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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You wait for articles on Dickens and suddenly, three turn up at once. Fortuitously, I have just concluded “Sketches by Boz”, a book that recommends itself to the commuter. It is not a novel to take up, put down or plough through. Published in periodical form, it lends itself to the daily article or chapter, preferably read after Motspur Park and before Earlsfield, and, one likes to think, approximating the reading experience of the early Victorian.
One of the joys of reading Dickens is his written observations of life and lowlife in London, including the accents of the denizens of Seven Dials. Three women in a gin palace (“Scenes: Chapter V: Seven Dials”):
“Vy don’t you pitch into her, Sarah?” exclaims one half-dressed matron, by way of encouragement. “vy don’t you? if my husband had treated her with a drain last night, unbeknown to me, I’d tear her precious eyes out – a wixen!”
“What’s the matter, ma’am?” inquires another old woman, who has just bustled up to the spot.
“Matter!” replies the first speaker, talking at the obnoxious combatant, “matter! Here’s poor dear Mrs Sulliwin, as has five blessed children of her own, can’t go out charing for one arternoon, but what hussies must be a comin’, and ‘ticing avay her oun’ ‘usband, as she’s been married to twelve year come next Easter Monday, for I see the certificate ven I vas a drinkin’ a cup o’ tea vith her, only the werry last blessed Ven’sday as ever was sent. I ‘appen’d to promiscuously, ‘Mrs. Sulliwin,’ says I—–“
The last time that I heard someone swap v’s for w’s and w’s for v’s was on ‘Allo ‘Allo – a pantomime BBC sitcom. This speech pattern was used to mock German officers during WWII.
However, the joke is on us. If Dickens accurately portrays the table talk of Londoners, then some of us used to sound a lot more German than we do now.
From this weekend, the adoption of RFID tags in the retailing industry has become a matter of time. At a recent conference, organised by the RFID non profit standards organisation, EPCglobal, both Walmart and Tesco warned their suppliers that they expected takeup of this technology. By forcing the adoption of RFID technology through their purchasing power, RFID will soon become ubiquitous in retail, over the next two years.
Colin Cobain, UK IT director for Tesco, advised suppliers to get involved and take a considered view of the new technology. “Some manufacturers are going down the route of slap-and-ship – I urge you not to do that… If you start of slapping-and-shipping, you’ll get a bad name in your organisation.” He added that the question about RFID was not “whether or not it will make a huge difference in the world: the question is, will you be ready?”
Simon Langford, manager of RFID strategy for Wal-Mart and Asda, said “start engaging in RFID today… don’t sit back and wait for it to happen.” Wal-Mart, remember, were so enthusiastic about the technology that they issued a mandate telling their top suppliers to get the tags in their supply chain by 1 January, 2005, or else.
WalMart began their testing of RFID tags in the supply chain on Friday in the Dallas/Fort Worth area. Their links with EPCglobal are also clear:
EPCglobal is a joint venture of EAN International and the Uniform Code Council. It is the organisation chosen by industry to develop standards for RFID technology in the global supply chain based on user needs and business requirements.
As a charter member of EPCglobal, Wal-Mart fully adheres to its core principles related to privacy issues, including consumer notice, consumer education and consumer choice. Wal-Mart’s Linda Dillman and HP’s Dick Lampman serve on the board of directors of EPCglobal.
To follow the work of EPCglobal, the website setting standards for electronic product codes can be found here, including details of their membership and policies.
It’s May Day Bank Holiday and the traditional British weather is gripping the South-East. Any hope of heading down the coast for a jolly boys’ ended with the incessant rain. Who would fancy pitch and putt in the wet.
Confined to the lounge with the Daily Mail, my eyes lit upon a quote from a politically correct employee of the BBC, in an article on how British citizens, formerly from East-Central Europe, viewed this country:
The British are intrinsically opposed to bureaucracy. A new car can be registered without visiting a government office – still unthinkable in Eastern Europe.
Having experienced communist rule first-hand, I was surprised to hear some educated people in Britain advocating socialism and never asking themselves why that ‘paradise’ needed barbed wire to keep people in.
Uttered by Andrius Uzkalnis, of Lithuania, who works for the BBC World Service.
Besides this, does anyone know what music is worth listening to whilst staring out of the window at the monotony of rain and wishing for sunnier days?
Some months ago, David Carr and I had a quick and long forgotten conversation over the subject of withdrawal from the European Union. It is a hardy perennial that fades in and out of debate. This time, I was interested in the ‘Greenland option’ where a region had stayed loyal to the crown of Denmark but had exited the EEC. Similar constitutional anomalies bind the Channel Islands and the Isle of Man to the Crown. The option was not considered realistic because we concluded that the EU would never countenance losing larger portions of their members.
Think again! Labour MEP, Eluned Morgan, tabled a question to Romano Prodi, President of the European Commission, asking if Wales would remain a member of the European Union if it declared independence. Prodi appeared to indicate that any region declaring independence would have to reapply for membership.
Asked if a newly independent region would have to leave the EU and apply for accession afresh, Mr Prodi said: “When a part of the territory of a member state ceases to be a part of that state, eg because that territory becomes an independent state, the treaties will no longer apply to that state.
In other words, a newly independent region would, by the fact of its independence, become a third country with respect to the union and the treaties would, from the day of its independence, not apply any more on its territory.”
His answer, written on March 1, also said any application for EU membership would require negotiation and consent of other member states.
Plaid Cymru, the Welsh nationalist party, viewed the eruption as a spoiler for their spring conference and noted the constitutional implications:
But Plaid Cymru last night rubbished the claims. Jill Evans MEP described it as “nothing more than a spoiling attempt by New Labour on the eve of our Spring Conference”.
She said: “The United Kingdom is constituted as a state through the respective acts of Union in 1536 and 1707. If either act is repealed, the UK as a nation state will no longer exist. On the basis of Romano Prodi’s letter, if Wales and Scotland were to become independent, all component members of the UK including England would have to reapply for EU membership. These ridiculous claims should be treated with contempt and are pure nonsensical.”
If Prodi’s reading of European law is correct, then declarations of independence by the constituent parts of the United Kingdom, followed by the dissolution of the Union, would be sufficient for withdrawal from the European Union. This provides food for thought since the campaign for an English parliament and for English independence now has another virtuous outcome.
Good news so near St. Georges Day!
One of my earliest reminiscences is following the adventures of Bill Savage, self-styled resistance fighter and Cockney psychopath, who fought thinly disguised Soviets, called Volgs, in a future Britain that had been conquered by the communist hordes. The comic was that anti-establishment cultural icon, 2000AD, tapping into the punk zietgeist of 1977, and the comic strip was Invasion
British boys’ comics recovered from a rut in the 1970s with a newfound determination to cater for the violent tastes of their teenage market. They differed from their American counterparts as market segmentation led to titles concentrating on specific subject matter: War: Battle, Victor, Warlord and Commando; Football: Roy of the Rovers; Science Fiction: 2000AD, Starlord, Tornado, Eagle and Starblazer. No doubt I have missed out a few, including the weekly reprints of superhero comics by Marvel UK.
Bill Savage was a lorry driver whose exploits appeared in the first issue of 2000AD, spinning into orbit in 1977. This allows an indulgence of nostalgic relish as I recall Birmingham nuked, a clone of Maggie as Prime Minister shot on the steps of St. Paul’s and the new Prime Minister announcing “People of Britain. The Volgans are our Friends! We must not fight them…Hand Over All Your Fire-Arms!” With his handy shotgun and avenging the death of his family, Savage enjoyed taking the war to the occupiers and killing them in a number of diverse ways, followed by a suitable quip. The roadlayer that he gleefully used to ‘level’ a Volg firing squad was a particularly nasty way to go.
Whilst interesting, Invasion was a second world war story, transplanted to the future. The world of 1999 had changed little from the 1940s and there are no dark faces in the comic. A parallel can be made with the film, “Dr Who and the Dalek Invasion of Earth, 2150”, another invasion narrative that symbolised England’s vulnerability by trading on the cultural myths of 1940. Nonetheless, even in 1977, popular culture could encompass a comic that envisioned a Britain where lorry drivers kept shotguns at home and firearms were an accepted part of working class life. It seems like another world.
Savage eventually made it to Canada with Prince John, ending his personal war. But, in his pithy way, Savage said it all…
“My cannon stays with me! Greased and ready…”
One of the problems with governments collecting and controlling data on individuals is their failure to secure this information. As a recent article in The Register demonstrated, the number of incidents involving computer systems in the civil service is high.
There are a number of serious concerns including inappropriate access of personal records, inappropriate alteration of personal records and their appropriation by a third party. This has been a problem for some time with Inland Revenue staff noted for “celebrity browsing” tax returns. These concerns are hidden within general figures for computer misuse that number up to two thousand. As these are the cases where such changes were noted and disciplinary action brought against the civil servant involved, it is impossible to gauge the seriousness if this problem.
Even after the data has been collected by the civil service agency, it is difficult to ensure that the information is accurate, secure and used only for the purposes required. This could be a minor problem or the tip of the iceberg.
Occasionally, one stumbles across actions of the regulatory state that masquerade as market policies. Irish health insurance falls into this category.
Health insurance is always a tricky subject as it falls into the wider issues of how private sector medicine can be established. In Europe, with its wide diversity of state driven medical practices, plus voluntary health insurance and complentary health insurance as a tolerated private sector, it is difficult to envisage how one would wean the populace off these systems, even with impending bankruptcy looming. The ‘Big Bang’ approach of deregulation would not work as the infrastructure and skillset to develop an entrepreneurial model does not exist and this is one area where the gradual replacement of state structures by the private sector and/or civil society may be more appropriate. Complex and difficult issues to grasp with few answers. → Continue reading: Irish Health Insurance
The BBC are broadcasting a series of documentaries purporting to show crises that could affect Britain over the next two to three decades. It is already clear from the subjects tackled: the dangers of gated communities, the bankruptcy of pension systems, the rise of obesity and the superiority of women, that they were written from a left-wing viewpoint that hypes up the modish problems of the would be regulators. The striking omission is the nightmares conjured up by the Greens but they will no doubt form the subjects of a second series.
If you do catch these, then try to spot the technological innovations that spice up the world of the future.
As part of this conversation, the BBC asks for views of the world in 2020 and I thought that it would be rude not to oblige.
By 2020, we will no longer have to pay the licence fee to watch substandard populist rot that masquerades as quality TV, notably, the series of poor documentaries called If.
If Iran or Al Qaeda obtain weapons of mass destruction, then we can expect them to unleash a second Holocaust, in order to remove Israel from the Middle East. Half of Europe will revile this, half will be relieved.
One or more countries will withdraw from the European Union due to its institutional inflexibility and inability to compete with the United States or the Far East.
There will be further wars in the Middle East involving the West (without a UN mandate) due to the threat of Islamic fundamentalism and terrorism in oil producing areas.
It was an antidote to some nauseating missives extolling peace in our time and a World Union (based on the European Union). One would have thought the barbarities of twencen would have extinguished this Fabian and Wellsian nonsense.
The naming of planets is a difficult matter. Sedna may have strong references for the Inuit, but it means nothing at all to most of us. You could argue that Sedna is more thrilling than the planetoid’s original designation, 2003 VB12, but it doesn’t conjure up a fitting title for inclusion in Holst’s The Planets.
However, the sinister appearance of a red planet (and possible moon) reminds me of Dr. Who’s deadly enemies, cursed to wonder the frigid spaceways, enshrined in their tombs. Is this not the tenth planet, home of the Cybermen? And surely there can be no more fitting name than Mondas.
Prepare for child-like logic, silver suits and a puzzling vulnerability to gold.
There is nothing as heartwarming as a tax revolt. Yet, there are few governments in history that have to be taught the same lesson twice. Of course, the incompetence and vicious hatred that the transnational socialists who hold sway in Britain have for private wealth blinds them to the lesson that they will have to learn yet again. Tax people too much and they will stop paying, especially when they are old age pensioners on a fixed income, willing to go to prison at the age of 83, in order to publicise this injustice.
The council tax is a local tax based on property values that is used to pay for the local constabulary, the borough and the county council, or whatever local governance is in place in England. It funds a small part of their budget, the majority of which is funded by central government through a block grant. The Blair administration has passed responsibilities on to the local authorities without increasing their block grant. As a consequence, the increase in local authority budgets has a multiplier effect on the increase in council tax, leading to rises of ten to twenty percent, especially in the south of the country. The group most vulnerable to these increases are old age pensioners, who own their homes, and whose pensions rise in line with the retail price index rather than earnings. → Continue reading: The Squeaking Pips
Last year saw a further rise in anti-semitic incidents in the United Kingdom. Both Muslim fundamentalists and the far right were involved in a more assertive and targeted campaign against prominent Jewish citizens. This indicates that anti-semitism in Britain is conforming to the European pattern, established on the continent in the first years of this century, without a strong response from many governments.
Whilst disagreeing with pundits who view this phenomenon as a cultural shift towards dhimmitude and Eurabia in that Europeans recognise and accommodate the superiority of Islam, there is no doubt that the issue of Palestine and the actions of Muslim fundamentalists has provided a lodestar for more traditional anti-semites. To this can be added a countervailing bias in the media that has promoted a discourse where all terrorist casualties in Israel are unfortunate and where all Palestinian deaths are victims. This has also stimulated a Manichaean view of the conflict with goodies and baddies, a framework that its supporters consider is the defining stupidity of those they oppose. As a consequence, the view of Israel and of Judaism in general has merged, and an unsympathetic span of views with shared arguments has arisen that shades from dislike of Israel to out and out anti-semitism. → Continue reading: British Anti-Semitism
In Euractiv, it is reported that the next Justice and Home Affairs Council on the 19th-20th February will pass a draft directive authorising the collection of Passenger Name Record (PNR) data from non-EU nationals by airlines flying to a Member State. The data will be transferred to agencies in charge of the EU’s external borders in order to aid the management of immigration.
Data will notably include the names, travel document used, nationality, date of birth plus point and time of departure and arrival. Airlines will face thousand euro fines if they have not transmitted data or if the data is incomplete or false.
The original Spanish proposal was watered down after the House of Lords, amongst other bodies, pointed out that this placed a huge burden upon air and sea carriers. The draft directive will fail if it has not passed by April 30th under the auspices of the Treaty of Amsterdam and the Irish Presidency has crafted a compromise whereby biometric data is excluded and the burden is limited to air carriers.
Statewatch had already raised the flag on this proposal to transform air and sea carriers into data collection and surveillance agencies for external border control agencies.
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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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