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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I never begin to be amazed by David Cameron. Surely this man is the most visionary and inspirational rhetorical and philosophical figure of our age:
David Cameron will pledge tomorrow to work with like-minded politicians to create a new European Union..
Wow! We have never heard that before. Radical or what?
The speech will be a clear signal that Mr Cameron will not take his party out of Europe and also a message to supporters who are considering deserting to UKIP that he will try to change the EU.
And I, for one, absolutely believe him. This Cameron fellow is like a breath of fresh air and good old-fashioned, down-to-earth common sense. Well, not quite down-to-earth perhaps.
“A visitor from Mars, witnessing the signing of the declaration, would take a close look of the inner workings of the EU and…”
Blast the whole thing to smithereens with a giant death-ray?
“…observe earnest discussions about reviving constitutions, transfers of competence, relative voting weights and other distractions.”
Ah, yes. Those Martians are so nuanced and sophisticated.
“But the intelligent Martian would say the EU should be focusing on the economic challenges of globalisation and the urgent need to reform European economies so that it could maintain its prosperity. It should also concentrate on the challenge of climate change and the need for swift action at all levels to slow the rate of global warming. And it should be absorbed by the moral and security challenge of global poverty.”
He is definitely onto something here. After all, the policy-making imperatives of the European Union are the hot topic of conversation on the Martian dinner-party circuit.
David Cameron – a Carefully Understated Natural Tory.
And while we are on the subject of the Antichrist, is there not something very sign-of-the-apocalypse about this?
CHILDREN aged 11 to 16 are to have their fingerprints taken and stored on a secret database, internal Whitehall documents reveal.
The leaked Home Office plans show that the mass fingerprinting will start in 2010, with a batch of 295,000 youngsters who apply for passports.
‘Leaked’, my balls! This is being floated in order to measure public reaction. A muted response and all the right boxes will be ticked. A mass cry of protest and the plans will be shuffled off to another in-tray to await re-floating later in the year or early next year (preferably under cover of some news-consuming natural disaster or terrorist attack). These people believe that time is on their side and maybe it is.
Our masters are not only deeply and irredeemably malignant but they are also intoxicated with the heady fumes of power and verging on the insane. The question is, what do we do about it?
At last, somebody is speaking the truth to flower-power:
An arch-conservative cardinal chosen by the Pope to deliver this year’s Lenten meditations to the Vatican hierarchy has caused consternation by giving warning of an Antichrist who is “a pacifist, ecologist and ecumenist”.
My money is on George Monbiot. Quick, somebody check his scalp for birthmarks.
Had the defendant actually murdered the children whose images have (presumably) given him so much furtive pleasure, would he be any worse off now?
The US Supreme Court has refused to hear an appeal by a high school teacher from Arizona sentenced to 200 years in jail for possessing child pornography…
If the 52-year-old had been tried in a federal court or lived elsewhere he would have received a lighter sentence.
190 years tops. With good behaviour he could have been out and about in, say, just over a century.
Indeed, the prosecutor had asked for a 340-year sentence but the trial judge imposed the minimum of 10 years for each of 20 images – to be served consecutively for a total of 200 years without the possibility of probation, early release or pardon.
So he gets what amounts, for all practical purposes, to a death sentence for possessing vile and twisted photographs. I wonder if there is a historical parallel here? Or does it set one?
Do libertarians have anything useful to learn from Karl Marx?
“…and the nominees in the category of Best Fashionable Issue in a Guilt-Supporting Role are….(pause)…World Poverty (applause)…AIDS (applause)…the Iraq War (bigger applause)…Africa (applause)…and Saving the Planet (huge applause).
And the winner is…..(rustle, rustle, rustle)…Saving the Planet!! (more huge applause, whoops, whistles).
Sadly, the Planet can’t actually be with us tonight because its currently on location shooting another movie with Al Gore. But it is going to speak to us now by live satellite link.”
PLANET: (by satellite feed) Oh…oh…this is just so…I don’t know. What can I say? I’m overwhelmed, you know. I mean, I’m up there with World Poverty and AIDS, I mean, WOW, what competition!! I’m just….I don’t know, let me tell you that I am one thrilled, happy, proud biosphere right now. But, you know, this Award isn’t for me. It’s an Award for all the brilliant people who made it possible to save me, all those NGOs and…especially Al Gore…and let me tell you, I am so in awe of that man. I am totally, unbelievably excited to be working with him again. He is my saviour. Absolutely, you know. And I’m accepting this for him as well. What else can I say? I need a drink. Somebody get me a drink (burst of laughter, close up of Jack Nicholson busting a gut). But, seriously, I really want to thank the Academy and I also want to thank my agent, Murray Felberman….I love you, Murray, I love you man. So, I got to get back to work now but I just want to say that I love you all and when I get back to LA we’re going to have a big party (blows kiss).
To date, libertarian ideas have had no material impact upon the body politic.
True or false?
This has to rank as one of the strangest reports I have read so far this year:
Two circus clowns have been shot dead during a performance in the eastern Colombian city of Cucuta, police say…
Last year, a prominent circus clown, known as Pepe, was also shot dead by a unknown assailant in Cucuta.
I find clowns deeply irritating but surely lethal force is a little excessive. Don’t they have custard pies in that part of the world?
It was only a couple of weeks ago that we appeared to be in the throes of what could reasonably be described as a low-level campaign of insurrection, aimed principally (it seemed) at the various assets and agents of the surveillance state.
Now, nothing. Not a word. What happened to it? One minute there were letter-bombs popping off in offices all over the country and next minute, well, as I said, nothing. Is it the case that the perpetrator(s), perhaps feeling that their point has well and truly been made, just decide to call it quits? Or is that case that brown packages are still erupting away in postrooms only we are no longer being told about it for fear of inspiring copycat attacks or general panic?
Nor have been any reports anywhere about any arrests, despite the fact that we have the most comprehensive and highly-equipped security apparatus of any country in the world and a truly frightening array of “anti-terrorist” powers, agents and mechanisms.
It’s almosty as if the whole episode never occured. But it did occur. We know it did. But what exactly did happen and why and who? And why has the whole story dropped off the radar like a suddenly evaporating UFO?
He might well say, man, this is some repugnant shit:
Thousands of council staff are being trained to police the smoking ban in bars, restaurants and shops in England.
Ministers have given councils £29.5m to pay for staff, who will be able to give on-the-spot £50 fines to individuals and take court action against premises.
They will have the power to enter premises undercover, allowing them to sit among drinkers, and will even be able to photograph and film people.
If only Mr. Jackson were here to pop a few caps in a few asses.
And about time too:
One of the world’s most popular operas opens in Covent Garden today amid fresh claims of racism, colonial misadventure and outmoded, “sordid” morals…
Professor Roger Parker, a teacher of music at King’s College London and a Puccini specialist, suggested that opera audiences could be unwitting participants in racism because of the stereotypes Madama Butterfly contains.
He said: “An authentic production [of the opera] is a racist production. It has a lot of ideas within it that would be seen in any other circumstances as racist. It is not just a question of the words, it also Puccini’s music.”
“We have become much more sensitive [about racism] and the interpretation of Madama Butterfly is one of those operas that needs to reflect that.
Quite right, I say. This insenstive cultural anachronism is completely outmoded and needs to be consigned to the dustbin of history. In fact, I have taken the liberty of writing a short synopsis of a new, modernised version of the Puccini opera which will more accurately reflect the values of a modern-day audience. → Continue reading: Lepidoptera Grrrl
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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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