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.
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My friend Amy Alkon (ask Perry about her delightful “Godless Harlot” business cards) is a nationally syndicated advice columnist in the US. She gets requests for assistance “a little too frequently,” as she puts it, from a certain girl in the UK. After being copied in on a round-robin email appeal from this British girl to several advice columnists, Amy pointed out to the help-seeker that she is more likely to spend her time responding to those who are not mass mailing loads of other people with the same question. How did the girl respond?
Excuse me, but you are supposed to give me advice, not insult me. Now give me advice, before i report you to the council.
Somehow I do not think that Amy need worry about having to fight an extradition order.
An idea of the late FA Hayek was that people could use different currencies within the same jurisdiction and break away from the idea that if you lived in country A or B, you could only use one currency within A or B and never use more than one in each place. The idea of “monopoly money” is so ingrained that to broach the idea is to incur looks of incredulity. (“But surely that would be messy!”) Now, I have looked quite a bit at the idea of competing currencies and there strikes me as being nothing that is implausible about such an idea as such. This story in the Daily Telegraph is therefore most interesting:
If you live in the Bavarian region of Chiemgau, you can exist for months at a time in a euro-free zone of hills and lakes with a population of half a million people. Restaurants, bakeries, hairdressers and a network of supermarkets will accept the local currency: the Chiemgauer.
Notes are exchanged freely like legal tender. You can even use a debit card. Petrol stations are still a problem, but biofuel outlets are signing up. Dentists are next.
The Chiemgauer is one of 16 regional currencies that have sprung into existence across Germany and Austria since the launch of the euro five years ago.
Article worth reading here from time back by Max More.
The Register reports:
Following four hours of heated debate, the San Francisco Police Commission voted 5-0 in favor of adding 25 new cameras in eight locations throughout the city’s roughly 50 square miles. Currently there are 33 cameras in 14 sites.
I had to read that story several times to acclimatise myself to the culture shock. If you do not live in Britain compare another Register story:
The police and Home Office are to press for regulatory powers that will insist that every one of the 4.2 million CCTV cameras in Britain is upgraded so it can be deputised to gather police evidence and provide a vehicle for emerging technologies that will automatically identify people and detect if they are doing anything suspicious.
Now (if you do not live in Britain) count your blessings.
… on TV programmes he (quite sensibly) does not watch. Her Majesty’s Government was actually doing something about Big Brother. Granting him more arbitrary power. The Telegraph’s legal editor explains:
[The Serious Crime Bill] allows judges, sitting without juries, to make orders which, if breached, would put us in prison for five years.
Two conditions must be satisfied before the court can make a serious crime prevention order. First, the judge must be satisfied that someone has been “involved in serious crime” – anywhere in the world.
To be “involved”, you do not have to have committed a serious offence, or even helped someone else to have committed it. All you need to have done is to conduct yourself in a way that was likely to make it easier for someone to commit a serious offence, whether or not it was committed.
And what is a serious criminal offence? Drug trafficking and money laundering, of course. But also fishing for trout with a line left unattended in the water. Depositing controlled waste without a licence. And anything else that a court considers to be sufficiently serious.
Read the whole thing here. The Bill itself is here. Observers of government will notice that it is, unusually for important legislation, being introduced in the Lords. I would welcome any theories why.
I happened to read a ‘house’ copy of the Daily Mail (not something I would pay good money for) whilst having lunch at Pret a Manger today and saw with some incredulity that the news seems to be dominated by some particularly ugly ‘celebrities’ I have never even heard off insulting a very attractive Bollywood star who I have indeed heard of, in the dismal ‘Big Brother’ reality TV programme. Questions in the House? Comments by the Prime Minister and Chancellor? Some of the breathless reports act as if an exchange of nuclear weapons with India is in the offing. Organs of the state threatening to get involved because of ‘racism’? Clearly someone must have put something in the water. Is this really that important? Even on its own terms the whole thing is bizarre, though it does appear that to many ‘racial equality’ means only being allowed to be a jackass to members of your own race. That does not sound very equal to me. Surely the only ‘punishment’ required for the gorgeous Shilpa Shetty’s tormentors is to be revealed as ignorant trailer-park trash to the millions of people who inexplicably watch this programme.
My incredulity factor peaked later tonight however when the top story on SkyNews was the ‘Big Bruvvah racism row’. Oh what drivel, particularly when there is a real ‘human interest’ story to report on, namely the astonishing action by some Royal Marines and Army Aviation in Afghanistan. How on earth could this not be the lead news story?
I seem to recall someone, maybe even Iain Dale himself, saying to me some weeks back that what 18 Doughty Street TV needs is for someone important to say something newsworthily scandalous on it. The world, and in particular the Mainstream Media, would then start to pay attention to it.
So, could this be the breakthrough?
Iain Dale is surely hoping so:
In an interview on 18 Doughty Street’s One to One programme last night, Lance Price, former Downing Street spin doctor, has sensationally claimed that Tony Blair himself was the source of quotes describing Gordon Brown as having “psychological flaws”.
Price continues to say he was told by a figure very close to the Chancellor that Alastair Campbell “took the rap” to allow the Prime Minister to escape blame.
Judging by the email that I (and presumably the rest of the world) just got, in the small hours of this Wednesday morning, I get the feeling that Iain Dale reckons that this just might be the media ruckus he has been waiting for.
Now do not misunderstand me. I care very little for the fortunes of the Blair government, nor for the fortunes of whichever political gang – Brownies? Cameronics? – gets to replace these people for the next few years. 18 Doughty Street TV would like it be Mr Cameron and his friends, but I really do not care. I consider them all to be as psychologically flawed as each other. Whoever wins the next spasm of electioneering, we already pretty much know what will win, and it is unlikely to be nice.
What I am interested in, and do feel entitled to be optimistic about, is seeing the British broadcasting media go the way of the British print media and of the internet itself. I want British broadcasting – in particular British broadcasting about politics, and about what politics is and what politics should be – to lose its air of cosily unanimous religiosity, in which the only competition is in who can present the same centre-to-left news agenda and the same stale centre-to-left editorialising about it with the greatest earnestness and piety, and to become instead a bedlam of biases, biased in all imaginable directions, with no meta-contextual assumption left unchallenged. 18 Doughty Street TV has been a small step in that direction, not so much because of what has actually been said on it, but because of the example it has set to others concerning the viability of non-majoritarian broadcasting, and about the possibility that truly different things could start getting broadcast.
Although I do not know or care who Lance Price is, lots of others do, and I am accordingly still intrigued by the possibilities opened up by what he has said. Because of it, a whole lot more people are liable to hear, not just about 18 Doughty Street, but about “internet broadcasting” in general.
British print media people have always been quite diverse in their tone, so although the internet has been a technical and professional challenge to these people, it has not been that much of an ideological jolt for them. British broadcasters, on the other hand, have tended to understand the new ‘social’ media rather better, in the purely technical sense. The BBC web operation has had a huge impact. But ideologically, British mainstream broadcasting people are far more uniform in their ideological outlook, and potentially therefore face far more of an ideological upheaval at the hands of the new media.
So, I hope that neither Iain Dale nor I are making a fuss about nothing. I hope that this proves to be a fuss about something.
In conection with the above, this BBC report (credit where it is due) about Skype offering internet TV services, also makes interesting reading.
Some time ago I had these thoughts about the high price of crude oil and the implications for the energy market. Well, the price of oil has been falling, rather fast, these past few months. High prices have forced people and businesses to economise on their use of oil. Sales of large-engine cars and SUVs are down. A perceived slowing in the pace of global economic growth is also hitting the price. New sources of supply, and spending on new refinery capacity, is also pushing prices down. Some of the speculative froth in the market which may have added to the high price of oil is also unwinding a bit.
The rise in the price of oil to nearly $80 a barrel last year triggered all manner of near-hysterical claims about how governments must act to drastically reduce our reliance on such a source of energy. But market participants were acting even as political and media blowhards predicted doom and gloom. There is nothing like a fast rise in the price of a key thing like energy to focus minds on how to adjust behaviour. The rise in the price of oil has spawned a plethora of ventures to develop new sources of energy; encouraged new drilling and exploration efforts to find new oil supplies, and encouraged people to economise on their energy consumption.
With any luck, if oil keeps falling, it will slow the flow of money into the coffers of thugocracies like Saudi Arabia and also crimp the ambitions of Hugo Chavez in oil-producing Venezuela. That has to be a good thing, although George Galloway might have a problem if oil-rich dictators lose some of their revenues.
“Castro Reportedly in Grave,” begins an Associated Press headline. Unfortunately, the next word is “Condition.”
– James Taranto
I don’t do not know if the sainted editors will tolerate the colloquial English – the Samizdata style-guide proscribes contractions – but I couldn’t could not. So I won’t will not.*
A.C. Grayling pithly outlines the absolutism behind Tony Blair’s total information awareness scheme on The Guardian Unlimited. Do read it. I know a few of our readers refuse ever to move out of the safety of right-thinking reading, but they are missing comfort as well as understanding when they seek to avoid mental pollution from the liberal left.
* [editor’s note: does that answer your question, Guy?] 
Subjugation of a cultural minority by a much bigger population is politically pretty stable. It can last hundreds of years. Subjugation and exploitation of the many by the few for any length of time needs structural legitimation or overwhelming power.
FW de Klerk inherited the Afrikaner hegemony but he recognised it had run out of road. Will Gordon Brown think again when Scotch Tony hands over the mob? Or is he another Botha?
I like Scotland and many Scottish things. One of the highlights of January is that it is easier to get haggis in London shops. I would shed a tear waving off that good liberal Sir Malcolm Rifkind at King’s Cross, if we had to exile all Scottish politicians for English national security. The Scots Nationalists are an ornament of the UK parliament: they have distinctive views clearly and openly expressed, rather than mouthing mush for the benefit of focus groups. But I am damned if the bullying puritan clique in Downing Street shall continue to buy votes north of the border with money plundered from the English.
An additional English Parliament (the BBC to the contrary) is not what we need. Overweening government is not ameliorated by more government. There is already too much government – both in Scotland and in England.
I have my principles, but I am a pragmatic voter. Never mind UKIP, if Alex Salmond wants to stand a candidate in Holborn & St Pancras, this libertarian Tory would be sore tempted. I do not know her politics, but I am sure our local Glaswegian Sharlene Spiteri would romp home on an SNP ticket.
You see Mr Brown, we English actually love Scots. Some of them we worship. It is you we do not like.
If water were not so obviously essential, I wonder if it would now be even allowed:
If you drink too much water, eventually the kidneys will not be able to work fast enough to remove sufficient amounts from the body, so the blood becomes more dilute with low salt concentrations.
“If you drink too much water it lowers the concentration of salt in your blood so that it is lower than the concentration of salt in cells,” says Professor Robert Forrest, a consultant in clinical chemistry and forensic toxicology at the Royal Hallamshire Hospital in Sheffield.
Professor Forrest continues:
“When the brain swells, it is inside a bony box so has nowhere to go,” he says. “The pressure increases in the skull and you may get a headache. As the brain is squeezed it compresses vital regions regulating functions such as breathing.”
Eventually these functions will be impaired and you are likely to stop breathing and die. Warning signs included confusion and headaches.
No sniggering. This is exactly what happened to a Californian lady after she had taken part in a water drinking contest (a sport which should obviously be banned forthwith).
A government task force is clearly needed to keep a constant eye on the water threat. Once that happens, health warnings on water bottles are only a matter of time. “Water can seriously damage your kidneys”, and so on. “Big Water” will be accused of peddling scaremongering stories about the alleged need for water, and the alleged benefits of water, and even nonsense about how, if you don’t regularly wash with it, that might be a danger to your health.
Some time ago, I recall someone translating “water” into “hydrogen oxide” or “oxygen di-hydride” or some such thing, and listing all the dangers of this profoundly dangerous fluid, such as the definite danger of contracting cancer if you drank, say, forty gallons of the stuff at one sitting, and quite a few safety nazis fell for it. Well, now such anti-water campaigners have some hard evidence to work with.
The sheer front of the man. Dave Cameron has been openly lying for political advantage again and again and in response to suddenly realising that the recent defections to UKIP are indicative of a very serious problem, what does he do? He is doing it again, with the Daily Telegraph not so much as blinking at the latest volte-face from repudiating Thatcherism to (ostensibly) wrapping himself in it. So I suppose from now on everything he has said since he was elected leader of the Tory Party (more regulation, less school selection, more Euro-Federalism) gets ‘packaged’ in a covering that suggests the exact opposite. “I am Thatcher’s heir!” he proclaims. Well as we are playing make-believe…”I am Howard Hughes heir”. It would appear that stating something boldly simply makes it so, regardless of all the contradictory evidence.
I have also been pondering the article of Matthew d’Ancona, or more correctly the attitude underpinning it, called ‘Tories who would rather lose than change’, which I linked to in my previous bit of bloggage as two bits of it stuck in my mind.
But to say that Mr Cameron is an old-fashioned statist is simply incorrect. His ethos has much more in common with the “compassionate conservatism” espoused by George W Bush when he was Governor of Texas than with the Butskellism of the old Tory wets.
…and…
I would simply ask this brilliant economist: who is more likely to lead a Eurosceptic government, to reduce the tax burden when the public finances allow, and to tame the centralised state? David Cameron or Gordon Brown?
Nice leading question. So when trying to get elected leader, Dave Cameron promises to pull the Tory Party out of the €uro-federalist EPP (part of whose platform is ‘ever greater union’), then decided not to after all… and then upon being elected goes back on his pledge to allow individual Tory MPs to campaign to leave the EU, and that somehow that makes him a… Eurosceptic. How does that work exactly? And his promises to impose more ‘green’ regulations and absolute refusal to say which government programmes or departments would be scrapped under his administration, that makes him in favour of reduced taxes? Really?
But when I saw d’Ancona holding up G.W. Bush (timber industry protectionism, ‘No Child Left Behind Act’ federal statism, Patriot Act, etc. etc.) as an example of someone who is not an old-time statist of really significant magnitude, well, that actually left me lost for words for initially (not a common occurrence for a opinionated git such as myself). So Dave Cameron is not an ol’ time statist… he wants the state to meddle in family life, but he is not a statist. He refuses to cut taxes but he is not a statist. His close adviser wants to redistribute wealth but Dave is not a statist. Oh, what’s that? He is actually Thatcher’s heir? Oh, that’s all right then! Phew, you had me worried for a moment there.
In short, Matthew d’Ancona’s article is actually either incoherent or (more likely) not actually based on any genuine exposition of what Tory ideology consists of at all but just a tactical piece designed to protect ‘his party’. I strongly suspect d’Ancona thinks getting onto power is an end in and of itself, rather than achieving some specific objective with political power. That really is the only way I can explain his strange lack of understanding why life long Tories have turned against his party. He seems to have the meta-context of ‘politics as its own justification’ if you like. No doubt if confronted with that notion, he would reply “you actually have to get elected before you can implement your policies”, as if you do not actually need to get the intellectual ground work into place for what you intend to do, you just get elected and viola…you implement whatever policies take your fancy… which would work if we were electing dictators, which we are not.
A very good indication that the Tories have belatedly woken up to the fact they are indeed circling the drain is that today’s Daily Torygraph is absolutely chock-a-block with anti-UKIP articles. It is almost as if they are trying to force UKIP out of existence by sheer force of column inches. The reason I have only externally linked to articles in the Daily Telegraph is that all the information you need to see the absurdity and contradictions in the articles today in the Telegraph praising Cameron and saying he is the heir of Thatcher can be demolished by reading other older articles… in the Daily Telegraph.
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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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