“When a crow flies over Kandahar, he only flaps one wing.
With the other wing, he covers his tail”.

This is a quote from a presentation at Magnum In Motion of portraits collected in Afganistan by Thomas Dworzak, and published in a book.

Did you know that (so the internets say) one of the reasons why Mullah Omar started Taleban was to put an end to homosexual practices?

I was interested in this book as a document of a beautiful portraiture phenomenon until I saw the links at the side, one of which sends you to the CFR.

Is this book ‘just an interesting book’ or is it part of the ‘Cultural Cold War‘ as Frances Stonor Saunders describes?

Its a great pity that works like this cannot be delivered neutrally and separated from World Insanity™ because the photographs are very beautiful…but then, when they are put in a context, that is precisely what they need to be to make you despise Taliban, and you need to be made to despise them so that you continue to passively support troops being sent there.

A PETITION

From the Manufacturers of Candles, Tapers, Lanterns, sticks, Street Lamps, Snuffers, and Extinguishers, and from Producers of Tallow, Oil, Resin, Alcohol, and Generally of Everything Connected with Lighting.

To the Honourable Members of the Chamber of Deputies.

Gentlemen:

You are on the right track. You reject abstract theories and little regard for abundance and low prices. You concern yourselves mainly with the fate of the producer. You wish to free him from foreign competition, that is, to reserve the domestic market for domestic industry.

We come to offer you a wonderful opportunity for your — what shall we call it? Your theory? No, nothing is more deceptive than theory. Your doctrine? Your system? Your principle? But you dislike doctrines, you have a horror of systems, as for principles, you deny that there are any in political economy; therefore we shall call it your practice — your practice without theory and without principle.

We are suffering from the ruinous competition of a rival who apparently works under conditions so far superior to our own for the production of light that he is flooding the domestic market with it at an incredibly low price; for the moment he appears, our sales cease, all the consumers turn to him, and a branch of French industry whose ramifications are innumerable is all at once reduced to complete stagnation. This rival, which is none other than the sun, is waging war on us so mercilessly we suspect he is being stirred up against us by perfidious Albion (excellent diplomacy nowadays!), particularly because he has for that haughty island a respect that he does not show for us ^[1].

We ask you to be so good as to pass a law requiring the closing of all windows, dormers, skylights, inside and outside shutters, curtains, casements, bull’s-eyes, deadlights, and blinds — in short, all openings, holes, chinks, and fissures through which the light of the sun is wont to enter houses, to the detriment of the fair industries with which, we are proud to say, we have endowed the country, a country that cannot, without betraying ingratitude, abandon us today to so unequal a combat.

Be good enough, honourable deputies, to take our request seriously, and do not reject it without at least hearing the reasons that we have to advance in its support.

First, if you shut off as much as possible all access to natural light, and thereby create a need for artificial light, what industry in France will not ultimately be encouraged?

If France consumes more tallow, there will have to be more cattle and sheep, and, consequently, we shall see an increase in cleared fields, meat, wool, leather, and especially manure, the basis of all agricultural wealth.

If France consumes more oil, we shall see an expansion in the cultivation of the poppy, the olive, and rapeseed. These rich yet soil-exhausting plants will come at just the right time to enable us to put to profitable use the increased fertility that the breeding of cattle will impart to the land.

Our moors will be covered with resinous trees. Numerous swarms of bees will gather from our mountains the perfumed treasures that today waste their fragrance, like the flowers from which they emanate.

Thus, there is not one branch of agriculture that would not undergo a great expansion.

The same holds true of shipping. Thousands of vessels will engage in whaling, and in a short time we shall have a fleet capable of upholding the honour of France and of gratifying the patriotic aspirations of the undersigned petitioners, chandlers, etc.

But what shall we say of the specialities of Parisian manufacture? Henceforth you will behold gilding, bronze, and crystal in candlesticks, in lamps, in chandeliers, in candelabra sparkling in spacious emporia compared with which those of today are but stalls.

There is no needy resin-collector on the heights of his sand dunes, no poor miner in the depths of his black pit, who will not receive higher wages and enjoy increased prosperity

It needs but a little reflection, gentlemen, to be convinced that there is perhaps not one Frenchman, from the wealthy stockholder of the Anzin Company to the humblest vendor of matches, whose condition would not be improved by the success of our petition.

We anticipate your objections, gentlemen; but there is not a single one of them that you have not picked up from the musty old books of the advocates of free trade. We defy you to utter a word against us that will not instantly rebound against yourselves and the principle behind all your policy.

Will you tell us that, though we may gain by this protection, France will not gain at all, because the consumer will bear the expense?

We have our answer ready:

You no longer have the right to invoke the interests of the consumer. You have sacrificed him whenever you have found his interests opposed to those of the producer. You have done so in order to encourage industry and to increase employment. For the same reason you ought to do so this time too.

Indeed, you yourselves have anticipated this objection. When told that the consumer has a stake in the free entry of iron, coal, sesame, wheat, and textiles, “Yes,” you reply, “but the producer has a stake in their exclusion.” Very well, surely if consumers have a stake in the admission of natural light, producers have a stake in its interdiction.

“But,” you may still say, “the producer and the consumer are one and the same person. If the manufacturer profits by protection, he will make the farmer prosperous. Contrariwise, if agriculture is prosperous, it will open markets for manufactured goods.” Very well, If you grant us a monopoly over the production of lighting during the day, first of all we shall buy large amounts of tallow, charcoal, oil, resin, wax, alcohol, silver, iron, bronze, and crystal, to supply our industry; and, moreover, we and our numerous suppliers, having become rich, will consume a great deal and spread prosperity into all areas of domestic industry.

Will you say that the light of the sun is a gratuitous gift of Nature, and that to reject such gifts would be to reject wealth itself under the pretext of encouraging the means of acquiring it?

But if you take this position, you strike a mortal blow at your own policy; remember that up to now you have always excluded foreign goods because and in proportion as they approximate gratuitous gifts. You have only half as good a reason for complying with the demands of other monopolists as you have for granting our petition, which is in complete accord with your established policy; and to reject our demands precisely because they are better founded than anyone else’s would be tantamount to accepting the equation: + x + = -; in other words, it would be to heap absurdity upon absurdity.

Labour and Nature collaborate in varying proportions, depending upon the country and the climate, in the production of a commodity. The part that Nature contributes is always free of charge; it is the part contributed by human labour that constitutes value and is paid for.

If an orange from Lisbon sells for half the price of an orange from Paris, it is because the natural heat of the sun, which is, of course, free of charge, does for the former what the latter owes to artificial heating, which necessarily has to be paid for in the market.

Thus, when an orange reaches us from Portugal, one can say that it is given to us half free of charge, or, in other words, at half price as compared with those from Paris.

Now, it is precisely on the basis of its being semigratuitous (pardon the word) that you maintain it should be barred. You ask: “How can French labour withstand the competition of foreign labour when the former has to do all the work, whereas the latter has to do only half, the sun taking care of the rest?” But if the fact that a product is half free of charge leads you to exclude it from competition, how can its being totally free of charge induce you to admit it into competition? Either you are not consistent, or you should, after excluding what is half free of charge as harmful to our domestic industry, exclude what is totally gratuitous with all the more reason and with twice the zeal.

To take another example: When a product — coal, iron, wheat, or textiles — comes to us from abroad, and when we can acquire it for less labour than if we produced it ourselves, the difference is a gratuitous gift that is conferred up on us. The size of this gift is proportionate to the extent of this difference. It is a quarter, a half, or three-quarters of the value of the product if the foreigner asks of us only three-quarters, one-half, or one-quarter as high a price. It is as complete as it can be when the donor, like the sun in providing us with light, asks nothing from us. The question, and we pose it formally, is whether what you desire for France is the benefit of consumption free of charge or the alleged advantages of onerous production. Make your choice, but be logical; for as long as you ban, as you do, foreign coal, iron, wheat, and textiles, in proportion as their price approaches zero, how inconsistent it would be to admit the light of the sun, whose price is zero all day long!

Notes:

^[1]

A reference to Britain’s reputation as a foggy island.

[…]

And of course, in this, we substitute music that is freed by its being turned into numbers (data) for the sunlight in this beautiful piece.

Bald

“How are you going to get girls to have no hair?”

Decorating yesterday, without a radio, 2 Kate Bush thoughts.

1. The Man With The Child In His Eyes

This song has the most perfect, beautiful ‘ooooh’ of any song, surely. Yes, it does, and i did call you surely. It’s not lascivious, giving come-hither looks or being downright dirty like other oohs I could mention. It’s a luscious, loving, wonderfully rounded, beautiful ‘oooh’, the kind you’d have sung to you by the person who loves you most dearly.

2. Bloody pigeons

Thanks to her last album, Ariel, I now can’t hear a wood pigeon cooing without thinking ‘A sea of ho-ney, a sky of ho-ney’.

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.

We have been tapped for the Thinking Blogger Award by Dare to Know.

Special thanks must go to Alun, Meau², and all our regular contributors past and present. You really are and have been the best.

Other blogs that make us think:

Jultra. Jultra says everything that we know is true, and is says it plainly and beautifully at once. He is a master of the english language, as British caricaturist James Gillray was a master of his art. People like Jultra are what made Great Britain the best country in the world to live in for many decades. Unmissable, brilliant and without equal.

Consent of the Governed Consent of the Governed is a blog written by someone who embodies the true spirit of that once great country The United States of America. Writing common sense in fine English, with self restraint, backed by the facts, this blog really is a joy to read, because it gives us hope that in the USA, there are still people who cherish that country’s true values.

Kurt Nimmo. Kurt Nimmo is a great writer who tells the truth eloquently. For this sin, he is now in big trouble. That is a great badge of honor to wear Kurt.

Papers Please! As the veneer of democracy starts to fade, and fascism rises faster and stronger, blogs like Papers Please! are essential reading. This blog is a perfect example of the phenomenon and utility of blogging and personal world wide publishing that has changed everything, and tipped the balance back in our favor.

Shortwave Music This blog carries clips of sound that break my heart. There is beauty to be found in every sound, every corner of the world, and shortwave radio, with its technical quirks infinitely changing and profoundly beautiful sculpting of sound is a never ending source of pure ecstasy for the open minded (and eared) listener. Listening to the examples here set your mind alight; a priceless blog.

Thank heaven, Jultra is back, with his usual, beautiful and inspiring English:

[…]
Let’s just quickly look at this: Blair’s recent attack effectively on blogs like this. I guess that means we have won the arguments then.

The speech contains the usual obvious soundbytes to set the tone like ‘changing context’ and ’21st century’ (see this) and so on.

Although Blair starts with the mainstream media, naturally, none of this is aimed at the BBC, or the Daily Mail, or the ‘Independent’ (who Blair duplicitously pretends to complain about) all of whom by far on balance, carry out the will of the same consituency Blair represents pretty much most of the time.

The mainstream media is either so utterly impotent or so totally complicit that it poses no threat at all and can usually be relied upon to comformatably blindly report spin from the government as news or fudge the issues of the day into crap like ‘Germans put bugs in our wheelie bins’. It can be relied upon to be pro ID-cards (BBC), pro CCTV (BBC), pro European world government (BBC) and so on, pro ‘War on Terror’ (Telegraph, BBC) etc. It can’t quite be too overtly pro- Iraq war these days, although privately, with the exception of ITN and perhaps one or 2 other outlets, the integrity of the MSM’s ‘anti-warness’ has to be questioned.

So this whole stream of waffle by Blair is aimed squarely at the alternative media, and what Blair is trying to do is blame everyone else for the correctly appalled response to his vile crimes, the crimes of his party and supporters and backers.
Blair says:

“The damage saps the country’s confidence and self-belief; it undermines its assessment of itself, its institutions; and above all, it reduces our capacity to take the right decisions, in the right spirit for our future.”

Sure, so you can get a nice compliant green light to drop bombs on Iran ? So you can get guillable British citizens to line up to join the quantized human pleb grid. So no one questions what happens when a ‘terrorist event’ occurs and all dotingly rally behind the government and start worshipping it again ?

But it is the country, not some nebulous desirable ‘relationship between media and public life’ that is wholly damaged, and it is Blair and his vile supporters that have willfully and with enormous and giddy glee caused that damage to the country and to its institutions. None of that is an accident, or some misunderstanding, on the contrary it’s all quite deliberate.

[…]

And the only remedy for this terrible damage is in the alternative media, not in the ghoulish grotesque ambition of the stained Gordon Brown ever sweatily fumbling for power and trying to distance himself from the attrocities in Iraq when it is politically expedient to do so, or the outgoing speeches of a vile disgraced sociopath like Blair, or the hopeless projection of worthless ideas from various pro-regime Guardian columnists onto the rotting goverment.

The country is badly badly damaged as I’ve said here for a long time now, there’s no point arguing about it, or denying it. It’s just the reality, and a dangerously reality where it is becoming altogether undesirable to live here at all or even be associated with this country.

It is a really serious situation. The rule of law is badly damaged, the meaning of the state is enormously damaged, and the governement is irrepairrably damaged because of its own horrendous actions and it is so seriously compromised as an entity now, that quite honestly it is difficult to see what point there is in contributing to this mess anymore.

It should come as no surprise that such a rotting demonic monster, this conduit of global evil Mr Blair (with the approval of Mr Murdoch and buddies) instead still has the sheer audacity to try to spin it all around and blame everyone else for his own sickening behaviour and crimes against the world and this country. And again this should serve as an another reminder of why Blair is either so corrupted personally by forces acting on him, or who’s own judgement is so monstrously flawed and distorted that he is basically incapable of making a judgement at all.

[…]

Jultra

Without people like Jultra writing, linking and thus informing, all is lost.

This very article demonstrates how important people like Jultra are, and how much of a real threat Bloggers are.

It also demonstrates how important it is to keep up regular posting, and to not become disheartened, fatigued or disillusioned. It is hard work. It takes up your time. It puts you at risk because these words will last forever. Despite all of this, it needs to be done, if only to be able to say, “I didn’t sit there quietly and take it”.

Ther love songs start at dusk, at first drifting across from the other side of the river. The bamboo groves on the mountain opposite are bathed in the gold of the lingering rays of the sun while this side of the river is already cloaked in night. Young women in groups of five or six come to the river bank, some standing in a circle and others calling their lovers. Melodious singing rapidly fills the vast night. Young women are everywhere, still with their parasols up and holding a handkercheif or a fan. There are also some thirteen- or fourteen year old girls who are just becoming aware of boys.
In each group one girl leads the singing and the other girls harmonize. I observe that the lead singer is invariably the prettiest of the group, I suppose choice by beauty is a fairly natural principle.
The voice of the lead singer rises in the air and I can’t help noticing her utter sincerity. The correct word is perhaps not “sing”, for the clear shrill sounds come from deep within so that body and heart respond. The sounds seem to travel from the soles of the feet then shoot up between the eyes and the forehead before they are produced – no wonder they’re called “flying songs”. It is totally instinctive, uncontrived, unrestrained and unembellished, and certainly devoid of what might be called embarrasment. Each woman exerts herself, body and heart, to draw her man to her.

[…]

So-called civilisation in later ages separated sexual impulse from love and created the concepts of status, wealth, religion, ethics and cultural responsibility. Such is the stupidity of human beings.

Gao Xingjian on Miao courting.

————–

Our singer is called Josephine. Anyone who has not heard her does not know the power of song. There is no one but is carried away by her singing, a tribute all the greater as we are not in general a music-loving race. Tranquil peace is the music we love best; our life is hard, we are no longer able, even on occasions when we have tried to shake off the cares of daily life, to rise to anything so high and remote from our usual routine as music. But we do not much lament that; we do not get even so far; a certain practical cunning, which admittedly we stand greatly in need of, we hold to be our greatest distinction, and with a smile born of such cunning we are wont to console ourselves for all shortcomings, even supposing—only it does not happen that we were to yearn once in a way for the kind of bliss which music may provide. Josephine is the sole exception; she has a love for music and knows too how to transmit it; she is the only one; when she dies, music—who knows for how long—will vanish from our lives.

I have often thought about what this music of hers really means. For we are quite unmusical; how is it that we understand Josephine’s singing or, since Josephine denies that, at least think we can understand it. The simplest answer would be that the beauty of her singing is so great that even the most insensitive cannot be deaf to it, but this answer is not satisfactory. If it were really so, her singing would have to give one an immediate and lasting feeling of being something out of the ordinary, a feeling that from her throat something is sounding which we have never heard before and which we are not even capable of hearing, something that Josephine alone and no one else can enable us to hear. But in my opinion that is just what does not happen, I do not feel this and have never observed that others feel anything of the kind. Among intimates we admit freely to one another that Josephine’s singing, as singing, is nothing out of the ordinary.

[continues]

We read in today’s Guardian that (the) UK housing market has reached (a) tipping point.

There is a much more interesting tipping point that has been reached however.

This Blog, BLOGDIAL, as well as many other blogs (some of which are in our blogroll) have reached a tipping point; any time you read a story like the one below, one of our blogs has covered the story in detail previously, and at a much higher quality level than any national newspaper.

Take a look at the usual boring, insufficient, stylistically dead, threadbare, dim witted, one dimensional, stupid, dead-end, pointless and imagination-less dross in this piece:

Civil rights fears over DNA file for everyone

Campaigners say Whitehall wants even litter-droppers on crime database

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
Sunday May 27, 2007
The Observer

Civil liberties groups are warning that the details of every Briton could soon be on the national DNA database, raising fresh concerns of a ‘surveillance society’. Controversial plans being studied by the government would see the DNA of people convicted of even the most minor, non-imprisonable offences, such as dropping litter, entered on the national database.

The proposals are part of a wide-ranging government review of the Police and Criminal Evidence Act (Pace), which campaign groups warn may have profound ramifications for society. ‘The danger is that if we start adding the details of people convicted of these sort of minor offences to the database we’ll come to a tipping point,’ said Gareth Crossman, director of Liberty. ‘The government will say: “Actually it’s a bit unfair some people aren’t on the database; maybe everyone should be on it.”‘

The DNA database is already proving controversial with some politicians and police officers raising concerns about its use. Liberty claims that, per head of population, the UK has five times as many people on the DNA database as any other country. The government estimates that even if the database is not expanded to include the details of minor offenders, some 4.5 million people will still be on it by 2010.

[…]

Observer

and then do a google search for “Blogdial litter DNA” or “litter dna infowars” or “litter dna “police state” blogger” you are returned many posts, all of which outperform the Guardian/Observers drivel by any metric you care to apply.

So what does this mean? It means that the power of Bloggers and networked, intelligent writers needs to be applied. Thinking right off the keyboard, it probably means swarming of some kind, enabled by mobile devices (phones).

If we do not do this, what history will show is that we were like passengers on the Titanic who saw that the ship was sinking but who did not try to escape. We saw what was coming, did not avoid the ice berg, felt the crash, saw the water gushing in, and simply described what was happening eloquently as we all drowned.

No donning of life jackets.
No rowing away in life boats.
No Mayday signals.

And you can be sure that the captain and officers will not go down with the ship.

Even RATS know when to leave a sinking ship; if we do not act, galvanize and eventually destroy this emerging police state before it gets settled into place, those who cannot afford to escape will be VERY SORRY that they did not do something.

I used to often say, when speaking to people about Home Schooling, “would you pay £100 to restore the present situation and remove all the draconian measures HMG is proposing if they should be put into place?”. The answer is always an instantaneous ‘yes’, and yet, these same people are insanely reluctant to mount a professional pressure campaign because they don’t want to dip into their own pockets or ‘put their head above the parapet’.

I’m not making this up obviously.

This is the nature of the worst of the modern British; cowering, frightened, beaten down, fear soaked, gutless, in love with being stupid, hypnotized, and thick as shit. Even when you prove to them that something is worth doing, they cower away because of some illusory ‘thing’ that might come and get them. Its rather like the Shortwave Magazines that refused to publish logs of Numbers Stations for fear of ‘someone’ coming to their publication and doing ‘something’. Of course, that fear was totally unfounded, as are many of these self restricting fears; and the police state relies on the self control and automatic fear response of the public for the majority of its power. Think of it as a Sterling Engine of Control; the heat of your own body runs the engine that keeps you enslaved (check out that video of the Sterling engine running at the bottom of the page).

The Guardian is one of the worst criminals in the fight against the police state.

On the one hand, it wines in its very boring style about the erosion of civil liberties, and then in the very same paper, publishes opinions (that are total lies) that can only facilitate the establishment of a police state.

Take a look at this utter, unmitigated rubbish:

Should going to school be compulsory?

Interviews by Hester Lacey
Tuesday May 22, 2007
The Guardian

Angela Fuller
Teacher, Staffordshire

I considered educating one of my daughters at home. Home schooling offers relative freedom to construct an appropriate, non-Sats-driven curriculum, and sidesteps problems of bullying and peer pressure.

At the same time, I can see why there is concern. It encourages mutual over-dependence. Parent and child can suffer the sense of isolation that affects other home-workers. It is difficult to switch off and relax when home doubles as a classroom. Schools have facilities such as science labs, music centres and sports facilities that would not be available in a home setting. The deciding factor for me is the limited opportunity for a home-schooled child to socialise with peers. Do I think that going to school should be compulsory? No, but there had better be a darn good alternative.

Lie number one “It encourages mutual over-dependence”
Lie number two “Parent and child can suffer the sense of isolation”
Lie number three “It is difficult to switch off and relax when home doubles as a classroom”
Lie number four “The deciding factor for me is the limited opportunity for a home-schooled child to socialise”

There is a better alternative you IMBECILE, and as we have been saying, millions of people are taking advantage of it. Obviously ‘Hester Lacey’ knows nothing about home schooling, to the extent that she has never looked it up on the internets, otherwise, she would never let the ignorant ranting of someone who obviously knows NOTHING about home schooling to appear as an informed opinion.

Teachers are always rabidly anti-home schooling, because it is a direct threat to their personal status. People like this ‘Angela Fuller’ do not care about the welfare of children; if she did, and she saw that home schooled children outperform state schooled children in every way, she would endorse it because it is better for child, but instead she is against it because home schooling takes the meat from her machine, and diminishes her value as a person (in her mind).

This is like asking a cyclist if the congestion charge is a good thing or not. How utterly stupid.

Adam Alderson
Parent, Birmingham

I can’t think of a good reason why it shouldn’t be. Children who don’t go to school miss out on social interaction. Also, there’s the quality of teaching. Secondary school teachers are specialists in a range of subjects and you would have to be exceptional to cover all that. And there’s the discipline.

When you’re a parent, particularly in the early years, you wonder what your child is up to – it’s the first time they’ve been away from you for that length of time. Sometimes they will meet something they’re not happy with, but they have to face up to it, because they will meet adversities later on in life.

Lie number one “Children who don’t go to school miss out on social interaction”
Lie number two “Also, there’s the quality of teaching.”
SUPER LIE “And there’s the discipline.”

I have never read such ignorant, piss poor arguments against home schooling in all my trawls of the internets. The previous two people must have been scraped from the bottom of an street bums seven week old beer can filled with spit, insects and cigarette ends.

Anyone who would let this sort of drivel through their ‘editorial process’ is either ignorant, delusional or fanatically against home schooling….or all three.

Lindi An Edis
Aged 15, from Barnsley

I can see both sides. Going to school, you get the social skills you need, as well as the academic side. But for some people, going to school wouldn’t help them socially, and I can see why they wouldn’t want to go. If a child isn’t going to gain anything extra from school and is going to come home upset, it’s perfectly fine to be taught from home. School can have a negative side; there can be bad influences as well as good.

I can also see why some people would say school should be compulsory. If a parent isn’t qualified or doesn’t know enough about the subject, you won’t have the same start in life. I’m coming up to GCSEs and I’ve had a lot of input from my teachers: they mark your work, show you where you’ve gone wrong, and help you see the mistakes you might make in the exam.

A half lie “you get the social skills you need”
A clever lie “If a parent isn’t qualified or doesn’t know enough about the subject, you won’t have the same start in life.”
another clever lie “I’ve had a lot of input from my teachers: they mark your work, show you where you’ve gone wrong, and help you see the mistakes you might make in the exam.”

This one is a bit more clever than the other two; hers would be clever ‘Guardian level’ lies if she were not 15 years old; by saying that you won’t get the same start in life, implies that going to school puts you on a level playing field, which does not exist in this or any other Universe I’m afraid. Being 15 years old means that you probably would not know that. The other subtle misunderstanding implies that parents who home school do not mark the work of their children once again, a deep misunderstanding about the reality of home schooling, to be forgiven since the respondent is 15. What is totally unforgivable is using the words of an innocent 15 year old like this to make a cheap and nasty anti home schooling point.

Hester Lacey may intone that she was approaching the subject from three different angles ‘to present a balanced view’, but the fact is this is a BBQesqe propaganda technique, where different voices are presented, all from the same side or totally ignorant, that on the surface appear to be different and diverse, but which are in fact all on the same side; the side of the editorial prejudice.

[…]

Guardian Education Weekly

The fact of the matter is the Guardian is ostensibly against the police state, but then it is FOR compulsory schooling, which requires universal registration of all children for 100% compliance, the entry point for NIR, ID cards and the police state.

With friends like this, we do not need enemies.

The Guardian Education Weekly is an astonishingly ignorant part of the paper, run by people who clearly do not have the ability to educate themselves about the very subject that they are in charge of. If they were able to do this, simply by using the internets, they would never allow these bald faced lies to appear in their section.

They write as if the internets do not exist, and as if the outside world does not exist; only what they think in their office is real, which is why ‘home education means poor socialization’, when of course, the opposite is true. But then again, the Guardian is not about the truth, it is about ‘Guardian Truth®’, and whatever that is, it has nothing to do with liberty or anything that we believe in or that is real.

If there is a tipping point that needs to be reached, and quickly, it is that of the popular disgust with the emerging police state. If this tipping point is not reached before the tipping point of total control is reached, then all is lost.

Should ‘our’ tipping point come first, the police state and all of its apparatus will be demolished and permanently outlawed, out of fear of a vengeful violent and virtuous population that has simply had enough. Should ‘their’ tipping point be reached first, it will forever (or at least for a generation) prevent ‘ours’ from happening. There will then be a final brain drain from this country, where everyone with common sense, decency and a real human spirit will flee for their lives.

What will remain will be the weakest minded, least British population ever on this beautiful island. Britain will cease to exist, as all its best people will have escaped to places where real people still live and breathe. Britain is nothing without these people. And you know it.

And this country will be a tramp in a dingy concrete underpass, singing about this once great place as he is being kicked in by those remnants.

Or not…

I recently built a new box to serve all my music and movies. It running Ubuntu Feisty Fawn, with all the ‘Silent Bells and Whistles^®™‘: 1.2TB of disk space (western digital, 400, 400, 300), Intel Pentium E6300 1.86ghz core 2 duo, new style patented Zalman CNPS9700 LED figure of 8 copper CPU fan with blue led, ABit IB9 motherboard, 1gig OCZ DDR2 high speed memory, DVDR, CDR, Zalman Fatal1ty Champ1on case, Asus EN7600GS Silent Nvidia display card, Antex Truepower power supply.

I have dumped Fedora permanently…its just not worth the hassle. I have transfered all of the data from my legacy drives that were on NTFS and FAT, so we are now 100% Microsoft free.

Which brings us to the recent M$ FUD about Linux infringing 200+ M$ owned patents.

It is, of course, utter bullshit.

We all remember Darl McBride and the baseless attacks on the license under which you are free to use Linux. For months SCO refused to show the sections of the source that it claimed were infringed.

Now Microsoft is claiming that patents it owns are being infringed by Linux, but like SCO, it will not list which patents are being infringed. Microsoft is so terrified of distributions like Ubuntu that they are resorting to these infantile and pathetic tactics to try and scare people off of dumping their bloated garbage for Stuff That Actually Works®. Dell is now shipping Ubuntu. This means that it wont be long before they stop selling computers with Vista; why should they ship Vista when they can deliver a superior product that costs them nothing, and which enhances their hardware offerings far more than Vista does?

Eventually they will build a team that customizes Ubuntu with their own branding. It is a perfect solution for them. Microsoft are in a blind panic over this, which is why they have put out this nonsense media attack instead of going straight to court with the facts.

It has to be pointed out also that even if they did go to court and demonstrate that indeed, Linux distributions infringe, say, their patent on notifying when the other person is typing in an instant message session, these insane and bogus patents only have force in the USA. The EU doesn’t recognize software patents; that means that every linux distro can distribute a fully working OS that doesn’t infringe on the 235 M$ patents but which has an installer that retrieves the missing parts of the OS from servers in the free world. Ubuntu already does this in a seamless and effort free way for codecs that are illegal to distribute in a Linux OS in the USA.

There is now nothing that Microsoft can do about the explosive spread of Desktop Linux. They should have done what they always used to do; ‘embrace and extend‘. If they had rolled their own distribution they would now control the perception of Linux. All desktops in the world would run MS Linux (or Redmond Linux) and they would then be able to sell Office and other proprietary binaries to the punters on their own brand of Linux. Now, they cannot do this. It is too late for them to dump Vista and change tactics…or is it? They could easily offer their own badged versions of Ubuntu and Open office, and then sell them just like they sell their junk OS Vista. What is for certain, is that the tactics they are using now will not stop the march of the penguins. It will only make things worse for them.

Bill Gates is often called a generous philanthropist. This is actually not the case. When you give away something that you have in abundance, in this case, money, it has no real meaning in terms of generosity. Money for Gates has no value. He is giving away literally nothing, since his money has no value to him.

If he were a true philanthropist, if he were truly generous, and was making a true sacrifice, he would give away his dominance of the desktop for the good of humanity, since every M$ OS since Winblows 3.1 has been a menace to society. By adopting Linux, The Cathedral and the Bazaar Open Source and the Gnu Public License he would be actually performing an act of sacrifice, and helping the world by giving away something that means everything to him – power.

This does not mean that Microsoft would stop making money; indeed there is no reason to suppose that they would not be able to maintain their profitability; they can still sell Office and all their other gunk, only it would all run on a stable platform instead of bloated garbage. Its a no brainer. They would also be able to steer the way the Linux world works by contributing code. The fact of the matter is, corporate types are as thick as shit, and they would rather buy Linux from M$ than take Ubuntu for free. M$ would be able to maintain their position, neutralize the linux threat, take advantage of ‘owning’ a better OS…its pretty obvious.

But I digress.

Gates is no generous Philanthropist, that is for sure, and it doesn’t matter how much money he gives away or what it is worth to other people. His actions in this pathetic patent infringement threat show what his true nature is; venal, evil and against humanity, and no amount of good works will balance this out.

If you run Linux, or get your email from a server that runs Linux, you should sign up to be sued by Microsoft:

Why I am offering to be sued

I believe that Microsoft is hurting competition on the desktop, which affects me directly as a consumer of desktop software. I believe it is for the good of society for Microsoft’s patent claims to be tested in a court of law. If Microsoft wins, then so be it. If Microsoft loses, then the rest of us can get on with creating innovative business models for desktop software. I am not challenging Microsoft this way because I hate Microsoft. I don’t admire their software, nor do I admire their business models, but I am not challenging them because I want to sink their ship or damage their business or harm their reputation. I am really only interested in seeing whether their claims have any merit, which I think is probably not the case.

The other reason that I am offering to be sued and encouraging others to offer to be sued is that we will have the chance to show the world how many people really use Free Open Source Software directly on the desktop. Of course, all of us use Free Open Source Software when we use Google or YouTube or Wikipedia or Yahoo or the Internet Archive, because all of these companies use Free Open Source Software as an important part of delivering their services. And if Microsoft’s threat just hangs like a dark cloud over all that innovation, we will all be the worse off for it. But I am talking about us uniting on one list to show the world how many institutions and individuals use Free Open Source Software.

Maybe this list will never go anywhere. On the other hand, it will be fun to try!

So c’mon, Microsoft. If I infringed your patents, show me. After all, I am one of the members of a distributed team of film makers who is trying to document the real world digital tipping point that is probably pushing you to rattle the litigation saber anyway, and I am attempting to use all Free Open Source Software tools to do so. If you can shut me up, all the better for you!

And that is why.

‘Orwellian’ CCTV in shires alarms senior police officer

· Benefits of wide-ranging surveillance questioned
· Deputy chief constable criticises DNA rules

Rachel Williams
Monday May 21, 2007
The Guardian

Britain risks becoming an “Orwellian” society as CCTV cameras spread to quiet villages with low crime levels, a senior police officer warned yesterday.

Ian Readhead, Hampshire’s deputy chief constable, said he did not want to live in a country where every street corner was fitted with surveillance devices.

And so, at long last, the penny drops.

Even THE POLICE in Britain do not want to live in a country that is a Police State.

You cannot make this stuff up.

He also criticised rules which meant DNA evidence and fingerprints could be kept for the rest of a teenager’s life once they have been arrested for an offence, even if they never get in trouble again, and said there was a danger that speed cameras were seen by the public as a revenue-generating process rather than a genuine effort to reduce casualties.

Everyone deserves a second chance. A country where everything you do is forever marked down against your ‘record’ is not a fit place for human beings. Even the Police, the group that supposedly all of this is being set up to aid, are against it.

What took them so long to come out and SAY ALL OF THIS?!

Mr Readhead highlighted the town of Stockbridge in Hampshire’s rural Test Valley, where parish councillors spent £10,000 installing CCTV, as an example of a situation where the benefits of surveillance were questionable.

Crime went up slightly in the town after the system was installed, Mr Readhead said, although between 2005 and 2006 there were only two violent crimes against people over 60 and no one was injured in either incident. “I have to question: does the camera actually instill in individuals a great feeling of safety and does it present serious offences taking place?” he said in an interview for the BBC’s Politics Show.

Like most people in the UK, these councillors are in the grip of a feverish mania; ‘Security Madness’. They have no understanding of security, what the difference between real security and Security Theatre is. They also clearly have no understanding of what a free country is, and do not value Britain for the country that it has been for generations.

There are plenty of these thick people about sadly, they all speak with the same type of voice, hold the same ignorant opinions and they all have the vote. Sadly.

“I’m struggling with seeing the deployment of cameras in our local village as being a benefit to policing; I understand why the local public say this is what we want, but I’m really concerned about what happens to the product of these cameras, and what comes next? If it’s in our villages – are we really moving towards an Orwellian situation with cameras on every street corner? I really don’t think that’s the kind of country that I want to live in.”

Bravo, at last.

Stockbridge parish council yesterday defended its decision to install CCTV, with its former chairman revealing that police and traders had each contributed £4,000 to the cost of installing the three surveillance cameras in the town.

David Baseley, who was parish council chairman for the past nine years, said he was amazed by Mr Readhead’s comments. “I think a lot of police would disagree with him, the police have paid for some of it and the police have been behind it,” he said. “We were concerned about the vulnerability of the place, although we haven’t had any real crimes.”

The weather used to be the mainstay of conversations in this great country, now, it is ‘security’. ‘Security’ and ‘Health and Safety’ permeate every thought and every corner of everything and every place, to the extent that you cannot even cook food because of “Health and Safety”.

This nauseating mania for everything to be rendered harmless, for every possible eventuality to be covered, to prevent all accidents, no matter what the cost is un-British, inhuman and TOTALLY INSANE.

There are an estimated 4.2m CCTV cameras in the UK.

Not for long there are.

On the retention of DNA evidence, Mr Readhead said: “My concern is this – we are in a society at the moment where the police have the power that if they arrest a 15-year-old for a recordable offence we can retain their DNA and their fingerprints.

“That information would be kept for life unless there were exceptional circumstances, such as it being proved that no crime was committed.

“My real worry is this. Fifteen years from now we are still holding that DNA and that arrest information – should we be doing that?” Mr Readhead asked. “Is it right that that may impede that person – who’s never been arrested again – from getting a job? I’m not sure that sits comfortably with me.”

Well, the question that comes next is, “WHat are you going to do about it Mr. Readhead?”.

Shami Chakrabarti, director of the human rights group Liberty, welcomed Mr Readhead’s comments: “Politicians like to present the police as ever hungry for more powers. Yet even the police are concerned that we are losing the value of privacy.”

The Police Federation’s vice-chairman, Alan Gordon, said he shared some of the concerns about the extent of CCTV use. “I have sympathy with members of the public who are not going to be committing crimes and feel they are being spied on. It should be down to consultation with people locally,” he said.

No it should not you imbecile.

The public spaces should not be surveilled, full stop. Surveillance does not prevent crime. In the many decades before the mania for ‘Security’ the crime rate in the UK was very much lower than it is today.

The causes of crime must be addressed. The Surveillance system must be dismantled, because it has destroyed the quality of life that we have in the UK.

Profile: Stockbridge

Stockbridge’s wide high street has its roots in the ancient market town’s position on a drovers’ road that was once one of the south’s main east-west routes. Some 200 years later it was that same hub-like position – now the junction of the A30, A3057 and A3049 – that helped convince traders, fearful of outsiders raiding their shops and making a swift escape towards Salisbury, Andover, Winchester or Romsey, that they needed a CCTV system. The high street, with its tourist-friendly groceries, tea rooms, and antique shops, rarely suffers from yobbish youths loitering outside convenience stores.

The little crime there is consists largely of break-ins, and in 2004 the chamber of trade, police and local figures stumped up for three cameras. They have not led to any arrests, and crime has not been eradicated. Thieves broke into the Vine Inn in October to take cash from a fruit machine, and across the road the Co-op was targeted twice in a year. […]

Guardian

And there you have it.

Gordon Brown, BACK DOWN!

Cancel the NIR.
Remove all CCTV from public spaces.
Return to non Biometric Passports.
Cancel the ID Cards scheme.
Repeal all Orwellian Blair era legislation.
Remove all Speed Cameras.
Dismantle the Congestion Charging system in London.

and by all means, you can add to this list yourself.

Criminals will target ID cards as the ”gold standard” of identity theft, a police chief said yesterday.

The assumption that they are foolproof will make them more enticing for forgers, said Colin Langham-Fitt, acting chief constable of Suffolk.

He also questioned the erosion of individual liberties and privacy.

“There should be a debate about the ongoing erosion of civil liberties in the name of the fight against terrorism and crime,” he said.

“Are we all happy to have our cards monitored wherever we go, to be on CCTV and to have our shopping tracked?”

Mr Langham-Fitt added: “With all this surveillance available, the question needs to be asked – are we happy with that? Does it make us feel better and safer?

“I haven’t got the answers but I would welcome the debate beyond the cliched response of, ‘If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about’.”

His comments undermine Government claims that the police support ID cards and other surveillance measures.

Mr Langham-Fitt, in an interview with the East Anglian Daily Times, said the cards could become “the gold standard of ID crime” and “it could raise the standards and stakes for those who wish to clone them or subvert the system”.

A Suffolk police spokesman said Mr Langham-Fitt was not representing the views of the force but expressing “personal” opinions.

A Home Office spokesman said: “The Government recognises that some people are concerned about the scheme infringing their civil liberties – that is why there are stringent safeguards built into the Identity Cards Act.”

Further questions were raised over the security of confidential information with the disclosure that the personal details of Indians applying for British visas could be obtained via the Foreign Office website. Channel 4 News reported that an identity thief or a terrorist could obtain sensitive information that could be used to apply for an ID card.

Damian Green, the Tory immigration spokesman, said: “This is yet another IT shambles from the Government with serious implications for security.”

Mr Green added: “This Government cannot even run a simple online visa application system without betraying all the sensitive information.

“What hope has it got of protecting the integrity of the National Identity Card Register?”

[…]

Telegraph

I choked on my Espresso when I read this.

When the police come out against something like this you can bet that it is in serious trouble.

He may be expressing his ‘personal opinions’ but it is clear that Mr. Langham-Fitt understands PERFECTLY what the NIR and the ID Card scheme means to ‘The British way of life®’. It means its end.

It is heartening that someone in the police is bucking the current mania for ‘security’ (which in the case of ID Cards is actually Security Theatre) and is actually THINKING about what is really happening. He cannot be the only one. I certainly hope that pieces like the Frances Stonor-Saunders email have been circulated amongst his colleagues. If the police come out against it, it cannot EVER possibly work.

Gordon Brown…BACK DOWN!

You read that phrase here first!

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

Guns are deeply rooted within Swiss culture – but the gun crime rate is so low that statistics are not even kept.

The country has a population of six million, but there are estimated to be at least two million publicly-owned firearms, including about 600,000 automatic rifles and 500,000 pistols.

This is in a very large part due to Switzerland’s unique system of national defence, developed over the centuries.

Instead of a standing, full-time army, the country requires every man to undergo some form of military training for a few days or weeks a year throughout most of their lives.

Between the ages of 21 and 32 men serve as frontline troops. They are given an M-57 assault rifle and 24 rounds of ammunition which they are required to keep at home.

Once discharged, men serve in the Swiss equivalent of the US National Guard, but still have to train occasionally and are given bolt rifles. Women do not have to own firearms, but are encouraged to.

Few restrictions

In addition to the government-provided arms, there are few restrictions on buying weapons. Some cantons restrict the carrying of firearms – others do not.

The government even sells off surplus weaponry to the general public when new equipment is introduced.

Guns and shooting are popular national pastimes. More than 200,000 Swiss attend national annual marksmanship competitions.

But despite the wide ownership and availability of guns, violent crime is extremely rare. There are only minimal controls at public buildings and politicians rarely have police protection.

Mark Eisenecker, a sociologist from the University of Zurich told BBC News Online that guns are “anchored” in Swiss society and that gun control is simply not an issue.

Some pro-gun groups argue that Switzerland proves their contention that there is not necessarily a link between the availability of guns and violent crime in society.

Low crime

But other commentators suggest that the reality is more complicated.

Switzerland is one of the world’s richest countries, but has remained relatively isolated.

It has none of the social problems associated with gun crime seen in other industrialised countries like drugs or urban deprivation.

Despite the lack of rigid gun laws, firearms are strictly connected to a sense of collective responsibility.

From an early age Swiss men and women associate weaponry with being called to defend their country.

[…]

BBQ

The cuckoo clock and the gun.

And Lindt.

I Like it™.

Penn & teller tell it like it is, in their usual style.

“The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”””God forbid we should ever be twenty years without such a rebellion. The people cannot be all, and always, well informed. The part which is wrong will be discontented, in proportion to the importance of the facts they misconceive. If they remain quiet under such misconceptions, it is lethargy, the forerunner of death to the public liberty. … And what country can preserve its liberties, if it’s rulers are not warned from time to time, that this people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to the facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its natural manure.”

Thomas Jefferson.

The influx of strange demos continues. This one consists of a wedge of cheese:

The Package

Closeup of the label

It came with a cardboard stiffener and a pink post it note, with some lines about beer.

OMW. WTF.

Which brings us to:

Russian agents are as active in Britain now as at the height of the Cold War, senior Whitehall officials have said.

The sources told the BBC’s Frank Gardner there were more than 30 identified intelligence officers trying to get secrets by covert means.

Targets include military hardware, scientific know-how and technology, and inside tips on Westminster politics.

Businessmen who may have access to sensitive information are also of interest, as are Russian dissidents.

Such dissidents include Boris Berezovsky, friend of the murdered former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko.

‘Very extensive’

Sir Paul Lever, a former member of the Joint Intelligence Committee, said: “Russian espionage activity in Britain is very extensive.

“In scale it’s probably pretty much as it was at the height of the Cold War.”

BBQ

[…]

“Russians fighting Russians is bad for Russia”.

I wish I could attribute that quote to Roman Abramovich, but it’s mine.

More on the demos; we received this VERY interesting one in the last seven days, from Ljubljana in Slovenia, which arrived with some patent application diagrams for a novel guitar pitch-bending arrangement (foot controlled) a CDR of movies featuring it and its inventor in action, a contract proposal and a nice letter. Yes, ‘nice’.

Excerpt from the patent application

“But what did it sound like?”, I hear you cry.

Like Brij Bhushan Kabra on Crystal Meth.

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.