The Underscore Archives

On Fri, Jan 05, 2007 at 04:06:55PM +0000, Rick Edwards wrote:
> <start_rant>
> 
> On 05/01/07, Steve Roome <steve at pepcross.com> wrote:
> > You should be grateful that the government haven't started gassing us
> > in chemical experiments yet.
> 
> Erm, Porton Down in the fifties?

Yes, I'm very very much aware of this! But they've not tried it on our
generation yet have they ? (that I know of yet...)

> > Our government needs the money from somewhere, because we need it so
> > that we can have subsidised bus routes, public transport, and a safe
> > nanny state.
> 
> Ok, try not spending ooh 75 billion pounds over the next few decades
> on a nuclear arms program that'll never be used.

Yes, I'm very much aware of this, and that we don't actually have
public transport really anywhere in this country (someone is going to
tell me that five miles of tram in the hebrides or something now, just
for fun or the sheer arrogance of it... *sigh*

You've made my point perfectly, it's not until someone says that it
won't work and the government will get it through do people start
worrying. Better that it's me that says that as devil's advocate
than it's Channel 4 News blabbing about some new Act of Idiocy by
our Great and Glorious Tradition of Fuckwits in Power. In Wigs.

e.g. I've been signing all (almost) the anti patent stuff for as long
as I remember, but most of the posts I see on various lists about it,
it's all a bit late by the time the average person who needs to care
gets round to it. e.g. My mum may vehemently oppose a war, and in fact
maybe so would a lot of net users, but quite frankly it's only years
after it happens most people start bitching about it.

> > Maybe they're just figuring out who they need to silence before they
> > push the bill through ?
> >
> 
> Bit like reporting everyone who "opted" to not have their medical
> details uploaded to the NHS "spine" being reported to the home office
> so that they can be dealt with on an "individual basis" (despite
> forcing doctors to break the Hippocratic oath and all manner of human
> rights legislation).

Tch! The world is full of suicide bombers and you're worried about some
poor doctor having a problem with his conscience?! sheesh ;)

> They've started to ID and fingerprint kids at school without parental
> consent for f*cks sake.

The large pile of paperwork in my lounge is currently topped off with
the six blood sample pots, stool pots, urine pots, phlegm pots, hair
bags, dna sample bags and a ream of paper I need to fill in just to be
allowed to sit in on one lesson in either of my kids' classes at
school. (It's not that bad, but it's bad!) Granted, I've got a beard
and somedays I've carried a rucksack so it's fair to say I probably
shouldn't be allowed anywhere near my kids. Certainly not on school
grounds anyway, I could be dangerous. (I am being sarcastic, just in
case the police decided to drive round and arrest me on suspiscion of
wanting to blow my kids and their school up.) Then again, it's Bristol
maybe I've been led to beleive there are so many loonies around I'd
be stupid enough to have entered into some world where I think parents
of young children are likely to go out and harm small children - in a
school. Hmmm.

Thanks for elaborating the point, I had a bunch of really dull worky
stuff I needed to get on with first! :)

I'm amazed that Mr. Gidden took me so seriously too!

> The surveillance state already has its insidious feet through the
> door, don't let it get any further.

I dunno about that bit, in some ways, I'm going to count the blessings
this gives us, it's here no matter what now. Imagine how good and
cheap an a/v bug could be in 20 years. There WILL be lots of them, no
matter how much you petition stuff, they'll be almost free and no
amount of legislation is going to ever stop the governments using
them.

We may as well come to accept the advantages that we will have knowing
that everything is recorded, and in some ways, that does mean that
when EVERYTHING is recorded you will probably have the ability to find
out who is watching what by watching them. Whoever they are, government
included. It's just going to be too easy and cheap.

        Steve



> 
> rick (not Rick)
> 
> -- 
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