MTGox, we discover, was the victim of an internal leak of their database. They were not hacked, and they are the victims of a criminal act of theft.

The facts in this matter do not concern the people who are gloating over this event. There are a group of people who are violent in nature, and who despise Bitcoin because they understand exactly what it represents; a direct threat to their sick and violent society which is based on coercion, the absence of freedom and the application of force.

Imagine a world where everyone had access to personal force fields via an artificially created gland that was made to grow into their abdomen by a nano machine / virus. These force fields could be activated either by the fear response or by the direction of your will, in the same way that you use your will to direct your arm to throw a ball.

Everyone would be able to protect themselves from any sort of physical attack, and all would be able to use similar technology to protect their houses.

It would then immediately become impossible for the State to send their agents to your house to rob you with bailiffs. They would no longer be able to force you to pay anything that you did not want to pay, and you would be able to protect yourself and your property from the other criminals and predators that are not sent out by the State.

In such a world, all flows of money would be voluntary by default. There could be no coercion of any kind, since violence against the person and her property would have been abolished by the advent of force fields.

The entire world would switch from one based on violence to one based on voluntary exchange.

This is exactly what Bitcoin is doing.

It is going to make it impossible for the state to stop people transacting at a distance, in any amount that they choose. It is going to remove the State from the equation as the unwanted third party in all transactions.

This is the true source of the animus against Bitcoin, and it explains why people like Tim Worstall and the other writers are dismissing Bitcoin so flippantly. Here is what I am talking about. These are quotes from an article by Tim Worstall that has just appeared:

The Bitcoin community faced another crisis on Sunday afternoon as the price of the currency on the most popular exchange, Mt.Gox, fell from $17 to pennies in a matter of minutes. Trading was quickly suspended and visitors to the home page were redirected to a statement blaming the crash on a compromised user account. Mt.Gox’s Mark Karpeles said that the exchange would be taken offline to give administrators time to roll back the suspect transactions.

Tim Worstall asserts that Bitcoin is finished because a single exchange has technical problems if this is the level of expertise operating at Forbes, you might be forgiven for taking everything that they publish with a big pinch of salt. There is no relation between the fictitious ‘Bitcoin community’ and MTGox, in fact, its a stretch to assert that there is a Bitcoin community at all. Is there an ‘internet community’ simply because people who peer on the network can send email to each other?

Not a good start!

For the record, Tim Worstall works as a consultant and dealer in scandium and other exotic metals. We can assume that he knows a little about how exchanges work, that there is normally more than one exchange for every commodity, and that you can get a feel for the price of a commodity not by looking only at one exchange, but by looking at them all at the same time.

He must also know that Bitcoin is in its infancy, and as other exchanges open, the problem of a single exchange running into difficulty will greatly suppress the triggers that initiate widespread panic. He should also know that a single technical fault in an exchange cannot be translated into a true loss of value in whatever it is the exchange deals in.

These fundamental facts and logic must be known to him, so why has he written this piece? What is the purpose of it?

The initial problem leading to the price collapse was that one user tried to sell more than the market could absorb. For of course the value of anything is determined by the balance of supply and demand for it. Thus the price crashed (and you can see a chart of how quickly it did here). However, it appears that this isn’t the only problem:

This demonstrates Mr. Worstall has at least a basic grasp of economics and how markets work. What he does not tell you, is that the sales were made not by one user, but by over 400 users simultaneously, who were all being controlled by a single attacker. Facts are stubborn things. Had this breach not taken place, the quoted price for Bitcoins on MTGox would not have dropped as it did. Worstall cannot distinguish between a wrongly quoted price and the true price of a commodity in a market.

Since I began writing this, it has emerged that details of more than 60,000 users have been stolen from the Mt Gox exchange. The compromised information includes hashed passwords.

No, the doesn’t necessarily mean the end of the Bitcoin experiment, but it’s a pretty good indication of it.

This is a baseless assertion, which other violent Statists will use in a faulty appeal to authority attack (“it came from Forbes, a trusted source”) against Bitcoin.

This event is not an indication of anything, other than that some of the user accounts at MTGox were exposed. If we apply this faulty logic to the other recent mass disclosures of usernames and passwords, we should expect Worstall to come up with similar nonsense lines:

The recent hack of SONY, where the credit card numbers, dates of birth and real names of TWENTY FIVE MILLION users were copied…
The recent hack of SEGA…
The loss from HM Revenue and Customs…

• So, That’s the End of Credit Cards Then
• So, That’s the End of SONY Then
• So, That’s the end of SEGA Then
• So, That’s the end of Her Majesty’s Government Then

Do you see what I did there?

Take a look at this if you want to gain some perspective on the matter of large scale data breaches, something that the Tim Worstall’s of this world seem to lack:

http://www.bitcoinmoney.com/post/6712283280/major-data-breaches.

The MTGox event doesn’t even appear on the radar.

While we are at it, in the case of Parliament, the breach of the government data really should have instantly spelled the end of ContactPoint and the ill conceived, ill fated ID Card, but of course, it did not. Also, the breach of 25 million credit cards should put pay to the Coalition’s absurd plan to use credit cards as ID Cards to access government gateways. We have written about this recently:

Credit card fraud is rampant, and using credit cards to interface with the state will allow everyone with a fraudulent or duplicated credit card to masquerade as someone else when identifying themselves to a government portal.

Look no further than the recent SONY breach where the credit card details, dates of birth, names and addresses of SEVENTY MILLION people were copied.

The population of Britain is 61,838,154 – 2009 That means that a number of people, larger than the population of Britain had their credit card details copied.

It means that if such a thing happened in the UK, every single person who identifies themselves to the state with their VISA could be impersonated with ease. This means more benefit fraud, GUARANTEED.

[…]

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=3031

but that is another story.

The fact of the matter is that writing irrational pieces like this cannot be an accident. This is not an opinion piece, though the hatred of Liberty oozes out of every vowel. I want to know who is directing these drones to write hit pieces against Bitcoin. I am not the only one (not that that means anything in and of itself) to suspect that the organised chorus of anti Bitcoin propaganda, and it is propaganda, is just too perfectly in tune to be the random warbling of computer illiterates. Or maybe they are all perfectly brainwashed to the same tune piped out by the Government schools and State mandated curricula? Who knows?

Here is another piece in the key of Fail; Fortune ran this piece recently which everyone can see is a, “…thrown together and completely fact-optional piece. Seriously, this reads like somebody who spent 2 hours reading other news coverage headlines and decided to fill in the rest with make-believe.”

Oh dear.

The mainstream media and its gatekeepers have a terrible problem on their hands. They cannot tell a story without directing people to the facts that will disprove their propaganda. They are only a click away from every hit piece they write.

Anyone with curiosity can Google Bitcoin for themselves, download it and then run it. They can start accepting Bitcoins. They can integrate it into their websites and start getting paid for anything that they do.

Once they get a first hand feel for it, the lies that are being propagated about Bitcoin are instantly washed away. As more people use it, and the client improves, it will become harder and harder to lie about Bitcoin, and then the MSM drones will have to capitulate and start accepting it themselves. Once this happens, it will be forbidden by the editors of these rags to write an anti-bitcoin piece, because they would be being paid in Bitcoins themselvs.

That will be the tipping point; just as the newspapers all decided they needed to have online editions of their lie machines on the internet, and when they adopt anything, like social networking and Twitter feeds, eventually they will all have to accept Bitcoin or its successor. This is absolutely inevitable. For those that are interested, all of the websites of the newspapers are running some sort of Open Source Software. They might not like the economics or the philosophy of ‘free’ but they are all using it to spread their lies.

Forbes.com is running Apache on Linux and so is fortune.cnn.com. Both of these organizations would have railed against Open Source software from every possible angle, with FUD, “its not as secure as proprietary software”, “the business model cannot work”, “its not ready for the desktop” etc etc, and yet, they have all capitulated, and no one even discusses it any more, save to note how far and wide the software is spreading.

This is how these people operate.

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.

We are at the ‘ha ha’ stage now. It is only a matter of time before Tim Worstall or some other hack calls for Bitcoin to be banned or regulated. And for the record, you can replace Tim Worstall’s name with the name of any journalist that has written a piece like this. Even people who claim to be scientific in their thinking manage to write garbage about Bitcoin. They all share the same attributes (lies) and one is replaceable with any other, and the newspaper name or slant doesn’t matter either. I could cite dozens of shabby articles, but why bother, they are all pretty much identical in theme, deception, sneer and ignorance.

For there are certain things that we want from a currency. A medium of exchange, a store of value, we’d also like to it be liquid and security is important as well.

Once again, we have the ever present WE of the collectivists. What Worstall means by ‘security’ of course is the unfettered ability of the State to be able to interpose itself in all transactions so it can tax. Without it, his beloved collective dies, and Bitcoin is the first actual financial tool that could pull it off. This is why everyone who loves and lives by the State, its predations, its illegitimate regulations, its stolen loot, its bureaucracy and all the other vile stuff in its ecosystem where violence is the lubricant, hates Bitcoin with a passion.

With Bitcoin, people have the choice to opt out of their sick society. Bitcoin is the force field that protects the individual’s money from the State. Its mass adoption would collapse the income of the State, forcing it to completely re-assess its relationship with people everywhere. On a side note, we can expect the State to ramp up the violence to eleven on the dial, before they throw in the towel.

No currency can have all of these features (and humans have used some pretty odd things as currency over the centuries, from copper sheets to cowrie shells via butter, salt, gold, silver and even pieces of paper with Dead Presidents on them, surely the final lunacy?) to perfection but a currency which doesn’t have any of them in appreciable quantities isn’t going to last very long.

This is simply not true. There can be a currency that has all of these features; just because you cannot imagine it that does not make it so. Three years ago, anyone you asked would have told you that the double spending problem could not be solved, because digital files are infinitely copyable. Lo and behold, a single man with a vision has solved the problem and his solution has applications beyond currency. Computer illiterate collectivists cannot even begin to see the sort of world that would emerge out of the idea behind Bitcoin. No matter. The world will change wether they like it or not.

As for odd currencies lasting a long time, did you know that the longest running currency was the tally stick? A strip of wood with notches cut in it that was then split in half; one half being spent out and the other reserved by the issuer.

The tally stick system lasted seven hundred years as a form of money.

Bitcoin can be used to send stored value across the world, in the same way that tally sticks were used. It can last a long time, and bring many benefits to the people who use it. Bitcoin, and the ideas that drive it are in no way ‘over’.

Bitcoins aren’t secure, as both the recent theft and this password problem show.

This is simply false, and betrays a complete ignorance of what Bitcoin is and how it works. All of the problems that have been falsely attributed to Bitcoin have not been a problem with Bitcoin itself, but have instead, been directly related to the platforms in which it is being used.

MTGox had a problem with their physical security; nothing to do with Bitcoin itself. The man who lost 50,000 Bitcoins had them stolen from a laptop running Microsoft Windows, either by physical access or remotely by a Trojan; nothing to do with Bitcoin itself.

Even if someone finds a flaw in the Bitcoin client, the idea of it is sound and has changed everything forever.

More people today are thinking about what money is, and understand what Fiat Currency is and how it is evil and institutionalised theft. That is thanks to Bitcoin. More people today have a real grasp of how simple money transfer over the Internet could and should be, if only the State would get out of the way. That is thanks to Bitcoin.

PayPal and the Credit Card companies and their processors are shaking in their boots; you will never have your Bitcoin account frozen. You do not have to make any declaration of any kind, swear an oath, divulge personal information or suffer any State mandated humiliation to start receiving and spending Bitcoins worth millions of dollars. There are no artificial limits on how much Bitcoin you can receive and spend, and where you can spend it and what on. The only loser in all of this is the State and its army of cronies, clients, parasites and thugs.

The next Rebecca Black on YouTube will put her Bitcoin address in the description, and she will reap millions from her fans… even the ones who hate her.

Actually, thats an argument against Bitcoin, sorry.

They’re not liquid, nor a store of value, as the price collapse shows and if they’re none of those things then they’ll not be a great medium of exchange either as who would want to accept them?

This is, of course, nonsense. Lets take it one by one:

“They are not liquid”

What Does Liquid Asset Mean?
An asset that can be converted into cash quickly and with minimal impact to the price received. Liquid assets are generally regarded in the same light as cash because their prices are relatively stable when they are sold on the open market.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/liquidasset.asp

Bitcoins, are becoming more and more liquid every day. You can trade them in the street, and there are services popping up that help you find people who want to sell or buy Bitcoins close to you, using geolocation.

“nor a store of value”
This is demonstrably false. If you can spend Bitcoins, they are a store of value by definition, just as the tally stick was, just as gold is and paper money is. This is nonsense on stilts, and we have addressed this before when we took apart Grant Babcock’ assertions.

“as the price collapse shows”
There was no price collapse, this is a falsehood. MTGox, a single exchange, suffered a technical problem not related to Bitcoin itself, and the price recovered immediately. The trades are going to be reversed where possible, and as you can see in this video:

the price at that broken exchange recovered. This is not reporting, or real journalism. It is utter rubbish.

“they’ll not be a great medium of exchange either as who would want to accept them?”
You can file this under the same nonsense like, “guitar bands are finished” (Beatles) or “no one wants internet access, because no one is on it yet”, or “the internet will amount to nothing” Clifford Stoll.

Note, attentive readers, that Clifford Stoll’s famous, “it will never catch on” piece appeared in Newsweek, a world class mainstream media lie machine, with a vested interest in killing anything that stops people from being free, reading the truth or from them selling dead trees. They have been dragged kicking and screaming into the future…. but you know this!

True, Bitcoin does still offer anonymity:

Not really, but why should we expect you to get this right?

but then so do copper sheets to cowrie shells via butter, salt, gold, silver and even pieces of paper with Dead Presidents on them.

There are moves afoot and plenty of evidence to prove you wrong Mr. Worstall. Just ask this gentleman who was stopped at an airport simply because he was carrying his own money. So much for the anonymity of cowrie shells and fraudulent pieces of paper with Dead Presidents on them.

It’s difficult to see what the currency has going for it.

http://blogs.forbes.com/timworstall/2011/06/20/so-thats-the-end-of-bitcoin-then/

Its only difficult to see what Bitcoin has going for it if you are an ignoramus in the literal sense of that word.

If you understand how cash works, then you should understand what Bitcoin offers its users and what it has ‘going for it’. But I think this article’s author knows full well what the potential of Bitcoin is, which is exactly why he has written this piece as he has.

No one born in 1963, who writes for ‘newspapers” and trades metals as a profession doesn’t know what the internet has done for man. People like that have experienced the internet revolution first hand, as it has transformed the way everyone works, plays, communicates, learns, spends money and thinks.

Bitcoin, its future iterations and its inevitable successors, are going to change the world again, in ways that are very difficult to predict, though we can have a crack at it for fun. It is a fact that Bitcoin already has changed the world.

One thing you simply cannot do in the face of something like this is intone, “it will never work” or “I can’t see the point in it”. These sorts of predictions, especially when they are related to technology are almost always wrong or short sighted, and in today’s day and age, with all of the experience of the last two decades under our belts, such an attitude is inexcusable stupidity.

Rights, like sausages, cease to inspire respect in proportion as we know how they are made.

Apologies to John Godfrey Saxe

‘New’ rights are being shaped and squeezed, like sausages, from so much mechanically recovered political mincemeat.  The difference between a right and a good is not a difficult concept.  However, the sound ethical concepts underpinning the definition of true rights are sidelined in favour of political expediency and the generation of political power – with new rights generated and promoted, with horrendous irony, under the guise of more power for individuals.  In literal and ethical fact, the only real rights are those which apply to property in all its forms, and from which stem all personal liberties.  Yet, and particularly among the politically educated, this fact does not prevent the rapid expansion in what are, in reality, goods at best and often little more than nonsensical, illogical restrictions on liberty.

Recently I have heard many promotions of the Right to Health (rather than to healthcare, which while also an idiotic statement, is at least a clearly demonstrable good… and to which you obviously have no ‘right’).  Of course, we know what morally smug do-gooders mean when they invoke the Right to Health, but it is plainly as ridiculous a concept as the Right to A Pretty Face, or for that matter the Right to Food.  Even if, for arguments sake, we consider Health as a good, then it is personal property;  your Health (good or bad) belongs to you. Moreover, since you cannot sell your health, then it is an inalienable part of your Self, and encompassed under the first principle of the Right to Self-ownership (a true, valid, property right).  Even though you may sell or donate access to your body for scientific or other purposes your health, being an inalienable part of your self, cannot be extracted and sold as a seperate entity.

In the same set of discussions, at WHO / UN level meetings, other ‘rights’ mentioned included the “Right to the Best Start in Life” – seriously!  Which is what exactly?  $10 million in a trust fund, crib at the Ritz and Gucci nappies?  Who exactly judges what is ‘best’?  As is plain to see, any discussion of new ‘rights’ is nothing more than a hotbed of meddling, idealistic idiocy.

More timely at present due to men in wigs upholding an assinine ‘law’ made on the fly to appease men on the take, and also due to Twitter caving, are the ‘Right to Privacy’ and ‘Right to Know’.  Both of these rights pertain to knowledge, which is essentially and ultimately a good, not a right.  In the context of news stories about corporate whores, media whores and whoring whores and the abuse of law (superinjuctions) the two rights are tightly linked.

Consider a married-with-children man, lets call him Ryan Giggs, who decides to accept the oportunity (howsoever it arises) to fuck a media whore.  The Mhore then directly gains, through application of her talents (use of her labour), certain knowledge about Mr Giggs preferences about which he would not wish his family to become aware.  That knowledge has a value in our society, to newspapers and other media – these agencies believe the public has a ‘right to know’ how Mr Giggs likes his ladies to perform.   The knowledge also has value to Mr Giggs, who presumably believes the public has no right to know, but unfortunately for him blackmail is illegal here.  Were it not, our Mhore could approach Mr Giggs and offer to keep silent in exchange for money.  They would enter a contract agreeable to both, and both parties would be happy.  Mr Giggs is protected against further extortion as he has a contractual agreement on the value of the knowledge into which his Mhore has freely entered.  Should she break this and sell the knowledge to the media anyway, she could be rightly and justly punished for breach of contract (property law).  However, blackmail is illegal primarily to protect the rich, and prevents people from rightfully exploiting their property (knowledge) as they see fit.  In this clearly ridiculous situation, our Mhore is obliged to realise the value of her knowledge (it is property, she owns it) on the market with the consequence that lawyers get rich, laws are abused and everyone finds out about it anyway.

For a comprehensive explanation of the ethical basis for selling knowledge, and why blackmail is an infringement on your liberty, see Rothbard.  See Rothbard anyway.  See it all. And when you next come across a new ‘right’, you will see it being squeezed, turd-like, from the ludicrous, self-serving, logic-mincing arsehole/machine that is global politics.

David Cameron will today pledge to cure the ‘national neurosis’ caused by the explosion of health and safety rules under Labour.

The Conservative leader wants police, schools and volunteer groups to be freed from the fear of being sued.

He said the culture in which someone has to be blamed for every mishap must be countered.

Mr Cameron, speaking to the Daily Mail ahead of a major speech, set out plans for a Civil Liability Act to streamline hundreds of different pieces of legislation and regulation.

He said he wanted to exempt entire categories of workers and organisations from the fear of litigation or prosecution because of ‘over-the-top’ health and safety rules. Mr Cameron said a Tory government would amend the Compensation Act to abolish negligence claims for activities where it should be obvious there is a risk – for example, sport and adventure training.

He is also considering introducing a Good Samaritan Act to protect from liability those who choose to aid others who are injured or ill.
Mr Cameron has been impressed with similar legislation in Australia, which has helped reduce bystanders’ hesitation to assist for fear of being sued or prosecuted for unintentional injury or wrongful death.

It has also dramatically scaled back the potential for medical negligence claims against doctors.

‘I want to see if we can extend this sort of legal protection for all people acting in good faith – especially public service professionals,’ Mr Cameron said.

He insisted that health and safety legislation had ‘noble origins’ and had done much to make Britain’s workplaces among the safest in the world.

But he said it was clear something had gone ‘seriously wrong’. He highlighted the examples of children made to wear goggles to play conkers, trainee hairdressers not allowed scissors in the classroom, and staff at a railway station refusing to help a mother carry her baby’s buggy because they were not insured.

‘The rulebooks keep getting thicker. The restrictions keep getting sillier,’ Mr Cameron said. ‘In Britain there is just a great sense that there are too many rules and regulations and petty bureaucracy that are mucking up people’s lives.

‘The impact of this national neurosis should not be underestimated.’

[…]

Daily Mail

This is very interesting, but of course neither the article nor the Tories go far enough.

Before we start, we have to get to the root of what ‘the nanny state’ is. The nanny state is the logical conclusion of the idea that ‘we’ need the state to control the shadowy, ever-present group of people who are not capable of doing things ‘properly’.

It doesn’t matter what you are discussing, there is always a rationale for the state to license something, and the only thing that stops the state licensing everything is that there are not enough apartchiks to operate such a gargantuan scheme.

The evil of the nanny state starts out with what seems to be reasonable and rational idea; for example, ‘we’ need to control people who cook food for sale because there are some people who would not cook properly and poison others, or, ‘we’ must have a system of compulsory vehicle checks and licensing otherwise, people will not maintain their cars and cause accidents.

Ideas like this are at the root of the nanny state, and they are totally false:

A recent editorial by Amitai Etzioni in the Washington Post discussing drivers’ licenses was “brave” enough to point out that “In a civil libertarian utopia, they would not exist.” Etzioni declared, “I know that driver’s licenses as a means of identification are a joke. Fake ones can still be ordered on the Internet or purchased for about $60 in many cities, and real ones can be obtained fraudulently.” He had the facts to back him up. “[T]he General Accounting Office described a test in which GAO agents had been able to enter the United States using counterfeit driver’s licenses without being stopped – 25 out of 25 times in late 2002 and early 2003.”

Unfortunately Etzioni then jumped to the entirely wrong conclusion, because “drivers’ licenses” are all but worthless, he argued that the United States needs to include biometric information on drivers’ licenses, such as fingerprints and retinal scans. (See “It’s Not Just a Driver’s License Anymore,” Washington Post, May 16, 2004; page B03) As usual, Etzioni and others who advocate such measures fail to explain how putting finger prints on a license is going to stop counterfeits. It might prevent people from stealing other people’s license and using it (something which is actually quite rare because it is so easy to make a counterfeit, see http://www.ncsl.org/statefed/DLRCSG.htm), but counterfeit licenses will just put the person’s finger prints on the document, just as they use the person’s photograph.

As usual the solution to worthless government bureaucracy is simply to redouble its worthless efforts. It is unfortunate that so many people try to justify this intrusive and utterly pointless government scheme. I have refused for more than ten years to get a drivers license (and yes, I’ve driven hundreds of times without one), and I know a number of other people who have done the same thing. Yet, even many so-called libertarians when they find out that I drive without a license profess to be shocked.

Let’s be clear, however. Drivers’ licenses have nothing to do with safety and everything to do with keeping tabs on people. If someone is driving recklessly then he or she should be stopped and can be fined or imprisoned. God knows there are enough traffic cops, and busy-bodies with cell phones to keep track of people who really do drive recklessly. Of course, it goes without saying that almost all speeding tickets (like drivers licenses) have nothing to do with safety but are a means of raising government revenue. If the person is not driving recklessly, why should the person have to “prove” to the government beforehand that he can do it, anymore than hair dressers should be required to get a license to cut hair.

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig2/clark9.html

There are countries that do not have state mandated compulsory annual vehicle testing, and the accident rates in those places is not higher than it is in the UK. The accident rates in Germany, where there are no speed limits on the Autobhan. Quite apart from all that, your right to drive your vehicle on public roads is being interfered with by the arbitrary imposition of what is nothing more than a tax on your personal property and how you choose to operate it, and of course, if you refuse to co-operate, violence is used against you.

And for the enchiladas:

In a Libertarian world the government would be VERY limited. It wouldn’t do things like inspect restaurants, audit banks, or license contractors and doctors. To be a Libertarian, you have to change the way you think. Libertarians have come to realize that anything the government “protects” us from is a freedom that has been taken away. For example, if you want to buy tamales from the Mexican lady next door, current laws forbid such transactions. Why? To protect you from her potential unsanitary cooking methods. No matter that you’ve known her for ten years and trust her completely. Until the government inspects her kitchen and issues her a restaurant license, you are not allowed to buy food from her.

How about the enterprising young man who lives one block over? He installed a sprinkler system for his parents at their home. You need a sprinkler system. All the quotes you’ve gotten from more experienced contractors are WAY out of your price range. He says he’ll do it for a price you can afford. You paid him for a couple hours labor to design a system for your yard, and it was actually better than the designs proposed by the contractors. You’d like to hire him to do the work, but you can’t. Why? Because he could be arrested, jailed, and fined for contracting without a license.

Are you beginning to see how a government that protects you from things, also limits your freedom. As a Libertarian, I believe I should be allowed allowed to enter into any agreement I find acceptable. I should not have the government hovering over my shoulder protecting me.

[…]

http://www.crockett.com/Political/on_being_libertarian_01.htm

The same goes for the licensing of people who want to sell food. Before the licensing regimes were introduced, people sold food to each other for literally thousands of years without significant numbers of poisoning incidents. It is only now, in this unprecedented state of hysterical mass neurosis that it is deemed necessary and morally justifiable that anyone cooking food for remuneration needs to be licensed and regularly inspected. Even people who collect eggs from their own chickens are not allowed to sell them without a license. And we have all heard about the restrictions on people who know each other looking after each other’s children.

Of course, if you do any of those things without the permission of the state, violence will be used against you to stop you from voluntarily transacting and interacting with other people.

If people who cook for others need to be licensed, then why should not a mother who is cooking for her children be licensed also? There is no difference between the two actions, and no doubt, there are some who would like to see kitchens in the home licensed and regularly inspected.

If we accept that the state has a legitimate power to license any activity, then the state has the power to license all activities; one cannot pick and choose which items on the laundry list of ‘risky’ activities one thinks should or should not be licensed based on our personal lifestyles or prejudices, or what we reflexively believe is ‘reasonable’.

This is the double edged sword; it is the ever-present ‘other’ that ‘we’ need to be protected from, it is never ‘us’; “You and I are safe, dependable and stable as parents, but we must protect those children out there who have bad parents”, “Our kitchen is clean and we never get sick, but it is the OTHER restauranteurs who are the dangerous ones; that is why we must inspect everyone and license them all”, “My eggs are always sold when they are fresh, but it is the OTHER chicken owners who we have to be careful of”.

This is irrational. This is neurotic thinking. And it is utterly foolish to think that there are not other people sitting in judgement of your perfectly legitimate activities, saying that it is YOU that is an unknown quantity that needs to be controlled, using precisely the same arguments with total conviction.

This sort of illogic is the thin end of the wedge; first we start licensing only those people who want to sell food (skilful entrepreneurs, who are a minority providing a service that you can take or leave) then it is expanded and expanded until you cannot do anything with food in any context without state permission.

First, education is made compulsory, then school attendance is made compulsory, then all forms of schooling and education, and the associate materials like textbooks that are not approved by the state are outlawed, and everyone who teaches or who supervises education, or even spends one minute in the presence of a child needs to be CRB checked, inspected and licensed.

First, cars are licensed, then drivers are licensed, then the driver’s licence, needs to be renewed regularly, then it morphs into a universal ID card.

Swimming on beaches is unmonitored, then there are volunteer lifeguards, then the lifeguards are taken over by the state, then it becomes illegal to swim or surf without a lifeguard being present.

Once the state gets its hands onto something, it keeps pushing its fingers deeper and deeper into it until it has total control, all from the initial false pretext that the state is needed to protect people because there are ‘people out there’ who are a danger to others, or even to themselves.

The fact of the matter is people who call for the state to license and regulate others are statists, and whats more, they are violent, because if anyone does not agree that they should be licensed to sell eggs, or omelettes, or apples or anything else, these collectivists agree that violence should be used on their behalf to shut down those restaurants, egg sellers or orchard owners that refuse to be inspected or licensed. Car drivers who are perfectly competent should be violently arrested and their money stolen from them upon the say so and whim of the state, with the consent of the collectivists. And yet, many of these collectivist statists balk when it comes to someone else saying that what they do should be licensed, regulated and controlled. It doesn’t make sense.

Not only is the proposition that the ever-present other needs to be licensed, monitored, regulated, inspected and controlled immoral and illogical, but it is also not the only mechanism that can increase the safety of all products and services.

Look at Underwriter’s Laboratories; it is a non state entity that is in the profitable business certifying consumer devices. This is an example of how private people can interact with each other to weed out the statistically insignificant number of incompetent, malicious or stupid people who may be in the business of manufacturing electrical goods.

The next argument that is normally trotted out at this point is, “well, if it (whatever flavour of state interference you like) saves even one life, it is worth it!”. This is false. The nanny state has most definitely not been ‘worth it’, and in any case, who is to make this measure of what is or is not worth while?

No one has the right to assess risk for other people and then force them to live at a standard set by others; in my opinion, a life without risk is not worth living. You learn and are enhanced by risk. Children in particular, need risk to shape and develop a correct perception of what life really is; so that they can become rational adults who are not capable of being gulled into accepting a nanny state or knee jerk collectivism.

That is my opinion, and it applies only to me. I have no right to impose those or any other idea on anyone else, and this is why the Libertarians are morally superior to the collectivists; they cannot accept the philosophies and lifestyles of other people, whereas Libertarians accept all other lifestyles, and they would not EVER agree that violence should be used against people who are minding their own business and voluntarily interacting with others to no one else’s harm.

The nanny state and its proponents also distort the economy, as well as restricting people’s rights. The incandescent light bulb is the latest example of how the state, in its never ending push to protect everyone, has diverted billions into inferior lighting technologies.

That example, based on the now completely discredited and highly destructive Climate Change hoax, is a perfect example of nanny statism based on lies, false presumptions and nonsense.

Rent a wreck is a company that would never have been possible in the UK, since the prohibitive and unnecessary M.O.T. would have made the original business model unworkable. The many second hand car lots selling dilapidated cars would not be in business if the M.O.T. system was in operation in the USA. Because it is not, there is a thriving economy in second hand cars, greater access to cars to people with low budgets and more people on the move. At least, that’s the way it used to be.

I’m sure you can come up with your own examples.

Many of the things this illogic breeds are so irrational it beggars belief that they are even being proposed, and yet, they all come out of the same cesspool of illogic ; “We must do something for the common good”. There is no such thing as ‘the common good’. This is just another pretext to engineer totalitarianism, and literally anything can be shoehorned into it:

• You could die laughing when the Nanny State states the obvious
• Cigarette displays are banned by the ‘nanny state’ in fresh crackdown on smoking
• The ‘nanny state’ guide to giving children of five alcohol
• Parents banned from supervising their own children in playgrounds… in case they are paedophiles
• After 24-hours drinking farce the nanny state steps in as shops forced to put up warning signs
• Killjoy officials accused of ‘nanny state’ madness as they take children’s conkers
• Look after a friend’s children? Careful, the nanny state is watching
• As the Nanny State warns us of the dangers of baubles and tinsel, the Mail presents… The elf’n’safety Xmas
• Nanny state targets middle-class drinkers in £10million anti-binge campaign
• ‘Nanny state’ row as £44million scheme will tell parents how to raise children by text messages
• Nanny state politics that threaten the joy of sport

This is a staggering range of activities, and yet, they are all connected by the same thread, the same core assumption that the state has a legitimate role in protecting people from risks that they may want to take for themselves, or that may be posed to others by voluntary interactions.

Until the fact of this matter is faced, it will be very difficult to argue that you should be left in peace to pursue your own interests in your own fashion, because there will be innumerable counter examples where the state is interfering with other aspects of life that everyone accepts as reasonable, that overlap with what you do.

It will not matter that their ideas are inefficient, corrupt, evil or just plain insane; to someone, somewhere, you will be ‘the other’ that needs to be controlled to protect everyone, and there are a legion of people who are willing to call for violence against you. This is the fatal flaw in the thinking of those who accept a limited role for government to license activities and regulate risk. There is no such thing as a ‘limited role’ in this instance, just as there is no such thing as being a little bit pregnant.

There is no need for a state, there is no need for a state to protect people from each other or to regulate risk of any kind, and certainly there is no excuse for calling for violence to be used against people who live differently from you.

This is the best way that each person can reach their fullest potential, and for the least harm to be done in a population. As long as there is even a single person to whom the power to use violence is given in a context where no one is doing harm to anyone else, then that person is the seed of the state; the state always grows, and like a weed it never regulates its size and the end is always the nanny state and totalitarianism.

Rothbard on Risk:

The Proper Burden of Risk

We conclude, then, that no one may use force to defend himself or his property until the initiation of an overt act of aggression against him. But doesn’t this doctrine impose an undue risk upon everyone?

The basic reply is that life is always risky and uncertain and that there is no way of getting round this primordial fact. Any shifting of the burden of risk away from one person simply places it upon someone else. Thus, if our doctrine makes it more risky to wait until someone begins to aggress against you, it also makes life less risky, because as a non-aggressor, one is more assured that no excited alleged victim will pounce upon you in supposed “self-defense.” There is no way for the law to reduce risk overall; it then becomes important to use some other principle to set the limits of permissible action, and thereby to allocate the burdens of risk. The libertarian axiom that all actions are permissible except overt acts of aggression provides such a principled basis for risk allocation.

There are deeper reasons why overall risks cannot be reduced or minimized by overt legal action. Risk is a subjective concept unique to each individual; therefore, it cannot be placed in measurable quantitative form. Hence, no one person’s quantitative degree of risk can be compared to another’s, and no overall measure of social risk can be obtained. As a quantitative concept, overall or social risk is fully as meaningless as the economist’s concept of “social costs” or social benefits.

In a libertarian world, then, everyone would assume the “proper burden of risk”[28] placed upon him as a free human being responsible for himself. That would be the risk involved in each man’s person and property. Of course, individuals could voluntarily pool their risks, as in various forms of insurance, in which risks are shared and benefits paid to losers from the pool. Or, speculators could voluntarily assume risks of future price changes that are sloughed off by others in hedging operations on the market. Or, one man could assume another’s risks for payment, as in the case of performance and other forms of bonding. What would not be permissible is one group getting together and deciding that another group should be forced into assuming their risks. If one group, for example, forces a second group to guarantee the former’s incomes, risks are greatly increased for the latter, to the detriment of their individual rights. In the long run, of course, the whole system might collapse, since the second group can only provide guarantees out of their own production and incomes, which are bound to fall as the burden of social parasitism expands and cripples society.

[…]

http://mises.org/daily/2120#4

Finally, back to the tories:

The Conservative leader wants police, schools and volunteer groups to be freed from the fear of being sued.

The police service should not be provided by the state. If you call someone for help, then you are wavering your right to sue them if the rescue goes wrong. A volunteer is not entering into a contract with you when he arrives to help you; it is a different sort of arrangement where you should not expect anything whatsoever or any particular result. If you want a particular result, and a guarantee of a level of performance, then you need to take out insurance, or subscribe to a security firm where the terms are set out in advance for you to either accept or reject.

Mr Cameron, speaking to the Daily Mail ahead of a major speech, set out plans for a Civil Liability Act to streamline hundreds of different pieces of legislation and regulation.

All those pieces of legislation should all be abolished, and the state should get out of the business of compulsory arbitration of disputes and measuring of risk.

He said he wanted to exempt entire categories of workers and organisations from the fear of litigation or prosecution because of ‘over-the-top’ health and safety rules.

He thinks they are over the top, others do not, clearly. Who is right? Neither. Everyone should be responsible for the contracts they enter into. This is not the proper role of the state.

Mr Cameron said a Tory government would amend the Compensation Act to abolish negligence claims for activities where it should be obvious there is a risk – for example, sport and adventure training.

It should all be abolished. If I decide to indulge in some equasy, then that is entirely an affair between me, the horse, its owner and no one else. If I am thrown off, it is my fault for getting on a frisky horse. Period.

He is also considering introducing a Good Samaritan Act to protect from liability those who choose to aid others who are injured or ill.

This is ridiculous. A Good Samaritan Act would not be needed if the state backed out of the business of risk. This is an example of the state creating problems with legislation to which it needs to find a solution with more legislation, just as it is in the case of Local Authorities being given responsibilities that they should not have, being unable to fulfil them, causing more insane legislation to be required. The root cause must be removed to restore sanity, and that means the state must be pruned back.

It has also dramatically scaled back the potential for medical negligence claims against doctors.

Going to a doctor is the same as entering into any other type of agreement. It is up to you both to come to terms that are agreeable to you. In a state where there are no private doctors, this is a slightly more complex issue, because the doctor does not contract with you directly, but instead, is working for the state. Who should you sue in this case, the state, or the doctor working for the state?

‘I want to see if we can extend this sort of legal protection for all people acting in good faith – especially public service professionals,’ Mr Cameron said.

This is putting the cart before the horse.

He insisted that health and safety legislation had ‘noble origins’ and had done much to make Britain’s workplaces among the safest in the world.

All the predations of the state have noble origins, and it always ends up bad. As for Britain’s workplaces being the safest in the world, many of the ‘dangerous’ manufacturing jobs have left precisely because risk is controlled by the state.

But he said it was clear something had gone ‘seriously wrong’.

But what is it? What is at the root of it? Until this is addressed the problem will not go away, and clearly, more legislation is not the answer.

This just in from a lurker:

Fast-track review of home education could cost the taxpayer £500 million per annum according to research for the Home Education Advisory Service HEAS calls for Government re-think and proper dialogue with the home education community to avoid unnecessary burden on the exchequer.

At a time when most independent bodies forecast that state spending will need to be slashed, the Government is planning to make radical changes to home education that could cost it as much as £500m in new spending annually, according to research for the Home Education Advisory Service.

Alarmingly the government appears determined to push ahead without any appreciation of these cost implications. Baroness Morgan of Drefelin (Parliamentary Under-Secretary – Department for Children, Schools and Families) said of the proposals: "We do not expect them to place any significant additional burdens on local authorities".

Yet research for the Home Education Advisory Service has quantified major costs arising from Government proposals for a new monitoring and assessment regime for home educated children, including provision of additional services and the inevitable rise in the number of state educated children as the home education population falls in response to the proposals. The HEAS estimates a cost impact of £120-£300m pa. But a worse case scenario sees the state education bill rising by half a billion pounds on an annualised basis.

Michael Crawshaw, who led the research for HEAS, said: "There are tens of thousands of home educated children in Britain. Independent studies suggest that they achieve emotional and educational outcomes at least as good as those of children who attend school with a neutral or positive impact on career progression. These outcomes cost the taxpayer nothing. Home educating parents do this demanding job entirely at their own expense and without any input from the state education system."

Yet now, after a hasty and questionably 'independent' review, the government plans to pull home education under the state umbrella. New spending will come from three sources:

First, a requirement that local education authorities construct a new layer of administration to register, assess and monitor home education.

Baroness Morgan's belief that the LEAs already have the people and systems to do this suggests she has not understood the new requirements outlined in the proposals.

Second, the local authorities will also be instructed to pay for some exams and open up school facilities to home educated children; facilities that are already at full stretch. While this aspect of the proposals would be welcomed by home educators it amounts to just 8% of the new spending.

Finally there will be a rise in the state education population as a number of home educated children are forced into schools.

The research suggests a minimum £60-150m pa increase in state education spending. A central estimate sees a £120-300m pa increase in the state education budget. The report's 'extinction' scenario sees spending rise by over £500m pa if the proposals, which have outraged many home educators, push a vibrant alternative educational approach to the brink. Home Education in Britain could almost disappear, forcing up to fifty thousand new children into state education at a cost to the state of £500m pa.

Michael Crawshaw added: "Why is the government doing this? They say it is to improve educational outcomes and provide a safety net for home educated children. Critics say the proposals are a waste of time and money. They are more likely to harm than improve educational outcomes for home educated children."

HEAS is calling for the Government to think again and engage in proper dialogue with the home education sector before embarking on a programme that will place significant burden on the exchequer for no good reason.

Ends

For further information or a copy of the full report please contact Michael Crawshaw (Tel 07768 177634 or email michaelcrawshaw@ btinternet.com) or Cathy Koetsier of HEAS on cathy@heas.org.uk.

Some points to consider.

Baroness Morgan doesn’t know that if you eat too much you will be come obese over time. She can hardly be expected to understand the implications of the extra burdens their insane plans will put on Local Authorities.

Communists do not understand what money is or where it comes from. That is why they can propose this immoral, reprehensible and unworkable plan without considering what it is going to cost. They think that money comes from government; that government prints money, and that by a form of magic, it has value.

Finally, we have said this before; there is no money for any of this, and the coming economic collapse will put the kibosh on this insanity, Neu Liebour, and the whole rotten stinking lot of these fascists.

The company that sells Gardasil is engaged in a propaganda push to peddle their poison to BOYS as well as girls.

It seems however, that there is another, less expensive, less dangerous way to prevent HPV infections spreading from males to females:

Circumcision reduces risk of herpes and HPV infection

Men who are circumcised are less likely to get sexually transmitted infections such as genital herpes and human papillomavirus (HPV), but not syphilis, according to a study of adult African men published this week in the New England Journal of Medicine.

The finding adds to the evidence that there are health benefits to circumcision. It was already known that circumcision can reduce the risk of penile cancer, a relatively rare disease. In a previous study, the same research team found that adult circumcision could reduce the risk of HIV infection.

Efforts to increase the practice of male circumcision in areas with high rates of sexually transmitted infections, including Africa, could have a tremendous benefit, say the study’s authors. Genital herpes has been associated with an increased risk of HIV, and HPV can cause genital warts as well as a higher risk of anal, cervical (in women), and penile cancers.

In the United States, infant circumcision is declining. About 64 percent of American male infants were circumcised in 1995, down from more than 90 percent in the 1970s. Rates tend to be higher in whites (81percent) than in blacks (65 percent) or Hispanics (54 percent).

Some opponents say the removal of the foreskin is an unnecessary surgical procedure that may reduce sexual sensitivity in adulthood. In Jewish and Muslim cultures, young or infant boys are routinely circumcised for religious reasons. Circumcision rates have traditionally been higher in the U.S. than in Europe, but the American Academy of Pediatrics currently says that the medical benefits are insufficient to recommend circumcision for all baby boys.

In the new study, a research team at the Rakai Health Sciences Program in Uganda — in collaboration with researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, Maryland, and Makerere University in Uganda — conducted two clinical trials involving 3,393 uncircumcised men ages 15 to 49. All the men were negative for HIV and genital herpes (also known as herpes simplex virus type 2); a subgroup of men also tested negative for HPV.

Roughly half of the men underwent medically supervised circumcision at the start of the trial, while the other half were circumcised two years later.

Overall, circumcision reduced the men’s risk of genital herpes by 28 percent (10.3 percent of uncircumcised men developed genital herpes compared with 7.8 percent of circumcised men) and HPV infection by 35 percent (27.8 percent of uncircumcised men were infected with HPV compared with 18 percent of circumcised men). Circumcision did not, however, protect against syphilis. (About 2 percent of men in both groups contracted syphilis.)

Study coauthor Thomas C. Quinn, M.D., professor of global health at Johns Hopkins University, says that choosing circumcision, whether it’s the parents of an infant or an adult male for himself, is and should remain an individual decision.

“But the critics need to really look at the benefits versus the risks,” he adds. “By now a large body of evidence has shown that the health benefits clearly outweigh the minor risk associated with the surgery. In our study, we didn’t see any adverse effects or mutilation. We’re recommending supervised, safe, sterile environments — not circumcision out in an open field with rusty instruments.”

[…]

Roughly three-quarters of U.S. adults have had at least one HPV infection, according to an editorial by Matthew R. Golden, M.D., and Judith N. Wasserheit, M.D., both of the University of Washington. Although vaccines against some of the most dangerous HPV strains have been approved for girls ages 13 to 26, the vaccines are expensive and routine Pap tests are still necessary to pick up cervical cancers.

Golden and Wasserheit note that “rates of circumcision are declining and are lowest among black and Hispanic patients, groups in whom rates of HIV, herpes, and cervical cancer are disproportionately high.” Medicaid, which insures many low-income patients in these populations, does not pay for routine infant circumcision in 16 states.

[…]

CNN

And there you have it. Chop is cheaper than Gardasil.

I wonder how many chops you would be able to purchase with the cost of a full round of Gardakill?

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM—–CHOP!

Other BLOGDIAL posts on Guardakil

And this time there are no punches being pulled by the looks of it!!

You may be aware that today, the Secretary of State for Children, Schools and Families announced that he has commissioned an independent review of Home Education. The review will be conducted over the next four months with a report published in May 2009. The review will investigate if and how far children who are educated at home are able to achieve the five Every Child Matters outcomes; assess the effectiveness of current arrangements for ensuring their safety, welfare and education; and, if necessary, make recommendations for improvements to the current systems. Further information about the review and the full terms of reference can be found at

www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/ete/homeeducation.

just a sample of the questions contained there in:

Do you think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate? Please let us know why you think that.

Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve the following five Every Child Matters outcomes? Please let us know why you think that.

Some people have expressed concern that Home Education could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect.
What do you think Government should do to ensure this does not happen?

http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/consultations/index.cfm?action=consultationDetails&consultationId=1605&external=no&menu=1 by Friday 20th February.

Here we go again.

1. Do you think the current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home is adequate? Please let us know why you think that.

There is no current system for safeguarding children who are educated at home. There is no need for such a system, there never has been a need and there never will be. Children who are educated at home are exactly the same as those who are educated at schools. If you think there is a need for a system to safeguard children who are educated at home, then you need to start one to safeguard children who are educated at school. All schoolchildren have home lives just like home educated ones do. There is no more risk in either type of education. This consultation is the result of the fantasies of ignorant aparatchicks who are desperate to destroy the family, and to put every child in a government brainwashing centre. It simply will not wash. All the assumptions of this are completely wrong, and everyone knows it.

2. Do you think that home educated children are able to achieve the following five Every Child Matters outcomes? Please let us know why you think that.

Every Child Matters is a government ‘programme’ to help children who need help. It is not relevant to children in stable homes with good parents, as all home educating households are. It is not the place of government to set the goals that families should strive for. The entire idea behind this is driven by false reasoning and a complete misunderstanding of the proper role of government. It would be far better for these people to run the schools that they are in charge of correctly, where they currently are in the business of manufacturing ignorant, obese, foul mouthed brainwashed monsters. That, by the way, is part of the reason why Home Education is growing so rapidly. DfES and DCSF are so appallingly bad at the areas they already have complete domination over, they have caused a mass exodus into religious schools and Home Education.

3. Do you think that Government and local authorities have an obligation to ensure that all children in this country are able to achieve the five outcomes? If you answered yes, how do you think Government should ensure this?. If you answered no, why do you think that?

The five outcomes are a fiction, a nonsense and an insult. Before this garbage was introduced, generations of children in this country were coming out of the state schools highly educated. Now, the system is so poor, parents run from it like the plague. People who can think reject the very idea of the government setting these arbitrary and pointless outcomes. They are the rabid imaginings of control freaks and family destroyers; the cancer that is killing Britain.

4. Do you think there should be any changes made to the current system for supporting home educating families? If you answered yes, what should they be? If you answered no, why do you think that?

Yes. Home educating families should have returned to them that portion of money that is taken from them to support schools.

5. Do you think there should be any changes made to the current system for monitoring home educating families? If you answered yes, what should they be? If you answered no, why do you think that?

Home educating families should not be monitored, any more than families who send their children to schools should be monitored. Both of these groups have family lives; the only difference being that home educating families have more of a family life than those that send their children to school. Once again, this question is borne out of complete ignorance of what Home Education is, why it is done, who is doing it, what the proper role of government is, and what the fundamental rights of parents are. Many people are ignorant of what Home Education is; take for example Sarah Ebner of The Times, who wrote an incredibly ignorant, ill researched, unthinking piece of garbage, that was retracted by letting a home schooler set the record straight for the entire length of her column. Take another example, Johann Hari, who wrote this, frankly, ridiculous pice of drivel in the scandalously bad Independent. We wrote about this on BLOGDIAL. There are many other examples of ignorant people slathering their ill conceived thoughts in the newspapers; they are harmless enough (to those without hypertension) but when the people who make legislation are ignorant, then we have a problem.

These ignorant people, who cannot even use The Google to find out that Home Education is not only exploding world-wide, but that in the USA, it is causing students so educated to be actively courted by the best universities there.

They do not have the common sense to seek out the people who represent….but who are we kidding? They want Home Education abolished, just like it is in Germany. They are doing it in a piecemeal fashion, boiling the frog slowly, so that before you know it, it is a thing of the past in the UK.

6. Some people have expressed concern that Home Education could be used as a cover for child abuse, forced marriage, domestic servitude or other forms of child neglect. What do you think Government should do to ensure this does not happen?

“Some people say“?

These people are dishonest, pure and simple. Home Education has nothing to do with child abuse, forced marriage, gypsies, or any form of child neglect whatsoever. This is another sick fantasy, part of the paranoid ‘Zero Trust Society‘ that these subhuman monsters think is the real world. These imbeciles, these damaged creatures and their sick nightmares can take their toys and go straight to hell.

They can have all the consultations they like (and you can bet there are going to be more) – the fact of the matter is that they do not have the budget or the resources to monitor home schooling in any meaningful way. They can make all the noise they like; they are all running out of money, and as the depression begins to pinch harder, these vermin will find themselves first with their dirty little projects cancelled and then, they will find their jobs axed; it cannot come soon enough I say. Everyone is sick and tired of repeating over and over again the same facts.

The sun is hot.
Ice is cold.
Water is wet.
Home Education is here to stay, has no need for government help and is perfectly normal, natural and highly efficient.

By all means, read the other stuff we have written about Home Education. It will answer everything you need to know, and then some.

The joys of clubbing in England! That was at the M-nus event in London last weekend! Fuck me!!

Rules rules rules………….you will become our subordinates you worthless, druggy, addicted cunts!!

I fucking hope people stop going clubbing in this cuntry. We’re the reason these promoter/club owner bastards are in fucking business! I know its not their fault about the law, but it IS their fault with all these additional rules & charges. £1 for a fucking wristband that allows you to do exactly fuck all as you still have to do a fingerprint like a fucking criminal and a have a time limit imposed on you!

The people need to make a stand by not going anymore to clubs like this one! Only ones that are blatantly taking the piss though which one or two are starting to in my experiences. We should start a list on here of the worst offenders! Manchester’s Warehouse Project the night before wouldn’t let people take their £3.50 beers outside for a fag neither! You had to stand there and drink it first, go for a quick fag and then go in and buy another £3.50 beer! Another nice money making ploy!

By the way I’m not even a massive smoker. I just like the odd one or two through a night. Its the blatant way the clubs are screwing people for more money in these ways thats angered me! They’re starting to use a law as a way to line their pockets even more! And entrance fee’s to some of these nights ain’t exactly cheap to begin with! With all the fucking booking fee’s etc I paid £24 to the Warehouse Project!! Clubs are meant to be an escape from the real world for a few hours yet there are more rules in them these days than at work! Had to be in before 11.30pm even with pre bought tickets. Couldn’t put anything in the cloak room after 1.30am. Event finished at 6am instead of the advertised, “special” 7am license. Whats this shit all about??

Revolution for change!!

1. SE ONE [London]
2. Warehouse Project [Manchester]

[…]

http://www.littledetroit.net/forums/viewtopic.php?t=25855

One day we will all look back on these insane days and think, “How on earth did we let it go so far?”

The sign reads:

I have a feeling that SeOne are going to be quite famous for the wrong reasons in a short while.

What a bunch of total scum!

http://www.radioheadremix.com/remix/?id=709

Captain Davros, longtime BLOGDIAL poster, fine artist, SWL and guitarist has a “new” record out of demos from 98 and 99, ‘The Autumn Tapes by Spunkle’:

The Autumn Tapes Preview from FirstFold Records on Vimeo.

There are only 90 copies for sale, each having a hand-pulled three colour screenprint by Captain D in them as well as a CD.

Captain Davros is responsible for some of the spectacular BLOGDIAL pieces of art that randomly appear at the top of the blog, and I happen to be the proud owner of an actual 3D one made out of solidified and painted paper pulp, with raised lettering and a varnish finish. Utterly beautiiful!

A RUTHLESS rapist found victims by getting a job as a care worker and trawling a council’s database for vulnerable young girls.

Simeon Kellman, 43, used computer records to identify teenagers who had just come out of the foster care system.

Then he forced his way into their homes and attacked them. Kellman has just been jailed for eight years for the vicious rape of an 18-year-old, who was blindfolded and bound.

But police fear he preyed on up to 20 girls. And yesterday they urged other victims to come forward.

Father-of-two Kellman began his vile campaign after landing a care worker job with Greenwich Council in South East London. Cops say he made a “substantial” number of computer searches on profiles of former foster children.

A police source said: “<b>He must have been like a kid in a sweet shop</b>”.

“The lack of security at the council was breathtaking. Kellman was able to log on and cherry-pick kids coming out of the care system.

“He got their new home addresses and went round pretending to be a friend, then attacked them.”

Woolwich Crown Court heard last week how Kellman bundled the 18-year-old into a cupboard after he raped her at her flat.

He told her: “Don’t tell anyone or I’ll come back and you will be in trouble.”

He cunningly changed his clothes between arriving and leaving to make CCTV identification difficult.

The hysterical girl eventually freed herself and alerted her ex-foster mum.

Any other victims or anyone with information should call the police’s Sapphire unit on 020 8284 9818.

The Sun

And so, does anyone think that ContactPoint will be any different from this ‘Council’s Database’?

Is there anyone left in the UK who is THAT STUPID (who is not in Neu Labour).

On the afternoon of 27th March I received a telephone call, at work, from a ‘journalist’ working for the London Evening Standard. He introduced himself as Joshua Neicho, apparently partly responsible for the Letters section of that newspaper. Joshua told me he had found my details from Teh Internets after reading our postings on Blogdial concerning Heathrow T5 and the implications of design on security issues.

Now, tracking me down via Blogdial isn’t so hard to do. I’m sure Joshua would have preferred to contact Irdial, the first author of those posts, but Irdial isn’t silly enough to leave a simple trail to their private telephone number pasted all over the web.

Anyway, Joshua asked me to provide 200 words on T5, security and architecture within about 4 hours. Since this is a nice Blogdialian topic, I agreed. Fitting this writing into the last few hours of my already crowded work day was a shit, but here’s what I came up with. Not thrilling by Blogdial standards, just a concise resume of the position:

Much attention has been focussed on the architecture and security measures of Heathrow T5, but unfortunately not at the same time. Design and security at T5 are not only intimately linked, but invasive security measures (fingerprinting and photographing every passenger) are necessary precisely because of the architectural design.

BAA and the architects must have agreed on a non-segregated floorplan where passengers for domestic and international flights mix. Obviously, BAA (and HMG, who work closely with BAA on airport security) must have understood the security issues arising from this design. One may conclude that the design was intended to generate exactly this situation – a wonderful opportunity for testing biometric scanning procedures and public compliance on millions of people per year. Not only this, but that BAA, the architects and the government were complicit in the entire process!

Unbelievable? The alternative is that the architects design is flawed, but this went unnoticed by the architects, BAA and HMG until one day during the build itself! ‘Hang on! If we mix up internal and external… oh no! Now we’ll have to fingerprint everyone!’ Can one imagine Lord Rogers making such a big mistake in designing T5? I can’t.

I duly mailed this to Joshua Neicho (Old Etonian; Oxford University) asking to be kept informed of any use, and haven’t heard a peep from him since – something other bloggers have also reported. And blogged. I’m not sure what they teach students at Eton and Oxford, but I’m surprised simple manners isn’t included in the curriculum.

However, this post is to show ‘Why Print Journalism Is A Rotting Corpse’.

On 28th March, when T5 was in chaos on its opening day, here (and linked here) are the two letters chosen for the T5 design/security issue:

One, an analysis of design. The other, a tirade against invasive security. What is wrong with this picture? Forgoing my usual modesty (ahem!), may I just remind you of the first sentence of our unused letter.

Much attention has been focussed on the architecture and security measures of Heathrow T5, but unfortunately not at the same time.

The published viewpoints, editorially chosen by people like Joshua Neicho, are like having your face pressed up to a cinema screen by a long-dead shuffling zombie, swathed in the stench of nepotism, laziness, corruption and self-interest. Not to mention a lack of manners! And for putting up with that disgusting experience all you get to see is the tiny bit of the picture thats right in front of your face, distorted and given a disproportionate importance.

But you’re reading Blogdial.

Best seat in the house!

Scarfacial Profiling

Courtesy of Web Of Evil