All of your Turkmens are orphans

 Sniff, sniff, the father of all the Turkmens is no more and all his loyal subejcts can do is give him one last puff piece to end all puff pieces. But what a puff piece (reported by Interfax, via)

"A heart failure resulted in the sudden death of President of Turkmenistan Saparmurat Niyazov at the age of 66," the statement says.

The statement, which was released by the State Security Council, the Cabinet and parliament, says that Niyazov, who ruled Turkmenistan for 21 years, was "the creator" of Turkmenistan's independence and sovereignty.

"The glorious years during which the Great Serdar ruled the Turkmen people confirmed his heavenly faculty to foresee and his ability to determine priorities. His unique abilities in the art of leading the nation revealed his talent as a diplomat and a wise and humane person," the statement says.

"The objectives he set served the interests of the people, while the large-scale projects that were implemented were in harmony with the national spirit of the Turkmen people and were accepted by every ethnic Turkmen and all other people living in Turkmenistan," it says.

"Saparmurat Turkmenbashi treated representatives of all ethnicities and ethnic groups who live in Turkmenistan with equal respect. He established the principle of equality, unity and mutual trust in the country," the statement says.

"The people of Turkmenistan will continue to pursue the political course of Saparmurat Turkmenbashi at this difficult moment. The people of Turkmenistan are committed to the principles of Turkmenistan's national statehood the Great Serdar laid in the foundation of Turkmenistan's independence," it says. tm md

No doubt they wanted to show the next guy just what loyalty looks like. Mind you, no one seems to know who the next guy will be. The BBC highlights some of the difficulties of absolutist nutter dictators (via):

According to Turkmen law, the president is succeeded by the head of the legislative body, the People's Assembly. But this post was held by Mr Niyazov himself.

Meanwhile, in Slovakia, it's steady as she goes. The coalition are squabbling over a few warm seats on the boards of state controlled companies, the budget is passed unamended and the people who have money blow it all on what SME is calling the most generous Christmas ever (i.e. the most expensive, I'm not quite sure the meaning is the same) and when I read about the poor orphaned Turkmens, I'm not that sorry it's boring (Lemuel reaches the same conclusion via the study of Poland).

On the information super donkey track

Why can't you download Slovak musicians' work in Slovakia, FFS? Excuse me while I pop over to the Czech Republic to set up a paypal account - we got overlooked somehow. How did we get stuck on the scenic route with the pirates (though we prefer to be called Buccaneer Central Europeans yo ho ho) while the rest of the world zooms towards the singularity or whatnot. It's enough to make me send my Person of the Year award back.

"Come together" geddit, huh huh

Paul Refell and Donna Sheehan have consulted the Maya and solar calendars and announced that it is time for a Global Orgasm for world peace:

It is Reffell and Sheehan's fervent wish that on Friday December 22, "you and everyone you know" should bring yourselves to orgasm in the manner of your choosing while concentrating your thoughts, as much as possible, on peace. Their goal "is to add so much concentrated and high-energy positive input into the energy field of the Earth that it will reduce the current dangerous levels of aggression and violence throughout the world". (The Guardian)

I suppose this is one of those things that will hardly do us any harm and has a tiny chance of doing good, so why not? I may have a little difficulty keeping my thoughts focussed on peace though.

Hayek on Chile: Clean of impurities

A pair of fascinating old interviews with Friedrich von Hajek on his attitude to the Pinochet regime in Chile — one, two — which he inspired and advised.

I’m really not sure what to think about this. Chris Dillow has done a good job about the rightness of Hayek’s theories on the need for markets due to the falibility of individual knowledge, but I have a hard time understanding how he could be so sure that it was worth all those Chileans who were tortured and killed to establish Pinochet’s allegedly liberal dictatorship:

I prefer a liberal dictator to democratic government lacking liberalism. My personal impression — and this is valid for South America - is that in Chile, for example, we will witness a transition from a dictatorial government to a liberal government. And during this transition it may be necessary to maintain certain dictatorial powers, not as something permanent, but as a temporary arrangement … As a means of establishing a stable democracy and liberty, clean of impurities. This is the only way I can justify it [dictatorship] - and recommend it.

On Pinochet's death, the worst (and the best) that Slovaks were willing to say about him was that he was controversial (as Lemuel put it). It’s not just that he killed a lot of Communists, or first introduced the famous pension reform. For the Slovak right think tanks he is the man who made the Reagan, Thatcher and their revolutions possible and they share his contempt for democracy. They worry about how to stop the people grabbbing the keys to the treasury and voting themselves a party. Not long ago, I read an article in tyzden about the prospects for liberty and their main right wing intellectual (the head of INEKO, I think) said that the one thing they wouldn’t privatise would be schools, so as to maintain a traditional culture. In other words, we must make sure the masses know their place. There is much to be said for “wisdom of the ages” and that people would benefit from established rules of thumb more than what some egotistical lefty thinks are the dictates of pure reason. But wouldn’t a market in education pick that up? It’s a pity the Hayekians don’t listen to their master instead of being in such a hurry to get to the Liberal state:

here is perhaps no single factor contributing so much to people’s frequent reluctance to let the market work as their inability to conceive how some necessary balance, between demand and supply, between exports and imports, or the like, will be brought about without deliberate control. The conservative feels safe and content only if he is assured that some higher wisdom watches and supervises change, only if he knows that some authority is charged with keeping the change “orderly. (Why I am not a conservative)

'Tis the season to be jolly

So here are some doomy and gloomy thoughts on blogging and life, the universe and everything from the brilliant Diesel Sweeties (Click for the big version):