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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Since I was once an anti-draft demonstrator, I find it heartening to read the DefSec of the United States state pretty much what my feelings were then and are now: a draft is slavery. In his words:
“My guess is that if one looks over a span of time, the history of our country, we’ll see that we have tended, during the periods that we had a draft, we tended to pay people about 40, 50, 60 percent of what they could have made in the civilian manpower market and use compulsion to have them serve.
Once that ended, we then were forced — properly in my view — to go to incentives that can attract out of the public sector the people we need and reward them properly so that they will in fact stay and serve and develop the kind of educational background and the kinds of skills and the kinds of time in position so that they can perform well for the country.”
A nation whose citizens will not defend it does not deserve to survive, and a government which must rely on volunteers must be more circumspect about the use of those volunteers. Wars must be for the protection of family and society or else volunteers will not be forthcoming.
I think one could make a very strong “original intent” argument here. The times may require the “standing armies”, but a volunteeer service at least acts as a brake on adventurism.
I wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Saddam-free New Year!
The Dnepr launch including the TransOrbital engineering test article for their coming Lunar Trailblazer vehicles has been orbited successfully. According to the Russian company’s news section:
“The third launch of SS-18 missile under Dnepr Program with a group of 6 spacecraft belonging to several customers was performed at Baikonur Cosmodrome on 20 December 2002 at 20-00.”
We can now look forward to a late 2003 attempt on the moon.
Trailblazer test article.
Courtesy TransOrbital
TransOrbital, a member of the Artemis Project, will soon carry out its’ first launch, an engineering mockup of their lunar probe. The vehicle is scheduled for launch into low earth orbit (LEO) tomorrow, Dec 20th, on a Russian Dnepr former-ICBM.
TransOrbital hopes to launch the first commercial lunar probe in late 2003.
From all of us at Samizdata: “Good luck and clear jets TO!”
More information is available here
The 2004 International Space Development Conference (ISDC) will be held in Oklahoma City. The ISDC is the annual National Space Society (NSS) conference. This is a direct inheritance from the L5 Society which began the conferences in Los Angelos in 1982.
The NSS Executive committee voted the final approved of the 2004 site candidate on Dec 12th. The 2003 conference is in Palo Alto, California this coming May. Please check out the web page for more information.
Just for the sake of full disclosure… I chair the committee that makes the location recommendations to the NSS Board of Directors, so I sort of knew this for a few weeks now.
I am a fairly regular reader of New Scientist for its take on fast breaking technological news. The magazine does have a downside though. It is very… well… representative of UK “liberal” politics.
I have just finished an item in the 29-Nov-2002 issue, “I see a long life and a healthy one…” about entrepreneurial companies making genetic testing available to the consumer. One would think a science magazine would be praising them for taking cutting edge science and bringing it to the consumer in an affordable and appealing way while potentially creating many high paying jobs for scientists in the UK, generating yet another path for massive capital infusion into genetic and health research and adding to UK exports to top it off?
Naaah.
I’ll let these quotes from the article stand on their own:
British regulators were caught on the hop when Sciona’s tests first went on sale. No one had foreseen that consumers would suddenly be able to learn something about their genes without a doctor’s agreement, or even knowledge.
Another option would be to return control of genetic testing to the medical profession, banning companies from providing tests unless requested by a doctor. Companies say this is a step too far towards meidcal paternalism, and argue that people have the right to obtain genetic information about themselves. But [Helen] Wallace [of GeneWatch UK] disagrees: “We need to ensure proper consultation through GP’s to ensure that people understand the implications of taking a test,” she says
What could I possibly add?
I’m watching the evening news while I eat… or perhaps I should call it the evening non-news as there has been very little time allocated for News tonight. With Iran in the midst of potentially historic changes, demonstrations against the dictator wannabe in Venezuala and with the Iraq situation moving towards endgame…. we get the Blair’s family business. The top news in the UK is whether the wife of the Prime Minister had help on a family mortgage from a con artist who was going out with her best friend. I’d like to know: “Why on EARTH should I give a flying f**k?”
Journalism has across the board sunk to the depths of super market rags. No garbage is too insignificant to be turned into a headline.
Minutes later: I give up. Television off. Garbage news on two channels, journalists rabbiting on about the importance of the utterly banal and unimportant. If everyone just turned the telly off now and told them how idiotic they all sound, I wonder if they’d get the point and give us News?
Thank god for the internet where I can go find news that actually matters.
The Ministry of Defense released a paper for public discussion (pdf) on missile defense today. Mr. Hoon would like the public debate on the issues to begin now because deployment will take many years here from the start of such discussion.
The media reports claim there is currently no threat. I was surprised not even Mr Hoon pointed out how even an existing short range ballistic missile can be fired from a tramp steamer outside of the UK territorial waters.
I hope to find some mention of this in the aforementioned document which I have not yet had a chance to read.
You may email your comments to the UK MoD on this subject at:
Missile-Defence@mod.gsi.gov.uk
Dec. 3, 2001 Prototype Kill Vehicle
launch from Mecklin Island.
Courtesy US DOD
Elon Musk, a South African internet entrepreneur made $300M on Zip2 and followed it up with $1.5B on PayPal.
His third company, set up in June this year, is SpaceX. He has done a clean sheet design start on a new vehicle aimed at cutting costs by two thirds. Falcon is targeted for launch by the end of 2003. Once operational, the two stage lox/kerosene Falcon will become the upper stages of a three stage heavy lifter.
He’s out to eat Boeing, Arianespace and Lockheed’s lunch.
I reported on the Twente University server room fire last week. According to this item in the Debian News mail list it was arson:
“Debian Server burnt down. Wichert Akkerman reported that a fire started in the computing facilities of Twente University. According to the fire department, everything in the building and the entire building was burnt to the ground. The Debian server “satie” that served as security and non-US archive was hosted there. Two days later, the Security Team reported that the security service was successfully reinstalled on another server. The nm and qa hosts had their home on satie as well and were also reinstalled on klecker. It has finally been confirmed that the fire was a result of arson.”
One has to wonder about motive. It’s just not the done thing to go burning down a university computer centre.
I saw an interview on ITV news tonight of a fellow in NYC who has seen all of the new proposed designs for replacing the World Trade Center.
He said unequivocably the selected design will restore the New York skyline, make it as it was. All designs are tall and some are even taller than the WTC buildings were. All are said to be stunning. The man could hardly stop from grinning as he spoke. You could see the glee in his eyes.
This sounds more like the America I grew up in.
I have felt for some time the Internet is bringing the “Two Cultures” together, and this poetry reading (1 MB mp3) by British poet Fred Turner is a case in point.
A tree house to the stars! What a gloriously Carrollian idea!
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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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