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This takes some beating for an alarming sub-header for an article:
Blimey! At least it happened in the middle of nowhere rather than downtown Oslo. Still, we all know it was really caused by June 9th, 2006 | 24 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Funny that Paul should mention Italian elections; I watched a piece on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s Foreign Correspondent tonight that trailed a couple of Australians (I call them Australians, because that’s what they are – not Italians, despite their declarations to the contrary) who have just been elected to the Italian federal parliament under the utterly ridiculous new system that mandates a level of parliamentary representation to “Italians abroad” – that is, emigrants. One of the two men, Nino Randazzo (who’s been an Australian for more than fifty years), nominally supports Romano Prodi’s coalition, however he is seen as a potentially swinging voter in a tightly balanced senate and thus holds power far beyond that which his diminutive stature implies. Notwithstanding the fact that the legitimacy of these foreign men wielding Italian political power is extraordinarily tenuous, what do these people want from the Italian state? According to one of the two, financial assistance for “cultural purposes” to benefit people who have left Italy to make better lives for themselves in other countries. One newly-elected American member of the Italian parliament declared that Italy somehow owed its émigrés something due to the remittances they voluntarily sent back to Italy many years ago.* The mind boggles. Why, oh why do these privileged foreigners think they have the right to extract funds from the already hard-pressed Italian taxpayer – a group they deserted long ago? Why on earth are Italians not apoplectic with rage over these people who are only going to make the Italian government’s deficit slide further into the red with their demands of cultural grants for foreigners? And we’re talking about foreigners who have already helped create rich Italian cultures in their chosen countries and as a group could effortlessly afford to fund whatever cultural boondoggles these new enemies of the Italian taxpayer have in mind. Of course, most Australian-Italians would not give a cent (Australian or Euro) for these cultural pursuits – whatever they may be. Amazingly, in this circumstance the new Italian electoral system has made it easier to arm-twist a foreign government to do one’s bidding. You have probably ascertained from my colourful use of formatting that I am a wee bit irritated by the exploits of these men. For a start, I do not like parasitic types who think they have some divine right to expropriate other people’s money. Secondly, I cannot stand those who move to a country like Australia, make their lives here and by all accounts do very well for themselves in a way that they could not have if they’d have stayed in the land of their birth, only to turn around and insult the nation that provided them with so much opportunity and declare “I’m Italian”. There is a simple solution to this problem. The Italians can have their new politicians back. It seems only fair; they are paying for them, after all. *Apologies for not providing quotes; the programme in question – Foreign Correspondent on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s television channel – tends not to post the transcript of the segment until the day after it’s aired. It will be available here, and when it becomes available I will edit this post accordingly. May 30th, 2006 | 17 comments - (Comments are closed)
Ex-communists win re-election in Turin and Rome, and a Christian Democrat type (allied with the ex-communists) wins re-lection in Naples. Pity about Turin, where Rocco Buttiglione, the candidate for the ‘House of Freedoms’ is an interesting Catholic philosopher (but what can one expect from the city of the Red Brigades – and of that black hole for money, Fiat). In Sicily the candidate supported by the ex-communists was defeated, although ‘the left’ (I know there is no agreed definition as to what ‘left’ and ‘right’ mean, but it is the term these people use to describe themselves) are claiming that “the friends” had a hand in the re-election of the foe of the ex-communists. Of course few complained when the Mafia supported Anglo American action in Sicily against the totalitarians of the time (the Italian Fascists and the German National Socialists), the Mafia may have their own (corrupt) reasons for opposing totalitarianism – but oppose it they do. Of course the ex-communists now occupy the positions of President of Italy and of Speaker of at least one of the two houses of the Italian Parliament (the other being occupied by an allied ‘leftist’). Prime Minister Prodi has indeed worked hard to entrench his unholy alliance of European Union linked big business (the small family owned business enterprises in Italy tend to oppose Mr Prodi and his ‘Olive Tree’) and ex-communists into positions of power. Re-imposing inheritance tax (to undermine Italian family owned enterprises and hand the economy over to the state and to the corporations) will be the next move. However, I more interested in what happened in Milan. The lady standing there for the House of Freedoms Party, Letizia Moratti, was not accused of corruption (the weapon the ‘left’ used against Mr Berlusconi.) nor is she a dodgy ‘National Alliance’ type (if one traces the National Alliance party’s history back one eventually comes to rather nasty collectivist statists – although of the ‘Black’ rather than the ‘Red’ variety). The lady was a moderate economic liberal, of exactly the sort one would think would suit a commercial city like Milan. More than this, there was the terrible incident at the start of May when Letizia Moratti took her father to an event marking the liberation of Milan from the National Socialist Germans and their Italian ‘Social Republic’ (i.e. fascist) allies at the end of World War II. Although the lady was in the company of her elderly and disabled father (who had been sent to a concentration camp by the Germans), she was insulted, pushed and spat on by various ‘leftists’. “Yes Paul, but Ms. Moratti won the election”. Yes the lady won the election (in a city which has tended in recent years to vote against the ‘left’) – but she won it by only 51% to 47% (minor parties making up the rest of the votes). One would have thought that the pushing and insulting and spitting on a lady (especially in front of her elderly and disabled father) would be unacceptable to more than 51% of the population. To put in bluntly, almost half the population of Milan have shown themselves to be lower than shit. May 30th, 2006 | 12 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Daily Telegraph reckons that global warming might advance the chances of England, or at least select bits of it, one day rivalling the wine producing prowess of France. Maybe. It has been rather hard to become convinced of the global warming thesis in what has been, by any standards, an exceptionally wet month of May. There is no doubt that a run of hot summers has got people thinking about the implications for agriculture. In my native Suffolk, there are a few quite famous wine producing farms, such as this one. The wine tends to be a bit too sharp for my taste, rather like the stuff produced in the Rhine area. (My favourite wine from the north European area is the very distinctive white wine from Alsace). Personally, I think the best booze in East Anglia is the cider, although it is very strong. England produced quite a lot of wine in centuries past, when average temperatures were quite possibly hotter than now. The Romans produced a fair amount of the stuff (and no doubt their passion for baths and washing was partly driven by the desire to sweat away the subsequent hangovers). So maybe England could become a great wine producer again. Even so, it will have to go some way before it can rival the Lafites, Latours of Montrachets of France. Anyway, it is my 40th birthday today, so I may just have to find an excuse to do some tasting. May 28th, 2006 | 19 comments - (Comments are closed)
Well, I guess one has to admire the guts of these fellows:
This may end badly, I fear. April 28th, 2006 | 9 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are few topics in the world that get people heated up more then immigration, and in both Australia and the United States, societies that have been built by mass immigration, the topic is in the news. In the United States, the question is based more on what to do about the millions of illegal immigrants that have consistently been keen to seek opportunity in that great country, and have taken the dubious path of avoiding the proper legal channels to do so. In ordinary times this would not have been such an issue. However, since 2001 the United States has become naturally very sensitive about who enters its borders. I am actually surprised that it has taken this long to surface. The United States immigration question is particularly interesting. You might think that a society that has built itself on mass immigration would be in favour of more immigration, but this is not the case, and generally never has been the case. In general immigration is tolerated, rather then actively embraced by the general populace, but when times get tough, the political mood can turn quite quickly on newcomers. This was as true in the recession of 1819 as it is today. This is because the costs of immigration are felt and paid for by individuals, but the benefits of immigration are diffuse and spread right across society. It is a shame that many defenders of the right of the free movement of people refuse to admit that there are costs to immigration. The worker who finds his wages undercut or loses his job entirely, or the victim of violence or the householder who finds his property values eroded is naturally going to feel distressed and angry at what he or she sees as the ‘cause’ of his or her loss. People find themselves surrounded by people of different appearance, religion, and cultural conditions, and worry about how the newcomers will assimilate. → Continue reading: Three cheers for immigrants! April 20th, 2006 | 88 comments - (Comments are closed)
 Commenters in my last post have asked me exactly what I was talking about when I stated that I found many “Danish cheeses that would be illegal in Europe” in a Chinese supermarket. Although it is actually possible to figure out what I was talking about from a careful study of the top photograph and perusal of Samizdata‘s fine archives I shall, none the less, explain myself. In truth, I was being slightly misleading. The European Union has in recent years adopted laws (based on earlier French laws) adopted “Protected Designation of Origin” and “Protected Geographical Origin” laws concerning the names of foodstuffs, which state essentially that if a food product is supposedly characteristic of a certain place of origin, then the particular name of that foodstuff can only be used on products made in that place, and usually also made in a particular way (subject to vast books of regulations) in that particular place. Sometimes that product name is the name of the place (eg Edam cheese must come from Edam in the Netherlands), and sometimes it is not(“Camembert” cheese must come from Normandy). Nobody seriously objects to laws that make the origins of products clear, and make it illegal to genuinely attempt to deceive about where a product came from, but these laws are notable for their overreach. In many cases, the attempt has been made to regain control over names which became generic decades or centuries ago, and it has also become illegal to use these names desciptively in any sense. (You cannot say “This cheese resembles camembert” or even “This cheese does not resemble camemert” on the label). Ultimately this has ended all about being protectionist with respect to small numbers of producers. Having adopted these laws inside the EU, the European Union’s agriculture directorate (sometimes also known as “The French”) has attempted in trade negotiations to have similar laws enacted internationally, using the argument that “We are good citizens within the EU and respect these laws and the rights of producers (blah blah blah), and therefore they should be respected internationally too. Their attempts to have such laws adopted within the WTO have largely involved their being told to get stuffed, principally by the Americans, but they have had some success in bilateral negotiations with smaller countries (eg Australia) that want to trade with the EU in agricultural products. However, there has been a split between northern and southern Europe on this. A large number of these PDOs and PGOs have been adopted in southern Europe (particularly France and Italy) but there has been much more reluctance to adopt them in northern Europe, where farmers and producers have been reluctant to accept the large amount of regulations that has come with them. For instance, the producers of stilton cheese considerd participating, but ultimately decided that protecting the word “stilton” would reduce the flexibility of their businesses sufficiently that it was not worth doing so, although they did actually (and somewhat idiotically) adopt “Blue Stilton” and “White Stilton” as protected phrases. In the “screwups” department, the producers of Newcastle Brown Ale did apply to have the name protected, and then discovered that it was technically illegal to use the name “Newcastle Brown Ale” for beer brewed in their new brewery across the river in Gateshead. None the less, northern European countries have (with a bit of grumbling) gone along with these laws, and products on supermarket shelves have been relabeled. But, as I discovered in China last week, they only do what they have to. → Continue reading: More on Danish dairy products and illegal cheeses April 9th, 2006 | 20 comments - (Comments are closed)
Jacques Chirac is, in typically sophisticated French fashion, subtly inferring that French culture reigns supreme amongst the illuminati of high civilisation:
I suppose it is always a positive when the children leave the room. Then the grown-ups can talk. (Hat tip RWDB – J.F. Beck) March 24th, 2006 | 52 comments - (Comments are closed)
The Basque separatist terrorist organisation Eta has announced a permenent ceasefire. If this is genuine and this holds, and Eta genuinely does stop killing people, then this is obviously good thing. One minor issue though.
Why the delay, precisely? Are they planning on blowing some people up tomorrow for old times’ sake? Do they have some semtex that they haven’t used that they don’t want to waste? Enquiring minds do want to know. March 22nd, 2006 | 5 comments - (Comments are closed)
Last week, Umair Haque (bubblegeneration) predicted that Europe would prove to be the next innovation leader–not because of any forthcoming shift toward a culture of entrepreneurialism, but because the day is coming when content will be key, and Eurpoeans simply remain more, ah, cultured than Americans. This pronouncement that drew numerous responses (including my own) that ranged all the way from ‘Huh?’ to ‘Excuse me?’ Innovators in Silicon Valley like Chris Yeh took particular exception. Since then, Haque has taken the debate on the relative values of financial vs. social capital further, yea, invoking the spectre of Wal-Mart:
The debate on Bubblegeneration is a significant (in that it’s particularly cogent) articulation of the Euro-centric argument for a managed economy – the twist being that the stated protectionist goal is the preservation of ‘culture’ not jobs per se. But looking closely, Haque’s argument contains the seeds of its own undoing: in the world of hypercompetition he speaks of, it’s true that creativity driven by passion and commitment will dominate – which is exactly what entrepreneurs like Chris Heh and his rather cultured friends in Silicon Valley embody. The truth is that while the world may have fewer (and probably better) mom and pop bakeries moving forward, that level of creative energy is being re-invested in other more dynamic areas of human endeavor and achievement – i.e., the mom and pop software shop. March 22nd, 2006 | 65 comments - (Comments are closed)
There are moves afoot to ban the burqa in the Netherlands on the basis that they are oppressive to women and in the words of Geert Wilders, a Dutch member of parliament…
Which is quite curious logic because if he believes in equal rights, does that not include the right to wear what you damn well please without it having to be politically approved by the state? Will other forms of clothing be banned in order to make this an ‘equal right’? Moreover it sets a horrific president: does that mean ‘offensive’ clothing can be banned, such as, say, a mini-skirt that some Muslims with sexual hang-ups find offensive? This proposal is a dreadful idea with only one thing to recommend it, and that with proviso is does not actually pass into law. The notion of making Muslim fundamentalists (and I would argue that anyone wearing a burqa is a fundamentalist) feel that they are not accepted and that even toleration of them is hanging in the balance is not such a bad message to send. Yet this is nevertheless an appalling notion for the state to decide what people can wear. A vastly better idea would be to just scale back the welfare state which brough many of these people to Europe and most importantly return the abridged property rights and freedom of association and dis-association to individuals to deal with who they please and freely (but peaceably) express themselves without fear of prosecution for ‘discrimination’. That way, if enough individuals decide that not make people who wear burqas welcome into their places of business, the problem of state supported non-assimilation would quickly disappear. If people really do not care, then that too is the ‘voice of the people’. Either way, the state has no business enforcing dress codes. Provide some real social motivation to assimilate and adopt western norms of behaviour. If some un-assimilated Muslims find that notion offensive and choose to leave for some nation which is more accepting of dark ages mores. Either way the problem is reduced. March 10th, 2006 | 236 comments - (Comments are closed)
What European unity really means to most people. March 4th, 2006 | 3 comments - (Comments are closed)
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