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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Great personal friend, long-standing libertarian and self-defence enthusiast Russell Whitaker is back with his blog Survival Arts after a brief hiatus. Good to have you back!
And I was particularly interested in his take on the California recall election. In a nutshell, he is profoundly unimpressed with Arnold, preferring Republican alternative Tom McKlintock. The latter has gone on record time and again vowing to shrink the State’s crippling government spending and is a hardline defender of the Second Amendment.
Of course, can you imagine a single major Tory MP on this side of the Big Pond arguing such views at the moment?
Exactly.
Last night was a speaker at a blogging seminar in London at the IBM building, organised by Sp!ked called Gone to the blogs: The blogging phenomenon in perspective. The other speakers were Brendan O’Neill, James Crabtree and Bill Thompson.
The introduction to the seminar asked:
Enormous claims are made for weblogs, or ‘blogs’ – online publications in diary format, where individuals publish comment and links to other online content. In media and technology circles, it is often claimed that blogs are revolutionising journalism and enhancing democracy. Meanwhile, others complain that blogs are dangerously unaccountable, and that blogs are clogging up Google’s search engine results with insubstantial material, because an incestuous coterie of bloggers all link to one another.
Are blogs revolutionising journalism, or have people in the traditional media lost faith in their own authority, leading them to talk blogs up? Do blogs enhance democracy, or do they make a virtue of narcissism and navel-gazing? Does a dangerous clique of bloggers wield unaccountable power, or are these bloggers simply exercising their right to free speech on an exciting new platform?
The interesting thing to me was that there was really very little agreement as to what blogging was ‘all about’, either amongst the speakers or from the floor. One recurrent theme was endless blather about blogs being ‘good for democracy’ without really saying why that might be the case.
Paleo-socialist Bill Thompson of the BBC, about whom we have written on Samizdata.net before claimed to now like blogging and regarded the fact virulently anti-socialist folks like Samizdata.net also blog as ‘an acceptable cost’. He also egregiously mis-characterised Brendan O’Neill’s rather temperate remarks on the topic of Salam Pax, the Baghdad Blogger. Whilst a reporter mis-representing a person’s remarks is hardly news, for him to do so when the person in question is sitting a few yards away and is able to point out that is not in fact what they said is… interesting.
Below is the text of my opening remarks:
The intro to this seminar asks on one hand: is blogging revolutionising journalism and enhancing democracy? On the other hand, it is asked, are blogs dangerously unaccountable and are some bloggers wielding unaccountable power?
From the phrasing of the question, we are presumed to feel the first two of these things would be axiomatically ‘good’ if true and the later two axiomatically ‘bad’.
Well, I would answer that blogs are evolution–izing journalism, not revolutionising it: Brendan O’Neill is no less of a journalist for being a blogger and neither is Stephen Pollard, who also blogs. The dead tree publications for which they write are neither harmed nor helped overall… blogs push a great deal of traffic towards their websites, but are in direct competition with the part of a newspaper or broadcaster which editorialises. However blogs do not have reporters in Afghanistan or Liberia: blogs are mostly about punditry rather than reporting. So a journalist’s ability to write an article for a newspaper is much as it was, but his ability to act as a credible independent ‘commentator’ is enhanced by his blog articles, many of which might be overly opinionated for a newspaper editor mindful of his shareholders or ministerial chums…
→ Continue reading: Gone to the blogs
This is going to be a long, long post. Where it says ‘MORE’ it ought perhaps to say ‘A LOT MORE’. But my basic message is very simple. Go and look at – and have a read of – this new blog.
Want to read the longer version? Very well, gather round. Once upon a time, long long ago, before many of you reading this were even born, in an unhappy land ruled by unhappy people some of whom were perhaps doing their best and others of whom were just plain bad, and none of whom seemed to be able to do anything right …
It’s hard now to remember the political atmosphere in Britain in the late nineteen seventies. Frankly, the place seemed headed for the Third World. The public sector was growing and growing, in every way except in the contribution its workers made to the lives of others, and the public sector trade unions seemed untouchable. But then the International Monetary Fund came calling, demanding economic rectitude and cuts, and the public sector had to be challenged, even though nobody knew how. It wasn’t pretty.
I remember this as the time when a cup of coffee in Covent Garden went from costing about 15p to costing about 30p in what seemed like the space of a few months. Inflation is a thinly disguised tax, and this tax was going up, fast. National ruin beckoned. → Continue reading: The new Adam Smith Institute blog is launched today
Last Friday, Alice Bachini blogged this:
I am now going to attempt to eat fire while walking barefoot on hot coals over Niagara Falls juggling three lives cats and singing the National Anthem of the United States of America.
It worked. She is now back in blogging business full time, newly energised and revitalised by having a new blog address without_any_underlinings_in_it_as_per_this, which apparently some people couldn’t get. (Although I notice that the archive links in the rest of this posting still have underlinings in them. If the links below still don’t work for you, go to the one in this paragraph to the top of the blog and scroll down.)
There’s also a picture of Alice wearing a bikini and a fur coat, and there is practically no bikini visible at all. → Continue reading: alicebachini.com
It is terrific news, not just for those who like his writing, but for the blogosphere in general (and therefore even for those bloggers who don’t like his writing), that Stephen Pollard has now got himself a brand spanking new blog, which really is a blog, and that it is now no harder to link to his blog postings than it is to anyone else’s, which wasn’t the case with his previous arrangement.
Consider his piece for today’s Sunday Telegraph, which he has also put up at stephenpollard.net, entitled, in his (to quote the top of the new blog) “never knowingly understated” manner, Why Israel is right to assassinate Hamas leaders.
The comparison with the IRA is entirely specious. If the IRA had espoused not merely the separation of Northern Ireland from the UK but also the murder of every Unionist and every Anglican in Great Britain, the abolition of the United Kingdom and its replacement with a Catholic state, run by the IRA and dedicated to converting the rest of the world to Catholicism by force, then there might be some merit in the comparison.
Hamas is explicit about its aims. In August 1988 it published the Islamic Covenant, which makes clear its opposition to Israel’s existence in any form. It states that “there is no solution for the Palestinian question except through jihad (holy war)”. Any Muslim who leaves “the circle of struggle with Zionism” is guilty of “high treason”. It calls for the creation of an Islamic republic in Palestine to replace Israel. Muslims should “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine”.
In a statement released on May 19, after a wave of suicide murders in previous days, Hamas said: “These attacks will continue in all the territories of 1948 and 1967, and we will not stop attacking the Zionist Jewish people as long as any of them remain in our land.” A Hamas member explained to an interviewer last month that: “The Jews have destroyed your Christianity just like they are trying to destroy our Islam. You should read the words of the Prophet. Join us. We do not just want to liberate Palestine. We want all countries to live under the Caliphate. The Islamic army once reached the walls of Vienna. It will happen again.”
If Stephen Pollard were the average waffling egomaniac blogger, the fact that linking to him used to be a combination of an obstacle race and an egg-and-spoon race wouldn’t have mattered all that much. It would have been a pity, but no more than that. As it is, and quite aside from whether you happen to agree or disagree with Pollard’s attitude to all this (personally I’m pretty much in complete agreement), this is heavyweight journalism. Facts are being assembled and deployed, not just impressions or feelings. Those gruesome quotes are for real. This man is not merely clearing his throat and finding his voice. He has found his voice. And he has the regular, big-media columns, like this one, to prove it.
And now, his blog-microphone, so to speak, is also in full working order. Other Pollard pieces, not originally for a big print newspaper, can now also be linked to by the rest of the blogosphere with impunity. → Continue reading: All hail the new Stephen Pollard blog
The day started off with ominous signs as I left the house, a raven seemed to be calling a warning from atop the church…
Even when I arrived at the appointed place, I found nervous animals, disquieted by a change in the ether…
And then, suddenly, he was there! The rumours were true! He had returned and the room exploded into chaos!
In no time at all, he was back to his old tricks as though he had never left…
Andrew Dodge is back in London after his long exile in the colonies. God save us all!
Posting looks as if it may be thin here today, so a quick comment on the economics of the internet.
The usual story is that the big, bad, old organisations could be in trouble now as the internet whistles into existence a million new nimble players to run rings around the big, bad, etc. … blah blah.
But how about this for a train of thought?
Selling text on the internet is working, okay, sort of, but it hasn’t really taken off. There’s too much free stuff, and anyway, people don’t want to pay. Maybe they’re scared that if they start surrendering £30 here and £30 there, it will never stop and they’ll be bankrupt. Maybe they just reckon the prices will come down, and they’re waiting.
But what if you are a huge, globally celebrated organisation which wants to be able to swank even more than you do now about how much beneficial impact you are having on the world, to your donors, charitable or political, and would actually quite welcome the simplicity of not having to be too businesslike about it all, and to have to chase every last cent for every bit of virtual stuff that you part with?
What if you are the BBC? Despite all that our bit of the blogosphere may say, the BBC still counts for a hell of a lot in the world; that’s why our bit of the blogosphere complains about it so much.
Or what if you are the Massachusetts Institute of Technology? → Continue reading: Big brands getting even bigger by giving it away
This needs to be read here:
I’m still reading this blog, and I’m still not feeling like blogging for it. And I’ve finally figured out why. It’s a boys’ club. Not that I don’t love boys, but it’s one thing hanging out in the bar with them and quite another trying to get them to take you seriously when you’re talking, um, golf, with them. Digital ink, ID cards, government inquiries, Mars, US politics, transport … it’s a man’s world. And frankly, I am not man enough to go up there and start talking about shoes. Don’t interpret any of that as insulting: I read Samizdata every day, and find it not only interesting and righter than lots of other places, but diverse and entertaining as well. In a very very male kind of a way.
Hm. Yeah. Good point, er, what did you say your name was again? Alice. Yeah. So. Tell us about shoes then. How are they designed? – do they use the latest materials for those super-thin high heels? – you know, the ones the Space Programme made for the outsides of Shuttles, I bet they do, and get those acrylic surfaces, first used in the automobile industry I believe (although I’m open to correction on this – I’m not any sort of techno-fanatic you understand), for the Ford Psychopath ZPX100 Concept Car in 1971 which never made it into production but which looked really cool, like a Dan Dare rocket …
That’s enough about shoes. Get a load of this:
Shaped like a giant jellyfish and sheltered from the sun beneath its own artificial clouds, the world’s first underwater luxury hotel is to open beneath the waves of the Persian Gulf within three years.
The 220-suite Hydropolis Hotel in the Arab emirate of Dubai will cost £310 million to build. It aims to charge guests up to £3,500 per night and to provide them with the last word in undersea luxury.
It will be built of toughened, clear plastic Plexiglas, concrete and steel. Guests will be able to experience the sensation of sleeping in the sea by booking a bubble-shaped suite – including a clear glass bath tub – offering views of the sea life all around.
For those worried about terrorist attack, it will boast a high level of security, including anti-missile radar. If disaster does strike in one section, it can be sealed off with watertight doors.
Babe magnet or what?
Actually, Alice might quite like a night in that.
Frank J. at IMHO has come up with the perfect way to fish for links (well, I fell for it at least)… he has declared war on the mighty Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit .
And what is our view on this revolt against The InstaPowers That Be?
We are one of Glenn’s blog children… fie on that false prophet Frank J. and all hail to Glenn Reynolds, the Dark Lord of the net, the Ayatollah of Rock and Rollah, the Balrog of the Blogosphere!
Behold the fate of those who defy the InstaPowers That Be
Photo: D.Amon, all rights reserved
Someone has recently set up a syndicated account for Samizdata.net over on LiveJournal… if XML feeds are something you are interested in, check it out!
Provoked by a couple of the comments on this, I’ve just posted a potentially rather boring blog posting about the problem of the potential boringness of blog postings, at my Culture Blog. But I don’t want to go on about it here.
Veteran Labour MP, fierce opponent of the European Union and one of the more congenial politicians, Austin Mitchell, has his own blog. Mitchell is a pretty outspoken MP, and though his mixed-economy Keynsian economic views are hopelessly wrong-headed and out of date, he is one of the more independent minded MPs in our rather colourless political landscape.
I had a brief look at his blog and it should be good to read, though Austin had better be prepared for how fellow bloggers will be ready and willing to ‘fact-check his ass’ at a moment’s notice.
Come on you Tory MPs, get a blog!
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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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