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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The inimitable Guido Fawkes decides to use Samizdata to explain what he is… and what he is not.
Over on the misnamed Liberal Conspiracy blog ‘Gracchi’ proffers a serious and fair minded critique of my Guido alter ego’s oeuvre, rather than the usual “Guido is an evil baby eating Nazi who once voted Tory, does not use trackbacks and deletes comments” tripe. I will give it a reply here and defend my approach.
Clearly we all have a political agenda of some kind. Mine is the politics of anti-politics. It stems from wanting to expand the non-political space in life and culture. This flows from my belief in the primacy of individual liberty.
The charge of partisanship does have some validity, I would rather get this shower in government out, but the choice on offer is hardly compelling. It is not as if there was any attempt on my part to pretend to some kind of impartial objectivity. So far as the right-of-centre leaning blogosphere has any influence on the Tories it is often attacking from the ‘right’ of the Tory centre of gravity. The Samizdatistas despair of the Tories, Tim Montgomerie of ConservativeHome is more hawkish and less socially liberal than his party, even Iain Dale is more Thatcherite than the Tory leadership and my views on tax cuts, the minimal state, free migration and drug prohibition position me in a very different place on the political spectrum to the Tories. It is inimical to Toryism for instance to be a republican, so to characterise me as a Tory seems intellectually lazy to the point of cretinous.
I have written no ideological essays for nearly two decades. There are some still available from the Libertarian Alliance if you are interested – on human rights, the economics of the City and most famously acid house culture.
Gracchi is right to nuance the self-interest charge against politicians, they are more precisely motivated by “perceived self-interest”. I will adopt that phrase from now on. As for my understanding about policy development and the importance of wonks, well I have lived in that world, financially supported think tanks and indeed worked for think tanks in my youth. I just do not advertise it.
The rest of the complaint is based on a poor premise, on the evidence of Guido’s blog I am naive, according to Gracchi. Do you mean Paul Staines or the Guido personality? You are confusing the character with the author. The blog provides a tabloid sensationalist, personality driven narrative. It is meant to entertain in order to be populist. Carefully nuanced argumentation is not what it is about. Complaining that it is populist and not what blogging should aspire to, is like complaining that the New York Post is not the New York Times. You do your thing, Guido will do his thing.
Of course the irony is that more intellectuals, wonks and political thinkers read Guido’s blog than the New Statesman. In Gramscian terms Guido’s blog is now arguably the more important ‘site of struggle’. Discuss.
A new bill in Mississippi would make it illegal for restaurants to serve obese customers.
The legislation, introduced by three members of the state’s House of Representatives, would allow health inspectors to revoke the licence of any restaurant that “repeatedly” feeds extremely overweight people.
SCENE: Int. Day. A diner somewhere in Mississippi. A customer enters and sits down. The waitress approaches.
WAITRESS: What do you need, honey?
CUSTOMER: Hi, I’d like a steak, please, with some french fries and a side order of cole…
WAITRESS: Whoa, whoa, whoa….back up, fatboy. Everything’s off.
CUSTOMER: Everything??!!
WAITRESS: I can bring you some water.
CUSTOMER: But I’m famished.
WAITRESS: I don’t make the rules, sweetie.
CUSTOMER: But that man over there is eating a club sandwich.
WAITRESS: That man over there has a 32-inch waist. See the sign? ‘No six-pack, no lunch pack’.
CUSTOMER: Isn’t there anything you can bring me?
WAITRESS: ‘Lose the guts. No ifs, no buts’.
CUSTOMER: But, look, I’m not fat, I’m just big-boned.
WAITRESS (calling out): Joe, bring me out the calipers.
CUSTOMER: Okay, okay. Listen, its my glands. I’ve got a glandular problem. Can I help it if my glands won’t work properly?
WAITRESS: You’re wasting my time here, honey. I’ve got plenty of slim, healthy customers to serve.
CUSTOMER: Oh please! I’m starving.
WAITRESS: Not starving enough, sweetie.
CUSTOMER: Can’t I just have some bacon and eggs? Please? Oh come on, pleeeeeeeease?
WAITRESS: Listen, I’d like to help you. Tell you what, come in again next week and if you’ve dropped maybe five, six pounds, I can serve you a cup of black coffee and maybe a slice of dry toast. How’d that be?
ENDS.
On Saturday various Samizdata team members and associates descended upon HQ for copious amounts of wine, chilli and cheese.
The party commences.
The goddess Elena holds fort.
Samizdata’s infamous bar.
Tomas Kohl drops in on us from the Czech Republic.
China’s hottest export.
There’s something important on the computer.
Readers of Brian’s blog are surging.
The Briffas – Peter Briffa is the purveyor of the fine Public Interest blog.
By 3:30am, everyone had fallen asleep apart from the guardian hippo.
Americans: Do not fear, you are not going to lose a conservative President next January and no conservative is going to be defeated on Super Tuesday.
First I must point out that this posting is not about Congressman Dr Ron Paul – no offence meant, I am just not going to be writing about him here. The United States will not lose a conservative President next January because George Walker Bush is no conservative.
No shock there – he is the man who gave the Republic such things as “No-Child-Left-Behind” and the Medicare extension (and so much other stuff). But just how un-conservative President Bush is was brought home to me by watching the rerun of the ‘Bush Special’ on FNC.
President Bush was asked about his 30 billion Dollar aid package for Africa and he replied that he had pushed it into effect because it was a religious moral duty to give to the poor and because terrorism was bred by poverty – the money would keep people away from the “ideology of hate”, which could never convince people with a chance in life. Mrs Bush then said something about a healthy workforce being good for the economy of these various African nations… → Continue reading: Conservative rule will not end next January, and no Conservative will lose on Super Tuesday
There was an interesting but infuriating article in The Times by Simon Jenkins today where he describes the current state of affairs in Afghanistan. The shorter Jenkins is that things are not going very well. The crux of the problem is that Nato’s force in Kabul is in shambles with the United States and the United Kingdom in disagreement over their basic strategy, the Canadians having had enough, and the Continental Europeans contributing more trouble then they are worth.
But what really struck my nerve with this article was the praise that Jenkins heaps on the Taleban adversaries. He describes them as the ‘toughest fighters’ on earth. I am admittedly not qualified to pass judgement on that score, but I would have to question the real fighting skill of men who are barely literate, fed or able to maintain basic hygiene. Given the disarray that NATO forces are in, and the difficulties that they are inflicting on themselves, it is no wonder that a numerically larger, motivated and home based insurgency is able to maintain a serious military challenge.
If the challenge posed by the Taleban is to be met by NATO or the government of Afghanistan, then NATO have to take this crisis seriously. The chances of this happening are approximately zero, of course, so the rational thing to do is to look forward to the day when the Taleban regain power in Afghanistan. Given the total bankruptcy of NATO’s military strategy and the weakness of the United States, it is likely that terrorists will regain their safe haven in Central Asia in the medium term.
Such an outcome would be to the total discredit of Western political leadership. Had they committed a serious military effort to Afghanistan, and united behind a common strategy, Afghanistan would have settled down under corrupt but peaceful leadership years ago. But there is no evidence of any politician in the West taking Afghanistan seriously.
The US Navy has tested its rail gun at 10 MegaJoules. Railguns will one day become the main armaments on US Navy vessels:
The technology uses high power electromagnetic energy instead of explosive chemical propellants (energetics) to propel a projectile farther and faster than any preceding gun. At full capability, the rail gun will be able to fire a projectile more than 200 nautical miles at a muzzle velocity of mach seven and impacting its target at mach five. In contrast, the current Navy gun, MK 45 five-inch gun, has a range of nearly 20 miles. The high velocity projectile will destroy its targets due to its kinetic energy rather than with conventional explosives.
A very big advantage of kinetic energy weapons is the reduction in size of a warships Achilles heel: the explosives magazine. With a railgun you would not need propellant charges.
The safety aspect of the rail gun is one of its greatest potential advantages, according to Dr. Elizabeth D’Andrea, ONR’s Electromagnetic Railgun Program Manager. Safety on board ship is increased because no explosives are required to fire the projectile and no explosive rounds are stored in the ship’s magazine.
I am not sure I believe you would get rid of all explosives as you might still want to lob an HE shell over the horizon and downwards on a target. If you are firing on a target 200 miles away, you cannot use direct fire unless you intend to blast a tunnel through a whole lot of water. That means the impact velocity on another ship using indirect fire would only be the normal terminal velocity of the falling shell. Nonetheless, the chance of a repeat of the HMS Hood disaster is much decreased.
What I would like to know is: has anyone done the calculations about direct fire at high elevation? Aircraft are naturally one of the targets. One wonders if it could reach out and touch something at a rather higher altitude.
For those unfamiliar with naval battles of WWII, the HMS Hood was sunk by one lucky salvo from the Bismarck that came straight down into the aft magazine. The ship was on the way to the bottom almost before the smoke cleared. There were (I believe) only 4 survivors.
Correction: It was 3 survivors.
Iraq is still in a descent to normalcy according to this DOD report:
Weekly attacks in the Baghdad security districts for the past 15 weeks matched levels last seen consistently in 2005. Bombings increased last week, but remained below the long-term average for the 23rd week in a row, he said. Throughout Iraq, weekly casualties decreased by three percent last week, continuing to remain below the long-term average for the 21st week in a row, Anderson said. Civilian casualties have dropped from 1,700 in January 2007 to 170 this month.
I think I can speak for the rest of the Samizdatistas when I raise my glass and say to our armed forces: “Well done lads!”
Peter Briffa is on great form.
One of the not-so-secret reasons why motor cars are popular, to the fury of some, is that some of the designs are just staggeringly beautiful. As with aircraft or yachts, the aesthetics of a perfectly designed machine should never be underestimated. At a time when much so-called Modern Art (the capital M and A says it all) is such empty, vacuous tosh, it is a fact that needs to be remarked that so much industrial design that we have today is outstanding, inventive, clever, even a bit naughty.
This must surely be contender for one of the very best, courtesy of those clever men at Alfa Romeo.
CNN man to Senators Clinton and Obama: “People all over the country are saying if you got together it would be a Dream Ticket”.
Senator Obama: “I was a friend of Senator Clinton before the nomination race began and I will be a friend of Senator Clinton’s after the nomination race is over”.
Senator Clinton: “The Republicans are more-of-the-same, we represent change. You can tell that just by looking at us”.
In short “change” means race and gender – not lower government spending or less regulations.
Indeed both Senators Clinton and Obama think the Republicans should have spent even more taxpayers money on health, education and welfare, and passed even more regulations.
As for CNN – it is like the rest of the main stream media. It can not ask tough questions to ‘liberals’ because its folk share all their basic assumptions.
The cover story in this weeks New Scientist is about how genetics determines political opinions.
However, the story did have some odd assumptions. ‘Liberals’, who the New Scientist seemed to be defining as people who vote Democrat, were described as people who are “open to new ideas”. However, the basic characteristic of such a ‘liberal’ is that they are not “open to new ideas”. For example, they continue to support spending ever more taxpayers money on health, education and welfare programs, regardless of the evidence that this does not work and disregarding any argument for reforms.
‘Liberals’ have a set of assumptions that they never question – for if they questioned them they would no longer be liberals.
- More government Welfare State spending – good, anyone who opposes this hates the poor.
- Government support for the arts – good, anyone who opposes this is a philistine.
- Anti discrimination regulations – good, anyone who opposes them is a bigot.
- Anti trust regulations – good, anyone who opposes them is in the pay of big business.
And so on and so on.
So any group of ‘scientists’ who accept the assumption that “liberals are open to new ideas” are not scientists at all. Still I suppose the dream of finding an ‘anti-Progressive’ gene (or combination of genes) will continue – so they can seek to exterminate us. But then that might be interpreted as proving another finding of the studies “conservatives fear death more than liberals”.
Hard to square this with the fact that conservatives are more likely to join the armed forces than liberals are. But then I think this form of ‘science’ (depending as it does on ‘surveys’ and so on) is best described as ‘crapology’.
It seems thespian Wesley Snipes has been duking it out with vampires the IRS based on the rather reasonable notion he should not have to pay them his hard earned lucre.
Wesley Snipes’ attorneys admitted his ideas were crazy – that Americans have no obligation to pay taxes and the IRS cannot legally collect them. […] Co-defendants Eddie Ray Kahn, the founder of a known tax protest group, and Douglas P. Rosile, a delicensed accountant, were convicted Friday by the same jury of tax fraud and conspiracy. Both face up to 10 years in prison.
Oh yes, the notion the state has no right to your money is… crazy. If there is one thing the state will not tolerate, it is choking off the kleptocratic basis of all its power. So is Wesley destined to become the poster boy for anti-statist tax protesters? I am far too cynical to think a Hollywood actor could have coherent anti-statist views, but he would cut a dashing figure for ‘our side’ if it were true.
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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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