Reports from Paris indicate that there has been a marked improvement in the condition of Yasser Arafat.
He’s dead.
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Stop! Have you not raped the planet enough? Is it not time that you lifted your greedy foot from the head of the oppressed? Put down that cup of steaming, hot coffee right now. Toss that doughnut away. Rip off your cotton T-shirt and consign it to the rubbish tip. There. Doesn’t that feel so much better? And would you not like to feel this good all the time? Wouldn’t you just love to luxuriate in the warm, satisfying glow of self-righteousness? Tell me that would not like to tuck yourself up in your cosy bed at night and sleep the sleep of the just? Well, now you can do all of those things. Yes, those guilty days and sleepless nights are at an end for you too can reach out for the ‘Rough Guide to Ethical Shopping’:
Ah yes, the UK’s Ethical Trading Initiative. Otherwise known as a ‘shakedown’ → Continue reading: Shopping for the Insufferably Sanctimonious November 6th, 2004 | 68 comments - (Comments are closed)
 The election victory of George Bush is a hugely significant event in its own right but at least part of the reason why it gets so much coverage here is due to the near-absence of anything good happening in the UK. It has been this way for years. Hence, I am doubly-delighted to note that a small proportion of the British electorate has done something right for a change:
That is not just a ‘no’, it is a big, fat, resounding ‘no’. The ‘new regional assembly’ that HMG was attempting to foist on the public was supposed to be the first of many similar boondoggles designed (allegedly) to facilitate ‘local decision making’. Dressed up in the fuzzy, fashionable, eminantly spinnable language of ‘decentralisation’, these assemblies actually represent nothing more than yet another grossly expensive tier of government, complete with an army of paper-shufflers, ticket-punchers, regulators, office-holders, rubber stampers and form-fillers. Not to mention the heavy battalions of outreach co-ordinators, inclusivity counsellors, gender advisers, diversity directors, real nappy officers and sundry other busybodies and parasites. In short, the whole thing is simply an ‘Enemy Class’ job-creation scheme and I like to think that (at long last) some sections of the British electorate were able to see the truth of this. Perhaps, just maybe, some of the long-suffering British cash cows have decided that they have donated more than enough blood to these Vampires-Who-Walk-By-Day. HMG has promised that, in the event the referendum was lost, they would drop the whole idea. I am not at all confident they will abide by that pledge. The career ambitions of their supporters will not be so easily thwarted. But, for now at least, I am prepared to bask in the moment and declare myself temporarily content. November 5th, 2004 | 18 comments - (Comments are closed)
You know, I generally hate to gloat but:
The only mistake you made?
Signed: G. Soros.
Such creativity. Such depth.
And spend their own money on themselves, to boot.
It was Bruce on the line. He’s crying like a girl. [Warning: obligatory ‘Bush is Hitler’ reference coming up]
Hmm..I recommend an intensive round of therapy.
Quite right. Just ask the Spanish.
And, today, they are being treated for depression, hysteria and suicidal tendencies.
And I bet John Kerry would still lose that one. Naah, I was only kidding. I love to gloat really. November 4th, 2004 | 44 comments - (Comments are closed)
Amidst all the kerfuffle over the US elections, I urge you to spare a charitable thought for all those American writers, actors, singers, poets, puppeteers, directors and musicians whose right to dissent will continue to be crushed in George Bush’s Amerikkka – a country where it is dangerous to speak out. Mind you, they can always decamp to tolerant, liberal Europe where they will be free to express themselves:
Well, after a fashion. November 3rd, 2004 | 11 comments - (Comments are closed)
To deny one’s own basic nature is an act of futility I find. Being a political animal, I have been up for the entire night watching the results of the US Presidential Election unfold on the BBC whose coverage, I must admit, had been admirably comprehensive. As I type, it is now just past 7.00am in the UK and it appears (and I use that word advisedly) that George Bush has been returned to the Whitehouse. Anything I have to say in response to this will be drowned out by the weeks, and possibly months, of wailing, whining and teeth-gnashing that is going to be emanating from this side of the Atlantic but I do think that it might interest Bush-supporters in the USA to know that every single BBC reporter looks like they have just swallowed a wasp. November 3rd, 2004 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
Samizdata readers may have noticed a distinct absence of postings from me in the last couple of weeks. To those who miss my regular outbursts I offer my hearty apologies and the excuse of an unusually heavy workload. To those who rejoice in my absence I say, enjoy it while it lasts for I expect normal service to be resumed quite shortly. In the meantime, however, I have noticed that the UK Times is carrying a banner headline that is so tempting that I am forced to drive a crowbar into the midst of my packed schedule and prize open enough space to briefly comment:
Don’t all rush now. [Note: link to UK Times may not work for readers outside of the UK.]
October 27th, 2004 | 8 comments - (Comments are closed)
I am thinking of starting a campaign to establish an internationally-recognised system of ‘War Prizes’. It may seem more than a trifle insensitive but, really, it is the perfectly rational thing to do. After all war is a difficult and dangerous business and I think it is only fair that its most skilled practitioners are accorded some due level of public acclaim. We could even have categories of award such as ‘Most Devastating Air Strike’ or ‘Most Creative Use of Field Artillery’. You may think I am being morbid but at least my ‘War Prizes’ would prove a darn sight more interesting than those wretched and depressing ‘Peace prizes’:
Why, exactly, is this person getting a ‘peace’ prize? A horticultural prize? With pleasure. A landscape gardening prize? For sure. But how, precisely, does a lifetime of professional tree-hugging qualify her as a preventer of armed conflict? As far as I can tell, Mrs. Maathai is being rewarded for being a female, African version of George Monbiot. And, excuse me, but surely the last thing that Africa needs is more sodding environment? They have got environment up the ying-yang. In fact, they have got bugger all except bloody environment and most of it is wild, dangerous, parasitical and extremely detrimental to human life. What Africa needs is machine tools and lathes and tarmac roads and heavy trucks and great, big smokestack factories turning the sky black with their belched-out fumes. Given her commitment to maintaining the untamed savagery of that continent, I would judge that the most suitable award for Mrs. Maathai is a Serious Pain in the Arse Prize. People who build tarmac roads and heavy trucks no longer qualify for prizes. They only qualify for taxes, regulations and internationally-recognised opprobrium. Call me old-fashioned but I always thought that ‘peace’ means the absence of war. Now it appears to mean something entirely different. Just like the word ‘liberal’ (in the US context and, increasingly, in Britain too) has become a label to describe people whose ideas and attitudes are anything and everything but liberal, so too the word ‘peace’ has now become a synonym for anything which is suitably and loudly primitivist, anti-development, anti-prosperity, anti-progress, nihilist, communist or just plain nuts! I suppose that is why the remaining children of Lenin and raggedy, ageing Che-worshippers can still march around the thoroughfares of Western cities masquerading as ‘peace campaigners’. ‘Peace’ is the fig-leaf behind which they can try to hide their godawfulness and pretend that they are struggling for a better world. ‘Peace’ is a discredited bromide. All I am saying is give my ‘War Prizes’ a chance. October 10th, 2004 | 14 comments - (Comments are closed)
Avant-Garde French philosopher, Jacques Derrida, has finally been deconstructed:
Though to say that he has “died” is to, perhaps, impose a structural context defined by the ontology of Western metaphysics. In the grammatic, linguistic and rhetorical senses he has merely desedimented, dismantled and decomposed. Indeed, this is a grand narrative undoing in the egological, methodological and general sense, as opposed to a mere critique in the idiomatic or Kantian sense. Er…or something. October 9th, 2004 | 32 comments - (Comments are closed)
I bet that if I mention the term coup d’etat it conjures up images of heavily-armed soldiers on the streets, tanks on airport runways and besieged radio stations. In truth, though, that is precisely the means by which such things are usually conducted. But they happen in faraway, third-world countries. It is the kind of thing we have come to associate with Oxford-educated ‘Generals’ who manage to wrest power from their tribal rivals in some African shanty-nation or with bandoliered, mustachioed Bolivians firing their carbines into the air and shouting “Viva El Nuevo Presidente” while the still-warm body of the old ‘Presidente’ swings from a nearby lamppost. But this is not the kind of thing that happens in developed countries like Britain. No, this is a stable country with a proper economy and elections and democratic governments and political parties and judicial independence and free speech and the such. I suppose it is, in part at least, because complacency caused by all those institutions appearing to be extant that we are about to taken over in a quiet, stealthy and bloodless coup d’etat all of our own. → Continue reading: A very British coup October 6th, 2004 | 27 comments - (Comments are closed)
The dogs of the ‘fat war’ are chalking up their first victory:
The bitter lessons of appeasement are as valid on the domestic front as they are on the foreign front. This ‘concession’ is merely the first of many, many more. Like frightened villagers, the chocolate manufacturers have thrown some meat to the ravenous wolves in the hope that their hunger will be satisfied and the wolves will leave them alone. But the wolves have a bottomless appetite and they will be back for more. Very soon. September 27th, 2004 | 16 comments - (Comments are closed)
The unfortunate but wholly predictable result of British government meddling in the affairs of the countryside:
What about the root causes of the hunter’s anger and frustration? September 25th, 2004 | 58 comments - (Comments are closed)
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