So Jesus and Moses walk into a bar. They take a moment to look around. After a moment they look at each other and breathe a sigh of relief. Moses looks at Jesus and says, ‘Thank God that Mohammad isn’t here. This joke could have led to riots.’
– Anonymous in a comment thread on Heliocentric is the hardest word
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September 23rd, 2006 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Is a credit card. But James, I hear you cry, the availability of capital credit supercharged Western civilisation’s development through the Renaissance and beyond, and a credit card is an instrument of a developed debt market – arguably the most socially beneficial institution we possess! Have you gone quite mad? No, dear reader, just clumsy; I meant to write that the most ill-considered banking product ever devised is this credit card. It is a National Australia Bank (NAB) Visa Mini – confoundingly counter-intuitively, this card’s most notable feature is that it’s about half the size of a conventional credit card. Apparently this distinction alone will irresistibly and relentlessly reel in the target demographic – fashion conscious twenty-somethings (I think that might include me!) – but NAB has other slick devices in store to simultaneously deliver a KO in the coolness heavyweight championship of the banking world whilst obfuscating the somewhat steep interest rate levied on any transactions billed. So let us dive in to this treasure-trove of modé. Before our young charges sally forth and actually use their Visa Mini cards to – you know – buy stuff, they need to know that The Bank wants them to be creative and flamboyant in the way they carry their card on their person, so it has thoughtfully provided some accessories to give each trendy young Visa Mini cardholder a dash of inspiration. Why not hang your Visa Mini on your mobile phone using the purpose-built attachment, o budding sophisticate? Does it look cool, and it is also great for the person who finds your misplaced Nokia; if they exhaust your mobile credit telephoning Siberian astrologers, they’ll be thanking their lucky stars because instant replenishment is quite literally on hand! Now that is convenience. Of course, NAB’s not saying we should trade the security for the superfabulous – ho ho, quite the opposite! Just read the small print on the “accessories” page (linked above):
Yes, yes, excellent advice. The long strap should come in handy for that. See? And where would we be without a safety clip? Silly question. For the truly elite – the style aristocracy – why not subtly incorporate the Visa Mini into a piece of bespoke jewellery, like so? Yes, it probably would require less effort to don a prominent sign displaying “ROB ME” painted in large flourescent letters and then wander down the darkest, dodgiest backstreet alley in an effort to discover a smackhead suffering profound withdrawal symptoms so you can shove your Visa Mini between his chattering teeth. But that’s simply not how they do it in Europe, philistine. So, point made and henceforth disregarding your obvious shortcomings, I’m sure by now your head is no doubt spinning with credit card couture-related possibilities. Yet do try to keep up, because what if I threw a choice of “five must-have metallic colours” into the mix? Yes, you heard the man – he said “must-have”. So that’ll be five Visa Minis for you, sir? Madam? Thought so – the experienced eye can always pick the slave to fashion! → Continue reading: The most ill-considered banking product ever devised September 22nd, 2006 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have a technical question… the comment forms on Samizdata have formatting buttons for the text, but alas these only appear to work for people using Internet Explorer. Does anyone know of a pop-up comment system we might be able to use which will allow push-button formatting to function in IE and Firefox, plus allow us to use our groovy graphics and is compatable with an anti-spam Turing test/captcha system similar to the one we have… all of which would work within Moveable Type (TypeKey is not an option)? September 22nd, 2006 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
The recent typically well mannered coup d’etat in Thailand has been loudly depreciated by the usual people, with calls to ‘return to democratic government’ being made. But in truth in places like Thailand (or Turkey), the military acts as an informal check on the untrammelled political power of democratically elected politicians, rather like the Supreme Court in the United State or (theoretically) the House of Lords in the UK. Just as the Supreme Court regularly thwarts the ability of impeccably democratically elected politician to pass laws pandering to the vox populi without howls for a ‘return to democratic government’, the military in Thailand is there to stomp on over-mighty politicos who try and break the commonly accepted boundaries of ‘the system’. Well mannered coups are (usually) the norm in Bangkok and should be thought of as a sort of common law ‘House’ of Lords engaging in a political ritual , rather like Black Rod bagging on the door of the Commons, it is just that the Thai ritual involves parking tanks and armoured personnel carriers in front of TV stations. I take no position on whether of not this particular coup was a Good Idea as I just do not follow the day to day realities of Thai politics closely enough to make an informed guess, but the idea of the military acting as a check on democratic civilian government when conducted like this is really not offensive to me. I just see it as different sort of Supreme Court… with tanks. September 22nd, 2006 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
By every measurable standard, interest and participation in the established political system is in freefall decline. Political parties of state who, only a generation ago, could boast of membership numbers in the millions, can now barely muster a few hundred thousand between them. The most apparent and immediate effect of this is a funding crisis, with both of the main parties now teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. But, on the other hand, who needs voluntary donations when you can help yourself to some dollops of tax:
There, problem solved. Can’t get people to give their money to you voluntarily? Then simply take it from them whether they like it or not. It’s not as if they will object or anything:
Want it? Why, they are crying our for it, demanding it, begging in the streets for it. In fact, I have no doubt that, within days, an ‘opinion poll’ confirming 100% public support for this measure will be cheerfully announced by every media outlet in the nation. Ms. Blears will assuredly get her way. After all, we have a political establishment whose main (and perhaps even sole) preoccupation is now its own survival. In truth, it is a rotting carcass rolling around on its death bed gasping for a few more lungfuls of sweet oxygen. A crisis of funding is easy to solve, if you have political power. A crisis of legitimacy is rather harder. September 22nd, 2006 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
I know that the West’s struggle against communism in the twentieth century was merely a blip on the historical radar, whereas the struggle of Islam against all other cultures has been a constant of human history for almost 1400 years. September 21st, 2006 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
He said to them, “But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don’t have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one”. – Jesus Christ, according to Luke 22:36 (New International Version) September 21st, 2006 | 29 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was all set to concoct a posting called something like “Why I am not a Christian – reason number seventeen” ho ho, about how you can’t expect much in the way of a robust defence of Civilisation against Islamic barbarism from people whose basic belief about their enemies is that they should love them, turn the other cheek, etc. And then (via Instapundit) comes this:
Carey even launched a new word, or at any rate one I’ve not heard before: “Westophobia”. Don’t get me wrong, Carey perpetuates as many clichés as he challenges. For instance:
Perish the thought. But at least …
Simple, I’d say. The founder of Islam believed strongly in violence, was himself very good at it, and recommended it enthusiastically to his followers. They have obliged, century after century after century. But still, you can feel the Western brain cells being rubbed together. See also – another example among many – this rather blunter pronouncement along similar lines. And, for a response to all this moderate Muslim guff, see also this recent blog posting from Peter Saint André. The idea that the West’s response to the Islamic challenge will only ever consist of the first hasty and opposed responses to 9/11, which were entirely what people already thought – “We all ought to get along better”, “We are provoking them”, “They must become more democratic”, and so on – is very foolish. The West – a vague label I know but it will serve – is the most formidable civilisation that the world has yet seen. It has faced down several recent and major challenges to its hegemony, and it will face down this one, I think, with whatever combination of sweet reason and cataclysmic brutality turns out to be necessary to get the job done. This challenge now seems bigger than the earlier ones. But they always do at the time, don’t they? I cannot find on the internet the full text of Carey’s speech. If it can all be linked to, my apologies for suggesting otherwise, and could someone else please supply a link?. If it cannot be linked to, then, given the incendiary nature of this debate, this is an error that should be speedily corrected. The technology is now in place to spare us from having to rely on journalists to tell us what is in potentially important pronouncements of this sort, and it should be used. UPDATE: Link to the full Carey speech. Thanks Julian. September 21st, 2006 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
I dislike ‘push’ advertising, no, I hate ‘push’ advertising and go out of my way to avoid products advertised in ways that annoy me, the sort that tries to shove what you are doing aside and force their goddamn product in your face… and a prime example is those web banners advertising animated ‘similes’ that play audible intensely annoying sounds as you are browsing, shouting “Say something! What?” at you. My usual response is to rather pointlessly yell “Piss off!” at my monitor. I regularly and quixotically write to websites running these accursed advertisements and tell them I will never return as long as they run audible advertisements. One site did agree they were unacceptably intrusive but sadly a couple weeks on they are still running the damn things. Does anyone know of some way to turn off unsolicited sounds in Internet Explorer so I do not have these moronic things inflicted on me when I arrive on some site?    September 20th, 2006 | 54 comments - (Comments are closed)
In the most spineless demonstration of inadequate journalism we get the following report from the Times Higher Education Supplement.
This is either ignorance so vast that it clearly indicates the man should not be employed by York or else a deliberately misleading set of statements driven by a political agenda. Firstly, as any half-arsed tyro knows, evidence of association is not evidence for causation. Thus, in particular, we do not know that [high] class and income cause qualifications, indeed the reverse causation might hold: qualifications make people rich. Secondly, even if the causative link might be asserted, where does this leave the universities? In order to widen access they should accept those with poor education, because they have been discriminated against. Ignoring issues about positive discrimination this can only be true up to a point-or should they accept the innumerate to do mathematics and the illiterate to study English? “No, no, don’t be ridiculous” Professor Gorard would say, “two A levels rule that out. Look at the Open University”. Well, I do look at the Open University. Ignoring the fact that in my subject an Open University degree is not taken to be evidence of high ability, the OU (as I am sure Gorard knows) has a requirement for a Foundation Year. And this is intended to make up for the absence of standard academic qualifications at a reasonable level. Why do I get the feeling that Professor Gorard (a former teacher of maths and computer science who is quoted as saying on his appointment “I want to help build a centre of excellence for research on the effectiveness and equity of education systems.”) views equity as meaning “without regard to proven ability”? I do not argue that wealth or class (whatever that means these days) does not help a child, I am sure it does. My problem is that opening the Universities to anyone with 2 Es at A level does not redress the balance. This is just another way to hide the rolling avalanche of failure that is (the average of) state education in the UK. It is not the (semi-private) universities’ job to fix the inadequacies of the pre-18 education system. If we attempt to do so, then we do so at the cost of miserably failing to train the top 10%. In a few years we have lost our research base and then we are stuffed. No industry, no educated ‘elite’, nothing to give us an economic edge in anything. This is the route that the USA has partially gone down, and they only stem the rot by recruiting able PhD students from overseas. Reposted from ‘Canker’ September 20th, 2006 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Undermine human dignity” – this is the sort of language that the Geneva Convention is written in. Very noble to want to stop such things no doubt, but what do the words actually mean? Is it undermining human dignity to make enemy captives dress in prison uniforms? Some of the IRA prisoners in Ulster certainly thought so – and starved themselves to death to make their point. How about being questioned by a women – Islamic prisoners may well hold that to be undermining their dignity. What is a tough interrogation and what is torture? Should the line be left vague (perhaps to be decided by some international “court” hearing a case against American interrogators later) or should the line be set down clearly in law in advance? If the line should be explained, in law, in advance – what words should be used? President Bush suggests using the words already used in the anti-torture statute passed by Congress last year. Those words were thought up by Senator John McCain and the opposition to using these words (indeed any words) to define what the vague Geneva Convention means is being led by – Senator John McCain. The above is what is going in Washington DC in relation to the Geneva Convention. But you are not likely to see such a report on any British television station, or hear on any British radio station or read it in any British newspaper (no matter how ‘conservative’), as far as the British media are concerned President Bush is a beast (as well as a moron) who wants to torture people and hates the Geneva Convention, and Senator McCain is a saint. As for the arguments of Senator McCain and company – they are uniformly worthless. “President Bush wants to modify the Geneva Convention” – no he does not, he wants to define what its vague words mean in terms of law. “The United States does not define treaties in terms of its laws” – wrong, it has done so many times. “The world will hate us if we do this” – the “world” (i.e. the leftist establishment) has hated the United States since President Truman decided to be Joe Stalin’s door mat. And this is not going to change – no matter what the United States does or does not do. “If we do this American prisoners will be treated badly by their captors” – American prisoners will be tortured and killed regardless of whether Islamic terrorists are put into orange jumpsuits or whatever else is done. The idea that by being nice to the Islamic terrorists (or whoever) they will be influenced to be nice to Americans is crap. If Americans do not wish to be tortured or killed they had better avoid being captured, nothing that America does or does not do will influence their treatment in any way. Of course, you are not likely to see, hear or read this in the British media either. September 20th, 2006 | 49 comments - (Comments are closed)
A movie based around the death of Princess Diana and focussing on how Queen Elizabeth II dealt with the whole sorry business is not something that yours truly would expect to see, to be honest. However, having read so many rave reviews about Helen Mirren’s performance as the British monarch, I gave in and went to see it tonight. Definitely worth a look, is my verdict. Mirren is brilliant, uncannily believable. (Better get that Oscar speech ready, Helen). This film is surprising in a number of ways. The Queen comes across as a sympathetic character, bound up in a sense of duty that puts her at odds with the manic celebrity culture that developed around Diana. You sense, as the film goes on, that the qualities that have stood this lady in good stead for most of her life will ultimately prove more valuable than the meritricious arts of media manipulation and spin that have become associated with the court of Tony Blair. Oddly, I will admit that the portrayal of Tony Blair surprised me by showing that this man, whom most Samizdata writers will regard with fair levels of loathing, comes across fairly well: someone who realised that the Queen was being bullied by an almost-deranged media and part of the British public. The guy playing spin-doctor-in-chief, Alastair Campbell, was also very good, showing that Campbell was, and is, one of the most malevolent persons to have held power in British life for many years, admittedly quite a feat. I have fairly mixed views about monarchy. I suppose, given my brand of post-Enlightenment liberalism, that I should take a dim view of this institution and its representation of hereditary power, but one has to recognise that if we are to have a head of state at all, then there are distinct advantages if that head is a person who is not elected and hence a necessarily controversial figure but someone who gets the job through the lottery of birth and is restricted by checks and balances of a constitution. (There is a case for arguing why we need a head of state at all. The Swiss seem to have a sort of revolving mayoral system, which works fine). This film may not persuade people on either sides of the argument on the case for or against constitutional monarchy, but it is a thought-provoking film and also has the merit of being relatively short. September 19th, 2006 | 15 comments - (Comments are closed)
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