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…

Push towards pay-as-you-go roads
The government is pushing ahead with plans to introduce road pricing schemes in England and Wales despite a huge public campaign against them.

It has published a draft bill updating the rules for local authorities who want to set up charging trials.

It insists there are no plans yet for a national scheme but critics say it is not being open about its intentions.

A petition against road pricing on the Downing Street website received nearly two million online signatories.

Widespread road pricing is at least 10 years away technically – but 10 local authorities have expressed an interest in developing smaller-scale charging systems in their areas, which could be up and running within five years.

‘No decision’

The draft Local Transport Bill will give councils more flexibility to match road pricing schemes to local conditions, while ensuring they remain compatible with schemes in other areas.

KEY POINTS OF DRAFT BILL
Update existing powers so councils can propose local road pricing schemes
Any scheme expected to be part of anti-congestion plan and to fit in with those run elsewhere
Councils to bring in “quality contracts” to specify companies’ bus routes, timetables and fares
Reform passenger transport authorities in major towns outside London to enable a “more coherent” approach

But a Department for Transport spokesman said this did not mean the government was pressing ahead with a national pay-as-you-drive scheme.

“No decision has been made on a national scheme. We have got to see the results of the pilot schemes,” he said.

He said there would be a three-month consultation period for those in favour and against road pricing to have their say before a final bill is drawn up.

[…]

BBQ

And so, as many people have told you, including me, these petitions are nothing more than simple steam valves to allow the weak minded to let off steam. The murderers Bliar and Brown do not care about what you think, on any level. They use these phoney tricks to lull you into a false sense of participating in democracy. It is a sham and lie like everything else about them.

Now, The Prime Minister in Waiting has a chance to differentiate himself from Bliar:

Gordon Brown, BACK DOWN!

Cancel this universally unwanted road pricing scheme and DEMONSTRATE that you are different from your War Criminal cohort.

My emphases in the nested blockquote above; if these mini schemes ‘to fit in with those run elsewhere’ it means that when there are many of them, you can join them all up into a gigantic system, by which time there will be a de-facto national system.

Very smart, very sneaky.

It also means data-sharing across all of them obviously.

Bad Mojo!

UFO Disclosure – The Harsh Reality
by Patrick Cooke 

On May 9, 2001, Dr. Steven Greer of The Disclosure Project paraded a convincing cast of military and government witnesses before cameras at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. And then……nothing. Almost 6 years of non-disclosure about why it never went beyond that single press conference, even though it was the brightest “flash in the pan” the UFO movement had experienced.

Almost immediately, Greer set up a corporation dedicated to finding the elusive technology to provide the world’s energy needs with “alien technology”. He put all his efforts into that, and all we ever got was a video to remember the hope the press conference generated. The hope that, finally, we might get some answers from the government went the way of most alternatives to mainstream thought; it got sold.

Even though very little has been done, not withstanding the efforts of Steven Basset and a few others to force government disclosure, something recently, almost out of the ether, seems to have generated that governmental UFO disclosure so important to the credibility of the entire UFO movement. And, interest in UFOs has spread from the generally ignored paranormal and UFO “community” to the mainstream media. Suddenly, the justified fear of ridicule connected with reporting UFO sightings is fading and acceptance by the mainstream is increasing.

Recent Disclosure History

The best remembered UFO disclosure event to occur, which remains one of the largest “elephant in the room” in the UFO field, was Project Blue Book in 1969 that was undertaken by the United States Air Force. It was officially discontinued with the Air force citing the reason that UFOs did not present any threat to national security. It should be noted that this was not a denial of existence.

We do not need to go back hundreds or thousands of years to find clues to the current interest in UFOs; a decade will suffice.

• March 1997 – The Phoenix Lights event garnered the widest international attention of any UFO encounter in modern history in March 13, 1997. Less than two years later, in
• January 1999 – Joe Firmage, a Silicon Valley CEO turned UFO evangelist, posted his a 700-page UFO manifesto, “The Truth”.
• May 2001 – The Disclosure Project National Press Club event mentioned above took place, and Stephen Bassett took up the cause of UFO disclosure in his independent candidacy in the 8th Congressional District of the State of Maryland. (N.B. look at these testimonials on YouTube)
• May, 2004 The Mexican Department of Defense released videos of a sighting of multiple UFOs taken by an Air Force Merlín C26A, virtually admitting that UFOs exist.
• July, 2004 – Governor of New Mexico and presidential candidate, Bill Richardson, stated, “It would help everyone if the U.S. government disclosed everything it knows.”
• February, 2005 “Peter Jennings Reporting: UFOs — Seeing Is Believing” (N.B. a VERY shitty documentary. A much better one is ‘UFOs are Real‘ or ‘Out of the Blue‘)
• May, 2005 – A year after the Mexican DoD released its videos, the Brazilian Air Force (FAB) releases all its files on UFO contacts.
• September 2005 – Paul Hellyer, Canada’s Defence Minister, publicly stated, “UFOs, are as real as the airplanes that fly over your head.”
• April 2006 the Paradigm Clock, which tracks proximity to a formal acknowledgement of an extraterrestrial presence engaging the human race, was reset to 11:59:45, just 15 seconds to midnight.
• November 2006 – A significant sighting took place at O’Hare Airport in Chicago and received worldwide attention and media coverage.
• February 2007 The Chilean Army discloses recordings and secret contacts with UFOs before over a thousand attendees at the 10th International UFO Congress.
• March 2007 – The French national space agency, CNES, placed 1600 previously classified UFO sighting reports into the public domain on the Internet.
• March 2007 – Former Arizona governor, Fife Symington, revealed that he had seen a massive black triangular UFO fly overhead early in the evening of March 17, 1997 – the first Phoenix Lights event.
• April 2007 – The proposed “U.N. Decade Of Contact” to establish diplomatic relations with advanced E.T.s petition is well on its way to reaching its goal for submission to the United Nations.

Of the 14 major events listed above, which are moving UFO disclosure closer to reality, 11 have occurred in the last 24 months. This indicates that the mainstream is moving rapidly toward an acceptance of the greatest revelation in human history. Or, is that better phrased as a return to the beliefs our ancestors held since the beginning of human history?

The UFO Paradigm Shift

There is no record of recent influence in human affairs, by the occupants of UFOs, although there have been reports of high tech tampering with nuclear weapons and possible power interferences during exotic weapons testing. This is, of course, excluding the exotheological concept that the ancient religious writings were inspired by extraterrestrial contact. Most of the UFO contact recorded with the military is because of the mere presence of UFOs, not any aggressive action on their part. Just the fact that they are there seems to make those witnessing them presume they are, somehow, interfering with human activity.

[…]

article continues at UFO Digest

While we are at it, you should download this incredible pair of clips of a UFO shot in France April 24th from two different locations by two people independent of each other. Then you should download the classic ‘UFOs are Real‘; the best UFO documentary ever made.

I recently had a short email exchange about this subject, and since I found the torrent of the high res south of France footage, its as good a time as any to post it:

+++++++

***** ***** wrote:

I’m assuming you’ve seen this, but just to make sure…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/story/0,,2071275,00.html

Yes! I saw that – interesting how they have so many filess when they claim they have had and do not have any interest in the subject.

We watched UFOs are real. To be honest, it’s somewhat preaching to the converted in me and ***** (actually, we’ve never converted. We’ve always known), but it was nice to see some things I’d not really heard of. The strongest earth-originated fact was the letter from J. Edgar Hoover complaining that the navy had ‘snatched’ something.

And the army would not let them have it for cursory inspection! Its just amazing isn’t it? and the brain dead journalists and SETI dorks like Seth Shostack still insist that there is no evidence!

Its an astonishing documentary. The facts are laid out perfectly. The photos of the same object or different objects from the same manufacturer, taken at different times in different places just blows away any doubt you could harbor. There is so much in there, all logically presented, without any new-age garbage.

The part about the inventor of the transistor saying man would never land on the moon and the example of the difference between jets and sailing ships is also good; it makes it clear to even the dumbest that saying ‘impossible’ is really a dumb thing to do. This stuff is real, it is happening, it has been happening for generations, and there is nothing we can do about it.

It still confuses me a little though, that despite so many sightings there has still been no single event capable of convincing an extremely sceptical public. It needn’t be a landing in Trafalgar Square, but just enough and public enough to deflect accusations of hallucination/storytelling/madness/attention-seeking/whatever.

increasingly i think this is a good thing. I really have had enough of these ‘world changing events’, and this one would be the mother of them all!

I find it incredible that every substantial piece of evidence that could do so has been swept under the carpet (or Hoover’ed up!). Tis a shame. Have you found that this film has changed anyone’s mind? I doubt it has. People are conditioned not to believe this type of evidence, which is why An Undeniable Event is required.

It may be coming…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=77FjyBe7cQM&feature=player_profilepage

This and the guernsey sighting a few days ago, plus the O’Hare….its getting silly. And the media is no longer laughing off the stories, and is publishing them left right and centre. That, and the all pervasive cameras in the hands of punters, means we are heading towards this world changing event. Bad News.

This release of information certainly isn’t that event. I don’t expect to find any evidence lurking in the MoD files! And anyone who does must be loopy.

I’m not sure why they are even bothering. Actually, I DO know why; the French have done it, and so, not to be outdone, the Brits are having their ‘me too’ moment, to show that actually, they are not incompetent, they have been studying this also. India has been publishing some very bizarre stories detailing the science that has been gleaned from this area. It reads like….beyond science fiction.

Everyone knows that the best cases were not part of the Bluebook system, and with these MOD files, for certain the best evidence will not be in there.

At the end of the day, unless private people can get a hold of the technology and make use of it, I now take the position that we should keep it secret, so that we can continue with our lives as they are.

Can you IMAGINE what would happen if it ever became irrefutable? Everything would be turned upside down. We need MORE certainty, not LESS, and this event would bring more instability and uncertainty.

These people (and they really ARE people) can do things we can scarcely dream of. Once this secret is out, and out in detail, its ‘game over’.

No one seems to talk about another aspect of this that will totally change everything…. Culture.

These people have their own culture. It is certainly much older than ours. Inevitably, humans will start to adopt their culture and philosophy. It has happened every time a more advanced civilization meets an ‘inferior’ one; the inferior one looses its identity either partially or entirely.

Human culture will be contaminated beyond repair; in fact it has already happened by virtue of the sightings and the response of governments. Because knowledge of this is limited to a few people, the real impact has not happened, and the contamination is limited to science fiction, but once it is real, and these people hand over some books, thats it, its over.

Their political, philosophical and other ideas will spread like a California brushfire, wiping out our identity and culture. In a few hundred years there will not be a single human alive that is really human in its thinking. Every man woman and child will have adopted some part of alien culture into their mindset, and indeed, this is quite natural for us, since we like to learn things. Sadly, the things we have to learn from them will be so astonishing that they will supplant our ideas.

Think about it; a culture that can travel to other planets must have organization that works well. Everyone will want to apply those principles to their own lives and projects and interpersonal interactions. Politics, how we breed…everything will be transformed completely, and it doesn’t matter what form their ideas take; because they are ‘superior’, everyone will assume that their ways are better.

No. I think these people and their information need to be kept out of our loop, lest we become a Cargo Cult planet of slavering servants.

Take a look at the COMETA report, if you have not already done so:

http://www.scribd.com/search?query=cometa

The French have been taking this seriously for decades, for all the good it has done them.

Lataz!

./a

+++++++

And there you have it.

Nothing lasts forever, that is for sure, and Disclosure is coming, that is also a certainty. Will it be a good thing or a bad thing, that is the question. Today, I think it will be mostly if not all bad.

I could be wrong…

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!

DHS proposes guidelines for proving one’s identity and residence when applying for a Real ID card. Yet while the department concedes it’s a monumental task to prove one’s domicile or residence, it leaves it up to the states to determine what documents would be adequate proof of residence–and even suggests that a utility bill or bank statement might be appropriate documentation. If so, a person could easily generate multiple proof-of-residence documents. Basing Real ID on such easy-to-forge documents obviates a large portion of what Real ID is supposed to accomplish.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly for Americans, the very last paragraph of the 160-page Real ID document deserves special attention. In a nod to states’ rights advocates, DHS declares that states are free not to participate in the Real ID system if they choose — but any identification card issued by a state that does not meet Real ID criteria is to be clearly labeled as such, to include “bold lettering” or a “unique design” similar to how many states design driver’s licenses for those under 21 years of age.

In its own guidance document, the department has proposed branding citizens not possessing a Real ID card in a manner that lets all who see their official state-issued identification know that they’re “different,” and perhaps potentially dangerous, according to standards established by the federal government. They would become stigmatized, branded, marked, ostracized, segregated. All in the name of protecting the homeland; no wonder this provision appears at the very end of the document.

One likely outcome of this DHS-proposed social segregation is that people presenting non-Real ID identification automatically will be presumed suspicious and perhaps subject to additional screening or surveillance to confirm their innocence at a bar, office building, airport, or routine traffic stop. Such a situation would establish a new form of social segregation–an attempt to separate “us” from “them” in the age of counterterrorism and the new normal, where one is presumed suspicious until proven more suspicious.

Two other big-picture concerns about Real ID come to mind: Looking at the overall concept of a national identification database, and given existing data security controls in large distributed systems, one wonders how vulnerable this system-of-systems will be to data loss or identity theft resulting from unscrupulous employees, flawed technologies, external compromises or human error–even under the best of security conditions. And second, there is no clear guidance on the limits of how the Real ID database would be used. Other homeland security initiatives, such as the Patriot Act, have been used and applied–some say abused–for purposes far removed from anything related to homeland security. How can we ensure the same will not happen with Real ID? […]

And there you have it, from Shneier.

Attention needs to be drawn to the similarities between the Apartheid system’s Pass Laws and ID cards. People think that there is no similarity because the reason for the laws is not explicitly ‘race’. What they fail to understand is that the effect of these ID cards is the same as racist Apartheid, only it applies to everyone. Everyone becomes ‘black’ (underprivileged) and only the state is ‘white’ (elite class).

SEATTLE – A man operated a “warehouse bank” out of his suburban home, taking at least $28 million from people around the country who wanted a discrete bank account, according to court documents.

An IRS investigator said Robert Arant had hundreds of customers, many of whom apparently used his bank, Olympic Business Systems LLC, to conceal assets for the purpose of evading taxes.

On his now-defunct Web site, Arant advertised his services to those “who would rather not deal directly with the banking system,” court records said.

Arant took customers’ money – promising to keep their identities private – and pooled it in six accounts at Bank of America, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo Bank, IRS agent Susan Killingsworth said in court papers.

Arant would pay the customers’ bills from those commercial bank accounts, charging about $75 a year in fees for the service, plus fees for wire transfers and for initial account set-up, court record said. For $30, customers could buy debit cards to access their money more easily; otherwise, they could access it by check, money order or wire transfer, she said.

Reached by phone at his home Tuesday, Arant said he intended to represent himself in court, but declined to comment further.

“I’m not where I need to be as far as responding to the IRS at this point,” he said.

A civil complaint charges Arant with promoting abusive tax shelters and unlawfully interfering with internal revenue laws. And a federal judge has frozen the assets of Arant’s bank.

Agents seized computers and financial records last month from the home where Arant lives with the property’s owner, Martin F. Dugan.

Killingsworth was initially assigned to investigate Arant’s failure to file income tax returns since 2001.

She said she has been able to identify 13 people who used Arant’s service while underreporting or not reporting their income from 2002, when the bank opened, to 2005.

Arant could face civil penalties of $1,000 per false statement he made in promoting the scheme – typically calculated as one false statement for each of his customers.

Warehouse bank schemes were popular as illegal tax shelters in the 1980s, but several have been busted in more recent years – including one broken up in Boring, Ore., in 2000, involving $186 million in deposits from 900 people over 14 years. The six organizers of that scheme were sentenced to up to four years in prison. (1 image)

[…]

LibertyPost

A long while back, I wrote about the privacy shielding services that are going to and that have now started to appear:

Privacy will be taken very seriously when Nectar is everywhere, and there is very little privacy; in other words, when it becomes scarce. When that happens, people will pay for privacy.

There will be legions of people and services providing privacy, in the same way that there are professional dog walkers in the major cities of the world. You will pay someone to do your shopping for you, in their name though the goods will be going to you. These Dorian Greys will take on all the sin of your shopping, and heap it onto themselves, leaving your record clean and lean. Your ID will show that you never buy anything, except (if you are careless) the services of one or two people, who might not even be real people, who will seem to have the buying power of 100 human economic units.

Don’t worry, this does not mean that you will loose your Nectar points. The Dorian Greys will keep perfect accounts of what was spent on your behalf, anonymously, and your points will be redeemed for you on whatever you desire. You will get it all, the anonymity AND the privacy.

BLOGDIAL

So, what can we infer from this? If you pay someone else’s bills regularly, is this a crime? If you hold on to someone’s cash for them, is that also a crime?

You had better believe that there are many people who do not use these services, but who use other similar services that have no footprint at all.

The point is that people turn to these services because something is wrong with the services currently on offer everywhere.

But you know this!

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

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™.

Wired Blog Network
Monday, April 30, 2007

Like any dictator worth the title, Saddam Hussein kept good records on his people — dossiers that included fingerprints. Now the occupying forces in Iraq have digitized his fingerprint files in order to screen potential recruits for the Iraqi police force using Automated Fingerprint Identification System technology, according to reporter David Axe’s post at Aviation Week’s ARES blog, cross-posted to Wired’s DANGER ROOM.

AFIS is a widely used technology to compare one print against a database of prints, and is used by local, state, national and foreign law enforcement agencies.

So by digitizing those records and looking for matches among recruits, the police trainers have been able to catch scores of former felons, Ba’athists and other ne’er-do-wells before they donned the blue uniform, according to U.S. Army Brigadier General David Phillips. “We have caught people coming straight out of jail.”

This is a great example of re-using old data with new systems to achieve a result no one had anticipated when the data and the systems were created. Still, this does not represent a major success for proponents of battlefield biometrics. What we need is tough handheld enrollment devices for building new databases about current populations … and we need universal databases for Iraq so that trainers, military police and everyone else are on the same page.

Actually, having an unwanted occupying force re-using a dictator’s secret spy files, “building new databases about current populations” and creating “universal databases” sounds pretty creepy to me — justified, I assume, with the idea that the end justifies the means.

There are some core accepted practices around personal data usage — data should be thrown out at a certain point, data collected for one purpose should not be re-used for another reason without permission and individuals should have the right to see and contest the accuracy of data in their files. Those principles are universally accepted in the free world as necessary checks and balances on government data collections, even as the U.S. government continually finds ways to opt its databases out of those requirements domestically.

Starting up a new system to take the fingerprints of people convicted of a crime is one thing. Digitizing the secret spy files of a murderous dictator and enrolling new people simply detained by local cops or foreign soldiers? I can taste the freedom from here.

[…]

http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/april2007/300407biometric.htm

This article encapsulates everything that is wrong with biometrics and national identity cards.

The original was data supplied by Iraqis as a ‘normal’ part of their lives. They did it to be a part of their society, ‘for the good of society’. It was used for years ‘normally’. Then, the nightmare scenario began; their country was invaded.

Their data is being reprocessed and repurposed without their consent by a fascist hoard of satanic invaders. They are now suffering precisely the scenario that people are warning about here in the UK. You might (if you are COMPLETELY INSANE) trust Tony Blair and his government to keep your data private and not abuse it, but in the future, another government of liars, murderers, fascists, control freaks, poodle dogs and venal incompetents could easily be elected, and then your data will be abused, used against you, sold to anyone with money etc etc.

That is what the poor suffering Iraqis are getting a taste of right now.

And as for the ‘handheld enrollment devices’ we have seen the precursors of these right here.

And as for ‘smelling the freedom from here’, well, its not surprising, because the STENCH you are detecting with your badly damaged olfactory glands is the rotting corpse of YOUR OWN DEMOCRACY and FREEDOM. Your own REALID and RFID passports are stinking up the air right there in america, so, by all means, sniff out the fascist horrors that are going on in Iraq at the hands of your soldiers and government, but do take a look outside your own front door, and bury your own dead!

And you forgot to put the word ‘democracy’ in single quotes. Doh.

Medical students’ personal details leaked

Junior doctors’ details exposed online

The Medical Training Application Service or MTAS is a computer system where student and junior doctors apply for jobs – a system they were repeatedly assured was secure.

The same assurances as for the NHS ‘data spine’ and National Identity Register.

Today Channel Four News can reveal that since at least 9 o’ clock this morning, the details of medical students applying for foundation course posts – the first year to become a junior doctor – were openly available to the public.

This is astonishing. Not only can we see what they wrote in their applications; their addresses; their phone numbers; who their referees are. We can also see if there were white, heterosexual, gay Asian, Christian, Jewish or Hindu, and we can also see if they have got police records and what the crime was.

[…]

Contrary to the report this is not ‘astonishing’ it was entirely predictable in the same way we have been predicting the failure of the National Identity Register, etc. What is astonishing is that junior doctors are being asked to give personal details such as sexual orientaton and ethnic background as these details have absolutely no bearing on their suitability to be doctors.

No Minister was available for interview tonight. Instead they issued this statement:

“We apologise to any applicants whose details have been improperly accessed. This URL was made available to a strictly limited number of people making checks as part of the employment process.

Of course this is only true if the URL has been blocked to spiders and other web searching utilities, the fact that access to the URL was limited is only due to the violation of privacy being flagged up, this could have easily been noticed by some unscrupulous person. You can be certain as a result of this people will be targeting such sites in the future on a speculative basis.

Experts say the level of data included in the applications makes it a gold mine for identity theft and fraud.

Incidentally, good to see that channel4 uses the word experts rather than BBQs usual ‘critics’.

On BBQs Toady program this morning this was indeed highlighted and at last the interviewee (possibly Andrew Lansley) got airtime to make the connection to NIR and the data spine.

One issue about this failure is that it relates to a set of details that aren’t even shared between government departments, financial institutions, foriegn intelligence services, police, local authorities, estate agents, schools, etc, etc. which the Neu Labour government want to extend the NIR/Identity Card scheme to. The wider the access to any database the higher the risk of information being leaked, the NIR will be trawled remorselessy for such information and whatever the government say the NIR ID will make its way onto records that contain personal information such as sexual orientation, ethnicity or any other information that is prised out of you by the State.

Why does the Bush administration have a list of everyone who has ever used anti-depressants?

America Blog
Wednesday April 18, 2007

Guess what? They do. From ABC News, regarding the VA Tech shooter:

Some news accounts have suggested that Cho had a history of antidepressant use, but senior federal officials tell ABC News that they can find no record of such medication in the government’s files. This does not completely rule out prescription drug use, including samples from a physician, drugs obtained through illegal Internet sources, or a gap in the federal database, but the sources say theirs is a reasonably complete search.

We don’t even have a list of gun owners, and we have a list of everyone who has been prescribed anti-depressants? And in fact, the article suggests that this isn’t just a database of patients who use anti-depressants, it’s a federal database of every prescription drug you’ve ever bought.

What exactly do the Bushies do with that list? And what other lists do they have of which medications you’ve ever taken?

Americablog

[…]

But all this is ‘perfectly ok’ because (in whining sing song voice) its ‘good for society‘.

Right?

Thats what the people who advocate ID cards, gun control, banning Samurai swords, ‘the war on drugs’, banning breeds of dogs, interfering with home schooling, banning vitamins, in fact, all nanny state, knee jerk, bottle-fed brain-dead population ideas… this is what they are about: VIOLATION in the name of false safety, turning people into defenseless cattle.

German army ‘depicted blacks as target practice’
By Kirsten Grieshaber in Berlin
Published: 16 April 2007

A German army instructor has been shown on television ordering a soldier to fire his machine gun while imagining he was in the Bronx facing hostile African Americans.

In New York, the Bronx borough president demanded an apology from the German military and said the clip on German television “indicates that bias and assumptions and racism is alive and well around the world”.

Coming after scandals involving photos of German soldiers posing with skulls in Afghanistan and the abuse of recruits by instructors, the video seemed likely to raise more questions about training practices in Germany’s conscript army.

The Defence Ministry said the video was shot in July 2006 at barracks in the northern town of Rendsburg and that the army had been aware of it since January.

“We are currently investigating the incident,” an army spokesman said.

The clip shows an instructor and a soldier in camouflage uniforms in a forest. The instructor tells the soldier: “You are in the Bronx. A black van is stopping in front of you. Three African-Americans are getting out and they are insulting your mother … act.”

The soldier fires his machine gun several times and yells an obscenity several times in English.

[…]

http://news.independent.co.uk/europe/article2452385.ece

Ah yes!

These men are the products of that great German school system, designed to encourage plurality, tolerance and to prevent the creation of a segmented society:

“In our increasingly wertepluralistischen society the school is the place, where a peaceful dialogue between the different views, values, religions and world views takes place and can social authority in handling other-thinking one be learned. Homeschooling is for Germany therefore no model.”

From the press release in response to the UN’s criticism of Germany’s ban on Home Schooling.

So, this is the product of your philosophy. This is the result of your ‘peaceful dialogue’, between the ‘different views, values, religions and world views’. Once again, the whole world sees you for what you really are and we all see what you really want to protect and promote.

I have no doubt that this video will appear on LiveLeak shortly. In the meantime, sit back and enjoy this other example of the product of German schooling!

Update….and here it is!

April 11) — A handheld device that can tell in a second whether a person is on one of 140 wanted or watch lists is being hailed by police as a crime-fighting breakthrough and flayed by civil libertarians as an intrusion on the innocent.

The sheriff’s office in Clermont County, Ohio, is the first civilian law enforcement agency in the nation to test the portable fugitive finder.

Police say Mobilisa Inc.’s m2500 Defense ID system shows promise of saving them time and helping them fight crime. Critics say it intensifies questions about privacy.

The Port Townsend, Wash., wireless technology company says its handheld electronic scanner can identify within a second whether someone is a fugitive from justice, has a violent criminal past or is a convicted sex offender.

The scanner reads the magnetic strip or barcode on state-issued ID cards, passports and driver’s licenses. It uses the information to determine whether a person shows up on wanted or watch lists, including ones from the Drug Enforcement Agency and Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The databases are downloaded when the scanner is placed on a Mobilisa charger. In the field, the scanner operates wirelessly.

“It’s a technology whose time has come,” says Nelson Ludlow, Mobilisa’s CEO. He says he came up with the idea for the scanner after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks for use at military bases. He quickly realized it would benefit all law enforcement agencies.

Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute, says the scanner raises concerns about privacy. The Cato Institute is a non-profit, public-policy research foundation in Washington, D.C., that promotes limited government.

Harper says use of the scanner emphasizes the need for society to decide whether average, law-abiding Americans should be stopped and checked for warrants as they go about their business. “The Framers of the Constitution suggested that they shouldn’t be when they wrote the Fourth Amendment,” he says.

Personnel at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland started using the Defense ID in mid-January. Air Force One, the president’s plane, is housed at the base.

“The Defense ID is a powerful security enhancement,” says Sgt. Gregory Striejewske of the Visitor Control Center at Andrews.

So far, 108,432 identification credentials have been scanned, finding 286 hits of people who were wanted or had expired or terminated identifications, he says.

Clermont County Sheriff A.J. “Tim” Rodenberg says, “This is the future of crime fighting.”

John Paxton, chairman of Mobilisa’s board of directors, lives in Clermont County and is a friend of the sheriff. Paxton arranged for the department to begin testing the scanners late last year at no cost. The scanners cost $6,700 each, plus a $148 monthly service fee.

Between Jan. 1 and March 14, 1,277 identifications were scanned, and 33 resulted in arrests on warrants or came up as a sex offender. Another 18 people had expired driver’s licenses.

Cincinnati attorney Martin Pinales, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, calls the Defense ID “another closing in of Big Brother.”

He says showing identification to police during a traffic stop is one thing, but the scanner puts a private company in the encounter.

“Government has the right to contract with private companies, but this brings into question who controls the information,” Pinales says. “What happens to the data collected?”

Ludlow says activity on a scanner can be recorded and searched by investigators for law enforcement purposes. The data remain the property of the law enforcement agency using the scanner, he says.

AOL News

[…]

Coolidge reports daily for The Cincinnati Enquirer.

I told you that this would be developed four years ago.

The pure evil that it represents is unambiguous. Look at the manufacturer’s website.

Interesting….Mobilisa VS Doe.

And the army is in on it: Mobilisa, Inc. is pleased to announce the addition of Major General Jack A. Davis USMCR to their Board of Directors.

On the surface, the Air Force and Navy contracts they scored were cheap to buy.

It is of course the Mobilisation of pure evil.

Robert Winnett and David Leppard

The government is predicting that some 15m people will revolt against Tony Blairs controversial ID card scheme by refusing to produce the new cards or provide personal data on demand.

The forecast is made in documents released by the Home Office under the Freedom of Information Act. The papers show ministers expect national protests similar to the poll tax rebellions of the Thatcher era, with millions prepared to risk criminal prosecution..

The documents, quietly released during parliaments Easter break, also show that the government is planning to make ID cards compulsory in 2014, despite the expected revolt.

The first cards are due in 2009, alongside new passports. Labour has said it will make the scheme compulsory if it wins the next election.

[…]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1626768.ece

Nice try Robert and David, but you fail it.

First of all, MILLIONS are going to refuse to provide fingerprints and information for the NIR, which is the true evil and backbone of the system.

As we have been saying for years, once you are registered in the system, your body becomes the card. The physical card is just a vestigial token that everyone will eventually be weaned off of once they innately understand how the system really works…or at least, thats the plan if they manage to pull it off, which they will not.

Secondly, you failed to mention that the Tories will scrap the entire system if they are elected. I say ‘entire system’ because any failure to scrap the NIR is a failure to scrap the real heart of the system; the biometric net.

As I said before, the war against home schooling has started, and the propaganda machine is lurching into action. Here is a piece from the Time Educational Suppliment, which is a piece of pure, vile propaganda. Lets take it to pieces line by line.

35,000 lost to schooling

Madeleine Brettingham
Published: 30 March 2007

Madeleine Brettingham has been compromised by whoever put together the press release that she has regurgitated. She obviously knows nothing about Home schooling, and has not bothered to look before ‘writing’ this article.

One in four parents who home-educate children provides little or no teaching

This is a lie, and a statistic pulled out of a hat. No one knows how many Home schoolers there are in the UK, and certainly no one knows what they are or are not being taught. This statistic is therefore completely bogus.

As many as 35,000 home-schooled children are not receiving even a basic education from their parents, according to inspectors, prompting calls for a change in the law.

This is once again, bogus. And WHO is calling for changes in the law? Inspectors have no right to examine what is being taught by home schoolers, so they cannot know that 35,000 children are not ‘are not receiving even a basic education from their parents’. What we DO know however, is that the schools that HMG are running regularly fail to properly educate children in basic literacy and numeracy; part of the cause of the increase in home schooling in the UK.

Despite the stereotype of creative middle-class parents educating their children at the kitchen table, a quarter of home-schooled children are doing little or no work, officials claimed.

This is a thinly veiled snipe by someone without any facts, or decency. That she thinks there is a stereotype of parents educating their children at the kitchen table demonstrates her utter ignorance on this subject. As for children doing little or no work, this is simply a claim, nothing more, and in fact it is irrelevant to the subject.

There are some parents out there collectively known as ‘Autonomous Educators‘ who allow their children to learn in the way that they want, following their own interests without any prompting from anyone. These people have the right to use this method and approach, which to a control addict, might look like ‘not doing any work’ but to the autonomous educators is a perfect solution to their needs. No one has the right to say that Autonomous Educators must change their methods. Period.

Tony Mooney, a home education inspector with seven years’ experience, said: “Schools are told in such fine detail what they need to teach and yet parents can get away with doing nothing at all.”

No one is ‘getting away’ with anything. Schools have to be controlled carefully because they are providing a service to parents; parents in charge of their own children do not need to be controlled by anyone. This man has a fundamental misunderstanding of the relationship between the citizen and the state, that is clear.

Local authority inspectors fear some families are using home education as an excuse to evade problems with bullying, poor attendance or disruptive behaviour. They are also concerned that child welfare could slip through the net because parents are not obliged to agree to home visits.

Parents can withdraw from the school system for whatever reason they like. HMG should concentrate on eliminating bullying and the disruptive pupils that turn schools into violent hell holes that have more in common with prison than what we would recognize as a school.

Now, here come the big guns:

Eunice Spry, the foster mother convicted last week of abusing her children by forcing them to drink bleach and beating them with a metal bar, had withdrawn her children from formal schooling.

This case has NOTHING to do with home schooling, and has everything to do with fostering and the failure of Gloucester council to properly run its services. Anyone and everyone can see this, and that this is being trotted out like this as a reason to control home schooling is frankly as absurd as it is sickening. Shame on you Madeleine Brettingham for not having any integrity or common sense.

Up to 150,000 children in England are estimated to be home-educated. Figures are inexact because families are under no obligation to notify their council.

and that is the way it will stay. As we have seen in the Australian Home School Rebellion, parents will not cave in to the fear-mongers, brain dead journalists and control addicts.

Although many home-educators are committed individuals who see home-schooling as a way of developing their child’s interests, inspectors estimate about a quarter of parents provide nothing.

All home schoolers are committed and individuals. That is why you denigrate them, Madeleine. They do not do it ‘as a way to develop their child’s interests’, they do it to provide a full and rich education of the type that you are against children having. They do it to ensure that their children attend the best universities. They are doing it because their families are stronger through it, their lives are enriched by it, and it’s better than being sent to useless schools. As for the ‘quarter of parents who provide nothing’ this is just a lie that you are repeating unchallenged.

Myra Robinson, an inspector with nine years’ experience, regularly sees children who have been withdrawn from school for an inadequate alternative. “All the rights are in favour of the parent,” she said. “But who is going to stand up for the rights of the child?”

Parents are not separate from their children. The rights of parents are inextricably bound to their children, they are in fact, like a composite entity. All children have rights, but these rights extend from the parents rights until they reach their majority and their rights as individuals come into being. Children who have not reached their majority have rights separate from their parents only when they have been given up by the parents, or the parents die. Relatives or the state then takes over in loco parentis, and only then (if there are no relatives) does the state have the right to ‘stand up for the rights of the child’ because in effect, the state becomes the parent in the absence of the the biological parents.

What this total idiot Myra Robinson said is nonsense. She is an inspector, and should stick to that, and not trying to redefine the relationship between citizen and state by empty headed proclamation.

The circumstances of a significant proportion of home-schooled children are “a real cause for concern”, she said. Recent cases include a boy with learning difficulties who was unable to speak coherently by the age of five, or write his name by 10, and received no visible support.

All children develop at different paces. In Scandinavian countries children do not start reading until they are eight years old. The one size fits all mania of this government fails children, and what is so appalling is that creatures like Myra Robinson seek to put all children into this meat grinder that they have created, without a care for what the child actual needs. The real cause for concern are these incompetent and igorant busy bodies who are desperate to get into the private affairs of everyone in the UK. THEY are the problem, not home education. Home education is the cure to the disease that are the Myra Robinsons and the Tony Mooneys of the world, who are anti family anti children and pro…heaven knows what.

What is certain is that if any child with special needs could get help in school a parent would rush to take advantage of it. The fact is that Myra Robinson is not able to provide what that child needed, and she cannot admit that.

Other pupils were unable to produce work samples on demand or demonstrate an understanding of basic skills, despite parents’ claims about their level of education.

If they were autonomous educators, then that would make sense. The problem these buffoons have is that they are trying to apply their own flawed standards on individuals. They are incapable of understanding that human beings have made achievements and have worth even if you cannot measure their achievement with a test. This is the fundamental disconnect that their limited world view cannot embrace, and which causes them to want to destroy anything that they cannot understand. Our philosophy is superior, because it embraces everyone as individuals, seeks to impose its will on no one, and actually produces the results in terms of better children what perform better academically right on into higher education. Myra Robinson and Tony Mooney cannot say that what they represent works, in fact, it is so hopelessly broken that parents are fleeing from it en-masse. This is not only a disconnect of philosophy, but it is a disconnect from reality because what we do works and what they do does not.

“One girl said she worked in the library but didn’t seem to know where it was,” Ms Robinson said.

Anecdotal and irrelevant garbage. We are not buying this Madeleine!

Laws on home-schooling are relaxed and parents are under no obligation to follow the national curriculum, set a timetable or agree to a local authority inspection. Inspectors would like the Government to tighten the law. But home-schooling organisations are keen to protect parents’ freedoms.

Home schooling laws are not ‘relaxed’ they are appropriate. Home schoolers should be under no obligation to follow the national curriculum, just as many private schools are not obliged to follow the national curriculum. Home schoolers do not need to set a timetable, and this further demonstrates Madeline’s complete ignorance about home schooling. It would be understandable if Madeline was just another journalist, but she is writing for the TES; you would have thought that she would have SOME idea about home schooling, working for a specialized publication whose focus is education.

Anne Newstead, a spokeswoman for the charity Education Otherwise, admitted some parents were using the home-schooling label as an excuse, but said: “We shouldn’t all be tarred with the same brush.

“We know, for example, that some schools are encouraging parents of persistent truants to register as home educators to get their attendance figures up. This sort of thing isn’t good for the majority of parents who do the right thing.”

Sadly, these words are nothing to do with the main thrust of the argument. I would imagine that Anne Newstead said alot more than this, but all of it was ignored. Its interesting how these propaganda pieces work.

The Department for Education and Skills said it had been considering proposals to change the regulation of home-schooling but had no plans to publish them in the near future.

[…]

Times Educational Suppliment

Whatever they publish it will mean nothing. No one is going to allow them to regulate home schooling. They are thinking about running a consultation on this subject; it will be like all the other consultations, online petitions and every other bogus opinion gathering exercise that HMG puts on as part of its sham democracy. They will collect the opinions and even if they are all negative, they will go ahead with what they plan to do anyway. this is what happened with the ID cards consultation and more recently the road pricing petition.

This however, is different.

Unless HMG is ready to haul people off to gaol like the Germans are doing, they had better think twice before they try and change the law. They would be far better off putting all their energy into solving the problems of the schools they are already in charge of, rather than interfering in something they know nothing about at every level and which performs better than anything they can create.

People think there has to be a choice between privacy and security; that increased security means more collection and processing of personal private information. However, in a challenging report to be published on Monday 26 March 2007, The Royal Academy of Engineering says that, with the right engineering solutions, we can have both increased privacy and more security. Engineers have a key role in achieving the right balance.

One of the issues that Dilemmas of Privacy and Surveillance – challenges of technological change looks at is how we can buy ordinary goods and services without having to prove who we are. For many electronic transactions, a name or identity is not needed; just assurance that we are old enough or that we have the money to pay. In short, authorisation, not identification should be all that is required. Services for travel and shopping can be designed to maintain privacy by allowing people to buy goods and use public transport anonymously. “It should be possible to sign up for a loyalty card without having to register it to a particular individual – consumers should be able to decide what information is collected about them,” says Professor Nigel Gilbert, Chairman of the Academy working group that produced the report. “We have supermarkets collecting data on our shopping habits and also offering life insurance services. What will they be able to do in 20 years’ time, knowing how many donuts we have bought?”

Another issue is that, in the future, there will be more databases holding sensitive personal information. As government moves to providing more electronic services and constructs the National Identity Register, databases will be created that hold information crucial for accessing essential services such as health care and social security. But complex databases and IT networks can suffer from mechanical failure or software bugs. Human error can lead to personal data being lost or stolen. If the system breaks down, as a result of accident or sabotage, millions could be inconvenienced or even have their lives put in danger.

The Academy’s report calls for the government to take action to prepare for such failures, making full use of engineering expertise in managing the risks posed by surveillance and data management technologies. It also calls for stricter guidelines for companies who hold personal data, requiring companies to store data securely, to notify customers if their data are lost or stolen, and to tell us what the data are being used for.

“Technologies for collecting, storing, transmitting and processing data are developing rapidly with many potential benefits, from making paying bills more convenient to providing better healthcare,” says Professor Gilbert. “However, these techniques could make a significant impact on our privacy. Their development must be monitored and managed so that the effects are properly understood and controlled.” Engineering solutions should also be devised which protect the privacy and security of data. For example: electronic personal information could be protected by methods similar to the digital rights management software used to safeguard copyrighted electronic material like music releases, limiting the threat of snooping and leaks of personal data.

The report also investigates the changes in camera surveillance – CCTV cameras can now record digital images that could be stored forever. Predicted improvements in automatic number-plate recognition, recognition of individual’s faces and faster methods of searching images mean that it may become possible to search back in time through vast amounts of digital data to find out where people were and what they were doing. The Royal Academy of Engineering’s report calls for greater control over the proliferation of camera surveillance and for more research into how public spaces can be monitored while minimising the impact on privacy.

The public will be able to find out more about this report and have their say at a free evening event at the Science Museum’s Dana Centre in London on Tuesday 27 March.

“Engineers’ knowledge and experience can help to ‘design in privacy’ into new IT developments,” says Professor Gilbert. “But first, the government and corporations must recognise that they put at risk the trust of citizens and customers if they do not treat privacy issues seriously.” […]

http://www.raeng.org.uk/news/releases/shownews.htm?NewsID=378

And by engineers, this report had better be talking about software engineers, because it is precisely these people who are teh (yes, ‘teh’) architects of the solutions that can either enhance our lives or completely enslave us.

I am talking about Phil Zimmerman, Dr. David Chaum, Whitfield Diffie and all the other cryptographers and developers who have been working on this since the early 90’s. The software already exists to create an information ecosystem based on anonymity and authorization; the problem is that the legislators and to a certain extent the vendors are computer illiterates who have never even heard of Public Key Cryptography, let alone understand what it really means and what it can do to secure documents while keeping our information private.

Chaumian Ecash is a perfect example of this. Had it come about at the right time, we might all be using a version of PayPal that was actually cash like, i.e., anonymous, secure and instant on a peer to peer basis. Instead and for the moment, we are stuck with the reviled PayPal which is the complete opposite of a cash like system, that is very large, but also reviled, where there is no privacy at all.

Like I demonstrated with my system for a better passport, there are better ways to improve document security. This thinking can spread to all other areas of authentication and transacting so that we can keep our privacy and also have all the benefits of remote transacting and databases.