The Swedish Foreign Minister, Anna Lindh, has died from stab wounds inflicted while she was shopping in the centre of Stockholm. This rather macabre and brutal incident, the murder of a prominent Pro-Euro politician by attacker unknown, reminds us, as in the case of Pim Fortuyn, that the ideas we discuss on blogs like Samizdata, can often go far beyond mere words. Anna Lindh’s death will have repercussions on the future of Europe, which will also go far beyond mere words. Whatever they are, I can only offer my heartfelt sympathy to her family, her friends, and her colleagues, and hope the perpetrator of this appalling crime is brought to justice swiftly. It should never come to this.
|
|||||
|
September 11th, 2003 | 53 comments - (Comments are closed)
 An interesting story tonight, on Newsnight, about some British pensioners refusing to pay ever-rising council taxes. There was one old soldier on £80 pounds a week, of which a quarter goes on council taxes. He was adamant that he would go to jail before he paid it, this year. Now this is perhaps a debate for more educated and informed fellows than I, but if once formerly restrained British senior citizens are now actively contemplating the tactics of Gandhi, in non-violent protest, is British society really being pushed to the absolute limit by these ruling class socialist thieves also known as the New Labour Party? The state of modern Britain grows ever more curiouser by the day. September 10th, 2003 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
So Wunderkind Wayne Rooney does it again, saving England from an embarrassing result against those footballing soccer lilliputians, Lichtenstein. Old Mottie and the Brookmeister even blessed him, as is traditional, with those epithets of glory, “he’s a natural”, and “he’s got a great footballing brain”. Ah yes, the memories of Peter Beardsley came flooding back, that face, the one of a bulldog chewing a wasp. But Wayne Rooney! Is he really only seventeen? It hardly seems possible. He’s a bull, he’s a monster, his touch is awesome, almost Pele-esque. Are we blessed with the next Maradonna, the next George Best, or is it just the next Wayne Rooney? This is what I love about genius. The idiot egalitarians of socialism want every man and woman to be ratcheted back to the level of the lowest of the low, to be smacked into the most feeble of the feeble denominators, but when it comes to sport, they are the first to proclaim the greatness of the individual, the uniqueness of human ability, and the sacredness of talent. What is it about sport? Is it the only human arena in which all can acknowledge individual human greatness? If only we could extend this to other realms of human endeavour. Whatever the case, God Bless you Wayne Rooney, a nation turns its lonely eyes to you. May I only be there when you score the winning goal against Brazil in the next World Cup Final. September 10th, 2003 | 7 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Liberal Democrats’ Environment Spokesman, Norman Baker, has been banging on again, via the Today program this week, about how people in Britain shouldn’t be allowed to have 4×4 cars, unless some busy-body, such as himself, agrees to it. At least, that’s what he seems to be saying. Back in May he started an anti-SUV campaign which attracted lots of supportive comment from the usual suspects. Hearing James Naughtie and Mr Baker discussing this, on a regular basis now, is becoming a staple gap filler on the Today program. Now socialists and environmentalists I can understand wetting their pants over whether I love my wonderful Honda CRV or not, or whether I should get one of those new baby Jeeps next time, which look rather nice, but what is an MP from the Liberal Democrats doing criticising my choice of car? Will somebody please remind Mr Baker, and other members of the supposed political party of liberalism, that we in the United Kingdom are supposed to be living in a free country, and whether I choose to drive a Honda CRV, an Amazon Land Cruiser, or a disarmed Scimitar tank, it is entirely my free choice. Or at least it should be. And when it isn’t, I will know for absolute certain that I am no longer living in a free country. When will the Liberal Democrats get it? When will they realise that the reason they have been out of power for nearly a century is because they are nothing more than the bleeding-heart wing of the Labour Party, having long spurned the causes of freedom under that great statist double-dealer, David Lloyd George. As Mr Carr points out, there may be a great opportunity out there for the rise of a new Classical Liberal party, which could return to the Old Whig roots of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to upset the statist struggle between New Labour and the Conservatives. With idiotarians like Norman Baker around, I fear it may be a some time yet before the Liberal Democrats grab this chance. William Ewart Gladstone must be weeping in his grave. September 10th, 2003 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
And so, as the great heat swamp of Old London Town finally begins to subside towards the cold dark wetness of autumn, which for some of us is a very great relief, we in England can begin to think of Christmas. Oh yes, we can dream of Yuletide hymns, rich puddings with brandy sauce, and gifts under the evergreen tree of renewed pagan life. And what better a gift idea could there be, for this ancient festival of change, than a brand new book by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr, the current holder of the flame of Herr Hayek, Von Mises, and Murray N. Rothbard? No other gift idea comes close, in my humble opinion. And if you agree, you might want to slip over to the Mises Blog for hot-off-the-press details from the man himself. Best of all, for intellectual pygmies, such as myself, the book, Speaking of Liberty, apparently comes in at under 500 pages, and is formed from a collection of Rockwell’s best speeches integrated into a cohesive whole, to create his personal manifesto on politics and economics. As I’m trying to cure myself of impulsiveness, I paused for almost a whole nanosecond before deciding whether to attempt to get hold of a copy. And then I read this:
Followed by this:
Sold, to the gentleman in the black slip-on sandals. September 9th, 2003 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
In a bid to end his government’s crippling reputation for spin, Prime Minister Tony Blair is to form a new team to clean out the cluttered stables of Downing Street mendacity. Tony’s new Ministry of Truth will be headed up by Mr Peter Mandelson, the MP for Hartlepool and a former Cabinet Minister, who will be ably assisted, amongst others, by Alastair ‘The future Lord of Burnley’ Campbell, a former Director of Government Communication. George Orwell is said to be turning in his grave. Richard Littlejohn, 74, is said to be running out of different ways to say ‘you couldn’t make it up’. September 1st, 2003 | 6 comments - (Comments are closed)
Rejoice, rejoice! He’s gone, he’s history, he’s outta here. As spotted by the eagle-eyed Guy Herbert, Alastair Campbell has quit! Ok, so he hasn’t really gone. He’ll still be on the phone ten times a day to the Boss, just like Mandy is, and he’s not ‘officially’ leaving for a few weeks. But I will still be breaking open a bottle of shampoo tonight, just for the hell of it. Cheers!  August 29th, 2003 | 25 comments - (Comments are closed)
You know, I’m beginning to suspect that Rod Liddle is on the same journey I took, albeit in a higher plane, from New Labour placard-waver, to semi-rabid libertarian back-street raver. There have been several excellent articles in The Spectator, recently, topped off I think by his latest piece on the travails of the Reverend Tony. I did have Rod pegged as being a straightforward leading member of the liberal elite, with his column in The Guardian, and his editorship of the Today program. But ever since the BBC let him go I’ve really begun to welcome his regular appearances on Channel4 News, his pieces on the stupidity of over-regulation, and his devastating broadsides against the Spin-Meisters of the champagne socialist lie machine. So is the end in sight for Boris’s demise as editor of the Speccy? As a South Oxfordshire resident, an occasional bag-man for Boris, and a one-time writer for his magazine, my opinion is torn in two opposing directions. But if Boris is happy to give up the mantle, to concentrate better on his task of becoming a serious politician in the mould of Lord Salisbury, then is there a better potential editor around than Rod Liddle? I’m becoming ever more confident that Lord Black doesn’t think so. And following Jonathan Pearce’s earlier article, on the matter, would a change be a good thing anyway, for one of my favourite magazines? One thing though, Rod, if you’re reading. Gonna have to give up that Guardian column. Sorry. August 29th, 2003 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
With a single bound, he’s once again overcome his latest ‘greatest test’, the Prime Minister who claims to be both responsible for everything, including all the decisions, but who didn’t know anything, or indeed take any of the decisions. Confused? That’s what we’re all meant to be. What a performance. You’ve got to hand it to him, Teflon Tony, the wizard apprentice of Slick Willy. He really has become the Master. However, this showdown today was never going to see Tony storming from the witness box to drive up to Windsor to tender his resignation to Her Majesty in a fit of petulance. He’s had the government’s finest lawyers and QCs rolling him over red-hot coals for five days, attacking him in every possible way, to prepare him for this, plus years of experience shrugging off John Humphrys et al, in hundreds of tough media interviews. But Downing Street’s QCs haven’t been entirely successful mainly because Geoff Hoon refused to lie down and die, yesterday. Blair has therefore been forced to adopt the American presidential stand-by defence, the passive voice of deniability. Remember this?:
Who made them? Everybody. Who in particular? Nobody in particular, and besides, it’s all water under the bridge anyway, so could we move on now, and draw a line under this whole thing? Marvellous. But I’m afraid Mr Blair, that Mr Richard Nixon tried this line once too, and look what happened to him. I don’t know if there are any smoking tapes here, or whether Dr David Kelly was the Deep Throat of this piece, who had to be silenced by MI6, but there is something very rotten in the state of Denmark this day, and the smell is still very clearly emanating from 10 Downing Street. And it is not going to go away, however fond your hopes remain that it will. You may even be telling the truth, most of the time. But nobody, including even you, knows when that is. Which 5% is the lying 5%? Or is it 10% of lies? Or is it 50% of lies? I know some of it is lies. But is all of it lies? Surely not? It’s so hard to tell as we watch that Cheshire-cat smile slide all over your face. I do know two things for certain though, Mr Blair. You will never again see a glad confident morning, so long as you remain in British politics, and it’s going to be great fun watching you go down. Is that cruel of me? Possibly, but I’ve paid for the privilege and I’m going to make the most of it. August 28th, 2003 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
For the last 15 years, or so, I’ve earned my daily bread in and around the arena of Unix programming, whether that has been managing databases, programming in various flavours of shell script, writing technical specifications, or teaching programming. When one is living in ‘Unix World’, there are certain conventions that one must adhere to, and the central one is wearing sandals. Fortunately, being a contrary sort of person, I’ve managed to resist this. I have occasionally succumbed to the continuous 24-hour donning of SuSE Linux polo shirts, the drinking of large quantities of real ale, and the growing of beards (once), but until this year I’d managed to avoid the big one. But alas, no longer. With the collapse of the database and telecom networking industries in the Thames Valley, where I’d carried out many cosy assignments, I was forced out of my air-conditioned sub-one-hour trips to Abingdon, Camberley, and Reading, and plonked into the sadistic clutches of Thames Trains, Network Rail, and the London Underground, as all the consultancy work contracted into a small hard-core area of central London. So what’s all this got to do with sandals? Well, I’m a cold weather person. I like snow. I like skiing. I like warm fires, and thick blankets, and cocoa round the hearth. What I really can’t tolerate is hot humid weather of the sort we’ve been having this summer in London and its surrounding regions, especially when trapped within a Thames Train cattle-truck where the windows won’t open and the air-conditioning has failed, or at any time on the Bakerloo line, where I swear the humidity last week hit 763%. Or at least it felt like it did. → Continue reading: Shoes ‘R’ Us August 28th, 2003 | 13 comments - (Comments are closed)
Yesterday saw some interesting developments at the Hutton inquiry: Mr Doberman: Have you anything to say for yourself, Mr Hoon? Hoon: Yes. It wasn’t me. I wasn’t there. It was someone else. Mr Doberman: So you didn’t do it? Hoon: No. It was that other bloke, you know, the other fella. But it certainly wasn’t me. Mr Doberman: But you still take the full buck-stopping Cabinet salary as a Secretary of State for the Ministry of Defence? Hoon: Oh yes. I love earning well over a hundred and thirty grand a year. Mr Doberman: For doing little that anyone can clearly discern? Hoon: Yes, Mr Doberman. That’s right. I really do know absolutely nothing. I was only obeying my permanent secretary’s orders. Mr Doberman: So what are you then, Mr Hoon? Are you a hopeless liar? Or are you a hapless goon? Hoon: No, it’s ‘Hoon’, ‘Geoff Hoon’. Mr Doberman: Thank you, Mr Goon. No further questions. So it seems today is Antony Charles Linton Blair’s Big Day Out. His last Blairite ex-friend in the Cabinet, Geoff Hoon, has stitched him up big time, good and proper, a man obviously unprepared to fall on his sword to protect the Master. Which is just as well, seeing as the Master was going to drop Hoon down a chute, feed him to the wolves, and forget him as yesterday’s bad rubbish. So like rats in a trap they’ve all finally turned upon one another. And a certain James Gordon Brown circles the rats, grinning from ear to ear. And who can blame him? I suspect the Master will still make it through today though, almost in one piece, but with the Hutton report hanging over him like the sword of Damocles. But it’s going to be a helluva dogfight, it seems, to get rid of Hoon, who doesn’t appear to be doing the decent thing and going gracefully. And then it’s going to be that great big Cabinet office for Blair with not a friend in sight, Brownites to the left of me, Brownites to the right of me, here I am, stuck in the middle facing the Chancellor. Oh to be a fly on the wall. Latest Duncan Fortune 500 betting odds? Blair out by bonfire night (November 5th), retired, injured hurt. I must brush up on some biographies of Gordon. August 28th, 2003 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
I was in a dilemma this morning. I was just coming up to the last chapter of Mr Steven Pinker’s seminal work, Blank Slate, and reckoned I needed another 20 minutes to finish it. Unfortunately, my usual Tube journey takes me about 15 minutes. So what to do? Ha ha, I thought, I’ll take the Circle Line instead. This is always full of delays. But then a Circle Line train pulled up almost immediately, full of empty seats, and raring to go. Foiled! I thought, once again, by a socialised transport system which even fails to be late when that’s what you require. So, resigned to getting to my client’s office on time, I set about the last chapter. However, I was not to be disappointed. For there was a delay getting into Edgeware Road station! Oh, yes. → Continue reading: Pinker, or bluer, or freer? August 27th, 2003 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
|
   |
||||
All content on this website (including text, photographs, audio files, and any other original works), unless otherwise noted, is licensed under a Creative Commons License. |
|||||