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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Some of the Samizdatistas have been in the USA for Thanksgiving, much to the consternation of the turkey population, given that we are all members of PETA (People for Eating Tasty Animals).
As for much of the time we have been in the wilds of Pennsylvania without an internet connection (the horror, the horror), we have been unable to post about our various jolly japes in the Land of the Free.
We were releaved to have made it out of the People’s Republic to the relative safety of the Keystone State
I could hear the turkey’s crying “The British are coming! The British are coming!”
An Armalite toaster? Is this country great or what!
The womenfolk in these here parts are made of stern stuff
Getting ready for Thanksgiving Dinner with twenty friends: the quintessential American experience
Celebrating dangerous (thankfully) right wing extremists
Vast mounts of turkey washed down with red wine: tryptophan overdose!
A local family tradition: eat the turkey and then take the young ones out and show them how the turkey ends up on the plate
One of the Samizdata editors goes looking for those turkeys who ratted us out earlier. The British are coming and this time they are armed and pissed off. Good food, great people and things that go boom. Damn I love this place.
We will be back in London soon. Bugger.
Prior to my trip to New York a couple of weeks ago, I did not publicise my impending arrival. I had a (non blogging related) friend I wanted to catch up with, and my thoughts beyond that were to just largely potter around the city for a few days and enjoy myself, before perhaps driving up the Hudson valley to do some sightseeing and then across to Connecticut to catch up with my friend before spending a couple more days in New York at the end of the trip.
However, after a post from me, and information generally going along the grapevine, word got around that I was in town, and I suddenly found myself with invitations to catch up with a variety of interesting people. As I have reported already, it turned out that Samizdata co-editor Dale Amon was in town, and he immediately offered to show me around some of the indie music clubs and pubs on the lower east side.
Before that though, journalist Taylor Dinerman of The Space Review, often of the Wall Street Journal, and occasional Samizdata contributer, invited Dale and myself (and various other interesting acquantances of his) to join him for dinner at the North West Restaurant at 79th and Columbus, just opposite the Museum of Natural History on the West Side.
Dale Amon. Fine claret. Michael Jennings. Taylor Dinerman.
Of course, when I received this invitation I was up in Connecticut somewhere, and it was something of an effort to drive frantically down the Merritt Parkway in my rented SUV (which I received from the rental car agency upon ordering a “small car” – I love America) , but I made it. And it was a civilized occasion. Over some excellent seafood, conversation ranged from favourite countries (I shocked the people present by admitting that I prefer France to Italy) to what I should do in New York City to whether Pluto is a planet or not, to more discussion about space. And space some more. The question of whether the restaurant should be declared the official United States Samizdata Headquarters was discussed. (I am for it. After a hearty meal we can all go over to the Hayden Planetarium for a show. Great). And somre more space discussion after that. Plans to visit Florida in January to watch the launch of the New Horizons (ake Pluto Express aka Pluto Fast Flyby) probe were discussed. And then the conversation moved on to wine.
As it happens, Taylor enjoys a glass of good red almost as much as I do. He had brought a bottle of aged Bordeaux from his collection to the restaurant, which Taylor had asked the staff of the restaurant (who clearly knew Taylor well) to decant for him earlier in the evening. Taylor’s timing was perfect. The wine had aged beautifully, and it gave me a wonderfully pleasant buzz. Hopefully Taylor can be lured to London sometime and I can serve him something interesting from my collection.
A good thing about going to a restaurant with such people in such a place was that I remembered a mental note of mine. When the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History installed its new specially modified Zeiss Mark IX projector in 1999, I told myself that I must go and see a program when in New York. So on my last day in New York I did. The visualisation of the heavens is indeed wonderful, and the way the projector makes it possible to zoom in and out of the solar system, the galaxy, or even vast numbers of galaxies is stunning, although the show was much too short. (Do they think modern people have tiny attention spans, or is it just a matter of trying to fit as many shows as possible into the day?) I have visions of sitting in the control room and being able to use the system to fly around a model of the whole unvierse – sort of a much better version of Google Earth but with the whole universe – but I suspect it is not like this. The computer power is probably not there to calculate such a model in real time. Or is it? (Certainly it is not needed for the programs shown to the public, which are the same every time).
And the displays in the Rose Centre for Earth and Space outside seem to have made a decision about Pluto. It is not listed as a planet in any of the exhibits, although there is something of a disclaimer pretending that they are not taking a position. Although as far as I can see they are.
Which of the people in this photo is the Samizdata editor?
Ed: The woman is Tayla, a very fine heavy metal guitarist. She lives guitar. The band is The Pink Meat.
Sorry about the lack of new bloggage but a great many Samizdatistas are nursing serious hangovers in the aftermath of Saturday’s Close Encounter of the Third Kind with Vodkapundit, Jane Galt and twenty five other fine bloggy type folks…
The smokers lurked outback
Yankee bloggers invade London!
The conversations ranged from artificial intelligence to real stupidity
Epicurian Samizdata editor
Who the hell invited this guy?
As tonight Samizdata.net HQ will be playing host to the Anglosphere Blogger Bash, featuring such A-list bloggers from across the Atlantic as Jane Galt and Stephen Green, blogging may be a bit erratic and/or ‘under the influance’.
We would like to invite our readership to speculate about who is who?
Update:
All you need to do is give Perry a nice cat and he immediately reveals himself to be a complete softie.
…no, not as in ‘Hollywood sucks’. Far from it in fact.
Our favourite lefty in Los Angeles, film producer, cigar addict, gun-owning pinko, O.G. blogger and all around gentleman Brian Linse kindly made his severely cool house in the Hollywood Hills available to me and fellow Samizdatista Jackie so that we would throw yet another blogger party for many very interesting people connected to the blogosphere…
Mickey Kaus demonstrated his improvised vampire repellent technique to a hushed audience
Many people stampeded into the bedroom when Amy suggested a game of ‘spin the bottle’
Eugene Volokh gave Jackie some legal advice in return for the famous Chilli Con Chelsea recipe
Arianna was described as a ‘once and future blogger’ but she seemed pretty blog-savvy right now Update: More reports and pictute of the latest LA Blogger Bash can be found here, here, here, here, here and here.
I thought a few more images from the splendid Capitalist Ball last week in Brussels would not go amiss…
And whilst in the Heart of Darkness, there were some anti-Bush protesters in town (well, I know most of the people who work for the EU fall into that category but that is not what I mean… and as a result security was somewhat tighter than usual. Someone I always imagined Berlaymont, the HQ of the European Commission, as being a place that has a great deal of barbed wire in its future.
The interesting things about the protesters for me were…
… firstly their very small number and secondly, their fascinating choice of protest placards which decried US military action against a mass murdering fascist regime in Iraq, a mass murdering fascist regime in Yugoslavia, in support of a democratic regime in Bosnia, against a right wing dictator in Panama …
Very revealing, would you not agree?
If Samizdata has been a bit quiet of late, you can blame it on the fact that so many of the contributors have been in Brussels for the Centre for the New Europe‘s 2005 Capitalist Ball. (Some of you may remember David Carr’s eye-pleasing entry about last year’s soiree.) Many of last year’s attendees were present this year – including the tall, glamourous Texan from David’s 2004 entry – and the whole event was nothing short of splendid. To be in a room with hundreds of people who broke into enthusiastic applause when one of the speakers quoted Father Juan de Mariana‘s assertion that any individual citizen can justly assassinate a king who imposes taxes without the consent of the people, seizes the property of individuals and squanders it, or prevents a meeting of a democratic parliament was, to put it mildly, very refreshing.
Without any collectivists in the room at whom they could snarl, Perry and Jackie were forced to smile
Brian was not pleased with his date’s smugness over forcing him into a dinner jacket and out of his beloved Birkenstocks
There was no prize for best posture or most regal attendee, but we had a winner for both of those categories on our table anyway
Brussels itself is a somewhat drab – if not totally miserable – town. Upon arrival, I was surprised to see a workman on a ladder in the train station, doing a bit of welding – without a properly fitted protective mask, and with sparks raining down mere inches from passersby. This total disregard for the cult of ‘health and safety’ was an oddly pleasing sight.
We took it as a good sign when the two flags flying right outside our hotel room window were the Union Jack and the American stars and stripes. Even more cheering was this sticker on a lampost near – I kid you not – Rue du Gouvernement Provisoire (Provisional Government Street):
It is the “as much as possible” that made us smile. Keep trying, scumbags.
And speaking of scumbags, it seems the local communists know they have a bit of a PR problem, to say the least:
Roughly translated, they are trying to sell the line that being against capitalism does not necessarily mean being in favour of the gulag. I suppose that may be true, in much the same way that being against breathing does not necessarily mean that one is in favour of a horrific death, but…Again, keep trying, scumbags. The pro-liberty contingent that gathered in Brussels this weekend are not the only people around who know you are full of crap. From the looks of the city’s Grand Place, a European stronghold of capitalism since the 17th century, it would appear that the denizens of Brussels have had that one figured out for quite a while. With any luck, and exposure to the free market principles celebrated at the CNE’s Capitalist Ball, the young communists of Belgium will get on the winning side of things any day now.
…as many of the Samizatistas are locked in deadly contests with several bottles of excellent Port at a party at Samizdata HQ tonight
Update: (from MJ)
David Carr was particularly cutting at the party in question. (Of course, he could get ten years for this)..
I do not know about you but I just hate those ‘year in review’ things that clog up the TV and the internet at this time of year. And now for something completely different.
1 Jan 2004: The year started with a party
2 Jan 2004: many people with hangovers…
8 Feb 2004: Party at Samizdata.net HQ
29 Feb 2004: Capitalist Ball in Brussels
14 April 2004: A bunch of Aussie bloggers miss the target date by 14 days
23 April 2004: St. George’s Day
19 July 2005: another inexplicable party to celebrate the arrival of an Irish Samizdatista
31 July 2004: Yet another party to celebrate Hot American Babes at Samizdata.net HQ
13 August 2004: Lonely and disconsolate, we have a party…
11 September 2004: Death to the Wahhabbis!
22 October 2004: Some Texan blogger misses out on some really good chili…
1 November 2004: Halloween
3 November 2004: Samizdata.net exclusive: Michael Moore gets a nice letter from Dubya
5 November 2004: Fond fantasies about blowing up Parliament
5 December 2004: Samizdata.net Christmas party
Oh, and some good and bad things happened in Iraq, some guy got elected in the US and some other stuff happened in some other places.
Pfff… The Samizdata.net Christmas/Cthulhumas Party has wound down with the last inebriates staggering off at a mere 02:30 in the morning. Lightweights! We have had blogger bashes last until 9:00 am the next morning!
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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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