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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Michael Jennings links to this, at William Gibson‘s, which Gibson heard on Sky News:
“Umm Qasr is a town similar to Southampton”, UK Defence Minister Geoff Hoon told the House of Commons yesterday. “He’s either never been to Southampton, or he’s never been to Umm Qasr”, said one British soldier, informed of this while on patrol in Umm Qasr. Another added: “There’s no beer, no prostitutes, and people are shooting at us. It’s more like Portsmouth.”
Jennings also prefers Southampton, for real ale reasons. I wouldn’t know.
I get the feeling the Brits are doing quite well out there. Is this the impression they are making in the USA? Or are our soldiers merely seen as doing menial stuff while the USA guys win the war?
In accordance with its already stated policy, Samizdata.net offers the comment section under this item for discouraging messages to our BBC TV reporters serving to attack our freedoms and to encourage tyranny over the people of Iraq and the world. The many TV media personnel who read Samizdata.net regularly are sure to forward this to their colleagues.
[Note: If you are supportive of BBC TV coverage in Iraq or elsewhere, you are welcome to post a comment under a relevant story, but please leave this comment section to those who want to heap discouragement, abuse, hatred and curses upon our BBC media personnel.]
Concerning a recent posting from humorous internet content provider Scrappleface, inviting Scrappleface readers to comment in support of US service persons involved in the current war, a Samizdata.net spokesman had this to say:
Scrappleface has established itself over the last few months as a fearless provider of jokes and piss-taking. By its unflinching refusal to take the serious issues of the day seriously, it has built itself a growing reputation for triviality. It is thus especially disturbing to see this hitherto wholly frivolous media organisation rise to such heights of normality and decency. Let’s face it, blog-readers, one solemn and serious Scrappleface posting is one solemn and serious Scrappleface posting too many.
He added:
I suppose when Scrappleface does lapse into profundity like this, it’s up to the rest of us to pitch in and take up the slack and fill the hole in the dyke with it. We in Britain have a special role to play here. What we lack in numbers we can make up in irony. We must step up to the plate and break it into fearless bits with the straight bat of British satire. We must adapt their piety and earnestness in order to make other worthwhile points, thus pricking the worldwide balloon of pomposity with the fearless banner of sit-down comedy.
I saw something interesting in the Sunday Times today:
People in show business circles are puzzled by Foreign Office warnings to British subjects to stay away from Jordan…
Jordan: not very popular with the Foreign Office these days, it seems
As the decibel count rises amid the drumbeat of war, we try to do what we can to see the cheery side of things. These are grim times, but my fervent hope is that in a few decades, Baghdad will be the Hong Kong of the Middle East, al-Quaeda and Saddam will be a distant memory, Iraq will be one of the richest countries on the planet, Jacques Chirac will have been put behind bars, the EU will be just a free trade zone and Samizdata will have more readers than Fox, CNN and the BBC combined.
But what has really fired my determination to be optimistic is the report, in today’s Financial Times (only available in print edition), that quintessential British media megastar Basil Brush, emblem of all that is finest about this island, is to release a pop record. Magnificent.
(Apologies to non-Brit readers. The last paragraph will be totally meaningless).
Peter Briffa is absolutely smoking tonight… and I hope he puts me in touch with his supplier! He has a series of ‘future quotes’ from a veritable constellation of leading Tranzis, such as this gem from Germaine Greer:
This is not a war about oil. This is not a war about blood. Forget all that male, patriarchal propaganda. No, this is a war, above all, about the penis. The penis of war versus the vagina of compassion. Not since I was sitting on the dunny on Bondi Beach, and a whole team of beer-swilling Collingwood footballers came in and gang-raped my great grandmother have I witnessed such bloodlust.
Outstanding.
Here is a game to fill the time between newsflashes – Dr. Strangeblix…Or How I Learned to Start Worrying and Look for Bombs.
You are ice cool Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector, Dr. Hans Blix. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to enter a not-so-secret PacMan-style Iraqi laboratory and hunt down weapons-grade plutonium canisters, all the while avoiding the sentries and trying to keep your stress level at a minimum. You can try and distract the guards by throwing volumes of your ‘U.N. Resolutions’ around, but beware, there are only limited copies available. If you should fail your mission, Dubya’s gonna start “bomberizing” Iraq. Phew! Talk about pressure…
President Bush today announced that the “War on Transnationalism” was going even better than expected, with all three of the EU, UN and NATO about to collapse at the first sign of an American gun.
“Our troops are ready and waiting,” said Mr Bush, “and we are confident that all they need to do is stroll into Iraq sporting their latest combat gear, and the Tranzis will immediately start begging to be taken prisoner.”
“But how will we know when this so-called War is actually won?” asked a news reporter.
“Nothing short of the total collapse of political globalisation will satisfy our troops,” said Mr Bush. “Iraq is only the beginning. But we are developing better and more effective Weapons of Mass Happiness so that people can get liberated more quickly and easily, and have more fun when it happens. Did you know McDonalds is offering 15 minutes of internet time with every Extra Value Meal now?”
“Yeah?” The reporter eyed the clock.
“That’s right. Prime Minister Blair thought of it one day when he went out for an Egg McMuffin and had a sudden urge to catch up with Samizdata.net, only he’d left his ibook at home.”
“And is it true that you are really just Blair’s pet poodle, so desperate to please him that you jump on planes at a moment’s notice in order to be at his side?”
“We have a special relationship,” said Mr Bush, giving the reporter a Very Hard Stare until his victim almost fainted.
Struggling into the office via the Tube (London’s subway system) this morning, I distinctly thought I heard the following announcement over the public address system. I may have been hallucinating, but I am not sure:
Ladies, gentlemen, buskers and beggars, London Transport regrets to announce that in addition to the Central Line being closed until Hell freezes over while we check to see if the nuts and bolts have been screwed in correctly, the Piccadilly Line has been suspended. So I suggest you suckers get outside and into the fresh air for a bracing walk. Let’s face it, transporting you people is more than our jobs are worth
As I say, I may have been imagining things.
Lastminute founder Martha Lane Fox admitted to a little indiscretion. The dotcom kept a record of all men who had ordered red roses for Valentine’s Day 2002 and then sent them an email this year asking if they’d like to do the same thing.
Lane Fox revealed that, since some ended up going to home email addresses, the result was “quite a few phone calls from wives who didn’t get any flowers from their husbands last year, demanding to know where we’d sent them”.
Now we know why exactly is data collection bad. Sod privacy and civil liberties – there is a threat of confronting wives ‘foxed’ over missing flowers…
The entire world, apart from a few evil American warmongers plus Tony Blair, took part in an anti-war demonstration in London yesterday with millions of inter-galactic aliens joining other peace protests around the galaxy. Organisers claim that the march is sure to topple well-known right-winger Blair, allowing him to be replaced by the cuddly lovable Ken Livingstone, Mayor of the People’s Republic of London.
“We never liked Blair in the first place,” said some bloke in a scruffy jacket with corduroy arm-patches. “The whole way he managed to get elected was always suspiciously un-socialist. But now we are really hoping the country will rise up in revolution and institute Ken in his rightful role at last. If the Houses of Parliament spontaneously fall today, maybe the Americans can get rid of their president tomorrow and let Hillary Clinton take over the world! Erm, their insignificant burger-ridden country.”
“But don’t Americans like their president? I mean, they chose him in an election, right?” asked a reporter for extreme rightist media propagandists, Fox News.
“No, the whole American electoral system is rigged by right-wing Capitalists to help them win despite having only a minority of the vote,” explained the corduroy guy. “Real democracy would prove that the people want Marxism, obviously, as Marxism is for The People; it’s self-explanatory!”
In his speech at the Labour spring conference later yesterday, Mr Blair told delegates that if they want to send him to the Tower of London and let Saddam have his way and produce the bloody nukes and give them to Al Qaeda then, fine, he is sick of the lot of them, and he just hopes their bunkers will hold if they get enough warning to climb inside before the bombs start flying. He stressed that if they want to support evil dictators why don’t they all bloody well go and live in Baghdad and see what it’s like, or they could try Iran, or Saudi Arabia, or that Korea place whichever one it was, any one of a number of countries on the US’s list for upgrading sometime when they get round to it.
Mr Blair then requested a large bowl of warm soapy water water, and washed his hands on the rostrum, while everybody watched not knowing quite what to think. Gordon Brown, the Chancellor, called on the entire party to get behind Mr Blair and give him “full support” as he is worried about what might happen to his own job if Blair is beheaded.
Yesterday Downing Street urged the protesters taking part in the anti-war demonstrations around the country and the world to remember the brutality in Saddam’s regime and see how they would feel about having their civil servants routinely executed, before realising this was not a very good argument, and going back indoors for toasted muffins.
The Prime Minister’s official spokesman said that if a million people turned out to march against the Government – as some are claiming – they would equal the number of Kurds who fled Iraq after the Gulf War because they were being oppressed by Saddam. However, he assured the British people that they would not be gassed by their own government at this stage.
Last night Downing Street denied reports that Mr Blair was angry at the protesters and rejected claims that he was trying to avoid them. “He believes that they have an absolute democratic right to protest and if they want to they can,” a spokesman said. “He just wants them to f*** off.”
British soldiers currently stationed in Kuwait have broken with military tradition in order to deliver what they believe is a powerful message to the world.
Stripping off their desert khakis the men of the 7th Armoured Brigade laid down in a sand dune and spelled out the phrase, ‘SADDAM IS TOAST’ by arranging their own naked bodies to form the letters.
Lance-Corporal Steven Rowsley said afterwards:
“We were a bit embarrassed at first. And doing the ‘S’ was a bit tricky. But we think it was worth it in the end. My whole unit was really up for it.”
The officer in charge of the demonstration, Captain Roger Hackwood said:
“We realise that it’s a bit unorthodox and we know that some people will be shocked. But we couldn’t think of any better way to get the strength of our feelings across to the anti-war movement back home”
The Ministry of Defence has declined to comment.
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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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