This is too nightmarish to write about at length, but it suggests yet another upside to taking the human out of the loop: avoiding a CFIT of the worst kind possible.
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March 26th, 2015 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The left has gone so far down its own black hole that it has become a caricature of itself. Read it and laugh. March 26th, 2015 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
Chinese government cyber division accused of hacking Google is a very self explanatory headline and I hope this vulnerability will be addressed swiftly. But of course the NSA would never do that. They do not need to when they have FISA courts to rubber stamp any fishing expeditions they wish to carry out. No need to break in when you have a spare set of keys under the doormat any time you want to look around. March 25th, 2015 | 4 comments - (Comments are closed)
I assume Obama Beer makes you fart a lot and tell an endless stream of porkies. March 25th, 2015 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have for some time been occupied first with survival and then with a transition to a new existence. I have never entirely ‘left’ Samizdata, but I have been a very scarce quantity as there are only so many bits into which a human brain and the day may be split. Not that my time availability has changed all that much: if anything it has gotten worse. What has happened is that I have become fed up enough with my words vanishing on Facebook and the technology delta between posting there versus posting here has narrowed to point at which it is more worth my while to type words here rather than there. The only real problem that remains for me is the relative difficulty of posting photos there versus here where I have to pre-edit the sizes, which takes time I do not have, versus just clicking on the image and not worrying about the size. So to many of the long time readers who have known me as one of the Samizdata founders and to the many more recent readers who wonder “Who the hell is this guy?”… let the games begin! March 24th, 2015 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Rand Simberg points out yet more reasons why the Space Launch System is nothing but a cathedral building jobs program. I would disagree. Cathedral building at least produced something of beauty that lasted for centuries. SLS is more like a strip mine where there are no resources to be had. It keeps loads of people working digging the hole… until the public catches on to the fact that there is nothing there. March 24th, 2015 | 2 comments - (Comments are closed)
The House is busy performing some very Un-American Activities this week. I have just heard HR 1147 was introduced a few days ago and is being rammed through with minimal notice to the public. So… what, you may ask, is HR 1147? It is the shiny new version of Real ID, risen once again from the depths of hell like a B Movie demon. It would, according to Campaign For Liberty: • Allow federal bureaucrats to include biometric identification information on the card, potentially even including fingerprints, retinal scans, or scans of veins on the back of hands, which could easily be used as a tracking device. • Be required for all U.S. workers regardless of place of birth, making it illegal for anyone to hold a job in the United States who doesn’t obtain an ID card. • Require all employers to purchase an “ID scanner” to verify the ID cards with the federal government. Every time any citizen applies for a job, the government would know – and you can bet its only a matter of time until “ID scans” will be required to make even routine purchases, as well. It is the One Card To Bind Them All In Darkness. It is the card to tie the masses of legally and illegally collected government data about you together for real time access by bureaucrats and the overarmed enforcers. There is no Liberty in a Surveillance State. There is only temporary forbearance for so long as your activities are ‘within parameters’. Call your Congressman if you are a US Citizen. Tell them that no American would vote for this measure. I will go further and call on anyone who supports Real ID to turn in their US Citizenship because they do not deserve it or understand what it means. You do not belong to the same nation as I do and you should leave. You might try North Korea. March 24th, 2015 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
What you will notice is that it is all presented in terms of social conservatives and social liberals. It is about the competing rights of members of religious communities and members of sexual communities. And, depressingly, there isn’t a single even slightly libertarian voice in the debate. Everyone that speaks is (if I may use the word) a statist. My own theory is that the “Troubles” in Northern Ireland that started in the late 1960s have less to do with religion, or even national identity, than they have to do with Northern Ireland’s endemic statism, or, to be precise, with the fact that pretty well everyone in Northern Ireland believes strongly in coercion and in the duty of the state to coerce people into doing what they believe is right – be it banning sex between two blokes, banning people paying for sex, banning people from discriminating against prods, papists or gays, and forcing people to pay for state education and healthcare. – John Mann, commenting here on Samizdata. March 24th, 2015 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
I have no stupid puns to make. This legal case is an important challenge to intolerable state intrusion. I wish Ms Lee the best of luck. March 23rd, 2015 | 26 comments - (Comments are closed)
When the Kremlin says something like this…
What exactly are people supposed to hear? What I am hearing is…
What reaction are they expecting to overt threats pretty much explicitly saying “if you, as a NATO nation, assist NATO with the deployment of a defensive weapon system within NATO borders, we will point nukes at you!” Might this not be a tad counter-productive when the Russian Troll Army are tirelessly trying to convince assorted useful idiots to push the line that “Russia is no threat to anyone, honest guv!”…? I guess the the Russian ambassador to Denmark did not get the memo 😉 March 22nd, 2015 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
March 22nd, 2015 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
“Asset forfeiture” is the an Orwellian term for “the government steals your shit and there’s pretty much fuck all you can do about it.” It was supposed to be a way of going after what the government deemed ill-gotten funds and property – gotten with the sale of illegal drugs, for example. It became a sick (and legal) way to steal from law-abiding citizens, who were not afforded “innocent till proven guilty” but instead needed to prove their money or property was NOT gotten through illegal means. Many couldn’t afford lawyers and were simply screwed by the government. March 21st, 2015 | 31 comments - (Comments are closed)
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