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May 04, 2011
Wednesday


Your tax dollars/other currencies at work
Johnathan Pearce (London) How very odd!
Permalink to this post Comment this post (0)

This is magnificent:


ORLANDO, Fla. – Florida officials are investigating an unemployment agency that spent public money to give 6,000 superhero capes to the jobless.

Workforce Central Florida spent more than $14,000 on the red capes as part of its "Cape-A-Bility Challenge" public relations campaign. The campaign featured a cartoon character, "Dr. Evil Unemployment," who needs to be vanquished.

Florida's unemployment agency director asked Monday for an investigation of the regional operation's spending after the Orlando Sentinel published a story about the program. State director Cynthia Lorenzo said the spending appeared to be "insensitive and wasteful."

Workforce Central Florida Director Gary J. Earl defends the program, saying it is part of a greater effort to connect with the community. The agency says it served 210,000 people during its last fiscal year, placing nearly 59,000 in jobs.

(Via Division of Labour.)

As the DoL blogger says, it reminds me of the old Milton Friedman saying that people tend to be a lot less prudent if they are spending other people's money.

On a flippant note, the point about capes reminds me of that hilarious, Ayn Rand-style character (the designer with the bobbed black hair and East European accent) from The Incredibles, who insisted that for any true superhero, capes were a no-no. They get trapped into the air intakes of jet engines, etc. It pays to be careful.


Samizdata quote of the day
Samizdata Illuminatus (Arkham, Massachusetts) Globalization/economics
Permalink to this post Comment this post (4)

Like two drowning sailors hanging onto one another in order to postpone the inevitable, overstretched banks thus accumulate the debt of insolvent governments to keep the façade of solvency up.

- Detlev Schlichter
May 03, 2011
Tuesday


Working towards the best possible outcome?
Perry de Havilland (London) North American affairs
Permalink to this post Comment this post (13)

I was naturally delighted to hear the news that Osama Bin Laden came to a sticky end at the hands of US SpecOps and the importance of that far outweighed my wish that someone other than the dismal Barack Obama was in the White House to take the credit.

But the extraordinarily inept manner in which the post-hit PR has been handled is just adding to the joy of the moment for me... the weird and unseemly hasty 'burial at sea', almost as if they are actively trying to incite the legions of conspiracy theories out there, followed by contradictory accounts of what happened and what the mission's brief actually was...

...he was killed because he resisted arrest... no, he was killed because that was the mission objective... he was armed... no he wasn't... he used his wife as a human shield... no he didn't... well yes but it wasn't his wife... or not... this son was killed... no, some other son was killed... and so on and so on...

We could be looking at the best possible outcome here: Osama dead and Obama and his team snatching PR defeat from the jaws of victory. This just keeps getting better and better!


Samizdata quote of the day
Perry de Havilland (London) Slogans/quotations
Permalink to this post Comment this post (12)

Some people are just neurotically sceptical. But even they won't deny what is before their eyes. Is there anyone who seriously questions the fact that Saddam Hussein is dead? That's the way to do things these days. Don't launch a bloody, decade defining series of wars and then refuse to release photos of a dead body, or better still display the actual body, because you're worried it'll upset people. Shoot the ****** in the head on camera then release it on youtube.

- Commenter ub313 on Ed West's Daily Telegraph site blog
May 02, 2011
Monday


Navy SEALs
Johnathan Pearce (London) Middle East & Islamic
Permalink to this post Comment this post (17)

The US Navy SEALs are a remarkable group of individuals, as events in the Middle East highlight. Here is a book about their training by an author I rate, Dick Couch.

In the end, given sufficient force and a pinch of luck, the US was able to get bin Laden. I think that is a very important message to get into the grey matter between the ears of jihadists.

I have been reading some comments over at Facebook and elsewhere about how vulgar and unseemly it is for people to celebrate the death of this man. Forgive me if I spare the tears. This won't bring back all those people killed by his outfit, of course, but a sort of justice of sorts has been done.




We got him
Dale Amon (Belfast, Northern Ireland/Laramie, Wy) Middle East & Islamic
Permalink to this post Comment this post (80)

I just returned from a night at the pub with a journalist friend and no sooner had I arrived home than I heard the news. Osama bin Laden is dead. May he rest in pieces and be fed to pigs. Maybe we could even put his head on a pike in front of the White House for a few days and spread bread crumbs around it so the pigeons will roost there... and we could encourage people to walk their dogs around the pike...

Am I sounding barbaric? Yep. He is very "special".
May 01, 2011
Sunday


Austrianism in Lawrence of Arabia
Brian Micklethwait (London) Arts & Entertainment • Globalization/economics • Historical views
Permalink to this post Comment this post (13)

Yes Lawrence of Arabia is showing on Channel Five, now. I've been only half or less paying attention, but I heard this loud and clear:

"Money. It'll have to be sovereigns. They don't like paper."

Said by Lawrence to Allenby, on how to pay the Arabs to fight against the Turks.

He would agree, as would all our mutual friends here.

This is a point of view which is now spreading rather fast.


Polywell is still moving ahead
Dale Amon (Belfast, Northern Ireland/Laramie, Wy) Science & Technology
Permalink to this post Comment this post (13)

There is finally some news on the Polywell fusion tests that are under funding by the Office of Naval Research. This, as you may remember, is the project started by Dr. Bussard before his death and the one 'small fusion' project most of us take very seriously.

The report that it operated the way it was supposed to says a great deal to those of us who have been following them for the last several years.
April 30, 2011
Saturday


Thanks for the day off
Chris Cooper (London) UK affairs
Permalink to this post Comment this post (22)

I loved the hats.

And the grumpy-looking little bridesmaid on the balcony at the exact moment of one of The Kisses (surely a future Violet Elizabeth Bott).

And the foxy chief bridesmaid.

And hearing again the words of the Anglican wedding service (even though it prompted, again, wistful laments from my wife about our own godless civil ceremony).

But mostly the hats.
April 29, 2011
Friday


Grumpy quote of the day
Johnathan Pearce (London) UK affairs
Permalink to this post Comment this post (44)

I am sitting next to the beach at Lyme Regis, south Dorset. The sun is out, the Brits have a public holiday due to the Royal Wedding, and I have deliberately fled central London to be down here. A good choice, as it turns out. This has to be one of the nicest parts of the UK.

The Daily Telegraph has one of those gushing, pro-Royal editorials written, I sometimes think, with the deliberate desire to wind up the malcontents out there. It seems to have succeeded most admirably, judging by this fellow in the comment threads by the name of "tyburntree":

"....a nation with much to celebrate..." Er, like what exactly? Treason committed at the highest levels. Illegal wars. Thoughroughly undemocratic parliamentary system. Deliberate population replacement and destruction of indigenous identity and culture ( contary to international law). Islamic extremism. Children killing children. Strutting Peacocks and thieves in our House of Shame. A three party dictatorship. Useless police. Useless courts. Useless schools. The refusal of our political class and courts to deport foreign criminals. Holiday camp prisons. Mulitculturalism. And last but not least a series of broken coronation oaths that have left this country at the mercy of an EU dictatorship. Independent English Republic now!"

This is what might count as a sort of grumpy, right-wing kind of anti-royalist. I suspect that Samizdata regulars might agree with some of the sentiments expressed here - although the stuff about "deliberate population replacement" sounds a bit hysterical to me - plus the line about "illegal" wars (what, so it is okay so long as we get UN approval for them?). And for a person who seems to be concerned about the loss of "indigenous" identity and culture, why does this man want a republic? Like it or not, a constitutional monarchy is part of that "indigenous culture" of the UK, and has been for a long time. To be a republican, as this guy must surely know, is to make a pretty big break with tradition.

I am an agnostic about republics and monarchies - I think the system we have now is no worse than any likely alternatives. Republics have not, by and large, been noticeably less prone to the follies of socialism and big government than constitutional monarchies. Arguably, the reverse.

Anyway, I'll unashamedly be raising a glass to the happy couple today. We can resume normal service tomorrow, whatever that means.
April 28, 2011
Thursday


Keynes was the bald one!
Brian Micklethwait (London) Arts & Entertainment • Globalization/economics
Permalink to this post Comment this post (9)

My Cobden Centre Radio colleague-stroke-boss Andy Duncan is enthusiastic about the latest Keynes v Hayek video. Guido Fawkes already has it up at his blog, and that's where I'm now watching it.

My first reaction is that Keynes was the bald one, while Hayek had plenty of hair right to the end. This video has it the other way around.

Lots-of-head-hair-to-no-head-hair is one of the most important variables in political propaganda, the bald guy typically being the wicked loser, and the one with the good head of hair typically being the virtuous winner. I therefore deeply regret this particular reversal of the truth. If Keynes had really had lots of head hair, but Hayek very little, fair enough. Hayek would still have been right and Keynes would still have been wrong. But why miss a trick like this, when the truth is on our side?

Otherwise, this video seems pretty good. The important thing is that Austrianism, approximately speaking, must now lose the economic argument and be known by everyone, everywhere, to be losing the economic argument. Austrianism is now being shunned by everyone of any significance in policy-making circles. Right thinking people all now agree that Austrianism is delusional.

And right thinking people are now driving the world economy over the cliff.

For a little more chapter and verse, try reading Detlev Schlichter's latest.

When the world economy lies strewn about the landscape at the bottom of the cliff, Austrianism turns around and wins. It reassembles the world economy, and then, slowly at first, but later with gathering strength, drives it back to its former heights and beyond, way beyond.

Well, I like to live in hope.


Gaddafi and Philadelphia
Dale Amon (Belfast, Northern Ireland/Laramie, Wy) Humour • Middle East & Islamic • North American affairs
Permalink to this post Comment this post (8)

Some say Gaddafi and the Philadelphia Democratic machine might be a match made in.... well, wherever...


April 27, 2011
Wednesday


Glad that was cleared up
Johnathan Pearce (London) North American affairs
Permalink to this post Comment this post (36)

I am pleased that Barack Obama has decided, somewhat late on, to nail the nonsense that he did not have the right basic birth certificate details to enable him to hold his office. Good. I think that some characters on the fringe have provided a free gift to opponents by turning this into an issue.

The real problem is that the US electorate, by a mixture of self-delusion and misplaced enthusiasm, voted for a man unqualified for the responsibilities of high office, and a socialist in terms of his political doctrine. For sure, he continued the high spending of his predecessor, and the TARP policies, but he stepped them up. He still seems to be in denial about the scale of the fiscal hole the US is in.

The US is not, at root, a socialist country, although its universitieis and certain towns contain a lot of people who wish the country was like their imagined Western European social democratic welfare states. The irony being, of course, that these states are falling apart, with Greece being the most egregious example. For all his supposed modern appeal, Mr Obama is a strangely old fashioned figure. I am convinced that Obama is a one-term president. In the end, silly speculation about his birth certificate will not affect things one way or the other. And let's be honest: some of the people who were going on about this subject struck me as racists; it enabled the pro-Obama camp to claim that parts of the right did not like Obama for discreditable reasons.

Meanwhile, our own Brian Micklethwait has thoughts about who he'd like to run against Obama.




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