I have met Bill, and he is splendid chap to put it mildly. But I clearly need to watch him more closely because a few days ago he revealed himself to be a man of hitherto unguessed talents. He is a… rapper!
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I think we need a Samizdata crowd-sourced entry to the Spectator’s Erdogan offensive poetry competition. Get to work, commentariat! Edit: apologies for the slow moderation. Comments here seem to be triggering the smite bot a lot for some reason. April 24th, 2016 | 55 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Soon after the first Sears catalog was mailed in 1888, the catalog began to offer an astonishing array of goods to a population whose shopping had previously been limited to the local general store. Many such stores closed, unable to compete on price or selection. Yet, American prosperity increased. April 24th, 2016 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
I enjoyed this tweet. Regulars might recognise the name.
April 22nd, 2016 | 22 comments - (Comments are closed)
The frat and sorority scene didn’t appeal to me at all. Back when I was at the University of Michigan, I went to a single frat party, encountered a bunch of drunk assholes, and never went to another. Wow. Imagine that: All the way back in the 80s, too — a young woman on campus making her own decisions about what works or doesn’t work for her…without assistance from the government or calls to discipline anyone. Radical, huh? – The ever magnificent Amy Alkon. April 21st, 2016 | 40 comments - (Comments are closed)
“One of my top scientists has four kids. How is he going to provide for his kids without profit?” So says Martin Shkreli on this week’s Milo Yiannopoulos Show. Shkreli is supposedly the most hated man in America for raising the price of the drug Daraprim from $18 per dose to $750. The way he tells it, it was like buying a wine company that was selling wine for $2.50 cents per bottle but losing money, when all the similar wine was selling for $100 per bottle. He saved the business. He described being interviewed on CNBC, a business news channel.
Milo laments the regression of America from a place that celebrated success to one where the media and the government like to punish rich people. Shkreli pointed out how people used to love to hate Bill Gates, but they do not any more, now that he is giving he money away. “What else did they think he was going to do with it?” he asks, pointing out that once you have one billion dollars, you can no longer really spend any more on yourself. Shkreli has been arrested on fraud charges. He says the charges against him make no sense, given that his investors are making lots of money. In the interview he comes across as a fun guy who annoys the right people. His Twitter feed is entertaining, too. Update: There is something of an Ayn Rand novel about his questioning from Congress. April 20th, 2016 | 83 comments - (Comments are closed)
The referendum on Britain’s membership of the EU has thrown many things into sharp relief. It has made more visible the fraying of the Tory Party that has been brewing for a few decades now. It has demonstrated that the politics of fear is everywhere, being peddled by both the Leave and Stay campaigns, and even being openly celebrated by one pro-EU columnist on the basis that ‘fear alone has a purity you can trust’. But most strikingly, the referendum campaign has confirmed the death, or at least utter exhaustion, of a left that believes in democracy, in change, in people. In throwing its weight behind the Stay campaign, having historically been suspicious of the EU, the left has completed its journey from demanding democracy to supporting technocracy. April 20th, 2016 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
The endless scamming of NGOs seems to be a plague on the World, but the Federal Government of India is resisting claims from an NGO, I understand it to be the All India Human Rights and Social Justice Front (but what’s in a name?*),that it should seek to obtain the Koh-i-Noor diamond from Her Britannic Majesty.
Oddly, despite its secession from India at independence, a lawyer in Pakistan has claimed the Koh-i-Noor for Pakistan, presumably on the basis that it was the property of a ruler of the Punjab.
Thankfully, most of Mr Jaffry’s fellow citizens do not seem to share his enthusiasm. And a cheer for them too.
Now will India’s sensible example be enough for Greece to shut up about the Elgin Marbles? After all, they named a whole musical film after the place, and yet they complain about Macedonia daring to speak its own name. * This group appears to have some form in litigation, without it being immediately clear that Human Rights were foremost in their consideration, trying to get a Bangladeshi lady kicked out of India.
UPDATE: as Tim’ points out, it appears that another element of the Indian government seeks to maintain the claim, despite the concession made by the Right Honourable and learned Solicitor General in open court. So perhaps the attitude of those bothered is to maintain the ‘learned grudge’ that we find in Greece, Argentina and other delightful places. April 19th, 2016 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
With that in mind, it seem positively hilarious that he appears to be unaware of the Streisand Effect! You’d need a heart of stone not to laugh 😀 April 19th, 2016 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
Mars, owner of Dolmio and Uncle Ben’s food brands, is labelling its products to tell people which ones they should only eat once per week. It is something to do with trying to get people to eat less sugar, for some reason.
By which she means poor people who are too stupid to be allowed to make their own decisions. And who are Action on Sugar anyway? The writer of the blog Hemiposterical has found that they are the same people as Consensus Action on Salt and Health, funded largely by the mysterious Marcela Trust. What motivates them, I wonder? (Incidentally, even the NHS is very lukewarm about the harmful effects of salt, when pressed.) And where did this new war on sugar come from? There is a sugar tax. There is even an app. Made by a quango. It is like a conspiracy of very boring illuminati. And even evil multinational corporations are going along with it. Very strange. Perhaps it originates from inside the World Health Organisation, who last year urged “countries” to reduce people’s sugar intake by half to 25g per day for adults because sugar causes bad teeth, obesity and diabetes. Yesterday I drank a 330ml bottle of lemonade containing 33g of sugar. I am not obese, do not have diabetes and still have all my teeth. Put yourself in the position of the head of a government agency. You have an amorphous blob of population and you can poke it with various sticks (such as advice, regulation and taxes) and observe the effects (such as the amount of money spent on certain medical treatments). You can vary the pointyness of the sticks and the amount of poking and get different effects. You keep doing this until you get the effect you want. The truth of the stick is irrelevant. Individuals have no reason to think that there is any truth in government advice. It can be ignored (ignoring taxes is harder). What surprises me is that I observe people making some attempt to follow the advice and berating themselves for failing. April 18th, 2016 | 50 comments - (Comments are closed)
Bye bye, Telegraph comments. It was not always that nice knowing you but I shall miss you anyway. Er, I am right about Telegraph comments being abolished, aren’t I? Or have they disappeared for me alone due to my browser being full up or something? For its part, the Guardian has drastically cut back on the number of articles open to comments, particularly in the section of the paper previously known as “Comment is Free”. The paper has run a dozen self-pitying articles by its columnists lamenting that their efforts to be “edgy”, “sassy” and “provocative” have worked and pleading for safe spaces where they can escape their readers. This piece by Joseph Reagle is a cut above the rest, but it is chiefly memorable for the most recommended reader comment by “Random Libertarian”. I am not this person, but feel I have a lot in common with them:
To comment on the Times requires passing a paywall, a moderator, and several years of your life. The Daily Mail is the last, best hope for freedom to comment. But it gives you cancer. April 17th, 2016 | 23 comments - (Comments are closed)
The new unified identification system with its associated up-to-the-minute database will streamline government, reduce fraud and tax evasion, make it easier to stop people “falling between the cracks” of different government departments, provide a convenient single means for citizens to prove their identity, and protect us all from terrorism. If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear. What will bring about all these benefits? It sounds very like the UK Identity Cards Act 2006, but that cannot be since various malcontents forced the Act’s repeal in 2010. While it is true that for the British Civil Servant no setback is ever permanent, for now the torch has passed to Japan, where the latest version of the Eternal Scheme is called “My Number”. Even in such a cooperative and law-abiding culture as Japan there are the inevitable troublemakers:
Here is a little more about that massive data leak from, or rather hack of, the Japanese pension system: 1.25 million affected by Japan Pension Service hack. But fear not:
It is remarkable how when we read about these government data security breaches in any country, the most alarming possibilities always seem to have been avoided. Some special providence must protect government databases. The public face of My Number is provided by popular actress Aya Ueto and a rabbit-like mascot with numbers in place of eyes called “Maina-chan”. April 16th, 2016 | 21 comments - (Comments are closed)
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