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Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I last logged out leaving the Samizdata just as I like it. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place. Yes, it may have been a bit shambolic and démodé but it was comforting and familiar like an old friend or a favourite armchair.
Only look at what has happened! I turn my back for a few hours and some anally-retentive busybodies have gone and called in the Feng Shui consultants. Now my loveable, historical old Blog has been has been consigned to the scrap heap and replaced with this ultra-hi-tech, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art thingy which they are probably going to tell me has been conceived for ‘balance’ or ‘harmony’ or ‘enhanced Chi‘ or something.
And as if that act of wanton cultural vandalism was not enough they have also furnished me with a new-fangled set of coding instructions with ‘stylesheets’ and ‘javascript’ and ‘xhtml’ this and ‘attribute’ that. The whole thing reads like stereo-assembly instructions. How is this old dog supposed to learn all these new tricks? It took me look enough to programme me the first time round. They will doubtless have to ship me off to the manufacturer now to be re-chipped and re-booted.
Or maybe they are planning to give me a make-over. Yes, I bet they are. After all age and experience counts for nothing these days. It’s all about image, image, image and daresay I am no longer regarded as sufficiently ‘happening’ anymore. I can see myself now, being prodded and poked around by a squadron of invidious design-gurus (“Dahhling, that haircut is just sooooo 2003″).
I would write a letter of complaint to these soulless technocrats but what good would it do? Besides they have all probably swanned off to some fashionable Islington eatery where they are quaffing down the polenta with rocket salad and feeling very smug about being so ‘cool’ and a la mode.
Bah! It’s all humbug.
British Liberal Democrat MP, Jenny Tonge, has been publicly displaying her licensed copy of ‘Root Causes Version 2.0’:
“I was just trying to say how, having seen the violence and the humiliation and the provocation that the Palestinian people live under every day and have done since their land was occupied by Israel, I could understand and was trying to understand where [suicide bombers] were coming from,” Dr Tonge told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.
She was speaking to a pro-Palestinian lobby when she said of Palestinian suicide bombers: “If I had to live in that situation – and I say that advisedly – I might just consider becoming one myself.”
Well, if Mrs Tonge feels that she really must blow herself to smithereens, then so be it. But before she turns herself into an abstract art installation, I hope someone takes the trouble to ask her for an explanation of this:
With the identification of two suicide bombers in Israel as British subjects, Britain faced suggestions Thursday that young British Muslims, previously associated with militant Islamic groups in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and elsewhere had now shifted focus to terrorism in the Middle East.
The identification as British citizens of Asif Hanif, 21, who died in a bomb attack that killed three people in a Tel Aviv nightclub Wednesday, and an accomplice, Omar Sharif, 27, also represented the first known instance in recent years of Britons prepared to kill themselves launching a terror attack. The news seemed to leave British officials stunned. “We think that the terrorists had British passports, which is something especially sad,” said Sherard Cowper-Coles, Britain’s ambassador in Israel.
As on previous occasions when British Muslims were found to have been fighting for the Taliban in Afghanistan or planning alleged terrorism in Britain, the suspected terrorists seemed to have grown up in innocuous, middle-class or blue-collar environments far from the conflicts they came to espouse as their own. That seemed to differentiate them from the more usual image of suicide bombers molded by the hardships of Gaza or the West Bank.
Small wonder that people like Mrs Tonge have conveniently chosen to forget this particular case of ‘desperation’.
Are politicians actually capable of thought and articulation or they merely making noises in return for which they think they are going to get rewards?
Barely two weeks after Michael Howard trumpeted his alleged belief that “the people should be big and the state should be small“, he weighs in on the side of big state and against the little citizen:
A future Conservative government would reverse Labour’s downgrading of cannabis from Class B to Class C, Tory leader Michael Howard has said.
His intervention comes a week ahead of the change to Class C, which will place cannabis alongside anabolic steroids and prescription anti-biotics and mean police will rarely make arrests for possession of small amounts of the drug.
Mr Howard said: “After thinking about this very carefully, we have come to the view that the Government’s decision is misconceived and when we return to office, we will reclassify cannabis back to Class B.”
Mr Blunkett’s changes introduced a “muddle” which would send a signal to young people that cannabis was legal and safe, when it was not, said the Tory leader.
Well, there is a germ of truth here in that HMG is most certainly in a ‘muddle’ but at least it is a muddle which is shambling along, after a fashion, in a sort-of, vaguely right direction. The motives may not be entirely logical or even honourable but I think it’s results that count here.
But am I to believe that Mr Howard has thought about this ‘very carefully’? Cannabis is only illegal because people like Mr Howard demand that it be so and the question of whether or not it is ‘safe’ (whatever that means) is entirely irrelevant. If he genuinely wants to the state to be small then he is hardly likely to achieve that aim by reinforcing the principle rubric behind big government, i.e. that it is necessary in order to manage the citizen’s health and welfare.
So is Mr Howard (a) disingenuous or (b) really not thought this through at all?
I think we have a right to know.
It sounds as if brows all over Europe are being furrowed, heads are being shaken and hands being heavily wrung. What to do? What to do?
Via Instapundit:
Europe’s apparently doomed attempt to overtake the US as the world’s leading economy by 2010 will today be laid bare in a strongly worded critique by the European Commission.
The Commission’s spring report, the focal point of the March European Union economic summit, sets out in stark terms the reasons for the widening economic gap between Europe and the US.
It cites Europe’s low investment, low productivity, weak public finances and low employment rates as among the many reasons for its sluggish performance.
Mama Mia, Ai Caramba, Gott in Himmel and Merde! Does this mean that the European ‘social model’ is not working?
The Professor himself points the way:
Hmm. Bloated public sectors, high taxes, excessive regulation, and inflexible hiring rules probably have something to do with it.
Well, yes. They do have something to do with it. In fact, they have everything to do with it. But just because this is slap-in-the-face obvious, it would be unwise to assume any public (or even private) recognition of this obviousness in the halls of European power. → Continue reading: We’re in a hole! Keep digging
The natives are finally growing restless. Well, some of them are, at any rate and, for just for a change, this is grass-roots agitation of the righteous sort.
Yes, the people behind the Taxpayers Alliance are as mad as hell and they are not going to take it anymore. The strapline says it all:
Campaigning for lower taxes because it’s our money
Right on, brothers and sisters and Amen and, might I just add, about bloody time too. Ever since the mid-90’s, when the producing classes were finally bullied and browbeaten into dolefully accepting that higher taxes would result in better government services, they have stoically maintained their stiffer upper lips while the fiscal thumbscrews have been steadily tightened.
But the government services they thought they cherished have remained as crap as they ever were and now, finally, a few of them have realised that they’ve been took, they’ve been had.
But (and you all knew that there just had to be a ‘but’) as pleased as I am to finally see these few worms turning, they still have some way to go before they address the ‘root causes’ of their problems:
We have already found £50 BILLION of unnecessary government spending to cut (without closing hospitals or schools, or cutting pensions). That is more than enough to abolish Council Tax or take a big slice out of Income Tax.
The objects of their attack are what they see as the ‘waste and inefficiency’ of the government as if those things can somehow be magically eradicated while leaving the public sector largely intact. However, ‘waste and inefficiency’ are not bugs requiring elimination in order for the welfare state to function properly, they are systemic features of the welfare state itself.
For as long as these campaigners continue to accept the fabian argument that services like healthcare and education must be provided by the government, then their otherwise noble campaign will remain fatally flawed. It leaves them wide open to the counter-argument that state and schools and hospitals must have the necessary ‘resources’ and sooner, rather than later I think, they will find themselves running smack into that brick wall.
But, that said, they are still doing the right thing. Or, at least, starting to do the right thing. I hope it is the thin end of a very thick wedge.
[My thanks to reader Gawain Towler who provided the above link via Terence Coyle.]
If you think the French ‘headscarf ban’ is going to cause friction, then I cannot wait to see where this is going to lead:
A proposed ban on religious symbols in French state schools could include a ban on beards, according to the French education minister.
The decision as to whether or not to grow a beard should be left to the individual schoolgirl. After all, it is what is going on inside that counts!
I think it is at least plausible to propose that a vast swathe of bad ideas and damaging policies are borne on the wings not of malevolence or even stupidity, but simply economic illiteracy: a fundamental failure to grasp how money actually works.
If that is the case, then this kind of thing is encouraging:
Personal finance education looks set to become a regular part of school life, following a series of successful pilot schemes across the country.
The charity the Personal Finance Education Group (Pfeg) has been working with teachers to help them provide extra-curricular lessons covering everything from straightforward budgeting to calculating interest and getting a good deal on a mobile phone.
One teacher said: “I think it will broaden their horizons; they will certainly have a better understanding of how to manage money. I think they’ll also have a better understanding of the taxation system and why you pay tax.”
However, enthusiasm should be tempered by the possibility that the subject is not being taught very well or, worse, that the whole thing is the project of ghastly statists who want to use this as a means of driving home pro-tax propaganda to a new generation.
But, those caveats aside, this could be welcome because even if it transpires that this is really all part of a lefty ‘get-them-while-their-young’ programme, the effect might be to start prodding young brain cells in directions that their teachers never intended them to go.
Clearly nothing escapes the hawk-eyed attention of these rapier-witted and attentive public servants:
A tax office official in Finland who died at his desk went unnoticed by up to 30 colleagues for two days.
The man in his 60s died last Tuesday while checking tax returns, but no-one realised he was dead until Thursday.
Getting a fiddled expenses claim past them must be a doddle. Let’s all move to Finland!
He said everyone at the tax office was feeling dreadful – and procedures would have to be reviewed.
From now on, mandatory pulse-checks every 24 hours.
From the Guardian, a perfect illustration of the importance of ‘anti-junk-food’ campaigning as the newfound cause du jour of the British left. It is hard to tell which aspect of his own report the author finds more disturbing: capital punishment or the lack of healthy food options for the condemned:
Raymond Rowsey got his deadly dose on January 9, in North Carolina. The sole white among these executed men, Rowsey was convicted for the killing of a convenience store clerk – or perhaps his accomplice half-brother did it, no one seemed quite sure at the trial. Their takings? Two pornographic magazines and $54. Rowsey had a history of horrific childhood abuse. His last meal was pizza, chicken wings, two packets of peanut M&Ms, and a Pepsi.
Junk food and judicial killing. Feel queasy?
But would not the offer of a balanced, healthy last meal be a bit…well, redundant?
It is a seldom-recognised fact that the British are world leaders in the art of grumbling. By a long margin, it is our most popular national pastime. In fact, if grumbling was an Olympic sport (or perhaps synchronised grumbling) then it would be British competitors taking gold, silver and bronze. The other nations do not stand a chance.
And I can find no better example of this kind of world-class, cutting-edge grumbling than this article by Philip Johnston:
Do you ever feel like Howard Beale, the character played by Peter Finch in the film Network? He was a news presenter on American TV who became so frustrated at the refusal of anyone to listen to reason that he invited viewers to open their windows and yell into the streets: “I am as mad as hell and I am not going to take it any more.”
Such conspicuous expressions of indignation are more acceptable in America than they are here. When we are as mad as hell, the most forceful manifestation of our emotions tends to be a resigned shrug or a heavy sigh. Understatement is one of our endearing national characteristics; but it also means we can more easily be taken for a ride.
And that is why we lead the world in grumbling. We have the ideal training programme.
Our predisposition to react benignly to developments that would have other people taking to the streets is to be applauded. But this quintessential mildness relies on governments, local councils and others who can interfere in our lives to do so only when it is absolutely necessary, and then in a fair and balanced way. The current Government is no longer able to identify this fulcrum. It brings in legislation because it believes that its very function is to pour forth a cascade of new laws each year, even when there is no demand for them.
Suggest to a minister that he might try to get through the parliamentary session without legislating and he will look at you as if you are crazy. Propose that existing laws should take effect before new ones are introduced and expect a blank stare. After all, what are politicians for if not to bring in laws? “We legislate therefore we are,” should be written on the gates of the Palace of Westminster.
But what else are politicians for? Pray tell, Mr Johnston?
For those fed up with high taxes, street crime, late and dirty trains, inane regulations, the unjustified use of fines and charges, bloody-minded parking restrictions, excessive public sector waste, preposterous European directives, multi-culturalist busybodies, useless and unaccountable council officials and six-hour waits at the local hospital’s A&E centre, a shrug and a sigh are no longer enough.
And so what? What follows from that? If Mr Johnston is proposing that our time-honoured traditions of heavy sighing, eyeball-rolling, muttering and impotent resignation are no longer sufficient grist for the national mill, then so be it, but where do we go from there?
Government-fetishists are always trying to justify their demands for ever-bigger state by claiming that only the state can ride to the rescue of the public to correct what they call ‘market failures’.
So, who is going to come riding to the rescue to put this right?
Thousands of parents who had children taken away from them on the evidence of the controversial paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow will not have them returned.
Ministers are to review as many as 5,000 civil cases of families affected over the past 15 years by Prof Meadow’s now-discredited theory of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. This accused mothers of harming their children to draw attention to themselves.
Many mothers say that they have been vindicated in their insistence that they were wrongly accused and now want their children back. However, Margaret Hodge, the minister for children, has ruled out any widespread return.
Mrs Hodge said that the exact number of civil cases where Prof Meadow’s theory had been used to remove children from mothers was unknown, but could run into “thousands or even tens of thousands”.
She added, however: “If a miscarriage of justice was made 10 or 15 years ago, what is in the child’s interest now? If the adoption order was made on the back of Meadow’s evidence and that was 10 years ago, what is in the real interest of the child? If they were taken as babies the only parent they know is the adopted one. It is incredibly difficult. It is a really tough call to make.
“The sort of families that are coming forward are heartbroken families. But if the child was adopted at birth the sensible thing to do is to let it stay. As children’s minister my prime interest has to be the interests of the child.”
I would be willing to wager that the ‘prime interest’ of Margaret Hodge is Margaret Hodge.
As for the thousands of parents who may have had their children abducted by the state, well, tough titties. Live with it.
What the government puteth asunder, let no man join together again.
When the French government decided to place a prohibition of overtly religious symbols in state schools (or ‘the headscarf ban’ as it is more widely know), I bet they thought that they were removing a splinter from the soft tissue of the body politic.
But it looks like the wound is beginning to fester:
Muslim protests have been taking place in France and other countries against a French bill which would ban headscarves from state schools.
Up to 5,000 protesters, mainly Muslim women in scarves, rallied in Paris.
Many of France’s five million Muslims see it as an attack on their religious and human rights.
And that view is not confined to French Muslims either:
“Ultimately, if I have to choose between further studies or my turban, I will keep the turban.”
Fourteen-year-old Vikramjit Singh, who lives in suburban Paris, says giving up his studies would perhaps ruin his material life.
“But if I have to give up my turban, I am sacrificing my spiritual life. And that is totally unacceptable to me,” he told BBC News Online.
For Sikhs, wearing the turban is crucial to their religious identity.
I get the feeling that this one is going to run and run.
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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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