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]
|
At some point we Californians should ask ourselves, how we inherited a state with near perfect weather, the world’s richest agriculture, plentiful timber, minerals, and oil, two great ports at Los Angeles and Oakland, a natural tourist industry from Carmel to Yosemite, industries such as Silicon Valley, Hollywood, and aerospace—and serially managed to turn all of that into the nation’s largest penal system, periodic near bankruptcy, and sky-high taxes.
– Victor Hanson Davis, as pointed out by Instapundit.
This point though could be made about any community. There is no country on earth that is not voluntarily in poverty. If you choose to have an anti-wealth creating atmosphere, then you will be poor. If you choose a wealth-creating meta-context in your society, then you will have wealth.
The rise of the wealthy East Asian nations, with almost none of the natural resources that bless the State of California, demonstrate that there really is no excuse.
First he has no chance whatever of being elected President of the United States of America.
He is a rich kid, yes so is George Bush as well – but George Bush gives a good imitation of looking and sounding like an ordinary Texan, Mitt Romney looks and sounds like what he is.
Americans will accept a Democrat who was born rich – they have more of a problem with a Republican who was born rich.
– Paul Marks, taking no prisoners
I would not normally be moved to link to a ‘product listing’ page for a chain of Dutch department stores called HEMA, but that is exactly what I am doing now.
Why? Because it is cool and for no other reason than that. Click and just wait a few seconds to see what happens (and no, I assure you it is not another video ‘screamer’).
This recent enraged attack on John Gray, Professor of European Thought at the LSE, recently linked to by Arts & Letters Daily, explains that Gray spouts an almost continuous gush of bilge. Gray is described as one who “flip-flops across the old right-left ideological chessboard”. But this Samizdata posting by me from 2002 explains the method in this man’s madness.
My 2002 piece does contain one error, however. I assumed from his accent when I knew him in the eighties that Professor Gray was from Wales. Apparently he is from the North of England. My apologies to Wales.
Thank you for trying to offer us high quality, low cost agricultural products. However I am sorry but we would prefer it if you remain dependent on tax funded handouts from First World governments and their anointed NGOs. And speaking of NGOs, if you People of Colour start getting involved in horrid global trade, what will happen to the people who work for NGOs? We need NGOs so that our children can go work for them in that pesky gap year, helping you poor ignorant dark people with your Third Worldie Problems, and thereby allowing our kiddies to develop self-esteem and feel good about themselves.
Also we prefer to see you living in photogenic eco-friendly low carbon footprint mud huts, so please stop trying to pull yourself out of poverty via icky capitalist global trade in the one area you should have a comparative advantage. I say ‘should’ because actually we prefer to buy our food from tax subsidised local farmers, for the good of the planet, you understand.
Peace and love,
Janet Guardianista
Bobby Fischer, chess genius and generally unpleasant wacko, has died in Iceland. Perhaps he will play Beelzebub for his soul?
Update: noted by commenter Walter Boswell: “I just realised he died at the age of 64. The same number of squares on the chess board. Bobby, spooky moves right up until the end.”
Good piece by Jeff Randall today on what the rapid rise of gold implies. Gold at $1,000 an ounce looks eminently plausible. Mind you, there is a fair bit of speculative froth here. I like the fact that Jeff, who must have felt very out of place during his time as a journalist for the BBC, approvingly quotes F.A. Hayek’s views on banking and gold.
Let’s not forget that Gordon Brown, you know, that clever chap from the University of Edinburgh, once a centre of the Scottish Englightenment, flogged Britain’s official gold reserves for a mere $275 an ounce. Vote Labour!
Interesting story at Bloomberg saying that despite the blandishments of President Sarkozy, who is currently diverting the celebrity pages of the press with his amorous adventures, Frenchmen and women living in Britain do not want to return home to a land still hobbled by taxes and regulations.
They certainly cannot be staying in Britain for its weather.
I was quite interested to read this article in The Times which suggested that the peak output of crude oil production would quite possibly be driven by the limits of consumer demand for the stuff, rather then the constraints of supply of oil. This idea, put forward by BP’s chief economist, Paul Davies, was that consumer demand would weaken, due to economic factors and also political factors as Western societies increasingly demand ‘cleaner’ energy solutions for their cars.
With car makers introducing alternative energy vehicles and these likely to be widespread by the end of the decade, it is quite understandable where Paul Davies is coming from. And given that the decline in existing oilfield production is less then had been thought, it is possible that supplies could continue to increase to meet the rising demand from the newly booming economies of India and China.
With alternative energy cars still very much at the prototype stage, it is unlikely that the current demand-driven spike in oil prices will slacken in the short to medium term. But I was curious to read the opinion of Times correspondent Carl Mortished. He suggested that to reach a peak in production would require global regulation, taxation, and other notions beloved of journalists. It seems to me that the reason why oil production is continuing to climb is the very global nature of the commodity; there is no government able to regulate it, and even the producer’s cartel OPEC is not very successful. It is, rather, the demands of the free market that drive the oil industry, just as it is the demands of the free market that drive auto makers to devise alternatives to gasoline powered cars.
To this piece by Frank Fisher:
When asked to name countries that impose extensive internet censorship, you might think of China, Iran, or North Korea; I doubt you’d think of the UK, but, after the home secretary Jacqui Smith’s speech to the International Centre for Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence today, you really should.
Britain is not a free country. It is free-er than most perhaps, but at most free-ish; and moving steadily towards a free-esque pantomime freedom.
For the inevitable commentators who think I’m whinging about nothing because I’m able to write these lines, consider this: Britain also has an historically low murder rate. Yet generally homicide is still deplored, and we would like less of it. No politician would dare stand up and call for more gang-violence because ‘known criminals’ being murdered is a good thing.
When I read things like this:
Police in San Mateo County, California apparently first spent months investigating the small-stakes poker game. From this firsthand account, it looks like a couple of the officers were playing regularly for several weeks before sending in the SWAT team, guns drawn, last week.
It just amazes me that so many people in the USA are complacent about the state of their civil liberties. Quite a few people in Blighty seem to have belatedly grasped what deep shit we are in on this side of the Atlantic, and when we run some article lamenting the latest outrage by the British state here on Samizdata, invariably we get some comments from The Cousins across the Water telling us how screwed we are. Indeed, but back at yah, guys.
They send in para-military assault police to arrest people for playing poker? Jeez. There is much to be said for the Second Amendment but clearly the whole ‘keep and bear arms’ thing does not go nearly far enough if that sort of behaviour by the state is regarded as ‘normal’. How about ringing your house with a goddamn minefield? I guess they do not have any real crimes in the People’s Republic of California for the police to worry about.
Seeing as we have been talking about Tom Cruise and Scientology earlier today, there is an interesting ruckus brewing on Gawker, who have posted a rather interesting (in a ‘huh?’ kind of way) video of Tom Cruise talking about Scientology. The Church of Scientology’s lawyers have demanded they take the video down and in response fearless Gawker VP Gaby Darbyshire politely invited them to go rotate, citing ‘fair use’ (Gaby is delightful and rather hot, by the way. I met her at Les Blogs in Paris a few years ago).
I take no conclusive view of the legal merits of the case (certainly if extracts of a proprietary video are used, it is a ‘fair use’ slam dunk… not so sure about using the whole thing), but I am much taken by Gawker’s sheer bravery going up against the deep pocketed Scientologists, who are prone on the slightest pretext to sue people who cast aspersions on, or even reveal the details of, their religion. Does that remind you of someone else?
The Scientologists deserve every brickbat they get for their strong arm tactics against detractors. However I do not really understand the intellectual animus directed at the Scientologists for their religious beliefs. Their key myths do not strike me as any more preposterous than those of other more mainstream religions. It seems to me that their only big mistake was going into too much detail, thus in their case it is harder to fog the issue with the ‘allegorical interpretations’ that help us avoid tears of mirth when reading the literal word of other holy texts, ones which were not written by L. Ron Hubbard but rather by his more time hallowed equivalents in antiquity.
|
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.
|
