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]

Big boom in Norway!

This takes some beating for an alarming sub-header for an article:

As Wednesday morning dawned, northern Norway was hit with an impact comparable to the atomic bomb used on Hiroshima

Blimey! At least it happened in the middle of nowhere rather than downtown Oslo.

Still, we all know it was really caused by George Bush  capitalism  McDonald’s  global warming!

It is the cricket season

After a few months of rather dodgy weather, summer has at last arrived in London. The evenings are long, the weather is warm, and the mood is good. It is a lovely time to be outside in the beer garden of a nice pub, with a pint of Kölsh lager or something similar. It would be nice to perhaps spend some of the weekend following up on this: sitting in a pub, watching a little sport perhaps on a TV in a quiet civilized audience somewhere.

Unfortunately, it is a slow weekend from a sporting point of view. International cricket has been going for a month or so. England have already played a three test series against Sri Lanka in which the cricket was rather variable, both sides playing well at some points and quite badly at others. (The eventual 1-1 drawn series was a fair result). There are some one day internationals coming up, but the international season doesn’t get back into full swing until England’s test series with Pakistan commences on July 13. In English domestic cricket, Australia’s cricketing genius on the field and A class idiot off it Shane Warne is playing brilliantly as captain of Hampshire, clearly determined to improve on the second place in the County Championship that the county achieved last season when Warne was largely absent due to being off playing for Australia.

And of course, the peace of the true sporting fan is going to be horribly distracted by the fact that the soccer World Cup is being played for the next month.

In the first few weeks of my first stay in England in 1991, I found that English people would utter the words “Nineteen Sixty Six” into all kinds of conversations, usually spoken in hushed tones remniscent of some sort of religious rapture. I found this deeply peculiar, and after it happened four or five times I finally asked one of these people what had happened in 1966, because the English kept bringing it up in this odd way. The response I got was initially disbelief that I was asking this question (the same sort of disbelief that I would get later when I revealed that I was not intimitely familiar with British politics or minor British television personalities of the early 1970s), and when it was figured out that I was serious it was explained to me that Britain had won the World Cup in 1966, and they were still getting joy out of this. I found this kind of sad, but I let them keep it up. I had had some idea that the English (and indeed other Europeans) had some sort of affection for this game.

Then, as now, I could not treat any of this with even the remotest seriousness. As to why Europe and many other parts of the world are so preoccupied with this stupid game that is disdained by all real men, I have no idea. People kick around a round ball and seldom score goals, but spend an awful lot of time falling over and pretending to be injured. Meanwhile, spectators fight out three thousand years of European ethnic disagreements in the stadium. I am unable to even regard it as a sport. I cannot take it seriously enough even for that.

And the lead up to a major tournament like the World Cup is so ridiculous. Rather than declaring themselves to be chavs by wearing a backwards Burberry baseball cap plus three gold chains and an iPod shuffle outside their shirts as they would in normal circumstances, people declare themselves to be chavs by attaching four England flags to the outside of their cars. It is really awful. The newspapers are full of nothing but the tournament. Conversation is about nothing else. The pubs become full of rowdy people who get aggressive when England (inevitably) lose. I just want to sit outside and drink my pint in the sun, but I cannot.

The most I can hope is that it will be over fast. For that reason I hope that England loses every game 10-0, in order that they are eliminated as quickly as possible and my summer can get back to normal. For the sake of God Almighty do not let England win the stupid tournament. The prospect of them being obnoxious about it for the next 40 years is so horrible that I would have to leave the country. If Sven-Goran Ericsson could also conclude his career as England manager by getting into a bizarre sex scandal with Wayne Rooney, that would be an added bonus. While on that, I would also like to see the Italians eliminated quickly, and hopefully in some really embarassing fashion. When they were elimiated by South Korea in the 2002 tournament they went on to demonstrate that they were the worst losers in all of human history, and I would like to see this again.

As for the event in total, I hope that the United States win it, ideally by beating France in the final. That would be the best possible outcome, as the Americans wouldn’t actually care, the French and the English would, and we would be spared any nation at all from being obnoxious about it for the next three decades, as would be the case in the event of any other winner.

Sadly, my own nation seems to have lost the kind of civilized attitude held by the Americans. Australia have qualified for the World Cup for the first time in 32 years. On the previous occasion when Australia qualified (in 1974), they were given a parade down the main street of Sydney before heading off to Germany for the tournament. On that occasion the team was heckled and whistled at by bystanders for playing a girls’ game, but sadly that sort of attitude is now gone. Australians are watching the tournament with interest, although they wouldn’t pay much or any attention to soccer on any other occasion. Somehow they think that since much of the rest of the world cares about this idiotic event, they should too. I can’t imagine that things in Australia are as bad as here – for one thing I don’t think our bogans will be attaching multiple Australian flags to their white Ford Falcon utes, which is something. However, people are, sadly, watching. I don’t really care one way or another if Australia do well, although in truth they are in quality so far from the decent soccer sides that if will be a good result if they score a goal in the tournament. That said, I rather wish the Australian media left the event in the obscurity it deserves.

For Australians’ mind should be focused, and they should be thinking about something much more important than this trivia. There is an actual sporting event taking place at the end of the year, and this one does matter. The shame of Edgbaston must be expunged. The Ashes must be regained.

When the biter gets bitten

Here is a sight calculated to warm the hearts of anyone who has been bitten by the state’s fetish for surveillance.

Blighted by regeneration

Here is a telling quote from a recent Observer article about violence between (South) Asian and Somali schoolchildren in Birmingham:

‘This issue arises because it is a high density area,’ said Farrukh Haroon, a project worker at the YIP. ‘Communities are scrapping for scarce resources …’

Here is another:

‘It is complicated – there is not one pattern, not one trend and not one answer,’ said Simon Blake from the National Children’s Bureau. ‘But we have to bust these myths about who gets the best housing and how resources are allocated.’

Sorry, Mr Blake, but myths with a core of truth are hard to kill. Communities will always “scrap” for government resources because they are correct in their belief that if group A gets more of the pie then group B gets less. Scrapping, with or without bricks and broken bottles, is an excellent way to get more pie. Nor is it wise to hope for a day when resources are no longer scarce; in most of the country the economy is more sovietised than many countries that not so long ago were actually part of the Soviet bloc. If you will forgive an earthy metaphor, an economy based on drinking one’s own urine can only go on so long.

Laban Tall, commenting on the same article, congratulates the Observer for having finally discovered that not all racism is white on black. I am a good deal more optimistic than he that multi-racial – and even, to some extent, multi-cultural societies can be made to work. Just not where there is socialism.

God help us if the world ever becomes one multi-cultural society under socialism, as it looks as if it might. I forsee a future of low-level suppurating conflicts that never heal because the reason for their existence never goes away.

We have had a foretaste. A recent report that examined the causes of the riots in Burnley five years ago says that the government handing out “regeneration” money in the 1990s created rivalry and anger that helped create the conditions for the riots.

“Positive regeneration had an unintended side effect,” the report says. “Ironically, it contributed to social fragmentation by increasing neighbourhood rivalries …

You know what they say: first you screw up. Then you screw up again in the same way again to prove that it really was a screw-up first time round. You guessed it: Burnley’s problems in 2006 are to be dealt with by handing out regeneration money. But fear not!

Regeneration programmes now cover wider areas and are based on themes, rather than simple ward boundaries.

Themes. Assuredly these themes will make all well and no one will whisper that some communities are more thematically challenged than others and hence are getting more than their share.

However, never let it be said that government always screws up in the same way. Sometimes government screws up in new ways.

Elevate East Lancashire, one of the government’s nine housing market renewal pathfinders, is working – sometimes in the face of opposition from furious homeowners – to demolish inner Burnley’s too many terraces and provide sites for commercial builders to create new homes.

It does not say whether those “furious homeowners” are black, white or brown. It does not matter. Whatever colour their skins they will be embittered by having their homes taken from them for the greater good – the greater good of other people – and in a place blighted by regeneration it takes but the weight of the feather to tip the balance from general bitterness into racial bitterness.

Weapons come in many forms

Some weapons are marvels of technology, such as laser guided bombs or an F-22 fighter. Other weapons however use much older technology, based on something invented by Johannes Gutenberg in 1447. Such a weapon can do more damage to the cause of puritanical Islam than a thousand well aimed bombs.

Samizdata quote of the day

Zarqawi – dead
Rooney – fit
The news does not get any better than that.

– Commenter David Davies (no, presumably not that David Davies)

Abu Musab Zarqawi is dead

Tim Blair is one of the first bloggers to note the killing of Abu Musab Zarqawi – the target of an American bombing raid. I feel a little ghoulish celebrating the death of anyone, however this is brilliant news. Zarqawi’s untouchability had grown into a legend; he represented an on-the-ground inspiration for many would-be jihadis. Many touted him as the true head of al-Qaeda, vital in his position and leading from the front – in contrast to Osama bin Laden – the largely sidelined nominal leader. The removal of this valuable piece from the game is a major coup for American forces.

UPDATE : Iraqi blog IraqTheModel claims

Zarqawi’s identity was confirmed through his fingerprints.

Reports of his death seem a lot more unequivocal this time, as opposed to earlier claims that turned out to be false. The man is almost certainly dead.

Libertarian Democrats?

The Daily Kos has an article about the notion of Libertarian Democrats which attempts top square the circle of favouring government regulation with that of personal liberty. Now before you all snort with derision, at least ‘kos’ attempts to essay a way to avoid the inevitable problems that result from trying to legislate everything.

And that said, the article falls pretty much at the first fence.

The problem with this form of libertarianism is that it assumes that only two forces can infringe on liberty – the government and other individuals. The Libertarian Democrat understands that there is a third danger to personal liberty – the corporation. The Libertarian Dem understands that corporations, left unchecked, can be huge dangers to our personal liberties.

And there you have one of the classical error of the left: the idea that corporations have great power to coerce in and of themselves. Now it is true that corporations often behave disgracefully (no one has ever accused Samizdata of being soft of corporate wickedness or being reflexively well disposed towards Big Biz) but the overwhelming way they do this is by using their vast wealth to manipulate the power of the state in their favour. When the state uses the power of eminent domain to take land from people so a wealthy corporation can profit from it, that is an example of state power. When corporations get subsidies and regulations which make it harder for new market entrants to compete with them, that is an example of state power. When corporations use laws to bust unions and restrict reasonable rights of workers to organise, that is an example of state power.

Large corporations can coerce people because they can manipulate excessively mighty state power. The problem is the amount and scope of coersive power that the state has been allowed to accumulate. Make the state’s power to do things less and you make large corporations less able to coerce people as an inevitable consequence. It is just a variant of the notion that the only way to stop corruption in high places is to get rid of high places. Kos does not have to agree with that (and he surely does not) but then that is one the main notions underpinning what makes a libertarian a libertarian.

And thus it shows that ‘kos’ truly does not understand what ‘libertarian’ really means and so his use of the word is simply a category error. You can coerce a society out from under tyranny (i.e. you can shoot tyrants and hang their retainers) but cannot coerce a society into liberty by just using the power of the state to impose it via state mandates (i.e. the roads and healthcare and all the rest that he advocates, showing that his notion of what ‘libertarian’ means involves large amounts of coercive taxation in no way different to what prevails right now).

In short, ‘kos’ can call himself a Libertarian Democrat if he wishes. He can also call himself a horse if he wishes. However saying it does not make it so.

Google has second thoughts about China

I am delighted that Google seems to be having second thoughts about collaborating with repression by the Chinese state. I realise that it is not easy for a company to walk away from a huge market but if Google does decide to stop aiding and abetting of a vile regime in a very direct manner, they are to be commended fo their change of heart.

Cameron balks at even minor tokens of conviction

The utterly flaccid David Cameron has balked at even the token gesture of pulling his ‘conservative’ party out of the Euro-integrationist EPP in the European parliament. As withdrawal from the EPP would be little more than a minor token that did nothing beyond offer the tiniest of fig leaves to the now completely naked Euro-skeptic remnants within the Tory party, is anyone under any illusions now of his inclination to ‘stand up for British interests’ in dealing with the EU?

As having the Tories ditch the EPP (whose platform includes ‘ever closer union’) was one of the planks of his pitch to win the Tory Party leadership against David Davies, will conservatives who are not pure Blairite (or perhaps even Heathite) now admit they have been screwed (and not in a fun way) and finally decamp from Cameron’s appalling social democratic party?

Holy stealth wings, Batman!

Ok, now this is both cool and a bit wierd.

The whole homosexual marriage issue is simple

Yet again we see on the issue of homosexuals marrying that conservatives and left-wingers are just arguing over whose prejudices the law will validate, rather than should the law validate anyone’s prejudices. Why oh why are people on both sides not calling for the obvious solution to this (non)-issue: get the state out of the marriage business.

We do not require the state to sign off on most contracts between two people, so why should marriage be any different? Sure, let the courts get involved if there are disputes or malfeasance just as it does with any contract (that is what civil courts are for), but by de-politicising the whole institution and treating it as just another civil contract, the whole tedious issue goes away. If religious conservatives choose not to recognise ‘gay marriage’, well fine, that should be their prerogative. If a homosexual couple want to declare to the world they are ‘married’, well how is that the business of anyone but the people involved?