terrorised by a creepy crawly than by a terrorist. After all, the War Against Terrorism has, in London, so far, touch wood and hope not to die, been going quite well, in the sense that none of London has been blotted out by terrorists recently.
On the other hand, we all know that the War Against Creepy Crawlies can only ever be a holding operation, and is doomed to eventual failure.
I won’t live in a country where people aren’t allowed to call me a fag
– Brian Tiemann
With thanks to Steven Den Beste for the pointer
The famed Australian cricketer (and much else) Keith Miller has just died aged 84. While idling through some obit-ing about this remarkable man, I came across this amazing throwaway paragraph, seized upon by Tim Blair and included in the original posting, but originally in a comment, here:
After what he went through during the war, cricket always remained just a game to him. He flew Mosquito night fighters. A lifelong love of Beethoven saw him leave his group during a raid over Germany and fly a further 50 miles to Bonn, where he flew low, at some risk, over the city – just to see the place where his hero was born…
I had no idea that Keith Miller cared anything for such things as Beethoven, let alone that he cared that much. (And I am guessing that he did not endanger anyone else’s life besides his own, right? Perry?)
It is truly amazing how much new stuff you learn about people when they die.
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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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