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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This IRA versus the McCartneys (aka civilisation) struggle is truly amazing. First a bunch of IRA thugs murder Robert McCartney. Then, in defiance of all precedent, the McCartney family complains, loudly, in public, and demands justice. The IRA obviously cannot allow IRA people to be tried in a court of law, so they offer to shoot the rogue elements who committed the murder. Not good enough say the McCartneys (they are not anarchists, they want it done by the state. I can see their point).
Now one of the leading IRA/Sinn Fein thugocrats, a repulsive exhibit by the name of Martin McGuiness, has perpetrated another public relations clanger:
Sinn Fein has warned the sisters of murdered Belfast man, Robert McCartney, to stay out of politics.
The party’s chief negotiator, Martin McGuinness, told them to “be careful” and not to step over the party political line.
The sisters insist the IRA was involved in the murder with one of them accusing Sinn Fein of taking part in a cover-up.
The family are to fly out to the US on Tuesday to continue their fight for his killers to be brought to justice.
Mr McGuinness said their campaign could leave them open to political manipulation.
He ought to know.
This is not the kind of thing you should tell people who are bereaved, who are good looking (which the McCartneys are, very) and who are on the telly a lot. One of the rules of the modern, TV-dominated world is that bereaved and televised families may say and do whatever they choose and may not be criticised. They certainly cannot be told by a politician-stroke-terrorist not to do politics. But McGuinness is only following another rule, a Northern Ireland rule, which says that if the IRA tells you to shut up, you shut up. So you can see how hard this must all be for him to comprehend. When he issued his warning, he was only doing IRA business as usual.
But business for the IRA is no longer business as usual.
The equally revolting Gerry Adams is now over in the USA, where he usually gets a free ride and choruses of When Irish Eyes Are Smiling. (The BBC showed Clinton and Adams singing along together in happier IRA-USA times.) But this time it is different. Not only have the IRA carried on murdering people. They have also been blamed for a truly enormous bank robbery. President Bush, comparing Adams to Arafat, has told Adams to get knotted, and now not even Ted Kennedy will give Adams the time of day. All of which is just one more little consequence – yet another of those knock-on effects – of 9/11. Suddenly the friends (the IRA) of their enemies (Islamist terrorists) no longer look so appealing to the Americans. They look more closely, and do not like what they see.
Adams was accordingly very much on the defensive. Challenged by the McCartneys, who are also over in the USA drumming up support for their quest for justice, Adams was then shown by the BBC protesting piously that if, God forbid, he had become involved in anything as nasty as the murder of Robert McCartney, then as soon as he had realised the enormity of what he had done, he would have handed himself in to the relevant authority (although he was a bit vague about who that would be exactly) and would have made a full confession. Like hell he would.
Mark Steyn goes into a bit more detail, and has a few more swipes at the IRA. Patrick Crozier (to whom thanks for the link) asks if this is a first for Steyn. Is it?
As Steyn points out, this is a mess which the British and Irish Governments have done a lot to perpetuate, along with all those idiot American IRA-donors. The UK and the Republic have followed a policy of relentless appeasement, and it has not worked. The appeased have taken and taken, and carried right on terrorising.
I have always suspected that if the British Government had said, about a quarter of a century ago, that they would stop even discussing a change in the status of Northern Ireland until the IRA had pretty much ceased to exist, and that if the IRA chose to exist for ever, that would mean Northern Ireland remaining British for ever, that might have settled this thing long ago. But appeasement, for all its fatuities, does at least have the advantage that it makes the nature of the appeased beast unmistakable, and unites all but the most casual of onlookers against the beast. So, now that Bush has changed the rules, the rest of us can all join in and give the IRA the kicking they deserve.
I certainly hope that this is what is now going to happen.
Sometimes, new clusters of immigrants coalesce in London, under the radar of the media, until such time as a whimpering hack from the Review section of some unreadable broadsheet notices that an article provides local colour or anthropological observations, depending upon their political bent.
Whilst at Smart Alec’s in Wimbledon, enjoying a late pint (though disappointed by the fact that Winterwarmer, a fine drink, was no longer on tap as its replacement, Waggledance, is less refined), I started to notice that the entire bar was filled with white immigrants from Zimbabwe, attending a birthday do.
There is no evidence for the length of time that this community has been established or how large it is. Moreover, Googling does not provide any documents for this phenomenon. However, over the last few years, Zimbabweans, many of them thrown off their farms, have travelled to London and set up shop in Wimbledon. The numbers are sufficient for the community to have acquired its own name amongst travellers from the southern hemisphere, Zimbledon.
How many other communities are gradually emerging amongst the suburbs, unnoticed and unlooked for? Does anyone know where the Berbers, the Bugandans or the Shona drink? What are their names for London?
A journalist never reveals his sources – that is the stern injunction issued to any reporters. Reporters have even gone to jail in the past than reveal a source. Journalists who reveal sources are unlikely to be trusted again, and without trust, it is very hard for an ambitious correspondent to grab a great scoop. The problem for me, though, is how can one protect a “source” for a story if there is an allegation that the source stole an item for the story? How does one deal, for example, with alleged theft of industrial secrets? In my view theft trumps the right to keep a source private.
A test case in the United States is pitting three bloggers against Apple computer concerning their release of details about Apple products yet to be put on the market. The Electronic Frontier Foundation is acting for the three bloggers in this case.
Apple’s lawsuit accused anonymous people of stealing trade secrets about the Asteroid music product and leaking them to the PowerPage, Apple Insider and Think Secret websites.
All three are Apple fan sites that obsessively watch the iconic firm for information about future products.
Apple is notoriously secretive about upcoming products which gives any snippets of information about what it is working on all the more value.
The lawsuit to reveal the names of the leakers was filed against three individuals: Monish Bhatia, Jason O’Grady and someone else using the alias Kasper Jade – all of whom wrote for the Power Page and Apple Insider sites.
This case could remind us, rather sharply, that weblogs are as subject to the laws of libel and the rest as any part of MSM. Stay tuned.
I would like to start this posting with a long-windedness warning. Basically I have only recently thought of the notions that follow. The separate bits of these ideas have mostly been present in my mind for quite a while, but the bundling of them is, for me, new. And stuff you are still excited by on account of its extreme recentness is generally the stuff you write least well. Apologies, but there you go, that is blogging for you.
Anyway… here it is. Cough, all sitting comfortably, begin. (Or skip, of course.)
Much is made, and quite rightly, of the empowering effect of the Internet for the little guy. We can all have our blogs and our say.
Recently I have begun to wonder if a similar Internet impact might be about to become unmistakably clear at the very top end of society, the bit where Great Men (as opposed to us little guys) try to have their say.
Great Men trying to have their say?!? But do they not do this already, all the time? Well, yes they do, but they are often either misunderstood or just plain ignored, and often relentlessly so.
I have lost count of the number of times when a Great Man has given what he hoped would be a Big Speech, laying out a major strategy for the months and years to come, only for all the questions from the assembled mob of hacks to ask only about the latest scandal that they have either observed or invented, concerning the petty details of the life of the Great Man. So, what about your wife’s astrologer? What about those crazy daughters of yours? About this intern. About your mortgage. This dodgy land deal you and your wife did ten years ago. How about this National Guard skiving then?
In a kind of hybrid category are the scandals that are less personal but equally demeaning and diminishing, like the scandal of Blair and Bush invading Iraq in pursuit of weapons they knew were not there, or Reagan doing whatever wicked thing he did with the Nicaraguan Contras.
Now I certainly would not want the hacks to neglect such questions. The idea that they should be compelled to ask only about the high and mighty abstractions laid before them in the Big Speech, is repellent not to say totalitarian. But one of my many complaints about our mainstream media is that they have a tendency only to ask the embarrassing questions. The attitude of the mainstream media when reporting a speech given by a Great Man is to look only for clay at the bottom end of his body, rather than to pay any attention to the noises emerging from the top end. → Continue reading: The smartening up of the culture: thoughts on some recent speeches by President Bush
This BBC story tells us that the recent visit by Olympic Game officials to inspect London about its chances of winning the bid to stage games in 2012 cost 680,000 pounds.
Come on ladies and gentlemen, surely you can do better than that. What is the point of being on the Olympic committee if you cannot itemise your bills in the millions? They are not even trying.
It goes without saying that I fervently hope that Britain does not host the event.
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds for pointing me to this horrid little tale:
Reformists Ali al-Demaini, Abdullah al-Hamed and Matruk al-Faleh are also accused of “using Western terminology” in demanding political reforms. They also allegedly questioned the king’s role as head of the judiciary.
There is more to it. Much more. The Saudi’s have changed trial dates to keep reporters out; they have arrested the defense attorney… read the linked article above for more of the long litany of stupidity.
I really wonder how long these people can survive in the modern world. A friend and sometimes co-worker of mine, a member of the old Hashemite line, does not think the Saud’s are among the brightest lights in the Muslim Times Square. This ham-fisted approach to democracy activists seems to show the truth of his belief.
As Glenn and others suggested several years ago, we would all be better off if the cultured and educated Hashemites were once again in charge of Mecca.
In one of his recent entries, Brian Micklethwait referred to that small but intruiging part of historical scholarship, the “what-if” variety, in which writers conjecture what might have happened if a particular event, such as a political assassination or piece of intelligence, had not taken place. What interested me was that one or two comments suggested that this was a pure “parlour game” of no significance and that grown-ups should not bother themselves with such playful nonsense.
Ah, play. The idea that history, philosophy or art could involve play and other frivolous activity is offensive to a certain type of person. I happen to think quite differently. Playfulness is in fact often very useful in the realm of ideas. When a good writer wants to illustrate a point or an argument, he or she can often do so highly effectively through such gambits as a “thought-experiment”, or through borrowing from supposedly unrelated branches of knowledge.
A good example of this was the late libertarian author, Robert Nozick, who shamelessly borrowed from game theory, science and much else to make his arguments. He famously crushed egalitarian arguments for coercively redistributing wealth in his “Wilt Chamberlain” case by showing the injustice of taking wealth from a man who had earned it from the volutantary exchanges of people starting from a completely egalitarian starting point.
Maybe it is a product of puritanical Christianity, but our culture still revolts against the idea that ideas could, and should, be fun. I find that rather odd.
Visiting London without a camera is like visiting the Lake District without climbing boots.
– said to me by this northern lady yesterday in Parliament Square
Kudos to German media watch blog Davids Medienkritik for getting Stern magazine to change its text describing the Italian intelligence officer killed at a US military vehiclular checkpoint as having been ‘murdered’ by US soldiers.
The fact this powerful magazine reacted quickly to David’s sharply critical remarks shows that more and more of the mainstream media are now well aware of the blogosphere’s ability to shine an uncomfortable spotlight on such things.
Nice one, David!
Here are the first two paragraphs of a BBC report about a report, from a Commission:
The UK-led Commission for Africa has urged wealthy nations to double their aid to the continent, raising it by £30bn ($50bn) a year over 10 years.
African leaders need to root out corruption and promote good governance, the commission’s final report says.
I cannot help suspecting that there may be something of a contradiction there, between paragraph one and paragraph two.
Is the way to root out corruption to double the amount of money you are chucking at it? This, it seems to me, might be problematic.
I mean, how do they intend to persuade Africans to refrain from being corrupt? Bribe them?
Patrick Crozier writes about MRSA, which stands for Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus Aureus:
Stephen Pollard mentions MRSA (seems that the government figures are rather dodgy), which got me wondering: is it any better in private hospitals? So, I did a bit of googling and uncovered this, this and this.
And the answer? Yes, it is.
Indeed. The second this gets you to this:
Evidence from a selection of hospitals in Sheffield reveals that a far smaller proportion of private hospitals are being blighted by the infection, which has led people to ask why this disparity exists.
I daresay readers of and writers for Samizdata could come up with the odd reason or two.
“To permit an entire class of political communications to be completely unregulated… would permit an evasion of campaign finance laws…”
The American regions of the blogosphere has been reverberating after Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly stated that blogs must be regulated in order to comply with US campaign finance laws.
However I do not propose to add my voice to the myriad of other commentators decrying this or explaining why it is such a bad idea, as regular readers of this blog can pretty much join the dots to guess The Samizdata Position on that issue. What I will do though is point out that as well as being a threat to freedom of expression, this has huge positive potential as well.
There are few things more corrosive to the power of the state than for it to decree something and then be seen to be unable to enforce its writ. So let Colleen Kollar-Kotelly do her worst. You want to link to a Democratic or Republican campaign site regardless of what regulations say you can or cannot do? Simple… off-shore hosting. Host your blog outside the USA and post using a pseudonym (like maybe “Tom Paine” or “Ben Franklin”) and then link to whoever the hell you want to. Moreover put a banner on your blog saying “This Blog is in wilful violation of US Campaign Laws and there is not a damn thing you can do about it”.
Hell, my ‘inner capitalist’ is whispering in my ear as I write this… I just might talk to some chums of mine who are hosting experts with a view to setting up Samizdata.net branded non-US based hosting, available for bloggers across the political spectrum who want to stick their thumb in the eye of those people who want to control free political expression. Anything which weakens the authority of the state, shows the limits of political power and makes enterprising folks some money whilst helping people to do all that is too good for me to pass up. Yeah, I really hope this travesty becomes law in the USA… stay tuned <evil laugh>
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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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