I’ve been thrust into the Blarchive several times recently, for various reasons. You should visit. It’s a blast! I just saw my own wedding photo, which was a bit unexpected.
I remember joining Blogdial, receiving my paper hat along with the instructions: Post Hard. Post Often.

Here is my call, to any lurking Blogdialians, to read a random page from the Blarchive and please post something, anything that comes to mind after your visit. Mary13, Claus, CaptainD, a hymn in g to nann, barrie, alison and all the others out there…

Anyway, I have knots in some muscles the size of golf balls. On asking a wise owl for her best remedy, she suggested the following:

1. Find someone who likes having their hands all oiled up and likes touching you.

2. Find a selection of very smooth river stones, slightly flattened is best and not too large to cup in the oily person’s hand.

3. Boiling water

4. Thirty minutes

poor boiling water in a bowl and slide the stones in. Let sit for three minutes then poor the water off and cover stones with a hot towel. Take off your shirt, pick up the bowl of hot stones and approach your potential masseuse with a beseeching expression and little puppy noises.

The masseuse oils up their hands, oils of your back and shoulders, takes a stone in each hand skates those babies repeatedly over all the sore spots. When  the stones go cold, grab two more hot ones.

This is without a doubt the best and most wonderful massage technique I have ever used.

Even if you don’t have knots, I recommend this whole heartedly.

This is water-kefir fermenting at home.

About Kefir

Waterkefir is considered to be even better than milkkefir and the effect is similar. Waterkefir tastes very good and one becomes accustomed to looking forward to it every day.

The natives of the Kaukassus Mountains know the effect of Kefir. As children they drink it like water, and on average these people live to an age of 110 years. This is one of the few places in the world where most people reach an advanced old age in perfect health.

According to Dr. Menkiw, who has researched Kefir all his life, tuberculossis, cancer, stimach ailments etc. are unknown there. Dr. Drasek from Germany had already observed the good effects of Kefir before the Second World War. Persons who drink Kefir report it has helped them to recover after severe illnesses. Other people explain how drinking Kefir has helped them to overcome stomach cramps,chronic intestinal inflammations, gall bladder ailments, inflammations of the liver and bladder ailments. Mothers have given Kefir to their children as a substitute for mother’s milk. Women claim that Kefir has served them well in the treatment of eczema during pregnancy and in various chronic abdominal ailments.

Other possible applications of Kefir include nerve ailments, jaundice, diarrhea, constipation, aneamia, rashes, decomposition of blood

And it tastes good!

—

So where do you get it from and how do you make it you may ask.
We were given a small bottle of kefir powder from some French friends, but are looking around for kefir granules (this looks promising)

Our recipe is adapted from one on the web.
1 litre mineral or filtered water
2 slices unwaxed lemon
40g sultanas
6-8 dessert spoons of unrefined sugar
powdered kefir

mix ingredients in sterilised jar, leave for three days letting off the ferment gas occasionally.
Remove the lemon and sultanas with non-metal spoon, carefully pour off 5/8 of the liquid into a storage jar for serving.
Top up with correct proportions of water and sugar and on alternate occasions either replace or renew lemon/sultanas.
We also return the dregs of the serving bottle into the kefir as the powder is too fine to be filtered. If you can get granules you can filter them out at stage two for re-use with a non-metal filter.
Repeat.

by Steven LaTulippe

“If we have to use force, it is because we are America! We are the indispensable nation. We stand tall, and we see further into the future.”

~ Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright

Can Ron Paul really win? Does he have a snowball’s chance of becoming the next president, or are we all kidding ourselves?

At the moment, Rep. Paul’s quixotic campaign seems to be picking up steam. His recent fundraising statistics reveal a blossoming, internet-based movement that is uniting libertarians and other concerned citizens from across the political spectrum. His performance in the media has been sharp, and his organization seems to be honing its message.

While there are plenty of reasons for optimism, I think we need to be clear-eyed about the road ahead. If Rep. Paul somehow manages to remain a viable candidate and to seriously challenge his mainstream opponents, things will get extremely interesting. He faces a set of obstacles unlike any other candidate in my lifetime.

When evaluating his chances, it’s important to accept one fact about contemporary America: This is not a democracy, and certainly not a constitutional republic. America is actually a carefully concealed oligarchy. A few thousand people, mostly in government, finance, and the military-industrial complex, run this country for their own purposes. By manipulating the two-party system, influencing the mainstream media, and controlling the flow of campaign finance money, this oligarchy works to secure the nomination of its preferred candidates (Democratic and Republican alike), thus giving voters a “choice” between Puppet A and Marionette B.

Unlike the establishment’s candidates, Ron Paul is a freelancer running on three specific ideas:

• The federal government must function within the strict guidelines of the Constitution.
• America should deconstruct its empire, withdraw our troops from around the world and reestablish a foreign policy based on noninterventionism.
• America should abolish the Federal Reserve Bank, eliminate fiat currency and return to hard money.

This is not a political agenda. This is not a party platform. It is a revolution. The entire ruling oligarchy would be swept away if these ideas were ever implemented. Every sentence, every word, every jot and tittle of this agenda is unacceptable, repellent and hateful to America’s ruling elite.

The reasons for this are fairly obvious.

Through its control of the Federal Reserve, the banking elites make billions of dollars in unearned profits and exert enormous influence over the American economy. Countless industries and special interest groups (both foreign and domestic) have sprung up around our defense and national security budgets. The bureaucratic elites who dominate the federal government despise the Constitution’s limitations on their power and view the document as just an archaic “piece of paper.”

Anyone who believes these folks will simply “walk away” if Ron Paul is elected president obviously doesn’t understand with whom they are dealing.

When its authority over the Southern states was challenged in the 19th Century, the oligarchy suspended the Constitution and launched a bloody war that killed three quarters of a million people. They arrested newspaper editors, deported antiwar congressmen, and burned down several American cities.

A century later, the oligarchy nuked two Japanese cities, killing thousands of civilians in the twinkle of an eye.

When its marginal interests were threatened in Southeast Asia, the oligarchy launched a devastating war that killed over a million people and left the region marinating in toxic defoliating chemicals.

To further its interests in the Middle East, the oligarchy slapped horrific sanctions on Iraq that killed 250,000 children (and then trotted out Madeleine Albright – one of Clinton’s blood-stained trolls – to smugly declare that the deaths were “worth it”).

Keeping these facts in mind, we must ask ourselves a simple question: If the oligarchy was willing to behave this way to protect its often marginal interests, what would it do to stop a devastating assault on its very existence?

The attack on Ron Paul’s candidacy will begin in earnest when it appears he has an even remote possibility of winning. It will follow a fairly predictable path:

The first step is already in play. The establishment will start by simply ignoring him, by using its power in the mainstream media and their influence over campaign donors. If possible, they will find ways of excluding him from the debates.

This strategy is already failing. The internet and talk radio are outside the elite’s direct control and are being used effectively by Rep. Paul to “get the message out.” (And mark my words, sooner or later the oligarchy will come for the internet. This medium has been a royal pain in their derriere from day one).

If this strategy fizzles, the establishment will move on to ridicule and fear mongering. Ron’s ideas will be grotesquely distorted in establishment media “hit pieces.” They’ll say he wants to permit heroin use in public schools, or that he wants old people to die in the streets without their social security checks, or that he wants to allow greedy industrialists to dump toxic waste into our drinking water.

The next arrow in the oligarchy’s quiver will be scandal – real or fabricated. Usually, this takes the form of pictures, billing records, etc. involving financial or sexual hi-jinks. For folks with the right motivation and abilities, it would be child’s play to implicate him in some sort of phony ethical, moral, or financial skullduggery (e.g., doctored pictures, sordid media accounts from “eyewitnesses,” etc.).

If Ron somehow survives this assault, the oligarchy will move on to the criminal justice system. On some fine day, a stretch limo will pull up to the Capitol Building and one of the establishment’s consiglieres (Jim Baker…or maybe Vernon Jordan) will ooze into Ron’s office for a “chat.”

Maybe Rep. Paul forgot to fill out Form X109/23W on his 1997 income tax return?

Or maybe he drained a mud puddle when he built his new house…and maybe that puddle could theoretically be classified as a “wetland?”

Or, even better, maybe a close relative is in hot water with OSHA/FDA/IRS/you-name-it (federal prosecutors love to go after relatives in order to gain “leverage”).

Rep. Paul’s sentence could be lessened, of course…provided he agreed to drop his candidacy as part of a “plea bargain.”

Ayn Rand once stated that the hallmark of authoritarian systems is the creation of innumerable, indecipherable laws. Such systems make everyone an un-indicted felon and allow for the exercise of arbitrary government power via selective prosecution.

If this tactic somehow failed and it appeared that Rep. Paul was still a credible threat to win the presidency, then things could get dicey.

The establishment may decide to let him take office and then use their considerable influence to ensure his presidency ended in failure – mostly through their control of Congress, the federal bureaucracy, and the mainstream media.

The problem with this strategy (from the oligarchy’s perspective) is that it entails considerable risk. As president, Rep. Paul could use the substantial powers of the office to inflict untold damage to the imperial structure (especially if he chose to withdraw American troops stationed overseas). Worse, he could appoint anti-government “ideologues” to a variety of positions in the federal government.

The damage could take decades to undo.

If these options fail, the oligarchy could resort to various “extra-legal” strategies – anything from vote-rigging to trumped-up impeachment charges.

Either way, one thing is certain: The American establishment controls a world-wide empire, has the power to print the world’s reserve currency at will, and can enact virtually any law without constitutional constraint. Such power is rarely surrendered without a long, bitter struggle.

[…]

http://www.lewrockwell.com/latulippe/latulippe80.html

And yet, the very fact that Ron Paul has a real chance of overthrowing the empire demonstrates what I have been saying for years; if any country can pull itself out of the sewer and return to its proper state it is the United States of America.

No other country has the political mechanism to do it, no other country has a population with the will to do it, and no other country has the ‘staff’ to pull it off. That is why, despite all of the manifest evil that The Great Satan has done I still believe (as do many people) that it is possible for a revolution to happen in the usa that will completely turn that country around and make it, once again, the greatest country on earth.

In the wake of such a turnaround, Britain will surely follow, and all of our troubles here will be over.

By Michael Hampton

As you are probably aware, the greatest threat to your privacy and well-being stems from the government, whether directly or indirectly. Even the “freest” or “most democratic” governments have committed their share of atrocities, and even if you think you’re safe today, if the political winds blow in a different direction tomorrow, you could be the next victim.

Today, governments use databases to track virtually everything, including their own people. So an important part of protecting yourself is to minimize the amount of information governments have about you.

Unlike businesses, which use databases to reduce the costs of the products and services they provide on a voluntary basis, governments of all stripes use databases of people in order to track, monitor, forcibly control and even kill them more efficiently. Indeed, for a government, this is the only purpose for a database of people.

The most important thing to remember is that being innocent will not protect you. It didn’t protect Japanese-Americans in the 1940s, it didn’t protect people falsely accused of being Communists in the 1950s, and it doesn’t protect innocent people who have had their property wrongly seized or been killed in botched drug raids today.

Staying out of government databases, to the maximum extent possible, is the best way to protect yourself from whatever dark fate your government has in store for you tomorrow. These tips will help those of you who want to protect your privacy to do so without unnecessarily sacrificing your quality of life.

Government gets most of its information about you from you, so limiting the amount of information you give the government is the easiest way to protect yourself.

If you can avoid it, do not obtain a driver license or state ID card. The driver license, despite its dubious legality and its utter irrelevance to the physical act of driving a vehicle, has become so pervasive that virtually everyone now has one. Whether by accident or design, it stands as the de facto ID through which you’re tracked, even without the REAL ID Act, by local, state and federal government alike. If you must obtain one, then you can ensure that the information on it is out of date the moment it’s issued, by obtaining the license and then immediately — the same day — moving to a new address. You can also provide an address you haven’t lived at for years, if ever. The same applies to vehicle registrations. Keep in mind that governments don’t like it when the information you’ve given them is inaccurate or outdated, and usually have laws against it; however, such laws are virtually unenforceable.

Obtain a “fake” ID and use it wherever possible, but never with the government. Many places which ask for a government-issued ID these days have no legitimate reason to ask, or their reason for asking could be satisfied through other means. For instance, hotels ask for ID not because they need to know who you are, but because they want to know that you can pay for your room and any damages you may cause. This need could be met through the use of a credit card or through other means, but the prevalence of government ID cards has caused people to rely on them when other solutions would work as well or better. Jim Harper from the Cato Institute addresses this issue in his book, Identity Crisis. Never use your real name or ID unless the government has actually required it, and be aware that many places will tell you the government requires it, when it does not, such as for air travel. In the U.S., under common law, you may use any name you like, as long as you aren’t trying to defraud.

Do not give out your Social Security number, if you have one, to anyone except the government. Do not give it to your bank, nor your credit card issuer, nor anyone else, who isn’t actually required by the government to collect it. (Your bank does not need a Social Security or tax ID number unless you have an interest-bearing account.) If you’ve already given it to your bank, for instance, change banks.

On that note, do not keep large amounts of money in banks. All fiat currencies depreciate much faster than any rate of interest you’ll ever be offered; even interest-bearing offerings will lose money over the long term, adjusted for inflation. True money of intrinsic value, such as gold, silver and platinum, is much more stable, holding its value over the long term, and should be a significant part of any respectable investment portfolio, if not under your pillow.

Do not participate in the census. Sure, your local bureaucrats will try to guilt trip you into filling it out, because they get more of your money if you do. But census data is among the most detailed information the government collects, it’s been abused before, and government has no legitimate purpose for collecting most of what they ask for these days. The most they need to know is the number of people in your house, not even who they are, and even that is probably too much to tell them.

Be aware of what data government collects and how it uses that data. Remember that the use that seems benign today may turn malevolent next year, and by then it’s too late. Evaluate a government data collection program not just on its merits but its potential for misuse in the future. Ask yourself, What could Hitler do with this database? That will tell you what its true potential is. Keep in mind nobody saw Hitler’s evil coming; he looked like a perfectly normal politician to almost everyone, putting Germany on the path to economic recovery, right up until he started exterminating people.

Always remember that government is evil. Thomas Paine said, “Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.” (And a growing number of people believe that government is an unnecessary evil which should be dispensed with as soon as possible so that we can finally have a civilized society.) As we all know by now, the Constitution is no guarantee that our government will remain in “its best state;” indeed, the government violates it with impunity by having its own court redefine what “is” — or the inconvenient word of the day — is. It’s only a matter of time before government violates your rights, if it hasn’t already, and it probably has.

This is why we were admonished by the country’s founders to distrust government. And that is the best advice of all.

Homeland Stupidity

A lurker writes via email:

>for your post tipping points!

Whether due to stringent security measures long lines or general distaste for our elected officials, British tourists are staying away from American soil just as that moment they should be most ready to pounce on it.

The number of Britons travelling to the US has fallen a quarter since 2000 just as the pound is proclaiming its dominance of the dollar. In fact, with current exchange rates (£1 to $2.06), America is a virtual half-price sale. “Everything must go!” reads the sign under the Statue of Liberty.

A recent article notes that Orlando, Florida, home of Disney World, is really feeling the tourist squeeze. But I don’t blame Britons from staying away from that somewhat creepy and entirely plasticine city. Even if the exchange rate were one to 20, it would never be worth the money.

[…]

Guardian

And look at the superb comments for further insights:

Or, go to somewhere in Europe. A lunch in a bistro/brasserie in France could be a goats cheese salad, followed by blanquette de Veau(veal in sauce) or mussels and frites or braised ham in cider sauce, followed by cheese and then a pudding. About 10-12 euros, often including 25cl of wine. Including tax and service, bread and water on the table. Cheaper than your US heart attack on a plate, apart from being imaginative, delicious, fresh, wholesome and balanced.

Plus you are unlikely to be surrounded by squeaky voiced American women (why are their voices always so high pitched), and no heavy security and visa issues to get there.
Posted by ManchePaul on July 24, 2007 5:30 PM.

…

If you put any money into the US economy, their government will just waste a fair proportion of it on bombs and bullets, in the name of US imperialism.

So, as soon as the neo-cons are gone, I will buy some US products. But until then, they can go to hell.

Sometimes, you just have to be cruel, to be kind!
Posted by ThomasCopyrightMMVII on July 24, 2007 5:52 PM.

…

agree that the USA can be beautiful in places, but why do i always get the feeling they’d rather i didn’t come?
who needs the grim-faced interrogation, finger and eyeball scan at immigration after a long flight? and leaving is no better – i’m sick at being barked at at maximum volume when going through security to my flight gate like i’m some kind of idiot.

Posted by gonetofrance on July 24, 2007 6:34 PM.

…

American is a beautiful country with some lovely people. However, visitors are made to feel very much less than welcome at immigration. Treated like common criminals: fingerprinted, photographed and regarded as lesser mortals by uncommonly unpleasant immigration officials. Little wonder that some people choose not to undergo this humiliating treatment too often. Why is it that most other countries can make you feel so welcome on entry but not our closest ally?
Posted by greysky on July 24, 2007 7:03 PM.

…

I would go to America for a holiday or a visit but I find the security paranoia of the current American government a big put off. I do not want the hassle of such a security system, every day something new as regards security – America used to stand for freedom and friendliness but not anymore. Maybe the next President can take the militarism out of the culture. In the meantime, I will spend my money in a friendlier climate – in the mean time good luck.
Posted by Quiller on July 24, 2007 7:40 PM.

…

After I got my UK pilots licence the USA especially Orlando was very high on my list of places to go. Until I started to hear the stories comming back of other people who “used” to go to the USA for flying holidays. A few enquiries and a look at the long line of visa applicants waiting for permission to do what ever in the USA (visa waiver does not apply if you want to fly or study in USA) turned me off. Then the rest of the stories of hard nasty bully boys in immigration told by friends I know and trust. Add to this the stories of what the immigration department does to people who wish to hire aircraft and an experiance with US immigration on a transit through to New Zealand (where I could hire a aeroplane) and the exchange rate can go to 2 million to 1 and you won’t find me any where near the place.
Posted by nussle on July 24, 2007 7:41 PM.

…

Who wants to go to a country where your personal data is taken at the border and may be misused or mistakenly used in the most catastrophic way? There are lots other places in the world to visit and many that are much more interesting and cultural.
Posted by DanJ0 on July 24, 2007 8:25 PM.

…

I agree with all comments made regarding airport security and being treated like a common criminal. I used to travel to New York frequently but, after the last time, I refuse.

What I would like to see is Americans being finger printed, scanned and barked at UK airports. For too long the USA has been able to make arbitraty decisions, mistreat people of other races and nationality. Perhaps if we were to mirror their policies to their nationals, ordinary Americans would get an idea of how utterly disliked they and their country has become.
Posted by Taus on July 25, 2007 9:36 AM.

…

The only way you’d get me there would be by extraordinary rendition.
Posted by tarquinbullocks on July 24, 2007 8:39 PM.

The sweet smelling steam from the pouring of righteous nectar-bile on the raging fire of US fascism. Did I just type that? Hmmmmmmm…anyway…

Can you say, ‘Tipping Point’?
Can you say, ‘Post Tipping Point’?
Use the google to see what BLOGDIAL said about this in 2003-ish.

It took the Soviet Union 70 years to collapse; hopefully the Neocon Putsch will soon come to an end, and that once great country come back to its senses.

In the mean time, no decent person goes to america. No person with any sense of dignity or self worth puts themselves through the humiliating, degrading and utterly pointless USVISIT.

The momentum of refusniks unwilling to sacrifice themselves to the beasts who run that country is growing, and as people come back from holidays in civilized countries, where the welcome is warm and proper, with stories of good and hassle free times, the pressure on the us to ‘KNOACK ITOAWF’ will be irresistible – they need and lust after the tourist money more than anything.

After home taping in all it’s guises, the P2P explosion, the poor music industry has to deal with this – Prince has ‘given away’ his latest album, apparently pocketing at least £250,000 from the deal with the Mail on Sunday. And what do we hear of this groundbreaking deal, where an artist has retained control of his ‘product’ and redefined how the public get to access it? Well, mostly the bleatings of commercial rip-off middlemen like HMV, who’s industry representatives whine…

The Entertainment Retailers Association, described plans to “dump” 3m Prince CDs onto breakfast tables on Sunday as wasteful given his albums do not sell in anywhere near those volumes.

The group has slammed Prince’s giveaway as devaluing music and taking record stores for granted.

Referring to MoS plans to distribute almost 3m copies on Sunday, the group said: “This is nearly twice the number of CDs sold by Prince in the UK over the past 13 years.”

Or they make veiled threats like…

“The Artist Formerly Known as Prince should know that with behavior like this he will soon be the Artist Formerly Available in Record Stores,” said Quirk in reference to the 1990s when the star stopped using his name.

“It’s an insult to all those record stores who have supported Prince throughout his career,” he said.

An insult to record stores!? The same record stores who make far more per CD than the artist does? I can see why that would be insulting. Prince has decided that, instead of making £80,000 (on less than 80,000 sales of last album 3121) and handing far more to record stores and marketing men, he’ll take £250-500,000 from a newspaper and save his fans a lot of money. All while distributing 2.5 million copies! How insulting!

And the coverage he’s got for this album is astonishing. Reviews everywhere. Meeja luvvies falling over themselves to express an opinion. The Grauniad slighted by the fact that Prince chose a rag capable of selling 2.5m copies rather than go for ‘cool’ by shipping a fifth of that with the Observer.

And then there’s complete tripe like this, from the Scotsman. Headlined ‘a new threat to music’, there’s no need to dissect further. And all the comments on the piece see right through it. Fergus Sheppard, Media Correspondent, you are owned by the industry on which you comment, and irrelevant to the public to whom you correspond.

Prince, good on you.

Two illegal aliens, Ralphel Resindez 23 and Enrico Garza 26, probably believed they would easily overpower a home alone 11 year old Patricia Harrington after her father had left their two story home.

It seems the two crooks never learned two things, they were in Montana and Patricia had been a clay shooting champion since she was nine. Patricia was in her upstairs room when the two men broke through the front door of the house. She quickly ran to her father’s room and grabbed his 12 gauge Mossberg 500 shotgun.

Resindez was the first to get up to the second floor only to be the first to catch a near point blank blast of buck shot from the 11 year olds knee crouch aim. He suffered fatal wounds to his abdomen and genitals. When Garza ran to the foot of the stairs, he took a blast to the left shoulder and staggered out into the street where he bled to death before medical help could arrive.

It was found out later that Resindez was armed with a stolen 45 caliber handgun he took from another home invasion robbery. The victim, 50 year old David Burien, was not so lucky as he died from stab wounds to the chest.

[…]

LibertyPost

Amazing!

8 results for: sedition

se·di·tion      /s??d???n/ Pronunciation Key – Show Spelled Pronunciation[si-dish–uhn] Pronunciation Key – Show IPA Pronunciation –noun < ="luna-Ent"> =”dn” 1. incitement of discontent or rebellion against a government.

2. any action, esp. in speech or writing, promoting such discontent or rebellion.

3. Archaic. rebellious disorder.

[Origin: 1325–75; < L séditi?n– (s. of séditi?), equiv. to séd- se- + -iti?n- a going (it(us), ptp. of ?re to go + -i?n- -ion); r. ME sedicioun < AF < L, as above] —Synonyms 1. insurrection, mutiny. See treason.

Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1)
Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2006.

Dictionary.com

Fora TV has a great clip of Milton Friedman speaking on the problems facing american schools. I found it on the Principled Discovery blog. He is a very funny man!

Principled Discovery rebuts the remarks in the clip adequately; its great however to hear a talk like this, by a seasoned speaker with vivid illustrations littered throughout the talk.

FireGPG is a Firefox extension under GPL which brings an interface to encrypt, decrypt, sign or verify the signature of a text in any web page using GnuPG.

[…]

http://firegpg.tuxfamily.org/index.php?page=home&lang=en

Its about time.

If you use this with Gmail, no matter what happens, no one can read your email on the server. Not that Google will do that of course.

Quite why Google didnt do this themselves is a good question. They have the expertise, and the understanding to do it. Certainly the Bad Guys® would discourage them from releasing a tool like this to all Gmail users; it would mean email messages going dark to ECHELON, and then the sky falling.

Irdial’s foolproof secure passport system has been mentioned on numerous occasions, although only in relation to border control. Last night an application came to mind which would be an easy way of demonstrating the principles of the system in a real world, small-scale situation.

The application involves the issuing of a secure card that authorises the user to access a service. The card can then be checked by a different individual to access the service. This is analogous to IPS issuing a secure passport and passing through border control.

The application is a secure and anonymous mailbox/deposit box company.

Issuing

The client registers in one office and has a digital photgraph taken, they also have the option to include a passphrase and PIN. Becaus ethis is a commercial application the company assigns client ID and box number and key. All this information is encrypted and put on the card.
No information needs to be printed onto the plastic card so its function remains unknown to a third party (although for a passport various bits of information could be displayed), the information on the chip cann only be decrypted by the issuer who only needs to database the client ID and box number (for billing purposes).

The client is unknown to the company except for the client ID, a third party can use the card to pay bills (a remote card reader and secure website could be used to send bill payment and the the encrypted ID to the mailbox company) but not access the mailbox (as the photograph they cannot access would not fit), furthermore the client can pay in cash and thus remain anonymous whilst continuing to access the service.

Validation

The mailbox room has a security guard to control access, the client presents their card to the guard who can then use a terminal to display the photograph and any additional measures the client wanted to be included. The client ID can be read and sent to the accounts database so access can be denied if they have not payed their bills.

If the validation is successful the client can use the encrypted key on their card to access the mailbox and retreive their mail.

Er.. that’s it.

This would be a good demonstration because:
It is directly analogous to how passports should be issued and validated.
It allows cash payment and so can provide a client base whose identity could not be otherwise compromised.
It is scalable.
It is open to competition without compromising security (analogous to different countries being able to use the system).
It provides a useful service in itself.

There have been some great demos in the post recently. A DVD:

and a cassette:

are two examples.

Both of these were intriguing in content and presentation. Neither had begging letters in them with attached ‘band’ photos, shitty lyrics, sob stories, threats or other nonsense that we throw straight into the bin. The DVD came by itself in the Jiffy® bag you see, in a plain black case. The cassette came in a hand cut cardboard box. The case had a hand folded liner on fine paper and the only writing in the whole package was the stamp that you see on the body of one side of the housing.

This is more like what we want!

It appears that Home Schooling in New Jersey is almost correct in its approach:

The laws regarding in homeschooling in the state of New Jersey are far more lenient than other states. The main requirement is that you provide an equivalent academic education as the local public school system.

This is a problem because in the future, some busy body could use this part of the legislation as a lever to bring in evaluation.

It is not required to notify the school board. However, it is recommended to avoid dealing with truant officers and the issue of truancy. Save yourself headache; write a letter.

Truancy, as I have said before, is the condition of a child being absent from school without permission. By permission, we mean the permission of the parent OR the school. If a child is away from school with the permission of the parent, then the child is not a truant and you are under no obligation to prove that that you are not a truant especially if you are walking with your children in the street.

Truancy officers should be provided with a list of truanting children each day. This should be made from a list of children who are reported as missing from school, where the parent has also been informed by telephone and reporting that Johnny is out of school without permission. Then you have a list of bona fide truants that can be searched for. This is not rocket science.

If someone is not registered at a school, then they cannot be put on the list of truants. Problem solved. If a truancy officer or police officer encounters someone that they think is a truant, all they have to do is call the parent. In any case, the list of truants should come with descriptions so that the police do not bother people who are not truanting but are instead minding their own business.

What is completely unacceptable are the bogus fishing expeditions and checkpoint charlie tactics being used to catch truants, as we have seen with the recent Liverpool Street Station case.

The state has no right to evaluate your curriculum; if asked, the public school is required by law to provide you with a copy of their curriculum. Be prepared to pay for copying costs.

The state has no right to administer any tests to any homeschooled students.

Good, and good. This part of no right to evaluate could be seen as contradicting the first part of equivalent education, but it seems to be working.

And of course, the big thing in New Jersey, dates back over a year in the case of DYFS (Division of Youth & Family Services) where kids under the DYFS supervision where homeschooled and starved. Unfortunately, homeschooling is being blamed, not the failure of DYFS to keep check on those under the office’s care.

If DYFS shows up on your doorstep demanding to come in and inspect, you have the right under the fourth amendment to refuse. DYFS needs to show probably cause; an anonymous tip does not count.

This is how they do it, get a cause célèbre to get everyone whipped up and then change the law. Thankfully, at least for the residents of the USA there is a written constitution protecting parents in their own homes.

This is exactly what the brain dead journalists and busybodies in the DfES are trying to do with the Gloucester case

To help fight any allegations, there is the Home School Legal Defense Association. The HSLDA was formed by two lawyers to defend the rights of homeschoolers.

To be done.

Also, to facilitate ease of teaching, many curriculums are available on the market. Abeka is one such company, along with Alpha Omega Publications. Options include workbook programs, CDRom programs, online courses, and more. The students progress at their own pace.

It is recommended that you track your children’s hours.

We now have a great tool to do this with.

You will probably find, with most children, that not as many hours are required. For one thing, you don’t need to change classes, no locker time, no bussing time, no time for attendance, morning announcements, group potty breaks, etc. And the class doesn’t stop for the slowest student. You have limited students and can proceed at the pace they need, concentrating on aspects that are difficult for them and picking up the pace for those that acquire easily. Not to mention, you don’t need to spend time concentrating on teaching what will be on the state assessment tests or reviewing after a long break or the summer.

[…]

Associated Content

More reasons why Home schooling is best.

This is what we should have in the UK; freedom to educate without interference. In return, the parents of this island will supply the UK with best citizens imaginable.

The Australian State of Queensland seems to have laws about homeschooling that are similar to Germany’s. The approach to enforcement is however very different

An attempt by the State Government to overhaul home-schooling registration requirements appears to have failed. A new system was introduced in January to make it easier for parents teaching their children at home to legally report to the state without fear of being forced to send them to school. But Eleanor Sparks of Education Choices Magazine for home-schoolers said thousands of parents were reluctant to register with the Government “There is still a lot of distrust there. A lot of parents don’t want to sign up and then have the department try to change the way they choose to educate their children,” she said.

At last, someone somewhere acting like they have some brains!

An Education Queensland report estimates up to 10,500 children are being home-schooled, but just 260 of them are officially registered with the State Government.

Excellent!

Education Minister Rod Welford does not accept the figure though it comes from his own department’s Home Schooling Review.

Isn’t it interesting that these bureaucrats have the same attitude all over the world? They do not know the first thing not only about their jobs or their proper position as servants of the public, but they don’t even have a grasp on their own research. Can we really trust these people with all the details of our children? These people who are pathologically defensive, idiotically single minded and just plain stupid?

I think not.

We all know the huge support Home Schooling has, and its inexorable momentum. People like Rod Welford are on the wrong side of history, and are against families, against education and are for…heavens knows what.

He said he believed parents who have registered under the department’s distance education scheme (4800 students) and the 260 students under the new system represented the “overwhelming majority”. “There may be one or two hundred who we still haven’t captured because we don’t know precisely the number of children who are not in school,” he said.

And a liar to boot. What I detest most of all is the lack of humility, the posture that is the polar opposite of what it should be; that of a servant.

He said he believed the “home-school industry” had an interest in exaggerating its numbers. “I want to spread the message that it is against the law not to be registered, and secondly that it is in their interests to do that,” he said. “It is not a question of bludgeoning parents into some sort of Big Brother control system. “By registering those students we can give them support such as advice on teaching text and give them some assistance through nearby schools if they want to access that.”

It is abundantly clear that this is precisely about bludgeoning and Big Brother control systems. We already know that home schooled children outperform state schooled children in every metric; the home schoolers of Australia don’t need your support you simpleton, and if and when they do want something from you, they will pull the bell and you should come running in your butlers uniform.

And by the way, just WHAT ON EARTH is ‘teaching text’?!?!? Do you, Australian parents, REALLY want this mans advice on teaching anything?

Parents who reject the school system say they do so for many reasons. There are financial benefits to home schooling as parents do not have to worry about fees. uniforms, text books or trips. But parents say the decision to home-school also means financial sacrifices, as at least one parent must spend all their time with their children.

Home schooling costs parents more than sending them to state schools, firstly because the person who does the teaching cannot go to work full time. I’ll leave it to you to imagine just how expensive home schooling is!

Amanda from Ipswich told The Sunday Mail she opted out of schools because she feared exposing her children to peer groups there. “I know that a lot of people out there think that people like us are weirdos who want to live outside society but we’re not. We just don’t believe that schools are the best place to put your children.” Amanda, who asked that her full name not be revealed, has not registered any of her children with Education Queensland and has never followed a structured learning system.

Amanda is doing the right thing. So are the people who send their children to the school that she rejects. This is not about who is a better parent, this is about your right to educate your child in the way that you see fit, without interference from anyone. I support anyone who sends their child to school, and I also support people who Home Educate. This is where the education ministers both in the UK and Australia have it totally wrong; they are against families, against high quality education, and are for Orwellian control, forced curricula and the dismantling of society.

Her eldest child, Gabby, 15, did not start reading until she was nine but is studying for a bachelor of arts at the Open University (an online higher education service that does not require any entry grades). “I enjoyed it. It was a fun way to learn and now that I am at university I don’t find the work too hard. I am able to handle it,” Gabby said. […]

Yet another example of how Home Schoolers perform brilliantly.

Parents must send their children to school unless they receive special dispensation from Education Queensland. But Ms Sparks says governments have turned a blind eye to thousands of parents who choose to school their children ast home.

I think that in the UK, all the Home Educating families will simply ignore any new legislation that is introduced, should the government be foolish enough to try and do that. If the Australians can do it, so can the British. Just as the hunters are now ignoring bad law, so will the Home Educators should it come to that. Obviously it would be better if it didn’t.

The trend is toward home schooling not away from it. It is totally beneficial to all parties. Being against it is irrational, immoral, inappropriate and irresponsible.

The article above by Edmund Burke appeared in the Brisbane “Sunday Mail” on March 25, 2007

Snarfed from this blog.

Here we have top sleeping policeman at BBQ trying to slow the momentum of the anti road pricing rage. He uses a straw man argument to try and pull it off. Lets see…

Here’s an old economist conundrum about queues.

Here we go.

Suppose there is a water fountain in a park. It’s a hot day and lots of people want to drink from the fountain. Being awfully British and civilised, they form an orderly queue at the fountain.

Now, if the number of thirsty people strolling past the fountain is large enough, the rate at which people join the queue will exceed the rate at which people satisfy their thirst and leave the queue. So the queue will get longer and longer.

So what. The point is that everyone has an expatiation of when they are going to be served. They choose to queue up for the water. It is fair. It is efficient. There is no problem here. Anyone can leave the queue at any time to seek another source of water…or even a coke.

But at some point, thirsty people will reason to themselves that the displeasure of waiting in the queue is not worth the pleasure of the drink at the end. They’ll avoid the wait, and the queue will grow no longer.

The market solves its own problems. Order emerges from chaotic systems automagically. There is no need for interference, tweaking and other salary addict tactics. People work out problems for themselvs, and their interactions constitute a dynamic system that is self balancing and self ordering.

So far so good. That’s how life works in many ways.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But this simple account has a devastating implication.

Are you a thespian or an economist?

If there are people who are not joining the queue because it’s not worth it, then the people who do join the queue are probably barely getting any positive benefit out of their drinking fountain experience at all.

This is bullshit. There is no such thing as ‘drinking fountain experience’. These people are thirsty. When they get to the end of the queue their thirst will be quenched. That is all there is to it. Your input, meddling and nanny stating is not needed to make this magic happen.

They enjoy the drink, but for them, it is only just worth the wait. It’s a close run thing between bothering to drink or not.

More dramatic nonsense. People are able to weigh for themselvs the cost benefit of joining a queue. In the UK, people learn to do this from a very young age. The fact that they have waited for the water means that they are satisfied with the trade off. They know perfectly well that they can go elsewhere and get water. You are simplifying the dynamics to fit your bogus argument. Well, we expect nothing less from BBQ staffers, the largest concentration of paid liars deceivers and opinion steerers in the UK.

In fact, you might as well not have a drinking fountain on the hot day, as no-one can enjoy it without paying a time penalty that more or less wipes out the benefit.

In your humble opinion the benefit is wiped out. Its a hot day. They get free water. Its up to them and not you, to decide what that is worth. This is a classic error made by people like you; you think you know what is good for other people. And its completely STUPID to say that, “you might as well not have a drinking fountain on the hot day”. If some people get satisfaction from it, it should be there. It should not have to exist according to your idiotic standards of ‘efficiency’. Typical; you would rather people suffer from dehydration than allow an ‘inefficient’ distribution system to continue unregulated. You Swine!

I hope I’ve explained this properly. It’s a simplified account, and it relies on all the people in the park having a similar taste for drinking and not queuing.

Its completely bogus. Like most arguments made by hack economists, they create totally false idealized models of human behavior and then start to write garbage about it. Nothing wrong with that, but when you do it on the licence fee payers back, its a different proposition altogether, especially when you use this false reasoning to justify evil like orwellian road pricing, by direct order of Bliar and his contractors.

But it shows that when queuing does the rationing, it does a really bad job.

No, it doesn’t show that at all. It shows that you are not very good at making an argument. You are admitting that its a simplified model, not fit for purpose, but then in the next line, you say its good enough for the argument! Holding two contradictory thoughts in your mind at the same time. You are a model citizen!

In the park, if you could get a warden to ban people from queuing, and who instead insisted that only random people could drink, (people whose surname begins with A to K for example), the fountain would give more benefit, (although that benefit would be distributed a little unfairly).

The police state option. The first line of choice from a BBQ animal. No surprise there.

There is another alternative that’s a little more equitable. If it’s practical, you can charge people to use the fountain.

‘Tax them’. Another ‘let the state control it’ ‘solution’. BBQ are the most unimaginative people out there. Its sickening.

Now, those who do pay, have the benefit of drinking without queuing,

NOW HOLD ON A MINUTE THERE BUSTER.

There are many other options to knock down this straw man problem:

• Put up a sign showing people alternative sources of water.
• Put in more fountains.
• Allow vendors to sell water in the park.
• $insert_your_solution_here

I have always hated the ‘this or that’ style of posing an argument that journalists are so fond of; it precludes any other, perhaps better options and arguments. It narrows the dialogue. Constrains thought. Its bad.

but they have the cost of paying. So on balance they are better off using the fountain, but probably only just better off. As far as they’re concerned, we haven’t improved things much over the queuing situation: we’ve just changed the pain of queuing by the pain in the purse.

The state of being ‘well off’ depends on who is being asked. What a biased BBQ ‘economist’ thinks is better for you and I is, I assure you, not what is actually better for you and I. And that is a fact.

The difference is though, that the money they’ve handed over can be of benefit to someone else, or the population at large.

But the population at large will never know, because their monies are routinely misdirected and never properly accounted for.

There is an upside to the drinkers’ displeasure, unlike in the case where the queue does the rationing.

Or to put it another way: when you queue – I get no benefit from your pain. When you pay, I probably do.

Now that is a pretty good argument against the use of rationing by queues.

It may not be a good argument for road pricing, but it does explain why economists tend to think of the price mechanism as a better method of rationing things than congestion.

[…]

The Reporters at BBQ

This is a concatenation of utter gibberish.

What this moron leaves out is the fact that the road pricing scheme is more about surveillance than it is about relieving congestion. HMG already has plans to put cameras on every inch of road, “to deny criminals the use of the roads”. What that means is that the criminals will use the roads as they have done before, and all ordinary, non criminal drivers will have their every movement recorded by a Big Brother system.

This couldn’t be more far removed from a water fountain in a park could it?

If you want to eliminate congestion in any place, you simply have to take cars off of the roads.

Think about a pint glass in your local. The beautiful brown haired bar maid starts pulling your pint. As the golden nectar reaches the top, she stops pulling. If she were to keep pulling, the bitter would start to spill everywhere, the publican sees his money spilling onto the floor, and you have to wait longer for your pint, which will still have only a pint of beer in it when it is handed to you.

Now think about London. London has a finite road capacity. Lets say that it is 200,000 cars on the road, plus all parked cars that have the potential of getting on the road at any time. When London is full, it should be closed off to incoming traffic. That means that on every road around the whole of london, barriers come down and no more cars are allowed in.

Cars are allowed out of course, and for every car allowed out, one is allowed in.

There is no need to take down the license numbers of each car. This is a case of simple counting, and capacity, just like the pint glass. There is no need to count in every sweet molecule of brew as it enters the glass; gravity takes care of it for you automagically. What cars do when they get into London is their business. As long as the capacity of London is not exceeded, the mission is accomplished. The quality of life for all Londoners improves dramatically, no one is disadvantaged by an iniquitous Congestion charging scheme, there is no opportunity for a Big Brother surveillance system of absolutely hideous cameras despoiling the city and making its inhabitants feel like prisoners in their own town, and if each of the entry points is manned, well, its jobs for the boys. And economists like jobs don’t they?

The simple solutions are the best. Take your lead from Beer. It almost always works.

Now there are those who say that such a scheme would cause chaos. So what. There is a cost to driving that has been ignored for decades. Everyone has to understand that there is a limit to the number of cars that can be on the roads, and there is a limit to the number of roads that are possible in any country. By setting the capacity of cities and roads and then cutting off access, people will have to think hard before they take their car out. There will be many systems that will grow out of this method of flow control; imagine the GPS navigation systems overlaid with the capacity of the roads and cities in real time. You could use a system like that to plan your journey. As you approach, say, London at 7:45 in the morning, the capacity left would be shown. If there is no chance of you getting there before ‘LonCap’ reaches 100%, your GPS will tell you to get off of the M4 NOW and park so that you can get a train.

This is the sort of solution that is preferable to the orwell style Blair Brother ‘options’. All you need to do is THINK about the problem correctly, with the rights of people uppermost as you consider what needs to be done.

Without beer, its harder to do.

Currently, when travellers arrive in the UK from third world countries, they have their VISAs inspected by staff equipped with loupes. The VISA is in the form of a printed sticker with embedded security features.

The staff with loupes are looking for forged VISA stickers. They have no way of checking wether or not any particular VISA is genuine or not.

The processing of these passengers takes considerably longer than it should, because two procedures are being carried out, and there is a prolonged questioning session that takes place.

To make everything work better this is what you need to do.

1) The questioning of a passenger’s travel plans should take place in the country of origin, before the VISA is issued.

2) When a VISA is issued, the physical stamp should be stuck inside the passport. It should then be entered into an online application, so that when the passenger arrives in the UK, the Immigration Officer scans the stamp, and the record is retrieved. She can then compare the online record with the sticker in the passport.

Each VISA record is digitally signed with the PGP key of the VISA issuing station and officer that certified this person. This eliminates the problem of someone somewhere gaining access and inserting false entries into the database.

If someone tries to fly into the UK on a forged VISA, the record will not exist in the database. No need for loupes or long queues. If the record is not in the DB, it must be a fake. As long as the VISA is issued correctly, one swipe of the passport will be enough to see if the person’s VISA is in order.

A very simple LAMP powered application could do this. Every Embassy in the world could be connected to the system with commodity equipment and some relatively simple software. You could ether get all the Embassies to run their own web-servers that are queried in realtime, or you could have all of the Embassies upload to a monolithic server in Whitehall. You know which one I would prefer. See below.

Why on earth this has not been done should not be a surprise to anyone; HMG knows nothing about IT, and the people who do don’t want to sell a cheap, efficient system like this to anyone because they will not make any money out of it.

A project like this should really be done in house, on Open Source software. It is not rocket science, does not not involve new developing new algorithms or systems, is non invasive, proportional and fool proof. It is about time that IT was taken seriously by HMG. It is not absurd to imagine that every British Embassy has its own IT officer, in charge of running the Embassy website, since so many services are done on the web. It also means that there is no single point of failure bringing the entire UK VISA down.

Naturally, it has not been done. Instead, the staff are getting new clothes.

Putting the Immigration Staff into uniforms is not going to solve any problems. It is in fact, a sign of weakness and impotence.

Astonishing.

York Stories

Local interest… but in the writing of this York resident I find a relaxing, interesting, sensitive persona with a true and deep empathy for the city and what it can mean to live somewhere one finds so special. In particular, the reviews of walks in coutryside around the city have been inspiring. Every time I visit the site, I think this person would be nice to bump into and chat with in a pub, after a nice, relaxing wander by the river.