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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Given the global prominence of this brand, I find it quite surprising that only now are Starbucks about to open their first branch in Paris:
When Disney arrived with its theme park they called it a cultural Chernobyl. Many Parisians will view as an even bigger disaster the opening today of the city’s first branch of Starbucks.
Six years after it served up the first decaf cappucino in Europe, the Seattle-based global coffee giant is ready to take on the nation that invented café society.
They better hire some burly security guards as well. If they manage to get through the first month without succumbing to a Jose Bove-led sit-in protest they will be able to consider themselves fortunate.
Despite the global success, purists are predicting that in France, where ordering an express (often consumed with a cigarette) is a sacred tradition, the brand will flop. Bernard Quartier, spokesman for the organisation that represents French café owners said: “I don’t believe this concept is going to work because nothing can replace the conviviality and sociability of the French café.”
Now this is a different matter. If Starbucks fails to ignite the interest of the Parisians then so be it. The market rules and, in as much as he is basing his dismissal on his understanding of local market conditions, then Monsieur Quartier has got a point.
After all, if your idea of a good night out is lashings of Sartre and dollops of Foucault washed down with litres of bitter café noir and a lungful of Gitanes then the child-friendly play areas and sanitised chirpiness of Starbucks is probably not for you. → Continue reading: Would you like guilt with your coffee, sir?
On the same day that Prime Minister Tony Blair launches London’s official bid for the Olympic Games in 2012, I hereby announce the start of my ‘No Olympics’ campaign.
“The London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games will enhance sport in London and the UK forever,” said bid chairman Barbara Cassani.
And, by curious coincidence, ‘forever’ is about how long we are going to have to spend paying for it. No. Non. Nein. Njet. Let the French have it. Or the Russians. Or the Brazilians. Or somebody. Anybody. Just not here. Go away. Sod off. Scram. Sling your hook. Get lost.
I think I shall call a press conference.
UPDATE: The French have also launched their official bid. Apparently, they are the favourites. Good. I support the French bid. Vive la France!
So George ‘Hitler’ Bush and his shadowy cabal of extreme right-wing neo-conservative warmongers are, once again, showing their contempt for the peace-loving, democratic will of the international community:
The United States is challenging a strategy by the World Health Organization (WHO) to tackle obesity.
Some scientists accuse President Bush’s administration of planning to water down proposed junk food regulations, in order to protect big business.
No mention of who these ‘scientists’ are, mind. Perhaps they are Indyscientists.
Anyway, I support the WHO. I think it is only reasonable and fair that I should be told what I can and cannot eat by a panel of experts from Libya, Chad, Cuba and North Korea. It’s for my own good!
I am glad that Brian has invited readers of his article below to veer off into unrelated realms because I intend to do exactly that. Of course, I would have done so anyway but I feel better for having had Brian’s blessing.
Though this post has been sparked off by Brian’s musings, it has nothing to do with Islam. Rather I have homed in on one particular phrase which Brian has used in his post and which has been repeated ad nauseum by others. Namely:
War is the health of the state
If free-market axioms were trees then that one would be a mighty oak. Among libertarians it is an unquestioned and proven truism. An article of faith. The nearest thing we have to a party line.
However, it is a line from which I dissent. Not because I regard the process of war with any favour but rather because, like Brian, I dislike untruth and while the declaration that war is the health of the state may be comfortingly self-righteous and gallery-friendly, it is not true. → Continue reading: War is not the health of the state
The reasoning is clear and simple: if you drive a car, you must have too much money for your own good. It is time that HMG relieved you of some of this burden:
Motorists convicted of speeding may have to pay compensation for victims, the government has proposed.
The plan, published on Monday, is one of several changes to the funding of victim support services.
Motorists given a prison term or suspended sentence would pay £30 to a Home Office fund providing victim and witness compensation and support.
Those fined for speeding or driving without insurance would face a levy of £5 or £10…
He said a victims fund would put more money into services such as practical support, information to victims of rape and sexual offences, road traffic accident victims and those who have been bereaved as a result of crime.
So, if you get caught speeding, you get punished for sexual offences and murders.
Not that the absurdity will matter in practice. I predict that not a single real victim of any real crime will ever see a single penny of that money ever.
Online purveyors of imperialist Yankee running-dog capitalism are not welcome in socialist paradise:
A new law has been passed in Cuba which will make access to the internet more difficult for Cubans.
Only those authorised to use the internet from home like civil servants, party officials and doctors will be able to do so on a regular phone line.
So there we have it. A country that has (allegedly) 100% rates of literacy but you are not allowed to actually read anything.
I learned long ago not to hang my rhetorical hat on anything as unreliable and insubstantial as a scientific report, especially when they are described as ‘surveys’. It always conjures up visions of earnest researchers scurrying about with clipboards asking random people multiple-choice questions about household detergents.
However, that said, it would not surprise me in the least to discover that this does, in fact, have some substance to it:
Millions of Africans believed to have HIV/Aids are free of the disease, according to research published yesterday.
The survey will dismay those who claim the West is ignoring a pandemic so acute it could wipe out the populations of entire African states.
I know exactly who those ‘dismayed’ people are. They are the lobbyists, charity scammers, tranzi office-holders, preachy celebrities and other assorted NGO-fodder who have turned AIDS into an international fund-raising and foreign junkett circus. Joining them will be a host of African kleptocrats who know only too well that ‘AIDS’ is the magic word with which to open the purse-strings of Western treasuries.
Africa still has that ‘dark continent’ quality about it that makes it impenetrably mysterious to gringos in the West. So when we are told by talking heads with august-sounding titles that squinty million zillion trillion people are dying of AIDS in Africa every four minutes, very few of us (if any) have sufficient knowledge of the situation on the ground to raise so much as a batsqueak of doubt. By the same token, it would all look the same if the figure-compilers lumped in deaths from all manner of other maladies and diseases in order to inflate the victim-toll.
I remember so clearly when AIDS became a big public health issue in Britain in the mid-80’s. From out of nowhere came legions of ‘experts’ to assure us that it really was the new ‘Black Death’ and it was poised to wipe out the civilised world. Resistance was futile. Most of us would be dead before breakfast.
It never happened in the West and maybe it is never going to happen in Africa either.
This intriguing, tickling, curiosity about China may well be something I share only with Brian Micklethwait but perhaps he, like me, is forever being goaded into continuing scrutiny by these little streams of fascinating information coming out of the place.
No sooner have the Chinese authorities decided to amend the constitution to provide for private property protection than their Courts start implementing it:
The court in Beijing ruled on December 18, 2003 that Beijing Artic Ice Technology Development must return the virtual goods to the player, Li Hongchen. Hongchen had spent two years and over US$1,200 on ‘pay-as-you-go’ access cards playing the online game “Hongyue” (Red Moon) and had built up an account of virtual money and weapons in his playing account.
In February 2003, Hongchen discovered that his account had been hacked through the game’s central servers. He complained to the company but was told that the virtual goods had no real world value. The company also refused to identify the hacker, saying that it could not reveal private details of players, reported Reuters, an international news agency.
So not only are Chinese Courts going to protect private property, they are even going to protect virtual private property.
A columnist for TechNewsWorld, a U.S. news Web site, said the Chinese court case appeared to be the first in the world.
I am not aware of any similar ruling in either the UK or Europe so maybe the chappie from TechNewsWorld is right and this is a world first. Who would have imagined even a few short years ago that property law precedents would be set in China?!!
All shock and awe aside, I wonder if it is a precedent that will followed elsewhere, especially in the West? It just might. I noticed some time ago that laws relating to technology in general, and the internet in particular, are taking on a very global hue.
If that Court in Beijing manages to start a global ball rolling then I foresee very interesting implications for the future of ‘cyber’ wealth.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is what it looks like on Mars.
That is the vista that will greet the first humans to set foot on that planet. I do not expect to be around to share in that experience but I still tingle with excitement at the prospect.
Journalism is a dog-eat-dog business these days. Lack of talent is no longer enough. No, you have to do something truly original and spectacular in order to get noticed.
Take, for example, Osama Bin Laden. After years of fruitless struggle (and the customary mound of polite rejection letters) he has finally been rewarded with his own column in the Guardian:
The west’s occupation of our countries is old, but takes new forms. The struggle between us and them began centuries ago, and will continue. There can be no dialogue with occupiers except through arms. Throughout the past century, Islamic countries have not been liberated from occupation except through jihad. But, under the pretext of fighting terrorism, the west today is doing its utmost to besmirch this jihad, supported by hypocrites.
Employing him was clearly the right decision. Who else can boast such an enticing combination of political commentary, history and anti-Western rhetoric? This is sizzling stuff. Looks like the Guardian has landed itself a new champion of social justice and the environment.
Tony Martin was clearly a trailblazer:
A proposal to allow homeowners to use “any means” to defend their homes, has topped a BBC poll on the bill people would most like to see become law.
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme asked listeners to vote on suggested Private Members’ Bills, with the first choice taking 37% of the votes.
Norfolk farmer Tony Martin, whose fatal shooting of a burglar in 1999 sparked a national debate, welcomed the result.
As well he might. For him this is a vindication. For others, though, thi is an embarrassment, not least of all for the Conservative MP who was supposed to be Tony Martin’s champion:
Tony Martin’s MP, Conservative Henry Bellingham said the idea went too far by suggesting homeowners should use “any means” to protect their property.
→ Continue reading: And the point of that was?
Tony Martin was clearly a trailblazer:
A proposal to allow homeowners to use “any means” to defend their homes, has topped a BBC poll on the bill people would most like to see become law.
BBC Radio 4’s Today programme asked listeners to vote on suggested Private Members’ Bills, with the first choice taking 37% of the votes.
Norfolk farmer Tony Martin, whose fatal shooting of a burglar in 1999 sparked a national debate, welcomed the result.
As well he might. For him this is a vindication. For others, though, this is an embarrassment, not least of all for the Conservative MP who was supposed to be Tony Martin’s champion:
Tony Martin’s MP, Conservative Henry Bellingham said the idea went too far by suggesting homeowners should use “any means” to protect their property.
For politicians this potato is just too hot to touch. The mere mention of rights to self-defence is enough to have them scampering away whelping like whipped curs. Nor do I expect that this synthetic exercise is going to make so much as a dent in the established view that defending oneself from barbarity is morally more reprehensible than the barbarity itself:
More than 26,000 votes were registered by listeners taking part in the poll and the winning bill will now be presented to the House of Commons by Stephen Pound MP.
He will need to persuade the 20 MPs who have been chosen to put forward Private Members Bills to take up the poll winner’s suggestion.
He will have more chance trying to persuade Osama Bin Laden to book his daughters in for pole-dancing lessons. Me being cynical? No, not at all. Just hear what the same Stephen Pound has to say about the whole thing in the Guardian:
Stephen Pound, Labour MP for Ealing North, who was one of the programme’s judges, expressed surprise at the high vote for such a controversial plan among listeners to such a programme.
“My enthusiasm for direct democracy is slightly dampened,” the MP told Today. “This is a difficult result. I can’t remember who it was who said ‘The people have spoken – the bastards’.”
Hmm, colour me skeptical but I have a hunch that his heart is not really going to be behind this campaign. These people are always agitating for ‘more democracy’ until it jumps up and slaps them in the face. Democracy is only supposed to be for the compliant: no ‘bastards’ allowed.
Mr Pound, however, is one of the more sanguine respondents. Elsewhere there is enough sqwauking and clucking to drown out a poultry market. The Guardian is already denouncing the result as a fix:
The BBC was warned yesterday that it may have fallen victim to a mass lobbying campaign after a controversial plan for a “Tony Martin” law topped a Today programme poll yesterday.
Suspicions were raised when thousands of listeners voted for the mock parliamentary bill which would allow homeowners to use “any means” to defend their homes from intruders. Such a law would have protected Mr Martin, who was jailed for the manslaughter of a teenage burglar, Fred Barras, in 1999.
And from the BBC article, linked above, a dire warning of what such mad and irresponsible ideas would lead to:
But leading criminal barrister John Cooper warned that the idea was dangerously flawed.
He said: “The law as it stands at the moment, despite its critics, is functioning. If you are in your house and you are attacked by someone or threatened by someone, you can use proportionate force.
“We do not live in the wild west. This legislation that is proposed effectively may well turn us into that.”
Thus proving that it is possible to be wrong on more than one level. For a start the ‘wild west’ was nowhere near as wild as legend would have it. But I’m quibbling here because I sort of know what he is driving at. He thinks RKBA and a right to self-defence would result in a desolate landscape riven with feuds, lynchings and random acts of carnage. He is still wrong though because that is exactly the type of scenario we are heading for now. The virtually unprotected citizen is easy meat for predatory.
Having assumed a monopoly of the crime-control business, the British state has found it cannot actually do that job and, increasingly, is disinclined to even try. The only thing they can maintain is the pretence by landing like a ton of bricks on any citizen who dares to be more than a docile farm-animal.
The result of the BBC poll gives lie to the whole facade. People are losing faith in the ability (and even willingness) of the state to come to their aid in time of crisis. As the police spend more of their time collecting taxes and scoring brownie points with their political masters, this disquiet will only grow.
[This article has been cross-posted to White Rose.]
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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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