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.
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Only Blair could repackage scuttle as a political victory. The situation in the south of Iraq has worsened over the last few years as British troops have withdrawn from the main towns, leaving the local areas in the control of the Mahdi Army and the Shi’a militias, often under the influence of Iran. The Times reports that the main tasks assigned to the British Army: pacification and reconstruction, have not been achieved.
Anthony Cordesman, of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washing-ton, said the British move would simply hand more power to the Islamist groups backed by neighbouring Iran. “The British cuts will in many ways simply reflect the political reality that the British ‘lost’ the south more than a year ago,” he said.
Although there is no Sunni-Shia carnage to compare with Baghdad, the Shia-dominated south has been torn by a cutthroat internal competition for power that has turned bloody. Since August, both Diwaniyah and Amara have been convulsed by clashes between the mainly Shia Iraqi Army, and Sadr’s militia.
Unwilling to increase defence expenditure and recruitment, the government tried to hide behind a victory message whilst hoping to prevent the possible creation of a Shi’astan with a reduced force. Soldiers have done a sterling job under impossible political conditions, whilst stabbed in the back by the hypocrites in the Liberal Democrats. If the government cannot fulfil the security commitments that Blair undertook on our behalf, it should say so honourably and withdraw leaving the United States to hold the ring. If a hot war results from the Shi’a-Sunni tensions ensuing, Blair’s legacy will stand out: defeat abroad, failure at home.
One of the grey areas in European Union law is the primacy of community law in relationship to the constitutions of the Member States. As the treaties have encroached more and more upon the national sovereignty of Member States, this has become a fraught issue. It has resulted in a staunch defence of sovereignty or a surrender of the national prerogative. The country having the strongest debate upon this issue is France.
In a recent case at the Conseil D’Etat, Arcelor had requested a ruling on whether EU law violated the principle of equality in the French Constituion as steel companies had to comply with climate change laws whereas the competing industrial sector of plastics was exempt. The Conseil D’Etat declined to make a ruling and referred the case to th European Court of Justice. This has caused a debate in France as to whether the French constitution is now subordinate to the European Court of Justice.
The French court’s decision not to conduct a constitutional test on EU legislation is seen as significant as it arguably places France’s constitution below the ECJ in the legal hierarchy.
Although the supremacy of EU law over national law has been well-established, the status of national constitutions has been less clear not only in France but also elsewhere, including Germany.
Leading newspaper Le Monde was quick to predict on the day of the ruling that sovereignists and eurosceptics would probably interpret the judgement as a “Waterloo” of French sovereignty – something which became a self-fulfilling prophecy as sovereignists were eager to stress that even Le Monde called the ruling a “Waterloo.”
There is some debate as to whether this was the groundbreaking referral that some commentators have stated. As the ruling concerned EU law, it has been argued that the Conseil D’Etat was only deferring to the European Court of Justice on this matter as equality was a governing principle with European law. Therefore the European Union and the French Constitution are complementary.
Despite the radical arguments of some who view the entry into the EEC as a watershed that fundamentally abrogated British sovereignty, the right of Parliament to bind the powers of its successor is not a recognised convention yet. Given the political will and a majority in Parliament, the United Kingdom could democratically withdraw from the European Union and assert the primacy of British law. The illiberal EU may not recognise self-determination except as an entry principle, but the constitutional recognition of European law is a parliamentary derogation, nothing more.
The damage from an asteroid impact is referred to as an existential threat. The likelihood of this type of event is ranked alongside supervolcanoes, catastrophic climate change and pandemics as a risk that could undermine civilisation’s infrastructure.
The threat from Apophis, aptly named for Stargate SG-1 fans, has crossed our radar screens with the possibility of an impact event in 2036. Astronomers mapping asteroids that pose a threat have singled out Apophis as a unique danger. Their campaign for awareness and funds to establish defences against such threats is beginning to bear fruit. Disagreement on how to institutionalise such space defences acquires momentum when one reads about the role assigned to the United Nations.
Russell Schweickart, of the Association of Space Explorers, has announced, during the meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, that they hope to submit a “draft document” on asteroid impact to the United Nations Committee for the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space in 2009. The United Nations would acquire the responsibility for identifying dangerous objects in Near Earth Orbit and requesting national space agencies take appropriate action. This is usually know as the system ‘UN say, US pay’.
The goal is laudable, the method is lousy. It is not clear if the United Nations has the mechanism available to foster co-operation in this field, since many countries may not consider this type of event a risk that requires further expenditure. Moreover, there is a possibility that a rapid reaction is required, whilst the UN’s institutions are not noted for their nimble response to crisis, as the tsunami in South East Asia demonstrated.
The private sector institutions that campaign to counter such existential risks need to develop pragmatic plans involving national co-operation, principally through NASA, with ancillary aid from Russia and Europe, if possible. A private sector solution would be even better. The involvement of the United Nations is an additional layer of bureaucracy. Schweickart’s proposal requires a more pragmatic competitor.
I must have missed this but according to the Heavens there has been a blogwar. Or perhaps some minor arguments amongst the British blogosphere. First alerted by Iain Dale’s misapprehensions, I checked Google News to see how far the disagreements and conflicts had rocked the mainstream media. They had not.
Staying below the parapet of the media or using the wrong search word certainly demonstrated to me that if there was any retelling of these events, they were not listed as a blog war and I cannot stomach Media Guardian tonight. It was time to try Technorati, the rather slow and ponderous Technorati. You can tell I am writing this as I wait.
Well, I have gone back three days and, as yet, no blog war has appeared concerning British bloggers on Technorati. Call me an old fogey but I remember the days when blog wars were real blog wars. I think that a blog war only exists if it meets the nominalist requirements and is called a blog war as it happens across many blogs.
The Heavens have had a minor spat. It hardly counts as the fall of Lucifer. If you want a real British blog war, agree the terms of declaring the conflict by throwing down a stylised gauntlet and go to war. Ritualised textual combat, avoiding libel and error of fact, may be just the path to spice up our ideological differences.
Why has Iraq turned out to be so difficult? Where did it all go wrong? Libertarians and neo-conservatives do not share many values but both agree that there are cultural characteristics which can render governance easier than this current war has shown. Iraq has proved that state-building can go horrifically wrong and that a chaotic situation involving a nation divided by tribe and religion can viciously spiral into civil strife.
After Iraq was conquered or liberated depending upon your viewpoint, the upsurge in terrorism sponsored by surrounding pariah states was very likely. Yet, if the correct steps had been taken to rebuild the Iraqi economy, then the insurgency would not have worsened. We would not now have a civil war, sectarian massacres, the dripfeed of corpses and kleptocratic authorities. All of these developments feed off each other in a failed state.
Iraqis were browned off with their impoverishment from sanctions and their ruined middle class aspired to the prosperity that they had enjoyed prior to Saddam’s wars. Now that middle class has departed. What did these Iraqis want? They wished for security and the expectation that thieves, from militias or the secret police would not steal their goods or injure and kill them. They wanted title or the local equivalent, whether individual or communally based perhaps for the March Arabs so that their chattels and homes could not be expropriated. After 2003, we should have appropriated and extended Saddam Hussein’s social revolution through free-market reforms, breaking down tribal loyalties with education and the modernising cash-nexus. Hernando De Soto expresses this advantage very clearly.
In early March, I [Ramesh Ponnoru] called de Soto to talk about the relevance of his ideas to Iraq’s future. As you will see, he was a model interviewee; I didn’t have to do much talking.
NRO: How important is the establishment of property rights in a post-totalitarian country such as [we’re hoping postwar Iraq will be]?
HDS: It’s obviously crucial. If you want to create a market society, that’s what it’s based on. . . . [T]he starting point, the genesis of a market society is property rights because it relates to the issue of what belongs to whom. Once you determine that, you know who starts with what poker chips. And once people see that the law protects rights that they already have, then people begin to believe in the rule of law.
They wanted a medium of exchange that the government could not devalue and that would enable them to travel to the surrounding countries and buy more goods. They wanted employment so that they could aspire to such travel, and create opportunities for themselves. The building blocks existed to satisfy the middle classes and avoid the degeneration of political conflict into the defence of religious and ethnic identity. → Continue reading: Back to basics in Iraq
Another two countries are determined to support the constitution. This means that only six countries, including the Czech Republic, will remain. These countries will have to decide whether they want to continue cooperating with the core of Europe or whether they want to again retreat from the European integration process, Posselt says.
Bernd Posselt, leader of the Sedeten German Society and an MEP for Bavaria has praised the Chancellor, Angela Merkel for demanding the Czech Republic to sign up to the European Constitution. Posselt may be supporting the initiative, since it favours restitution for properties seized after the War by the restored Czech Republic, desirous to remove irredentist elements from its polity, and abetted by the barbaric Red Army.
Posselt is merely echoing the ‘friends of the constitution’ who met under the auspices of Luxembourg and Spain over the weekend. The noises coming out of this meeting are not good for Europhiles in New Labour. Despite some willingness to show flexibility on some of the phrases, the ‘friends of the constitution’ wish to use the text as a base and add more areas of competence for integration. The mini-treaty favoured by the British, avoiding the need for a referendum, looks like a long shot. If Segolene Royal wins the French Presidential election and upholds her manifesto promise of another referendum, the tabloids will be howling for blood.
Mr Hoon suggested that moves to streamline decision-making in an enlarged EU could be agreed by the government without being ratified directly by voters.
A decision on a vote would be taken once the outcome of negotiations was clearer "bearing in mind that no previous government has held a referendum on the detailed processes that have been involved in treaty change, he said
Europhiles such as Hoon wish to short circuit a referendum, since they would lose their prize. This may form the final frontispiece of Blair’s legacy, since the meeting on this occurs during the dying days of his premiership. Any warmed up document, with the title Constitution dropped to hide the fundamental and radical nature of the text, needs to be opposed as quickly as possible. New Labour, in this as in all other enterprises, is not a friend of the Union or the English. As for Cameron he may have tried to avoid Europe, but it has returned to force the issue upon him.
Sir Richard Branson is an excellent example of the pitfalls of branding, and how reputational risk is not as disastrous as some consultants would make out in search of their paycheque. Public relations is important, and Branson is a past master at exploiting the attraction of novelty. One of his most risky and perhaps adroit moves is the extension of the Virgin to new potentailly radical technologies that will have a visible impact. Trains are not included within this structure, though it is interesting how the poor performance of Virgin trains has not yet impacted on the wider reputation of the name.
Now Branson wishes to capitalise on the potential of stem cells and is providing a vital service, by storing the umbilical stem cells of newborn babies. This is a nascent and growing industry:
Public cord storage is becoming more common, particularly in the U.S., but there is also a growing private industry taking advantage of the promise of these cures. However, the industry is extremely controversial because the chances of developing a disease that stem cells can cure, such as leukemia, is small while the new cures may never materialize. Some anti-abortion groups believe that any use of stem cells will lead to human cloning.
Private storage of stem cells is unlawful in France and Italy and is opposed by the European Group on Ethics in Science and New Technologies, which is a European Commission body.
This has not stopped more than 11,000 families in the UK using stem-cell storage facilities. The services typically cost about £1,500 for collection of the blood and about £100 a year for cold storage. A number of celebrity parents are reported to have used these services including Thierry Henry, the Arsenal footballer, and Darcey Bussell, the dancer.
Trust the European Commission to recommend banning something which has the potential to do some good and possibly liberate individuals from a date with disease.
Professor Aziz Sheikh has called for the National Health Service to provide separate (privileged?) services for Muslims to take account of their religious requirements. The Professor is of Muslim orientation and has written an article for the British Journal of Medicine, giving reasons for his argument:
Writing in the British Medical Journal, he said the NHS should record patients’ religion as well as their ethnic grouping. “It is absurd that we do not, for example, know the perinatal mortality or smoking prevalence among Muslims,” he said. Male infant circumcision should be available throughout the NHS, he added. Although some NHS trusts do offer circumcision, most parents are forced into the poorly regulated private sector, he said.
Aziz Sheikh is conflating two issues here: matters of health provision and providing specialised services for particular communities. Whilst there may be problems amongst Muslim communities in terms of infant mortality and chronic illness, it is unclear why their status as Muslims should predispose them to these. Indeed, habits of smoking, an inability to speak English in the United Kingdom as an immigrant and living in relative poverty are better indicators for life expectancy and health. Therefore, these arguments may demonstrate that Muslims suffer from these problems, but that the causes are not specific to Muslims in particular, but are generally prevalent amongst the poor and immigrant communities.
It is not absurd that we do not gather statistics on the basis of faith, as faith is not a primary indicator for health, unlike social class, education or the country of origin for your family. Aziz Sheikh has cited this argument to add ballast to his call for discrimination in favour of Muslims on the NHS. This points the article away from a public health agenda towards a medical version of the ‘identity politics’ that has hindered the effectiveness of other governmental institutions.
The NHS should be more accommodating to the religious needs of Muslims. Many Muslims would prefer to see a same-sex doctor for reasons of modesty, but this was often not possible, despite the increasing number of female doctors in the NHS. More information about drug ingredients should also be available to allow Muslim patients to avoid porcine and alcohol-derived drugs.
If a patient who is Muslim wishes to receive treatment that is compatible with his religious inclinations, the National Health Service is unlikely to meet their requirements. The rationing of healthcare is resolved in a mediocrity of outcomes based upon the equality of all – though contact with NHS personnel or class will often result in a better quality of care.
Aziz Sheikh’s call for services in line with the Muslim faith could be interpreted as the natural demands of a community that has found its feet and started to request personalised treatment, in line with the oft-quoted rise of consumer expectations in health. Some could also see this as the further development of separatism within the Muslim community, demanding special treatment for itself.
The common factor is the state monopoly in health. It encourages communal responses to health issues, allowing professional leaders to make calls for particular treatment, with the corresponding balkanisation and backlash that we would expect from those who perceive that they have been missed out in any sharing of the tax spoils. Hence, the unedifying advance of ‘white welfarism’ in the leafy suburbs.
This would not be reported if health was a choice of individuals purchasing their requirements in a free market. The particular institutions would cater for those who wished to apply these requirements, and one would expect multi-faith alliances to obtain the critical mass that health provision often requires.
The problem is not Islam, it is the National Health Service.
The following item is for sale. One bucket of whitewash. This has recently been obtained by the English cricket team at a knockdown price during their tour of Australia.
The English cricket team wishes to sell this precious prize of English achievement in auction as quickly as possible. However, only purchasers of a more unpopular standing may need apply. They are therefore awaiting bids for this most useful of items.
Please note: only politicians or journalists may apply.
Buskashi is an Afghani game, akin to polo, that involves riding, sticks and the carcass of a goat. The carcass is soaked in cold water for twenty-four hours, so that it does not disintegrate, and then a large pack of horsemen compete to win the boz (renamed carcass) and the horsemen (chopendoz) compete to grab the carcass and throw it in a circle (the hallal).
This Afghani sport will not win any votes from animal lovers, but their fierce competitiveness has now blooded another arena: cricket. Refugees in Pakistan whiled away the long hours by learning to love cricket and have now brought the sport back to Afghanistan. Each province has a team and there are strong competitions to determine the best teams.
We know that the best team is not the Royal Marines, who emulated our Ashes tour:
ENGLAND’S cricket shame plunged new depths after a team of Royal Marines were hammered – by the Afghan National Army.
The crack soldiers crashed to a resounding eight wicket defeat after being bowled out for just 56 in 14 overs without one playing reaching double figures.
Afghans have only been playing the game since about 1992 but that did not stop the novice opponents knocking off the runs inside 12 overs
Are we seeing the birth of a new Test playing nation? I can think of no greater accolade to symbolise the departure of a country from misery and despair. We should be glad that the military skills of the Royal Marines far outweigh their cricketing skills.
In the latest body blow to the British Army, Scottish soldiers have been denied their heritage as the latest supply shortages hit the infantry.
The British army’s decision to end its 150-year relationship with a kilt maker has left Scottish regiments with a shortage of dress kilt uniforms.
The 5,000 soldiers in the Royal Regiment of Scotland only have enough kilts for one out of every 15 men, The Daily Record of Glasgow reports.
Jeff Duncan, campaign manager for Reinstate Our Army Regiments, blamed Prime Minister Tony Blair.
“Mr. Blair promised they would get whatever was needed — what they need is a change of government,” he said.
This is a government that cannot provide basic equipment for its soldiers. Private Widdle would be shivering in the Khyber Pass but he would probably be dead, due to a lack of body armour.
The Waterloo and City line was closed this morning due to “excessive dust“. Moondust?
Coming in 2007: Gordon Brown best Prime Minister since sliced bread say 364 command and control specialists (the public teat profession formerly known as Economist).
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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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