Samizdata
A blog for people with a critically rational individualist perspective. We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. URL
http://www.samizdata.net/blog/
Last update
19 hours 3 min ago November 20, 2009
05:00
I suppose it says something about The Daily Telegraph's admirable commitment to freedom of speech that it let this comment I paste up below through, or possibly, the laxness of its editors. Following a comment piece about the forthcoming trial of the alleged mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, we get this remark, by someone dubbing itself "Lord Barnett": The trial will be a farce,held in New York for the benefit of the jews and the...
November 19, 2009
11:24
I wonder what Patri Friedman, moving light in the Seasteading Institute and an advocate of the idea of creating new nations, makes of this story. Sealand is one of the longest-running attempts to create a micro-state. It is off the Suffolk coast, based on an old anti-aircraft tower. The article, by the local newspaper in the East Anglian region, contains a nice photo of the place. I suspect that if Sealand ever provided services -...
05:00
It is no secret I am no great admirer of some aspects of the US legal system and the corrupting influence of the US trial lawyers lobby, but then along comes a particularly stark example of why the US really really really needs a UK style 'loser pays' system to discourage preposterous actions like this... Man Blames Planes For Divorce, Seeks $555 Million [...] (Stanley) Hilton's 16-page suit against San Francisco International Airport blames 37...
05:00
Yet another example of the vileness of the culture which pervades the management of the public sector... Paramedics fighting to save a nine-year-old road accident victim were told rigid rest-break regulations meant the closest crew could not be called upon for back-up. Lifesavers at a crash scene in Upton were told they would have to wait for a crew nearly 20 minutes away because paramedics in Poole still had a few minutes left on their...
05:00
Bravo to the security men aboard the MV Maersk Alabama, who when approached and fired on by Somali pirates, fired back and drove them off. Placing armed security men aboard ships vulnerable to pirate attacks has always been the obvious solution to the problem of piracy. How could anyone have thought that hugely expensive warships designed for real wars, operating under preposterous rules of engagement, was ever the solution to a profusion of scabby predators...
November 18, 2009
10:20
The extremely worthy TPA has a nifty new promo for their new book that dares to think the unthinkable... The book, Ten Years On, is available to order free here....
10:20
The "watermelons" - green on the outside, red on the inside - can sometimes be uncomfortable elements, prone to occasional frictions. The old left, with all its many faults, did at least favour industry and material wealth. And the cause of wealth creation can clash with the Green agenda, though let it be noted that the best way to tackle environmental problems, in my view, is for us to get as rich as we can....
10:20
This comment on the current Speaker, of the House of Commons, John Bercow, who is generally regarded by many people as a slimeball of the first order: "If you feel that is an exaggeration, look what they did when last entrusted with what was potentially a great reforming measure â the chance to elect a new Speaker to replace the compromised and incapable man we must learn to call Lord Martin. They ended up choosing...
05:00
Via the Cobden Centre, a relatively new think tank that focuses on banking and money from the "Austrian" point of view, here is a nice article by James Tyler. He sets out how to avoid past problems and what to do about banking and money. I still think that fractional reserve banking, so long as it is openly stated and so long as legal tender laws are scrapped, is not necessarily an evil. If a...
05:00
Why has the null hypothesis been the backbone for testing for decades Epic fail Brazil miniskirt woman Bratislava babe Does my carbon footprint look big in this Opinions about healthcare Miss Japan porn scandal Communism collapse Best national anthem Dystopia satire The internet is strange....
05:00
The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to be of the view that somewhere in the Bible, it says "take the wealth of others by force and give it to people best able to work the political system". Just another statist thug, but then we already knew that....
05:00
And then ask yourself: What is to be done? What can I do? How far am I prepared to go? John Osimek reports for The Register: The government obsession with collecting data has now extended to five-year-olds, as local Community Health Services get ready to arm-twist parents into revealing the most intimate details of their own and their childâs personal, behavioural and eating habits. The questionnaire â or "School Entry Wellbeing Review" â is a...
November 17, 2009
05:00
It's been twenty years since my firm belief in a better way of life was vindicated. 17th November was the beginning of the end of an era shaped by collectivism, brutality and industrialised inhumanity. I have written about my experiences of communism on Samizdata before. Today I'll use someone else's words to describe the wasteland communism leaves behind. In 1992, Peter Saint-Andre has written a disturbing, brilliant and accurate description of what communism does to...
05:00
There is a fascinating post on Instapundit about the thinly disguised intention of the Obama administration to purge Republicans from federal government jobs... this is excellent news. One of the best ways to get the next (eventual) Republican in the White House to support taking an axe to the public sector would be if there are as few Republicans apparatchiks as possible and the civil service is seen as a bastion of the Democratic Party...
November 16, 2009
05:00
Boris Johnson, Mayor of London and media columnist, has this to say about the new top income tax rate of 50 per cent, due to take effect from next April. He is pretty blunt: So it is utterly tragic, at the end of the first decade of this century, that we are back in the hands of a government whose mindset seems frozen in the wastes of the 1970s. If Gordon Brown remains in power...
05:00
The state does not wither or even shrink when it pays charities to do its work. It merely decentralises the provision of services while expanding the centre's command and control into new areas of public life. - Nick Cohen...
November 15, 2009
17:36
As Samizdata regulars might recall, I am not exactly a great fan of Naomi Klein, author of the Shock Doctrine, a book that tries to argue, rather absurdly, that various dastardly free market governments (which ones? Ed) exploited, in a sort of underhand way, the inexplicable failures of socialism (the horror!) to impose those terrible ideas of people such as Milton Friedman. Yet there was nothing underhand or deceitful about what say, Sir Keith Joseph...
17:36
This trend toward prescriptive behaviour is a direct result of abandoning the Rule of law for a "Law" of Rules. - commenter R. Richard Schweitzer...
05:00
One of the morals that can be drawn from the analysis of totalitarian madness is that any reasoning system that is uncritical of itself turns into utter madness. Cold-eyed self-perception is the most important thing, especially when it comes to criticism.- Sergei Averintsev Anyone who doubts Britain is spiralling ever faster into totalitarian madness should consider this case: Paul Clarke, 27, was found guilty of possessing a firearm at Guildford Crown Court on Tuesday â...
05:00
Often I read, in various Climate Alarmist articles, words to the effect that "time is running out on a global climate deal"... which is great news if it is actually true. It suggests to me that perhaps they realise that the "universally accepted" One True Apostolic Eco-Faith is really the very epitome of a paper tiger as there is far from a genuine consensus on the subject. So if time is running out, it would...
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