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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The PM has a new gimmick. We are invited to petition him via the interweb thingy.
Now I think it interesting in itself that a Prime Minister should so wrap himself in the purple to invite petitions, as if he were sovereign and we the petty subjects whose wishes he might deign to consider. But the content of the petitions themselves is getting quite weird.
Leading the pack is a petition to repeal the Hunting With Dogs Act 2004. But there is also one to “ignore the petition to repeal the hunting act 2004” and another (which no-one has signed) to “to ban the signing of petitions asking to repeal the hunting act 2004”.
Some are gloriously vague (“change renting laws in UK”); some insanely specific, requiring arcane knowledge and an odd personality to understand, let alone support. (E.g. We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to require A-G energy-efficiency ratings to make explicit the A+ and A++ categories (and any future, higher categories), so that consumers are aware that energy efficiencies greater than ‘A’ can be achieved with products so rated.”) Some are both vague and specialised at the same time. Some founded on malapropism. There are numerous semi-duplications, where individuals who might agree with an earlier, simpler, better-supported proposal, have added their own refinements, not caring that it may be a distraction from the main cause.
In short, all the faults of that fetish of radicals, participatory democracy, are on display. As are pretty much all the green-ink political obsessions.
My favourite: “We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to replace the national anthem with ‘Gold’ by Spandau Ballet” – I urge you to support it. But there is something to give joy to everyone.
As regular readers here all know, the state is not your friend… but sometimes its petty tyrannies and inanities are bloody funny:
The makers of Welsh Dragon Sausages were warned they could face legal action if they did not specify which meat they were using. “I don’t think any of our customers actually believe that we use dragon meat,” said Jon Carthew, of the Black Mountains Smokery at Crickhowell, after receiving a warning letter from trading standards officers.
A quick check and sure enough, these people fail to mention their sausages are not in fact made from dragon meat (which I had assumed was ‘self-smoking’). Hell, I only bought them because I thought they contained the ultimate in ‘endangered species’.
Today is Remembrance Sunday, and outside Westminster Abbey there is a Field of Remembrance. The field’s crop consists of young men, each commemorated by a wooden cross. I took photographs there last Thursday.
The most effective pictures for evoking what it all looked like were those which hinted at the sheer number of wooden crosses, which in their numbers of course only hinted in their turn at the number of young men killed in war in recent decades.
Who, I wonder, is that particular young man, who was, like me, taking photos? Probably, also like me, just going for an effective shot, rather than remembering anyone in particular. He is (as I later did in the exact same spot) photographing the backs of the crosses nearest to him. The nameless dead.
Other photographers focused tightly in on one particular name and one particular cross.
The oddest photograph I took that day was of a car number plate, on what looked like an official, government, chauffeur-driven Rolls.
At any other time, and with no poppies on the front, that would be a good laugh. But with poppies everywhere, it seemed very peculiar.
Here, alas, is another relevant BBC story.
South Korea finally surrenders to one of the finer features of modernity and legalises the miniskirt!
Legal!
This anecdote from Ian Brown is just too much fun not to share: Killer wasp brings passport office to halt.
Any wasp-trainers out there? Your country needs you.
And the reason? Simple, the USA has banned Vegemite! I expect to see RAAF strikes on US targets by late this evening and Aussie SAS teams boarding US shipping and dumping cargoes of Skippy Peanut Butter into the sea.
More seriously, it is just preposterous that the state interferes in the most picayune aspects of life. Next time I am in the US I intend to smuggle a jar in disguised as Marmite and smear it over the door handles of the first US federal government building to see.
Overheard in a hospital earlier today:
Question: “Are you married?”
Old gentleman patient: “Sadly, yes.”
Question: “Do you have any religion?”
Old gentleman patient: “No. I’m Church of England.”
And he was not joking, our informant insists.
“Purchaser shall not sell or transfer any Cat purchased hereunder to anyone other than an immediate family member, and shall not offer to any person the purchase of a Cat or any genetic material from a Cat, the rights Purchaser may have under this Agreement, or any other right related hereto, without the Company’s express written authorization.”
– An extract from the click through licence one is required to agree to when ordering a genetically modified hypoallergenic cat from a company named Allerca. (Via Boingboing).
I was mildly amused to see that there is a book published in the USA called ‘Why mommy is a democrat’.
Presumably it teaches children that just as ‘Mommy’ looks after Junior and makes him share his toys with the kid next door, if the kid next door refuses to share his toys with Junior, Junior should threaten to lock him in the attic and take the toys he wants by force… just like the nice Democrats use the threat of jail for people who do not ‘share their toys’ like they are told.
Just a guess.
Such as, how to pack and ship a hippopotamus…
I find the idea of life without the internet is just unimaginable.
Introducing the world’s grooviest washing machine. Mind you, ironing is still going to be a chore. (Hat-tip: Gizmondo).
Is a credit card. But James, I hear you cry, the availability of capital credit supercharged Western civilisation’s development through the Renaissance and beyond, and a credit card is an instrument of a developed debt market – arguably the most socially beneficial institution we possess! Have you gone quite mad?
No, dear reader, just clumsy; I meant to write that the most ill-considered banking product ever devised is this credit card. It is a National Australia Bank (NAB) Visa Mini – confoundingly counter-intuitively, this card’s most notable feature is that it’s about half the size of a conventional credit card. Apparently this distinction alone will irresistibly and relentlessly reel in the target demographic – fashion conscious twenty-somethings (I think that might include me!) – but NAB has other slick devices in store to simultaneously deliver a KO in the coolness heavyweight championship of the banking world whilst obfuscating the somewhat steep interest rate levied on any transactions billed.
So let us dive in to this treasure-trove of modé. Before our young charges sally forth and actually use their Visa Mini cards to – you know – buy stuff, they need to know that The Bank wants them to be creative and flamboyant in the way they carry their card on their person, so it has thoughtfully provided some accessories to give each trendy young Visa Mini cardholder a dash of inspiration. Why not hang your Visa Mini on your mobile phone using the purpose-built attachment, o budding sophisticate? Does it look cool, and it is also great for the person who finds your misplaced Nokia; if they exhaust your mobile credit telephoning Siberian astrologers, they’ll be thanking their lucky stars because instant replenishment is quite literally on hand! Now that is convenience. Of course, NAB’s not saying we should trade the security for the superfabulous – ho ho, quite the opposite! Just read the small print on the “accessories” page (linked above):
Remember, you have to look after your Visa Mini Card and companion card as you would cash. So the best place to wear them is up close and personal.
Yes, yes, excellent advice. The long strap should come in handy for that. See? And where would we be without a safety clip? Silly question. For the truly elite – the style aristocracy – why not subtly incorporate the Visa Mini into a piece of bespoke jewellery, like so? Yes, it probably would require less effort to don a prominent sign displaying “ROB ME” painted in large flourescent letters and then wander down the darkest, dodgiest backstreet alley in an effort to discover a smackhead suffering profound withdrawal symptoms so you can shove your Visa Mini between his chattering teeth. But that’s simply not how they do it in Europe, philistine. So, point made and henceforth disregarding your obvious shortcomings, I’m sure by now your head is no doubt spinning with credit card couture-related possibilities. Yet do try to keep up, because what if I threw a choice of “five must-have metallic colours” into the mix? Yes, you heard the man – he said “must-have”. So that’ll be five Visa Minis for you, sir? Madam? Thought so – the experienced eye can always pick the slave to fashion! → Continue reading: The most ill-considered banking product ever devised
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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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