Saturday, July 27, 2002
A Recap
That's right, I met Team Samizdata. Who wants to touch me? I said who wants to £(%@# touch me?!? HokiePundit now knowsall most some of their deepest, darkest secrets. I probably shouldn't be telling you this, but at least one member uses a pseudonym. Utterly unrelatedly, try looking up "Arkham, Massachusetts" in a search engine. I would reveal more of these dark secrets, but the black helicopter oddly hovering over my room and the little red laser dots I keep seeing have made an extremely good argument on behalf of secrecy.
Now, you may ask, why would I possibly be meeting with the Samizdatistas (try using that word it in your next college paper)? Well, as the observant reader will gather, I'm in London. As the observant reader may also notice, Natalie Solent and I have permalinks to each other, and so I found out from her that the Libertarian Alliance, the group to which most of the members belong, was having its meeting in London soon. Thus, with my usual derring-do, I decided to embark on a magical mystery tour of great expectations (it's 6:30 in the morning: I'm allowed to write like this). However, having misplaced my street atlas, I had to try and find my way from the subway station to Brian Micklethwait's house, with him being kind enough to put up with three cell phone calls that were along the lines of:
Me: "I'm at the corner of _____ and _____."
Brian: "I haven't a clue where you are. Go back to the tube stop and try again."
Eventually, I found it.
In any case, Antoine Clark spoke on Boris Vian, post-WWII French pacifistic apolitical composer and jazz musician. Very arcane, but interesting. Afterwards, all sorts of discussions were held, all sorts of interesting opinions being shared. Unfortunately, I'm not as up on my British politics as I need to be to truly debate in a forum like that, but I still learned a fair amount. Along with the Samizdata people, I met Chris Cooper of Blogosophical Investigations, which was nice. Afterwards, I walked back towards home with Perry de Havilland, since he lives only a short distance from where I'm staying. We had a nice talk on a range of subject, including (but not limited to) airplanes, abortion, the American Revolution, the right of the state to tax, why the British Libertarians don't care about ever getting elected, blogging, and bloggers. Very illuminating. Posts on Christian duty vs. libertarianism in regards to taxation, political participation, and abortion may appear in this space before too long.
In any case, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Vive les anglais!
That's right, I met Team Samizdata. Who wants to touch me? I said who wants to £(%@# touch me?!? HokiePundit now knows
Now, you may ask, why would I possibly be meeting with the Samizdatistas (try using that word it in your next college paper)? Well, as the observant reader will gather, I'm in London. As the observant reader may also notice, Natalie Solent and I have permalinks to each other, and so I found out from her that the Libertarian Alliance, the group to which most of the members belong, was having its meeting in London soon. Thus, with my usual derring-do, I decided to embark on a magical mystery tour of great expectations (it's 6:30 in the morning: I'm allowed to write like this). However, having misplaced my street atlas, I had to try and find my way from the subway station to Brian Micklethwait's house, with him being kind enough to put up with three cell phone calls that were along the lines of:
Me: "I'm at the corner of _____ and _____."
Brian: "I haven't a clue where you are. Go back to the tube stop and try again."
Eventually, I found it.
In any case, Antoine Clark spoke on Boris Vian, post-WWII French pacifistic apolitical composer and jazz musician. Very arcane, but interesting. Afterwards, all sorts of discussions were held, all sorts of interesting opinions being shared. Unfortunately, I'm not as up on my British politics as I need to be to truly debate in a forum like that, but I still learned a fair amount. Along with the Samizdata people, I met Chris Cooper of Blogosophical Investigations, which was nice. Afterwards, I walked back towards home with Perry de Havilland, since he lives only a short distance from where I'm staying. We had a nice talk on a range of subject, including (but not limited to) airplanes, abortion, the American Revolution, the right of the state to tax, why the British Libertarians don't care about ever getting elected, blogging, and bloggers. Very illuminating. Posts on Christian duty vs. libertarianism in regards to taxation, political participation, and abortion may appear in this space before too long.
In any case, I learned a lot and had a lot of fun. Vive les anglais!
