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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God rest ye Merry Gentlemen If anything, our modern puritans are worse. At least the stiff folk of the 17th century believed reducing bodily pleasure would help expand the spirit, get one closer to God. The new puritans offer no such spiritual transcendence in return for our curbing of our blowouts – only the bovine payback of a slightly smaller waistline.
We eat around 6,000 calories on Christmas Day, disgusted experts say. We can do better than that. Start with a Buck’s Fizz breakfast; don’t scrimp on the Christmas-tree chocs; make brunch a sozzled, carb-heavy mix of your first beer and some Christmas panettone; everything for dinner should be cooked in turkey fat; follow that with a 1,174-cal slice of Christmas pudding; end with more booze and a selection box you don’t pick at but consume entirely. We can beat 6,000 calories. We owe it to old England and the original spirit of Christmas.
– Brendan O’Neill (£)
I’m up for embracing your admonition, Brendan, going to give it a serious try. Have a Merry Christmas all.
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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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The sentence is from Ioannidis 2005 paper, ‘Why Most Research Results Are False’.
Now I do actually believe certain things about Christmas – including that stuffing my face will expand my waistline. But, being traditional about it, I think the time for fasting is before and/or after, not during. And I believe I can make better decisions for myself than can ‘experts’ for me, even when I don’t believe their theory is wrong. And even where I do not see through some experts’ pretension of being expert, I still believe with Theoden the King that,
Being truly disinterested is something many ‘experts’ aren’t expert at either.
I’m just having a turkey pot pie for dinner tomorrow and that is out of sheer and unadulterated laziness.
I tried something new for tomorrow’s Christmas Dinner.
I tried out this recipe for Cranberry Bread once before and found it to be too like Fruitcake for my tastes. The recipe only calls for Raisins and Cranberries, so I added Walnuts, and upped the dry ingredients (Flour, Baking Powder, Salt, Baking Soda).
I achieved the loaf consistency I wanted.
As for the rest of the dinner, I m going with a rather large Ham Steak, Potatoes, and Spinach, with Apple Cider. It will just be me and my brother, so that should be enough.
And Merry Christmas to you.
I don’t know what I’ll eat for Christmas – it is going to be semi pot-luck. I do know, however, that there will be key lime pie and carrot cake for dessert.
Can I just lodge a protest against the lack of comma following the penultimate word of the title?
And,ladies, God rest ye merry as well.
TomJ:
I was part of a caroling group, but we were more enthusiastic than musically skilled.
We all took our tablets along because we weren’t that good at holding a note.
We disbanded after being told, in just the right tone, “God rest ye, Merry Gentlemen!”
Do I get to eat that Figgy Pudding off a plate or my face, for this comment?
I used to eat obscene amounts of panettone, after the holidays … when they were sold at half-price.
The best way to eat it is with a mascarpone-based sauce. IIRC it includes egg yolk, sugar or honey, and Amaretto di Saronno. And mascarpone, of course.
I asked my Mum to refresh my memory and i’ll keep you informed.
As for myself, i am going to try it w/o the sugar, and with a real bitter (Riga’s Black Balsam) instead of Amaretto.
And i’ll eat the sauce w/o the panettone, of course.
–Incidentally, i believe that there is a good reason why so many libertarians favor low-carb/paleo diets. But my hypothesis would spoil your seasonal cheer.
So, i wish you retroactively a Merry Christmas, and next year i’ll reveal my hypothesis.
Snorri:
I’ve seen Panettone before, and like it.
Mascarpone looks delicious.
Have you tried Advocaat?
According to the Woke clerics “God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen” is evil and needs rewriting – in reality it is the Woke clerics who are evil.
As for celebrating – people in Buffalo New York (and much of the United States) are freezing to death as I type these words.
In November the people of New York, which already has the highest government spending per person, voted to borrow another four billion Dollars (I hope they understand that “bond issue” means “borrow money”) to be spent on….
Fighting “Global Warming”.
Do not gloat about the fact that these people voted (not just in 2022 – but in 2020 and before) to fight “Global Warming” even though they are freezing to death (and this is not the first time – not even in this year), just try to understand it.
Try to understand how people could be so brainwashed by the education system and the media (including the entertainment media) that they vote against their own interests – and against reason.
The Marxists are, in a way, correct – people are brainwashed, conditioned, into “false consciousness” and voting against their own interests.
But what the Marxists get wrong (deliberately get wrong) is it is not the right that so misleads people – it is the left.
The left are “Projecting” as, after all, it is the left who control the education system and the media (yes control the “corporate media”) – how can the right be brainwashing people when we control nothing, and our enemies (the left) control everything.
The left accuse us of the very thing that they themselves are doing – and have done for a very long time.
FoSC: Yes, i tried advocaat when i was young and foolish — and btw my being fond of panettone was part of the reason why it took me so long to get my PhD.
Now i avoid refined carbs almost as fanatically as i avoid seed oils.
I had a couple of slices of quiche last week: that was about half the seed oils, and half the wheat flour, which i consumed in 2022.
Snorri:
I have a recipe from a Czech cooking site for Jelly Donuts, and I have the recipe for Advocaat.
I would like to try combining the two: Advocaat Donuts.
I am thinking a strong, rich tasting coffee to balance the rum out.
After we Jews worked through 8 days of fried food for chanukah, it’s about time you Christians started pulling your… well, you know what I mean.
Happy holidays!