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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Basking in the anticipated riches from sales of Samizdata consumer durables, Perry e-mails to suggest, “Natalie should consider a shop for her site… a nifty line in ‘Ninja Librarian’ tee-shirts?” Thank you, Perry, but I have already launched my own mug and T-shirt business, and while doing it had the inspiration that will make me the next Bill Gates. As capitalists you might be interested in my business model. Start up costs are zero. Running costs are zero. Depreciation is zero. Losses from theft, breakage and catastrophes of nature are all zero. Profits, it is true, are also currently running at an integer number between one and minus one, but it’s early days yet. The Great Thought came to me while I was thinking of what to give my 48,888th visitor, a chap called Dave. Suddenly it came to me:
“You win a… um… free endorsement of whatever T shirt, baseball cap or coffee mug you happen to own anyway. It is now an official nataliesolent.blogspot.com shirt, cap, mug or other promotional article. Tell all your friends!”
“Virtual micromanufacturing,” as I like to call it is the true child of the information age, with all its virtues of instantaneousness, flexibility and asypmptotically trivial transaction costs. You don’t like the Ronald MacDonald logo on your nataliesolent.blogspot.com mug? Just look hard at your much more tasteful 1802 Sèvres card dish and reassign that coveted Natalie identity at the speed of thought. Just In Time manufacturing has nothing on this! It remains only for the delighted customer to send me his money.
Blogosophical Investigations (I preferred “Chris Cooper’s Blog” because that’s what it is) is definitely worth an occasional look. Say, about once a month. A rather good contribution from Chris to the now rather good Libertarian Alliance Forum reminded me of his blogzistence.
His bit about Scab Pride is there (July 23), as well as on the LA-F. Some teacher trade unionists in America have been saying that non-unionised teachers should pay the unionised ones Danegeld or teacher-geld or whatever, on account that the unions got them their wages also. Says Chris:
The right of the non-unionized to undercut their unionized competitors is a sacred right.
Chris says unionized and I say unionised, but otherwise of course I agree. He also includes a rather good comment from new LA-F regular Anton Sherwood.
I also liked this, from July 17th, which I think is further evidence that BI’s original name would have sufficed:
Women pride themselves on multitasking
As I come in from walking the dog, I walk past my daughter’s room. A CD is playing full belt: someone called Pink, I later discover. But my daughter is in the next room. She’s sitting on the piano stool watching TV while listening to the music. The TV sound is right down, but it doesn’t matter because she’s seen this episode of Ally McBeal before – probably three times. It doesn’t matter anyway, since she’s talking on her phone. After a while she decides not enough is going on, so she starts playing on the piano with her free hand.
My god. I’ve just realised. I do this. I watch Ally McBeal repeats with the sound off and the Bruckner (or some such preferred alternative to Pink) up, while tapping away at my keyboard. I’m a woman. Oh well. All the libertarians I know agree that we need more of those.
I was reading Aeroplane over what might charitably be called “lunch”. Some crisps and a cup at the approximate time of a normal lunch… but this is just making a short story long.
Castle Bromwich is well known in aviation circles. It’s where a large number of Spitfires and Lancasters were built (for the non-aviation minded, that places it in World War II). Each airplane had to be taken up and run through some rough testing before being handed over to the ATA (the men and women who delivered aircraft to the RAF bases). The test pilots were there to ensure manufactruing mistakes were found at the plant and not in battle.
Now Castle Bromwich had miserable weather, lots of fog, a rather short runway that was half paved and half grass. I remembered reading much of that before. What I didn’t know was the interesting bit about the approach. You see, there was a sewage treatment plant just before the threshold.
It really has to be asked. Did the test pilots at Castle Bromwich originate the phrase…. “landing us in the shit”???
I couldn’t resist it.
I have just had the pleasure of reading through a 221-page report sent to the British government on what should be done to make us save more.
Attending the press conference, I listened to the mild-manner Ron Sandler take us through the thicket of tax codes, rules and varied practises of Britain’s Byzantine financial industry. Nodding off for a second, I fell into a strange dream:
“Ladies and gentlemen, today’s report on how to stop shafting the British saver is brought to us today by Prof. Tom Burroughes of Libloony University. He has kindly produced this report, which, er, is rather short.” Cut to moi: “Members of the press, you will see my report is only one page long. Its recommendation is brief – abolish taxation and get government out of the savings business. Period. End of story.”
At this point a strange noise emerges from the assembled hacks. Muffled cries from back of the room…
I suddenly woke up, hope no-one noticed my nodding off, and listened for an hour about differential tax codes, the need for fewer rules on X rather than Y, blah, blah. blah.
It’s official. According to an unnamed US government study (reported in the Daily Telegraph) the parts of the brain responsible for sensation in the mouth, lips and tongue are “most active” in obese people. Health fascists conclude that larger men (such as Perry and I) [Ed: speak for yourself!] “like the taste of food too much”, which coming from them is a compliment.
The obvious explanation is that we are in fact superb oral technicians. In less benighted cultures than welfare states young ladies know that larger men make better company. We cook better, have more appetite for life, aren’t obviously short of cash, and have sensitive mouths, lips and tongues. What more could a lady ask for?
It’s nice to know that governments spend money on this sort of research. I think I shall buy some more luxury foods and contribute sales taxes to the state.
Imagine the horror of it. The poor man was forced to have sex with Liz Hurley. I suppose the trauma of it must have had him running to some high priced therapist right afterwards.
Sure, I’d like to have kids, Bing said. Kids, that is, that I voluntarily play a part in conceiving.
Well I cannot believe a wealthy guy like Steve Bing has difficulty seeing the causal link between having sex and that potentially resulting in a pregnancy so the implication is clear… The sex was not voluntary! Hurley must have overpowered him, tied him to a bed, somehow induced his member to attention (imagine that!) and then forced her attentions on the hapless multi-millionaire. The woman must be insatiable! I feel so sorry for him that had I known of his distress, I would have stepped forward and selflessly volunteered to take his place to spare him the dreadful experience. Steve, baby, next time you find yourself in such a sticky situation with one of the most beautiful women in the world, pick up the phone and call me. I mean, what are friends for if not for helping out when things get rough?
Having sex with Liz Hurley… involuntary apparently!
Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon, George Bush, Pervez Musharraf, Osama Bin Laden, Jean Marie Le Pen, Vladimir Putin, Crown Prince Abdullah, Gerhard Schroeder, Noam Chomsky, Robert Fisk, Charles Krauthammer, Silvio Berlusconi, Colin Powell, Jacques Chirac, Romano Prodi, Javier Solana, Kofi Annan, Robert Mugabe, Fidel Castro are you listening?
ENGLAND 1 BEEF-EATING SURRENDER MONKEYS 0
As reported by The Brains Trust in their latest edition, hundreds of notes from across Europe are breaking through flimsy currency exchanges and fleeing across the Channel Tunnel into the UK. Two desperate refugees known only as ‘Frank’ and ‘Mark’ explained their plight:
“There was a time when we were welcome throughout our homelands. In every home in the country people would be delighted to let us in. Shops, restaurants, banks – even politicians – they couldn’t get enough of us. But then suddenly some sinister extremist forces began to take over in the heart of Europe.
At first it was a bit of a joke, no one thought it would ever happen. But then people began to talk about a single currency, a master race that would sweep throughout Europe. Then discriminatory laws began to appear. We could only meet each other at fixed exchange rates. There were maximum numbers of us that could work in government. Adverts appeared denouncing us and calling for people to hand us over to the authorities. I felt completely devalued.”
However, the currencies are also having a hard time finding solace in the UK. Many locals are handing them in to the authorities to be transported back to an unknown fate at home. They also face opposition from “nationalist currency activists”. One such hard currency supporter, known only as “Sterling”, explained his position:
“We’re being overtaken by a tide of foreigners. We should only allow in ones that look like us – ones with a Queen’s head on them. And they should be forced to swear allegiance to the Bank of England and leave their foreign markets at home. We should chuck all the rest back. Before you know it they’ll be taking over here.”
As the Government promised swift action against the “immigrants” Tony Blair declared that the UK need not fear for its own currency especially as it was going to get a nice, lovely, shiny new one “very, very soon.”
There are days, and today is one of them, when I think this is the only way to deal with the current affairs. For more ‘solutions’ to international and domestic problems visit The Brains Trust. I especially recommend their new peace plan offering Palestinians ‘virtual statehood’… 
You could project the keyboard onto the upper back of a suitably placed loved one and combine blogging with giving him or her a massage.
…that project-a-keyboard one you just mentioned, Brian, is the daftest. You’d have to clear your desk before using it.
So Tony Millard was just joshing and I fell for it. Sheesh, coulda been worse. I could have believed that absurd post about Pim Fortuyn thinking he was in danger, or the even more risible one which claimed that a football corresponent for a respectable newspaper would employ the word “f+ck”.
If full moons make people go bonkers or turn into wolves, maybe the lack of a full moon makes people po-faced and excessively serious.
Jason Soon*, who like the fragrant Natalie Solent is a high quality blogger who is on the side of the angels, also does not seem to have figured out that Tony Millard was actually joking. The fact Tony’s article appeared on Libertarian Samizdata was a significant clue that the wine tasting apparatus might be lodged in the cheek.
*[Ed. Jason’s archive links do not seem to be working at the moment (a frequent problem with blogger alas), so in the meantime just go to Jason Soon and scroll down to the article Un-libertarian samizdata to see why we are spanking him]
Now to the serious part of my blog post:
Tony Blair and David Blunkett have promised to scrap all British restrictions on firearms ownership, affirm the state’s commitment to individual civil liberties, repeal the Town and Country Planning and Land Act and replace the statue of proto-fascist Oliver Cromwell in front of Parliament with a statue of Margaret Thatcher wielding a sword and standing astride the prostrate body of the fallen Arthur Scargill…
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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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