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]
|
We Brians must stick together, so here is a plug for this campaign by Brian Whiley (linked to by b3ta.com) to replace either Greg Dyke or That Bloke From The City as BBC DG or BBC Chairman, whichever.
What was Gilligan’s crime? That, early in the morning – at a time when nobody except insomniacs and farmers would be listening – a bleary-eyed journalist embellished a report that, in all honesty, probably needed it. My first duty would be to defend to the last BBC journalists from a Government that feels the need to hound reporters whose only error has been to make a boring story a little more interesting by inventing conversations that never took place.
I particularly like the promotional products peddled on this website, which downplay the “Whiley” aspect of the situation in a way that will surely meet with widespread approval here.
I last logged out leaving the Samizdata just as I like it. There was a place for everything and everything was in its place. Yes, it may have been a bit shambolic and démodé but it was comforting and familiar like an old friend or a favourite armchair.
Only look at what has happened! I turn my back for a few hours and some anally-retentive busybodies have gone and called in the Feng Shui consultants. Now my loveable, historical old Blog has been has been consigned to the scrap heap and replaced with this ultra-hi-tech, cutting-edge, state-of-the-art thingy which they are probably going to tell me has been conceived for ‘balance’ or ‘harmony’ or ‘enhanced Chi‘ or something.
And as if that act of wanton cultural vandalism was not enough they have also furnished me with a new-fangled set of coding instructions with ‘stylesheets’ and ‘javascript’ and ‘xhtml’ this and ‘attribute’ that. The whole thing reads like stereo-assembly instructions. How is this old dog supposed to learn all these new tricks? It took me look enough to programme me the first time round. They will doubtless have to ship me off to the manufacturer now to be re-chipped and re-booted.
Or maybe they are planning to give me a make-over. Yes, I bet they are. After all age and experience counts for nothing these days. It’s all about image, image, image and daresay I am no longer regarded as sufficiently ‘happening’ anymore. I can see myself now, being prodded and poked around by a squadron of invidious design-gurus (“Dahhling, that haircut is just sooooo 2003″).
I would write a letter of complaint to these soulless technocrats but what good would it do? Besides they have all probably swanned off to some fashionable Islington eatery where they are quaffing down the polenta with rocket salad and feeling very smug about being so ‘cool’ and a la mode.
Bah! It’s all humbug.
See what happens when I do not pay attention to what The Dissident Frogman is doing? He sneaks off goes and makes another side-splittingly funny flash animation. I visit his site often but for some reason I neglected to ‘press the red button’. Big mistake.
I suggest you go and do so… right now.
Clearly nothing escapes the hawk-eyed attention of these rapier-witted and attentive public servants:
A tax office official in Finland who died at his desk went unnoticed by up to 30 colleagues for two days.
The man in his 60s died last Tuesday while checking tax returns, but no-one realised he was dead until Thursday.
Getting a fiddled expenses claim past them must be a doddle. Let’s all move to Finland!
He said everyone at the tax office was feeling dreadful – and procedures would have to be reviewed.
From now on, mandatory pulse-checks every 24 hours.
I check this site day by day, and found this cartoon today.
By the way, there is a curious transatlantic rift over the Beagle: the British media call it a ‘British Mars probe’ and the US media call it a ‘European Mars probe’.
A few weeks ago, i was looking through old issues of The Spectator and I found a piece by Mark Steyn from a little over a year ago. He was talking mainly about his dislike of the UN, and the silliness of Libya being at the time the newly elected chair of the UN Human Rights Commission and Iraq being about to become president of the UN Conference on Disarmament. (Looking back, I think Iraq and Libya have both learned quite a bit about disarmanent and human rights since then. But I digress).
However, Steyn went on to say that some international organisations were okay.
I’m all in favour of the Universal Postal Union and the Berne Copyright Convention (America was a bit late signing that one), but they work precisely because Sy Kottik and his chums weren’t involved.
I’m not so sure, actually. Certain aspects of the Berne Copyright Convention are somewhat controversial, and I would argue that parts of it are more about certain countries attempting to implement protectionist policies more than anything else. No doubt we could now have one of those long heated arguments in the comments section as we often do when intellectual property issues are brought up. But let’s not. It’s Christmas.
For it was the other one of those international organisations, the Universal Postal Union, that made me think about Steyn’s article when I was posting Christmas presents too my family in Australia a couple of weeks back. You see, there are three postage rates for air mail. The most expensive is the “standard letter rate”, which can be used to send anything, other than items considered actually dangerous to send through the mail. The first of the other rates is “printed matter”, which is defined as
advertisements, books, calendars, catalogues, diaries, directories, greetings cards, illustrations, magazines, maps, musical scores, newspapers, order/subscription forms, leaflets and pamphlets, plans, postcards, price lists, printed drawings and notices, proofs, prospectuses and timetables, but not letters, including personal messages or greetings (other than five words allowed on greetings cards), handwritten receipts, photographic negatives, slides or film, postage stamps or blank stationery
Got that? The other is the “small packet” rate which is defined as
goods, gifts and trade samples, audio/video tapes, magnetic tapes, and photographs. You can include a letter, invoice or other document, if it relates to the contents of the item
These definitions are defined by the treaties that created the Universal Postal Union, and it is impossible for any one country to change them. This is what happens when you put representatives of lots of governments together to negotiate anything. They come up with stupid, overly bureaucratic definitions and rules. But somehow the idea that it is their business what I choose to put in the mail is taken as a given.
They probably had some reason for setting rules like this, at least theoretically. Were books and newspapers considered morally virtuous and letters and photographic negatives not (huh?), or was is considered desirable for people to write their letters on thin paper but it was not considered desirable for people to send light gifts rather than heavy gifts?. In any event, letting people who send things from one almost arbitrary list of things subsidise people who send things from a different list seems somewhat peculiar to me.
But I suppose the international postal system does work on the whole. And even if it does produce silly outcomes like this, multilateralism is generally better than bilateralism
And things are changing. I cannot remember the last time I sent a personal letter to anyone. Business letters occasionally, and occasionally Christmas cards, but otherwise I use the mail service entirely for sending packages. Perhaps the letter rate will fade into non-existence and the costs of sending packages will revert to something resembling the actual costs of sending them because there is no other mail. I suppose we can hope.
But I still have this peculiar vision of somebody working for the post office whose job is to open people’s packages to check that they haven’t written any more than five words on their greeting cards. Clearly this is important. Civilization would obviously collapse if it was not done.
Anyway, Merry Christmas everyone.
The following is taken from a list of authors names as published in the British Library Catalogue:
Florence A Bagelhole
Ole Bagger
Ludwig Von Baldass
Willy Bang
Juana Bignozzi
Petr Bitsilli
Jaime Bleeda
Don Bolognese
Wallop Brabazon
Knud Bugge
Hieronymus Cock
Ellsworth Prouty Conkle
Lettice May Crump
Dee Day
Roger A Destroyer
Arsen Diklic
Herman Dirk van Dodeweerd
Kersi D Doodha
Gottfried Egg
Bernt Eggen
Gordon Bandy Enders
Otto Flake
Mercedes Formica
Vladimir Fuka
Gergeley Gergeley
Biserka Grabar
Romulus Guga
Frederick Stuft Hammer
Odd Bang Hansen
O Heck
Jup Kastrati
Per Klang
Hieronimus Knicker
Bent Koch
Jacques Olle Laprune
Moses E Lard
F Leflufly
Manfred Lurker
Agogo Mago
Pilgrim Mangles
Santiago Nudelman
Henricus Pisart
Antwerp Pratt
Willem Quackelbeen
Fritz Rotter
Flora Schmulz
Johann Von Schmuck
I M Sick
Count Jacques de Silly
Negley Teeters
Wade Toole
Matilda Wrench
I am reliably informed that these names have been checked and that these people do indeed exist.
[My thanks to Dr Chris Tame for posting this to the Libertarian Alliance Forum]
Nobody who has read The Road To Serfdom will have been in the least surprised at the increased use these days of the word “Czar” in political discourse. It signals the quite deliberate, conscious and explicit demand for governmental tyranny, not for its own sake, but to cut through all the crap deposited everywhere by previous government officials. Czarism signals the demand that government cease playing even by its own rules, let alone anyone else’s.
To dig a bit deeper into the subject I tried typing “czar” into Google.
I actually didn’t get as many different Czarships as I was hoping for. Not really hoping, you understand, but hoping for the purposes of this posting. I had in mind a posting along the lines of this one, which lists all the different ways in which “the public needs to be educated“. Googling reaped a rich harvest with that one. But czardoms proved to be in relatively short supply. So, in a way, I have good news to report. Not as many czardoms as you might think.
I found this Privacy Czar and a call, reported on here, for him to be replaced by the current US administration. And inevitably there is this personage, who is genuinely scary of course, to be laughed and sneered at only as part of the deadly serious business of running him out of office and abolishing his job, and strangling the fatuous ambitions it is based on.
There is this cybersecurity czar. Apart from that, very little, apparently. Is there a list of czardoms somewhere that I have missed?
In other words, and I’m really very pleased about this, truly, what I actually discovered was what these people at the Cornell University Computing Science Department, way ahead of me, had long ago spotted, which is that czardom in your average democracy is usually only a word, not to say a poisoned chalice. A czar is a commissioner, an under-secretary with special responsibility for, a “co-ordinator”, a gopher, with a grander and scarier sounding title than those, but with none of the means on his desk actually to solve the problem he has been put in charge of, which in any case has only reached the czar stage because it is insoluble.
The Cornell computerfolk would seem to have been watching all this, because they’ve taken to calling their own functionaries “czars” also.
In their case the insoluble problem is somewhat different to those confronted with czardom by your average government. Their problem is to get people to do boring things without being paid anything. And it seems that the thrill of being a czar doesn’t work any better there than elsewhere, as they foresaw.
Replacements have been requested for the following czarships. If you are interested in taking up one of these positions, or would like to have a position listed as available, please contact either the current czar listed for that position or the Czar Czar. Please remember that it is the current czar’s responsibility to find a replacement when they wish to give up a czarship, though the Czar Czar can offer suggestions of people who might be available to fill the position.
Czardom as slavery! You have to find some other poor sap to do it before you are allowed to stop. It would seem that the current Colloquium Czar is anxious to replace himself. He’s got fed up with doing this.
The Colloquium Czar unlocks the lecture hall for the weekly department colloquium and makes sure that any overhead projectors or other equipment that is needed is available. They also close up the room after the colloquium is over.
Well, at least the job is doable, for as long as you can stand doing it.
But of course, having to replace yourself is only a rule, which can be Cut Through like any other piece of Red Tape. The people in charge of these arrangements can’t actually do anything if the slave simply buggers off the plantation while neglecting to entice any other slave to perform his ex-duties. And if there are no volunteers in the first place, what do you do then?
The following czarships are no longer active, due to lack of interest or judgment that they are no longer needed. If you would like to see one of these czarships reactivated, contact the Czar Czar.
That has to be the job description of the century so far:
The overseer of the czarships, the Czar Czar maintains the current list of czarships and their corresponding czars. In addition, they keep track of any information about performing particular czar duties. If a czar wishes to retire from their position, the Czar Czar can help find possible replacements.
The name of the current Czar Czar is Stephen Chong. I know, he/she should be called “Gabor” – glad we’ve got that out of the way. But how long before a “Czar Czar” pops up for real, in a real public sector, somewhere?
Seriously, I congratulate these Cornellians (?) for having (a) spotted something seriously funny and funnily serious going on out there in the real world, (b) deciding to take some appropriate piss out of it, and (c) doing so by having some fun with their own arrangements, thereby proving that they are not taking themselves and their own activities over-seriously either.
A true understanding of the world? A sense of their own relative unimportance in that larger scheme of things? A sense of humour? Can they really be students at all?
GREETINGS!
LET ME START BY INTRODUCING MYSELF PROPERLY. MY NAME IS ALI KAMAL BISHARA AND I AM A SENIOR OFFICIAL IN THE IRAQI FINANCE MINISTRY. I WAS ALSO CHIEF ADVISER TO FORMER PRESIDENT OF IRAQ, SADDAM HUSSEIN WHO IS NOW IN THE AMERICAN CAPTIVITY.
WE ARE CONTACT YOU FOR TO ESTABLISH VERY URGENTLY A BUSINESS RELATIONSHIP BUT ONLY WITH A FOREIGN PERSON OF MOST HIGH RELIABLENESS AND REPUTATION FOR WHICH INVOLVES THE TRANSFER OF A HUGE SUM OF MONEY TO A FOREIGN ACCOUNT REQUIRING MAXIMUM CONFIDENCE.
LET ME EXPLAIN: BEFORE HIS DETENTION THE PRESIDENT HUSSEIN DEPOSITED THE SUM OF $28,500,000 IN A SECRET BANK ACCOUNT IN A SAFE COUNTRY. THIS MONEY WAS OIL REVENUE WHICH I HAVE PERSONALLY CHECKED AND FOUND AS AN ACCURATE FIGURE.
NOW THE FORMER PRESIDENT HUSSEIN CAN NO LONGER ACCESS THIS MONEY WHICH IS MUCH NEEDED BY MY COUNTRY FOR DISBURSEMENT TO CHILDREN AND HOSPITALS. IF THIS MONEY IS NOT CLAIMED IT WILL BE TAKEN BY AMERICAN GOVERNMENT.
SO HUMBLY WE BEG AN HONEST AND DILIGENT PERSON TO WHO THE UNDISCLOSED BANK WILL TRANSFER THIS MONEY AS TRUSTEE. IN RETURN FOR THIS SERVICE YOU WILL KEEP 30% OF THE SUM AND REMIT TO US THE 70% REMAINING. IN ORDER THAT WE MAY COMPLETE THIS MOST SECRET TRANSACTION YOU MUST SEND TO US YOUR DETAILS BUT MOSTLY YOUR BANK ACCOUNT NUMBER AND ADDRESS SO THAT WE CAN ARRANGE THE SUBSTANTIAL MONEY TRANSFER TO YOUR BANK ACCOUNT.
YOU MUST REPLY QUICKLY WITH FULL DETAILS FOR US TO BE CONVICTED THAT YOU ARE GENUINE AND SINCERE.
YOURS MOST HUMBLY IN GOOD BUSINESS FAITH.
ALI KAMAL BISHARA.
The French Government has reacted with fury to the news that Saddam Hussein has been captured by US forces.
Speaking to reporters in Paris this evening, the Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, denounced the arrest of the former Iraqi leader as ‘an act of international piracy’:
“Saddam Hussein has been kidnapped by America. You cannot simply seize and detain people without proper negotiations. The Americans should have given more thought beforehand. This situation requires the careful application of justice not cowboy tactics”
His words were echoed at a meeting of EU Ministers in Brussels this evening. Speaking on behalf of the assembled ministers, Dutch Commissioner Willy Van Der Pimp issued a warning to the Americans not to ‘go it alone’:
“If the Americans think that they alone can administer justice, then they are very mistaken. The international community will not tolerate being ignored in this fashion. Europe has a vital role to play in deciding the future of Saddam Hussein”
The Council of Ministers will meet again tomorrow in emergency session to draw up an action plan.
Gabriel’s last post brought irresistibly to mind another letter that was orbiting the planet via email several years ago (this was before the Planet Blog emerged from ether). As with Gabriel, I apologize if you have already seen this, but it is not only hilarious, it is funny in such a kind and gentle way that I have used it in several classes as an example of how to write a letter in which you are saying “no, no, a thousand times no!” while making a new friend.
The letter, from the Smithsonian Institution to a backyard archaeologist, follows: → Continue reading: Courtesy costs little II
Chris Addison of the Guardian shares a letter from tax authorities he received as a reply to his earlier missives on the topic of tax gathering. The Guardian? Tax authorities? This does not bode well for the entertainment potential of this post. Nevertheless, I reproduce the letter below in full as it made my day1:
Dear Mr Addison,
I am writing to you to express our thanks for your more-than-prompt reply to our latest communication, and also to answer some of the points you raise.
I will address them, as ever, in order.
Firstly, I must take issue with your description of our last as a “begging letter”. It might perhaps more properly be referred to as a “tax demand”. This is how we, at the Inland Revenue, have always, for reasons of accuracy, traditionally referred to such documents.
Secondly, your frustration at our adding to the “endless stream of crapulent whining and panhandling vomited daily through the letterbox on to the doormat” has been noted. However, whilst I have naturally not seen the other letters to which you refer, I would cautiously suggest that their being from “pauper councils, Lombardy pirate banking houses and pissant gas-mongerers” might indicate that your decision to “file them next to the toilet in case of emergencies” is at best a little ill-advised.
In common with my own organisation, it is unlikely that the senders of these letters do see you as a “lackwit bumpkin” or, come to that, a “sodding charity”. More likely they see you as a citizen of Great Britain, with a responsibility to contribute to the upkeep of the nation as a whole.
Which brings me to my next point. Whilst there may be some spirit of truth in your assertion that the taxes you pay “go to shore up the canker-blighted, toppling folly that is the Public Services”, a moment’s rudimentary calculation ought to disabuse you of the notion that the government in any way expects you to “stump up for the whole damned party” yourself. The estimates you provide for the Chancellor’s disbursement of the funds levied by taxation, whilst colourful, are, in fairness, a little off the mark. Less than you seem to imagine is spent on “junkets for Bunterish lickspittles” and “dancing whores”, whilst far more than you have accounted for is allocated to, for example, “that box-ticking facade of a university system”.
A couple of technical points arising from direct queries: 1. The reason we don’t simply write “Muggins” on the envelope has to do with the vagaries of the postal system; 2. You can rest assured that “sucking the very marrows of those with nothing else to give” has never been considered as a practice because even if the Personal Allowance didn’t render it irrelevant, the sheer medical logistics involved would make it financially unviable.
I trust this has helped. In the meantime, whilst I would not in any way wish to influence your decision one way or the other, I ought to point out that even if you did choose to “give the whole foul jamboree up and go and live in India” you would still owe us the money. Please forward it by Friday.
Yours sincerely,
H J Lee
Customer Relations
Notwithstanding the purpose and the origin of this letter, I think its style is commendable2.
Note (1): This article has been published on 27th September, so it may have circled the planet Blog by now. Please skip, if I am merely reposting the ‘joke of the month’ from two months ago long after the party.
Note (2): Yes, it is a joke and not a real letter.
|
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.
|
