Archive for March, 2007

Young babies under five will be assessed on their “crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing”

Tuesday, March 13th, 2007

Staff in every nursery in England will monitor children from birth on their progress towards a set of 69 Government “early learning goals”. These goals cover the skill levels expected of five-year-olds in reading, writing and rudimentary maths.

Parents’ groups attacked the new Early Years Foundation Stage (EYFS) curriculum, which will be a legal requirement for all childminders and children’s centres from September 2008.

Margaret Morrissey, from the National Confederation of Parent Teacher Associations, said: “I think it’s really sad that we have reached the point now where instead of reducing children’s stress we have increased it.

“Will nurseries be worrying more about children reaching these targets than caring for our children?

“It worries me that we are expecting children to reach these targets when they have not even had their first birthday.”

The Department for Education published practice guidance alongside the curriculum document, detailing how childcare staff should assess the progress children make at different ages.

Babies from the age of birth to 11 months should be assessed for “the different ways babies communicate – such as gurgling when happy”, the guidance said.

At this age, babies “communicate in a variety of ways including crying, gurgling, babbling and squealing”.

Staff were advised to record how babies under 11 months old “begin to explore their own movements”, mimic adults’ facial expressions and “gaze” at things that interest them.

Under the section dealing with learning to write, babies between birth and 11 months should be observed for the “random marks” they make in their food, the guidance said.

To help develop the early numeracy skills of babies under 11 months, nurseries should display toys and objects like fir cones or shells in small groups and as single items.

Staff should then record “the attention that young babies give to changes in the quantity of objects or images they see, hear or experience.” […]

Daily Mail

I am not making this up, obviously.

These are the insane people who want to control every aspect of life from the cradle to the grave, starting with how often you, “goo goo, gaa gaa” as an infant.

And that is completely GA GA.

One comment on this site says it all:

Moral: don’t put your baby in a nursery; look after it yourself. If you can’t do that, it probably means you shouldn’t have had the poor mite in the first place.

– Jane, Preston, England.

Amen.

New Adam Curtis Documentary, ‘The Trap’

Monday, March 12th, 2007

Adam Curtis, who made the documentaries ‘The Power of Nightmares‘ and ‘Century of the Self‘ has his new work broadcast by BBQ2: ‘The Trap’. This first installment is up to his usual high standards.

Its thesis is fascinating, and is similar to ‘Century of the Self’; a clutch of academics come up with ways of explaining the world that can be applied directly to human affairs, inagination-less politicians read their works, become enamored by them, implement them, and the side effects are entirely negative.

In this installment, the academic is John Nash, (who the insightful Mimi Majick immediately identified as being Autistic), whose work at The Rand Corporation and his “Nash Equilibrium” equations helped form the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction.

Please watch this installment for the background.

Curtis explains clearly how the “Nash Equilibrium” works, and my first thoughts were these:

Equilibrium is a state that can be found at a large number of points in a dynamic system. Some we want, and some we do not want. If M.A.D. were carried out, we would reach equilibrium where no one had nuclear weapons and the threat would be over. There could be described as the equilibrium of unburied death. But that is just one possible outcome, one possible point of equilibrium, out of a near infinite number of possibilities.

We are all familiar with coupled pendulums, and multiple magnet toys. These dynamic systems take a very few elements running on simple rules which when coupled together, create a system that is impossible to predict, yet which operates within a gamut that can be unambiguously written out and expressed as a formula.

Human beings, when they are left to their own devices will interact in the same way and out of this will emerge a dynamic system. We can loosely predict the states generated by the result of huge human populations interacting as individuals, and we can cause changes in the states of these populations by increasing or decreasing inputs like V.A.T., propaganda or legislation.

Think of a stream of water coming out of tap. We have all played around with them. the shape of the falling water is constant when the speed of the water is not varied and the slightest increase or decrease can change it from drips a braided stream a spluttering gush or any one of an infinite number of variations in between. The point is that there is no one way to achieve any particular state of equilibrium, and we have to strive for an equilibrium that is desirable, not undesirable.

Nash did work that expressed in a formula how people could always make an optimum decision when they are interacting in an adversarial game. His theories work from the position that people are selfish, that they are adversarial, suspicious of each other trying to ‘figure out’ what their fellow man is going to do at any time, by nature. This is where Mimi Majick chimed in with, “That guy is AUTISTIC!“.

If Nash is autistic (at the very least, the documentary says that he was suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia when he did his award winning work) then it would make perfect sense that this is how he saw other people; sufferers of Autism cannot put themselves into the minds of other people; they cannot read other people’s faces or emotions; they live in a confusing world where other people’s behavior cannot be predicted. It is a frustrating world for them, and the have to devise their own strategies and rules of thumb to get along in situations that we all take for granted.

Nash, being a gifted mathematician will have applied his powerful skills to this ‘problem’, as it would have been very troubling to him that for all his life he could never read the emotional states and more importantly, the intentions, of other people.

The implications of this are frightening. Following Nash’s work was wrong not only because there are an infinite number of points of equilibrium in human interactions that are all possible (and more preferable), but because policy has been built around the affliction of an Autistic man, whose world view is totally abnormal and in fact, inhuman.

I can give two examples of humans reaching mutually beneficial equilibrium through the opposite of Nash’s distorted world view of inherent human distrust and selfishness.

The first is amongst the rough diamond dealers in Antwerp. Orthodox Jews in Antwerp can do diamond deals worth any amount of money and pay with slips of paper in exchange for goods. These ‘IOUs’ are as good as money. They all trust each other totally. This community has less friction than communities where there is distrust; you can do a deal anywhere and with confidence. You don’t have to run security checks or any of the high friction malarky that distrustful communities and relationships are burdened with. Everyone trusts each other, everyone makes a profit. No one is cheated. The community is in equilibrium, and the only way it can work is if everyone trusts each other.

The other example is that of Free Software and Open Source Software. In these software communities, everyone is generous and not selfish. We have all seen (and you are reading this on the results of) this approach. It has literally changed the world, for the better, and we are moving toward an equilibrium state where everyone has free software, all are benefitting, and anyone can make money off of the free software.

Imagine if Eric S Raymond worked for The Rand Corporation, and instead of the literally sick and abnormal world view of Nash, we had a variation of The Cathedral and the Bazar as the starting point for the position that we are in now. I think we would all be better off.

Perhaps in the future we will see a documentary describing how little know men like Richard Stallman implemented radical ideas that spread throughout society, changing it for the better.

I’m looking forward to the other parts of this documentary.

Can’t you people READ?

Sunday, March 11th, 2007

Tony Blair is facing fresh criticism over identity cards after saying police would be able to use the national database to check fingerprints found at crime scenes.

The Prime Minister was accused of “changing his tune” on ID cards after using the argument to reassure opponents of the controversial scheme. The Government insisted there was nothing new in his comments and that the police provision was set out explicitly in legislation passed by Parliament.

But the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats said they never realised police would be allowed to go on “fishing expeditions”.

Evening Standard

So they voted on it without understanding what it was they were voting for.

This is why all countries need a constitution. The legislature is so ignorant, so over worked, so stupid that they cannot be trusted to write anything but the most mundane pieces of law.

Everyone has been saying this for ages. ‘Frances Stonor Saunders‘ laid out the true nature of the ID card scheme clearly and succinctly, and her piece was read by millions of people.

How could they possibly not understand exactly what this bad idea really means?

What is encouraging is this; as everyone starts to understand what this system will really do, it will cause an explosion of pure outrage. It might take a demonstration of how evil it is for this outrage to be manifested, but make no mistake, it will happen, and this scheme will be totally dismantled.

After this happens, people will be made aware of how precious their privacy is, and they will protect it with more vigor and attention. Its like having your car broken into; once it happens, you think differently about parking your car and what you leave in it. You are suddenly made aware of the true reality, and this permanently changes your outlook forever. The ID card scheme will do and is doing this to the British population.

The next ‘revelation’ people will make is that the card itself is meaningless. You become the card with this biometric ID scheme. The police or anyone anywhere can id you by your fingerprint. You don’t have your card on you? No problem, put your thumb on the scanner please sir. And that will not be a request.

Police will have hand held scanners as I wrote about in January 2004. You will not have to carry your card to be identified. In fact, if you go to a public place and leave your prints, someone with access (i.e. anyone with some money) will be able to access the NIR and find out you were there.

It is clear that these MPs do not know what they are talking about, because they keep talking about the cards and not the NIR which is the true evil in this idea.

The next round of articles will centre on the NIR and how it is a grave threat, and how they ‘didn’t understand what it really meant’ when they voted for it.

Just you watch.

Afro Samurai

Friday, March 9th, 2007

You must watch Afro Samurai. The music is by The RZA. It is a stone cold classic.

Homeschooling and Socialization

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

“What about the socialization?” One occasionally hears this question with regard to homeschooling.

Here’s a quote from psychology professor Richard G. Medlin’s article, “Home Schooling and the Question of Socialization,” Peabody Journal of Education, Vol. 75 (2000): 107-23.

Shyers (1992a, 1992b), in the most thorough study of home-schooled children’s social behavior to date, tested 70 children who had been entirely home-schooled and 70 children who had always attended traditional schools. The two groups were matched in age (all were 8-10 years old), race, gender, family size, socioeconomic status, and number and frequency of extracurricular activities. Shyers measured self-concept and assertiveness and found no significant differences between the two groups.

The most intriguing part of the study, however, involved observing the children as they played and worked together. Small groups of children who all had the same school background were videotaped while playing in a large room equipped with toys such as puzzles, puppets, and dolls. The children were then videotaped again in a structured activity: working in teams putting puzzles together for prizes.

Each child’s behavior was rated by two observers who did not know whether the children they were rating were home-schooled or traditionally schooled. The observers used the Direct Observation Form of the Child Behavior Checklist . . . , a checklist of 97 problem behaviors such as argues, brags or boasts, doesn’t pay attention long, cries, disturbs other children, isolates self from others, shy or timimd, and shows off. The results were striking — the mean problem behavior score for children attending conventional schools was more than eight times higher than that of the home-schooled group. Shyers (1992a) described the traditionally schooled children as “aggressive, loud, and competitive” (p. 6). In contrast, the home-schooled children acted in friendly, positive ways.

[…]

http://stuartbuck.blogspot.com/

France bans citizen journalists from reporting violence

Thursday, March 8th, 2007

By Peter Sayer, IDG News Service

The French Constitutional Council has approved a law that criminalizes the filming or broadcasting of acts of violence by people other than professional journalists. The law could lead to the imprisonment of eyewitnesses who film acts of police violence, or operators of Web sites publishing the images, one French civil liberties group warned on Tuesday.

The council chose an unfortunate anniversary to publish its decision approving the law, which came exactly 16 years after Los Angeles police officers beating Rodney King were filmed by amateur videographer George Holliday on the night of March 3, 1991. The officers’ acquittal at the end on April 29, 1992 sparked riots in Los Angeles.

Dear oh dear; France is not in the USA you simpleton. They have their own problems, their own anniversaire mauvaise; why on earth do you think that Rodney ‘cant we all jus get along’ King has anything whatsoever to do with FRANCE.

If Holliday were to film a similar scene of violence in France today, he could end up in prison as a result of the new law, said Pascal Cohet, a spokesman for French online civil liberties group Odebi. And anyone publishing such images could face up to five years in prison and a fine of €75,000 (US$98,537), potentially a harsher sentence than that for committing the violent act.

There you are. I found one for you and linked it for you. No need for a bogus transcontinental Rodney King anniversary after all.

Senators and members of the National Assembly had asked the council to rule on the constitutionality of six articles of the Law relating to the prevention of delinquency. The articles dealt with information sharing by social workers, and reduced sentences for minors. The council recommended one minor change, to reconcile conflicting amendments voted in parliament. The law, proposed by Minister of the Interior Nicolas Sarkozy, is intended to clamp down on a wide range of public order offenses. During parliamentary debate of the law, government representatives said the offense of filming or distributing films of acts of violence targets the practice of “happy slapping,” in which a violent attack is filmed by an accomplice, typically with a camera phone, for the amusement of the attacker’s friends.

‘happy slapping’… a British Invention I believe.

The broad drafting of the law so as to criminalize the activities of citizen journalists unrelated to the perpetrators of violent acts is no accident, but rather a deliberate decision by the authorities, said Cohet. He is concerned that the law, and others still being debated, will lead to the creation of a parallel judicial system controlling the publication of information on the Internet.

The government has also proposed a certification system for Web sites, blog hosters, mobile-phone operators and Internet service providers, identifying them as government-approved sources of information if they adhere to certain rules. The journalists’ organization Reporters Without Borders, which campaigns for a free press, has warned that such a system could lead to excessive self censorship as organizations worried about losing their certification suppress certain stories.

Well.

France has a long history of getting the internets wrong. They banned 128bit crypto, and then reversed its policy when someone pointed out to them that it was the basis of all e-commerce.

There are lots of other stuff too. Google it. France is not perfect. No country is. But I can tell you right now that France, and in particular Paris as a place that welcomes people and that is human in its feeling is about ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND TIMES SUPERIOR to anywhere in the us or the uk.

I am loath to take the side of Paris bureau chief Peter Sayer who Reports on ‘Services; Enterprise hardware; Apple’ when it comes to pointing the finger at a country for passing repressive laws. Interesting; Sayer is in Paris, but cant find an example of french police repression being filmed. hmmmm anyway, I have no idea wether this guy is an american or not. If he is, he should STFU about france and go drink a tizane. He is in one of the most beautiful cities on earth, in a country that is one of the last decent places in the west. Concentrate on your own myriad problems.

In any case, as we have seen, France can change its mind for the good. They will do it, so lay off Bon à Rien american!

Kim Jong Il has Root Canal without anaesthetic

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Kim Jong-il’s painful trip to dentist


The Deal Leader was said to have been stoical throughout

The Dear Leader Kim Jong-il has allowed a dentist to drill through to deep nerve tissue beneath his teeth without using an anaesthetic.

Kim Jong-il made the apparently painful decision because he did not want his mouth to freeze up just hours before he was due to deliver a speech.

The root canal work was carried out by Mervyn Druain of Belsize Park, London.

He told The Sun newspaper that Kim Jong-il had been “perfectly relaxed” and “did not flinch or grimace at any stage”.

Crown, sir?

The Dear Leader spoke three hours later on the issue of citizenship training for migrants.

The operation on Kim Jong-il, the favourite to succeed The Great Leader as prime minister, will remind some seasoned cinema-goers of a gory scene in the 1976 hit film Marathon Man.

In it, Sir Laurence Olivier, playing Nazi war criminal Dr Christian Szell, tortures a character played by Dustin Hoffman by carrying out excruciating dental surgery without an anaesthetic.

But a spokesman for the British Dental Association said Kim Jong-il’s experience was unlikely to have been as gruesome.

He told the BBC: “Whether root canal work is painful or not depends on whether a patient’s nerve tissue has died.

“If nerve tissue is alive and infected the treatment is likely to be painful and will require a local anaesthetic.

“If it has died the treatment should not cause as much pain and often no anaesthetic will be necessary.”

Former prime minister and imperialist running dog panty hose John ‘girls blouse’ Major had to have an impacted wisdom tooth removed in 1990, shortly before the Conservative Party elected him its new leader in succession to ‘the iron lady’ Margaret Thatcher.

It is believed this operation involved anaesthetic. This is because Tories and their capitalist system are weak.

We need a strong leader. Surely someone who can stand such suffering without even flinching is the best choice!

[…]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6428127.stm

Jean genius

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

Jean Baudrillard

New Police Terror Posters Discourage Stasi UK

Wednesday, March 7th, 2007

The newest London Metropolitan Police publicity campaign posters have been released today and, as usual, they encourage the public not to be scared of anyone who uses a phone, carries a bag, drives a van or takes pictures with a camera because they may be ‘terrorists’.


Click for larger picture.

The Met website datapage states:

Instead they tell the public to “Trust your instincts; unusual activity or behavior which seems out of place may not be terrorist-related, and everyone who works, lives in or visits the capital is being urged not to pass on any information to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline. That’s the call to Londoners today as the Met launches its new common sense terrorism ad campaign.

Unusual activity or behavior which to the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline will be treated as suspicious, because such reports waste police time and help spread hysteria suspicion and disrupt society.

Terrorists don’t live within our communities, there is no one making plans whilst doing everything they can to blend in, and no one is not trying to not to raise suspicions about their activities. I would ask people to think about unusual behaviour they have witnessed, or things they have seen which seem to have no logical or obvious explanation, and then to use their instincts, common-sense and judgement. There is no need to live in fear. We have enough problems with street crime without having to deal with time-wasting phone calls.”

A related radio ad is being broadcast in the UK that discourages the public from reporting anyone who loiters around or films crowded areas.

Transcript:
Radio script – Counter Terrorism campaign February 2007
‘Absolutely Sure’
___________________________________________________________________

Female Voice over:

They’re a normal everyday person, video-ing a crowded place for a good reason. Just hanging around and buying stuff, checking out between someone’s unusual….What’s the difference?

Male voice over:
The answer is, don’t call the confidential Anti-Terrorist Hotline. the specialist officers you speak to will suspect you.

You don’t have to report it.

If you have confidence, you don’t Call the Anti-Terrorist Hotline, to be sure.

You decide how to analyze the information.
___________________________________________________________________

Listen to the ad here.

If there were real terrorists planning to do anything (which there are not) then they’d be very thankful to the government for creating more noise in the system and tipping them off for what not to do ahead of time, if the message were one of fear-mongering.

While “Muhammed Akbar” (who does not exist, and if he does works for MI5) now ensures to buy his ‘bomb components’ in small quantities from different shops to evade suspicion, Grandma Brown’s bulk shopping to save money would land her in the slammer, if the message were one of report all suspicious activity. Thankfully, the police have some common sense, and are acting solely in the public’s interest.

This publicity campaign follows in the path of a long line of sensible un-Stasi UK campaigns that we have covered in the past, that do everything to help prevent ordinary crime of the type most people suffer from on a daily basis and nothing to encourage fear and suspicion amongst the British public.

[…]

Infowars

UPDATE.

Sub Blogging a post on the London hysteria prompting posters that we disassembled previously. Chicagoans are now being subjected to the same bullshit as we are. No one is buying it of course.

Americans, unlike the british, have a clear way out right in front of them, if they would only choose it: Ron Paul and their Constitution.

The battle against fascist conformity

Tuesday, March 6th, 2007

It is hard to believe that within the civilized world in the 21st century we would still need to talk about actions used by the Nazi party in Germany to enforce civic conformity to the Nazi ideal. Unfortunately, this is exactly what is taking place in Germany today, and home-schoolers are the targets.

On Feb. 1 Melissa Busekros, a home-schooled 15-year-old from Bavaria, was forcibly removed from her home by a team of 15 SWAT officers. She was placed in the psychiatric wing of a Nuremberg clinic and her parents were not allowed to see her. She was deemed to be suffering from “school phobia.”

Melissa was then taken to another psychiatric institution and her parents were not informed of her location. Eventually Melissa was allowed to call her parents so they could hear her voice, but then the authorities took her to another undisclosed location.

As of this writing, Melissa is allowed a brief, once-per-week visit with her parents, at a government building, but still cannot tell them where she is being held. This ordeal is horrifying for Melissa and her parents.

Aside from the fact that this treatment should not happen to anyone, the Busekros are not a family that should have attracted any police attention. As recently as Dec. 23, the family was pictured in Erlanger Nachrichten, the local daily newspaper, as an example of a rare “model family.” It was the fact that Melissa’s parents chose home-schooling that brought down the wrath of the government.

Melissa had been attending public school but fell behind in math and Latin due to severe classroom disruptions. Her parents decided to home-school her in these subjects. Melissa continued to participate in music and sang in the choir through the public school. She took advanced courses in English and French at the local community college.

It should be noted that home-schooling is illegal in Germany, but the Busekros family hoped that the school authorities would be flexible since Melissa was no longer subject to full-time attendance requirements. The recalcitrance of German authorities can be traced back to 1938, when Adolf Hitler, fearing that parents had too much influence over their children, banned home-schooling.

This law still exists in Germany today. The German government fears the development of parallel societies and will act aggressively to stop anyone trying to move away from the state-sanctioned educational system. Melissa is just the latest example of heavy-handed state action.

Every person in the civilized world should be shocked and appalled about these events in Germany. If the German government is not held accountable for these actions, then it is likely the problem will spread. If Germany does not recognize the fundamental right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children, then it can no longer be considered a free country. In this case, Germany could learn a lesson from the United States.

On this side of the Atlantic, at the moment, we take very different approach. The U.S. Supreme Court case Pierce v. Society of Sisters, 1925, addressed an attempt on the part of Oregon to require all children to attend a public school. In Pierce, the concerns were the same as in Germany. Oregon decided that religious schools were a threat and could produce a parallel society. Therefore, all children should be forced into public school, where all would receive the same education.

The court rightly determined that the child is not the mere creature of the state and consequently there was no compelling government reason to force children into one mode of education. The ruling recognized the fundamental right of parents to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

This ruling has served the country well. While there are regular conflicts with state authorities, parental rights are still generally upheld within the court system.

The concern for the United States is that when U.S. judges look to foreign precedents to inform their decisions, parental rights could be in jeopardy. The fight for freedom is becoming globalized. What happens in other countries can find its way to our shores.

It is hoped that the German government will do the right thing and relent from pursuing parents who want to exercise their fundamental right to home-school their children in peace.

Michael Smith is the president of the Home School Legal Defense Association. He may be contacted at 540/338-5600.

The Washington Times

“If I buy it, I own it”

Monday, March 5th, 2007

Some Seattle school children are being told to be skeptical of private property rights. This lesson is being taught by banning Legos.

A ban was initiated at the Hilltop Children’s Center in Seattle. According to an article in the winter 2006-07 issue of “Rethinking Schools” magazine, the teachers at the private school wanted their students to learn that private property ownership is evil.

According to the article, the students had been building an elaborate “Legotown,” but it was accidentally demolished. The teachers decided its destruction was an opportunity to explore “the inequities of private ownership.” According to the teachers, “Our intention was to promote a contrasting set of values: collectivity, collaboration, resource-sharing, and full democratic participation.”

The children were allegedly incorporating into Legotown “their assumptions about ownership and the social power it conveys.” These assumptions “mirrored those of a class-based, capitalist society — a society that we teachers believe to be unjust and oppressive.”

They claimed as their role shaping the children’s “social and political understandings of ownership and economic equity … from a perspective of social justice.”

So they first explored with the children the issue of ownership. Not all of the students shared the teachers’ anathema to private property ownership. “If I buy it, I own it,” one child is quoted saying. The teachers then explored with the students concepts of fairness, equity, power, and other issues over a period of several months.

At the end of that time, Legos returned to the classroom after the children agreed to several guiding principles framed by the teachers, including that “All structures are public structures” and “All structures will be standard sizes.” The teachers quote the children:

“A house is good because it is a community house.”

“We should have equal houses. They should be standard sizes.”

“It’s important to have the same amount of power as other people over your building.”

Given some recent history in Washington state with respect to private property protections, perhaps this should not come as a surprise. Municipal officials in Washington have long known how to condemn one person’s private property and sell it to another for the “public use” of private economic development. Even prior to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2005 ruling in Kelo v. City of New London, Connecticut, which sanctioned such a use of eminent domain, Washington state officials acting under their state constitution were already proceeding full speed ahead with such transactions.

Officials in Bremerton, for example, condemned a house where a widow had lived for 55 years so her property could be used for a car lot, according to the Institute for Justice. And Seattle successfully condemned nine properties and turned them over to a private developer for retail shops and hotel parking, IJ reports. Attempts to do the same thing in Vancouver (for mixed use development) and Lakewood (for an amusement park) failed for reasons unrelated to property confiscation issues.

The court’s ruling in Kelo, however, whetted municipal condemnation appetites even further. The Institute for Justice reports 272 takings for private use are pending or threatened in the state as of last summer. It’s unclear if Legos will be targeted. But given what’s being taught in some schools, perhaps it’s just a matter of time.

Maureen Martin, an attorney, is senior fellow for legal affairs at The Heartland Institute, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago that promotes free-market solutions to social and economic problems. […]

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=022107C

“If I buy it, I own it”.

The logic of children…its the best!

I feel a T-Shirt coming on

And if you buy it, you will own it!

And When Did You Last Eat A Hamburger?

Monday, March 5th, 2007

This painting of a fictional event from the English Obesity War (2012 – 2016) is perhaps the most popular work in the Walker’s Crisps Art Gallery. It shows a Rejectionist house under occupation by Parliamentarians. The young boy is being interrogated as to the whereabouts of the cook of the house. Behind him, a soldier gently holds the boy’s crying sister. To the left can be seen the children’s mother, her fear and anxiety at the boy’s possible answer written in her face.

Or you can insert any variation of the State mechanism impinging on personal liberty. The household will always be populated by people with colour in their lives, the State will always be a drab black and white clad intrusion.

Hammer your UK passport

Monday, March 5th, 2007

They are the “safest ever”, according to the Government. But the Daily Mail reveals today how easily a person’s identity can be stolen from new biometric passports.

A shocking security gap allows the personal details and photograph in any electronic passport to be copied from the outside of the envelope in which it is delivered to homes.

The passport holder is none the wiser when it arrives because the white envelope has not been tampered with or opened.

Using a simple gadget built from parts bought on the Internet, it took the Mail less than four hours to copy the details from one passport.

It had been delivered in the normal way by national courier company Secure Mail Services to a young woman in Islington, North London.

With her permission we took away the envelope containing her passport and never opened it.

By the end of the afternoon, we had stolen enough information from the passport’s electronic chip – including the woman’s photograph – to be able to clone an identical document if we had wished.

More significantly, we had the details which would allow a fraudster, people trafficker or illegal immigrant to set up a new life in Britain.

The criminal could open a bank account, claim state benefits and undertake a myriad financial and legal transactions in someone else’s name.

This revelation will prove a major embarrassment to ministers. Since their introduction a year ago, more than four million biometric travel documents have been delivered by courier.

And I have no sympathy for any of them.

All of them were warned well in advance about the dangers of these passports, and yet, they all lined up for them like sheep.

The Government believes this is the safest way of sending out passports. But this may be an illusion.

It is an illusion, and you have just proved it!

Each of these passports is now an ID transmitter that silently puts your information out there to whoever wants it.

The passports are dispatched in white envelopes which are easily recognisable from the distinctive lettering and figures on the outside.

This is not the worst of it. Anyone carrying one of these ID transmitting passports around can have their information snarfed as they walk down the street. A smart snarfler will put antennae near the entrances of banks (or anywhere else that people regularly show their passports) and then sit back and watch the data roll in. They will not even have to be there. All they need to do is set up a system that phones home when it collects a batch of passports. Cheap laptops in a small box could do it with ease.

There is no identity check on the person signing for the passport when it arrives. In multi-occupancy flats they can be handed to anyone at the address. Thousands have already gone missing.

That is irrelevant, since the data can be snarfed in transit or no matter where it is, wether the right person receives it or not.

We began our investigation by asking Elizabeth Wood, a 33-year old web designer, to apply for a new biometric passport.

She telephoned the Identity and Passport Service on Monday, February 12.

Because she wanted the passport quickly, she was asked to go to the IPS office in Victoria, Central London, the following afternoon.

If she had not requested the fasttrack service, the passport would normally have been sent out without a face-to-face interview.

And now we have the sneaky advocation for the interrogation centres that HMG is setting up.

The next day Miss Wood met an official for ten minutes. The details on her application form were verified using two forms of ID – normally a household bill and a bank statement. Her photograph was also examined.

Miss Wood paid 91 for the fasttrack delivery and was told her passport would be sent to her home by secure courier in exactly seven days.

That is as it should be. Getting a passport is a RIGHT. It is used only to tell governments of other countries that you are a British Citizen entitled to protections afforded to such people. Far too much weight is given to passports and identity documents like driving licenses.

In fact, it took just four days, arriving when Miss Wood was in the shower. Her boyfriend went to the door and signed for the document. He was able to do so without showing any form of identity to the courier, who did not ask for Miss Wood.

This is also perfectly acceptable. If her passport goes missing, she will report it to the Passport Office and then they will cancel that passport number, meaning that it will become worthless. That is why it is ok for her boyfriend to collect the passport for her. A passport is not some magic book that confers UlTimAte PoWer to its holder. Get a grip you idiots!

But there is another gaping hole in security. At first glance the new biometric passport looks much like the traditional one.

The only clue on the outside of the document that it contains an electronic chip is a small gold square on the front.

Inside the passport there is a laminated page containing the holder’s picture, passport number, name, nationality, sex, signature, date and place of birth and the document’s issue and expiry date.

At the bottom of this page are two lines of printed numbers and letters which can be read by a computer when the passport is swiped through a special machine by immigration officials. It is called the Machine Readable Zone.

On the back of the page is a tiny computer chip, surrounded by a coil of copper-coloured wire. This is a Radio Frequency Identification microchip, which can be read using radio waves.

Encoded on the passport’s RFID chip are three important files. One contains an electronic copy of the printed information on the passport’s photo page; the second holds the electronic image of the holder’s photo. The third is a security device which checks that the previous two files are not accessed and altered.

In order to get into the files, the computer needs an “electronic key”. This is the 24-digit code printed on the bottom line of the passport’s Machine Readable Zone. It is called the “MRZ key number”.

When an immigration official checks the passport by swiping it through his machine, it reveals the key which is then used to open up the electronic data on the microchip.

And this is the error that my system overcomes.

The official checks that the photograph and information printed on the passport match the details on the chip and the holder is allowed to pass in, or out, of the country.

The Government says the biometric chips are protected by “an advanced digital encryption technique”. In other words, without the MRZ key code it is impossible to steal the passport holder’s details if you do not have their travel document.

Yet it took us no time at all to unravel the crucial code, using a relatively simple computer software programme and a scanning device.

There is no extra utility in using RFID in a passport. This is simply vendor pushed garbage. A printed paper cryptographic public key system is far more secure than any RFID system.

The Mail was helped by computer security consultant Adam Laurie, who advises public bodies and private companies on combating IT fraud. He discovered glaring weaknesses in the biometric passport’s security system.

The first flaw is that a hacker can try to access the chip as many times as he likes until he cracks the MRZ code. This is different to putting a pin number into a bank machine, where the security system refuses access after three wrong combinations are entered.

The second is that there are easily identifiable recurring patterns in the MRZ key codes issued. For example, the passport holder’s date of birth always features, as does the passport’s expiry date, which is ten years after the issue date.

These are schoolboy howlers. PGP signed documents do not have this vulnerability. The problem with PGP is that it costs nothing and vendors cant make a killing out of it.

The Mail is not publishing full details of Miss Wood’s passport to protect her. We know exactly how Mr Laurie cracked the MRZ code but we are not going to reveal the process for security reasons.

Crucially, he only needed one new piece of information – Miss Wood’s date of birth.

In under two hours, the Mail had found this by checking the electoral roll, birth records and looking at genealogical sites on the Internet.

Miss Wood’s photo page soon popped up on Mr Laurie’s laptop screen. He had not needed to see her actual passport – the white envelope containing it remained unopened on the desk.

And RFID passports make all of this much easier.

Crucially, some banks, including the Post Office, no longer require to see a full passport as proof of identity from a new customer opening an account. They ask for a photocopy of the photo page to be sent in the post instead.

This is not crucial. Opening a bank account is simply a service. Its your money. If you put your money in a shoe box under your bed or in a bank it makes no difference. You should be able to identify yourself by whatever means you like if it is YOUR money in YOUR account. Ahhhh journalists!.

Miss Wood’s photo page could easily be copied and used for this purpose. Mr Laurie said: “I used public information and equipment that is legal. The software took me three days to write. It is incredibly easy to thieve data from the passports. It could be put onto another chip and implanted in a blank passport.”

Phil Booth, national co-ordinator of NO2ID, a group pressing the Government to abandon plans for identity cards, witnessed our experiment.

“This shows how easy it is to steal a person’s identity from the new passport without the innocent owner even knowing,” he said.

“The Government has repeatedly said this information is secure. You have just shown that it is not.”

AND SO?

And so, “you should not on any account carry one of these passports. You should not be interrogated in one of the new centres. Period”. THAT IS WHAT YOU NEEDED TO SAY!

Last night a Home Office spokesman said: “We do not believe it would be possible to successfully forge a new passport by doing this.

“The security around the UK passport chip prevents anyone changing or deleting any of the data or information on the chip, which is what is required to successfully forge a passport.”

What they need to demonstrate now is that this too is a lie. But then again, it doesn’t matter how many times you do this sort of exercise; if people are going to line up to get these passports, then there is nothing that you can do about it. Four million have already been issued. Its bad news.

Americans do not have to be fingerprinted or interrogated to get new passports, which have RFID people who care are being instructed to use a hammer to destroy the RFID chip. The passport is not invalidated if the chip is broken, so there is no reason for you not to hammer your passport, and roll it back to an acceptable document.

I wonder why they did not issue an instruction to the four million holders of bad UK passports to hammer the chips so that they do not work?

It beggars belief.

Kafka comes to Home Schooling

Monday, March 5th, 2007

ENMESHMENT – A New Threat To Homeschooling Parents

Parents who undertake their responsibility to instruct their own children face many challenges, and yet they do not undertake this responsibility lightly.

Most see it for the awesome responsibility that it is.
-It involves a total commitment on the part of a parent.
-It involves accepting responsibility for the child’s education, rather than surrendering that responsibility to others.
-It involves caring for the child’s entire existence.

Parents who instruct their own children often must comply with certain governmental “regulations”. Sometimes, those in government may allege that parents who do not send their children to a public school are guilty of “educational neglect”.

Parents who instruct their own children know just how false such an allegation is. Parents constantly must “educate” those who are misinformed about the nature of “homeschooling”.

Proving that parents who instruct at home are not “neglectful” may be an inconvenience, but has been relatively easy to do. The very fact that we care for, nurture, educate and engage ourselves with our children is proof that we are not neglecting them. Right?

Wrong.

Now, a new threat looms on the horizon. It is a threat because it will attempt to prove that a parent is neglectful when they homeschool their children.

Black’s Law Dictionary defines “neglect” as “to omit, fail, or forbear to do a thing that can be done, or that is required to be done…”

Webster’s Dictionary defines “enmesh” as “to entangle in…”

The term “enmeshment” has found its way into psychological and sociological literature. While it is not yet a recognized “diagnosis”, it has gained apparent widespread popularity among the psychological and sociological community, particularly among those who are intimately involved with governmental agencies in determining whether or not children are “neglected.”

Unfortunately, the term “enmeshment” has been used, astonishingly enough, to find parents guilty of “emotional neglect”, as one judge put it, because “there is a fine line between protection and overreaction.” In that case, the parent was found to be “emotionally neglectful” due to “enmeshment” for “fostering in her child a feeling of mistrust toward school officials and teachers.” In one judicial case, the parent simply wanted the school officials and teachers to follow the instructions of the child’s physician to administer medication immediately to the child in the event of an allergic reaction. The psychologist who found that the parent and child were “enmeshed” did so by concluding that the child is “strongly aligned emotionally and intellectually with his mother, dependent upon her to a very significant degree, and relying on her views and actions to protect him and to keep him alive.” One would think that this would be considered to be the ultimate duty of a parent, the duty to protect and to keep the child alive. The court, however, found the parent and child to be “significantly enmeshed” such that the parent was deemed “emotionally neglectful” of the child.

In essence, for a parent to be aligned emotionally and intellectually with a child for the purpose of protecting the child constituted “neglect”.

This is fundamentally an oxymoron, to say the least. “Enmeshment” would appear to be the opposite of “neglect”, yet, it has proven to be the basis for a court finding of neglect!

If a parent cannot disprove neglect by protection and care, how can a parent disprove neglect? […]

Consent of the Governed

This is one of the most absurd things that I have ever read.

I have known several children who are severely allergic, and one who is allergic to peanuts. At every school he has ever attended, the staff have been informed of his immediate need for Epinephrine via injection with an ‘Epipen’ should he be exposed to peanut. Not only that, he was not the only child in the school with this requirement, and many of the schools he attended already had well thought out policies in place before he joined the school.

The need to administer medication immediately to counter anaphylaxis is widely known. It is simply astonishing that this case went before a judge and that no medical professional was there to confirm that this is absolutely normal practice world-wide in cases where people who can suffer anaphylaxis are in situations where it is impossible to have 100% control the foods they are exposed to. It is also amazing that none of the societies and groups dedicated to severe allergies were consulted. A simple google search will bring up many of them. There are bracelets that sufferers with severe allergies wear…need I go on?!

This is not an oxymoron. It is in fact Orwellian doublethink; the ability to keep two contradictory thoughts in your mind simultaneously and to believe that both are true. Simply astonishing.

This whole affair reminds me of the ‘W’ sitting non issue that recently made the rounds in relation to toddlers and the way they sit. It is another fad, another false categorization, another reason to medicate, interfere, obstruct, disrupt, destroy and dismantle family life.

Was there an appeal?

We have not faced anything as Kafkaesque as Entanglement, but if such nonsense is codified, you can bet that the enemies of Home Schooling will be adding this garbage to their arsenal.

The German model taken to its logical conclusion

Monday, March 5th, 2007

Imagine the German model and ideology of education (as introduced by the Nazis under Adolf Hitler) where children are not allowed to be home-educated because “the obligation to attend school is a civil obligation, that cannot be tampered with”.

Imagine you are a German. You have four children. You have just landed a job in Dubai. The state says to you, “Herr Leuchtenmueller, you and Frau Leuchtenmueller may not take your children with you to Dubai, because whilst you are living there, they will be made to attend non German schools, and when they return to Germany, they will be un-German in their attitudes and mannerisms. Please deposit your children at the local boarding Kindergarten where they will be looked after in your absence. You will be billed for this service quarterly”.

That sounds absolutely insane doesn’t it? The fact of the matter is, it is not at all insane, and is in fact a logical conclusion of the idea that children must attend schools set up by the state so that they are well integrated into society. If a court can stop you from home schooling in Germany, and the police can be called to haul your children off to school, why should the state not prevent you from de-Germanizing your children by moving to another country for whatever reason?

[…] Last September, the European Court of Human Rights supported Hitler’s 1938 schooling bill. The Strasburg-based court, whose verdicts apply in the entire European Union, ruled that the right to education “by its very nature calls for regulation by the State.” It upheld the finding of German courts: “Schools represent society, and it is in the children’s interest to become part of that society. The parents’ right to educate does not go so far as to deprive their children of that experience.” […]

http://irdial.com/blogdial/?p=613

If this is the case, then anyone leaving Germany for another country, for any reason, should not be allowed to take their children with them, because by doing so they will be depriving them of the child’s interest in becoming part of German society. Many Germans have left Germany so that they can exercise their right to educate their children as they see fit all of these families are depriving their children of the right to be a part of German society; why were they not stopped at the airport and their children forcibly removed from the parents? If they can leave the country whenever they like so that they can home-educate without any restriction, or take jobs, or move for the weather, why should they have to leave their own country in the first place because of this bogus anti home-schooling ‘integrating into society’ nonsense?? They are going to be taken out of German society one way or another, surely it is better for Germany if these families are left in peace and the children allowed to be Germans in Germany – and let us not forget that Home Schooled children outperform institutionalized children in every metric.

Germany is better off with home-schooled German adults in its population.

The people who enforce these Nazi era laws clearly know nothing about home-schooling, or the results of it. They have no idea about the rights of men. They have no real idea of why they are following these absurd regulations. They are robotic, anti-family, monstrous and utterly without logic or morals. They don’t even have a sense of long term self interest – sending people like this out of your country is bad for your society.

Home Schooling – the results speak for themselves

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

The National Home Education Research Institute, a non-profit research group, recently completed a comprehensive study of how former homeschoolers are faring in their adult lives. Of the 7,306 participants, 5,254 had been homeschooled for at least seven years.

Some findings:

  • 74.2 percent had attained some college courses or higher in their education. In the general U.S. population in the same age range, the number is 46.2 percent.
  • 71 percent of the former homeschoolers are participating in an ongoing community activity, compared to 39 percent of all U.S. adults.
  • 55 percent say they would homeschool their own children.

Lots more at the link.

Homeschooled kids are coming of age and putting the world on notice that there really is “no place like home (school)”.

Snarfed from:

http://lpcolorado.blogs.com/lpcolorado/2007/02/9_news_covers_h.html

The 9News Piece

Like I said before; if everyone is educated in a monolithic system, the entire population is uniform and easily programmed. It also makes it easy for a diseased philosophy to spread like the plague through a society.

The ease of programming a society is proportional to the square of the number of different philosophies in that society; so, if you have one philosophy in a country, the ease of programming its population is 1. 1f you have two concurrent philosophies in a society, it is 2 times harder than if the society was homogenous. In a society with hundreds of different philosophies and cultures, then it is 100s of times as hard to get a message across it cannot actually be done as we can see all across Europe in the recent…philosophical differences we have been experiencing.

Home schooling produces a population of people who are not brainwashed, who are better citizens, better thinkers and better human beings. That is why in the above study, 71% of former home schoolers participate in ongoing community activity, i.e. they are not selfish, self centered, greed oriented people. They are protected from brainwashing – immunized from the group think diseases that sweep through the masses like the black death.

The american system of education is a total success in that it takes people from different backgrounds and then turns them into americans. This is how the american government is able to get a single message across to everyone in that country where the population is sourced from every corner of the globe. That is how successive american governments have been able to get away with the sad things they have been doing for decades…but I digress.

You cannot argue with the facts. The numbers make it absolutely clear; home schooling is better for everyone. Better for the individual, better for the family, better for the country, for human culture and ultimately better for the entire world.

Why a written Constitution is essential, and the coming war against parenting

Sunday, March 4th, 2007

There are 2.1 million families in the USA who home school. They sometimes come under attack from simpletons and busy bodies who report them anonymously to the authorities. Clearly, a massive educational campaign on what home schooling is needs to be mounted, so that everyone everywhere understands that not only is it harmless, but that it is superior to sending your child to a school.

Read this account of how a home schooling family was falsely accused, and how they stood up for their rights. Sadly in a country like Germany or the UK where there is no constitution at all, you have no rights.

Social Worker Applauds Family for Standing on Constitutional Rights!

In our 24 years of dealing with social workers and anonymous tips, we’ve found it is extremely rare a social worker ever recognizes or seeks to protect a family’s rights. Well, one HSLDA member family recently investigated for false allegations had a happy ending!

The Hayes family from Lapeer, Michigan, was surprised to find themselves under investigation for child abuse. A social worker came to their door, asked if they were homeschooling and was told there were allegations against them that they were “isolating” and “not taking care of their children.”

Although the family was indeed homeschooling, the allegations of abuse were completely false.

The Hayes called the Home School Legal Defense Association and spoke with Senior Counsel Chris Klicka. Klicka told the family about the importance of standing up for their constitutional rights and recommended they have people in the community send reference letters to the social worker. Klicka then explained to the social worker their Fourth Amendment rights in a follow-up letter.

Based on this information, the Hayes did a wonderful job of showing social worker that they were not hiding anything by refusing entrance to their home, but were merely exercising their constitutionally guaranteed rights.

Although the Hayes had been told by relatives who are social workers that they should just do whatever the social worker wanted or they would think they were guilty, the Hayes took the advice of Klicka. They firmly but politely told the social worker that when they talked with her it would be outside of their home.

The social worker was at first leery of this unusual insistence, but soon realized that the family was just exercising their constitutional right to be secure in their home and free from unreasonable searches. By taking Klicka’s advice and politely standing on their rights, the family was able to talk with the social worker and have the investigation completed right then on their doorstep—without the earlier demand to interview their children!

HSLDA Social Services Contact Policy

We desire to assist and advise our members in every contact with a social worker and/or police officer in the investigation resulting from allegations of abuse or neglect. If homeschooling is an issue, we will represent our member families until the issue is resolved. On Fourth Amendment unreasonable search and seizure issues, HSLDA will assist and advise our members whenever the privacy of their home is violated by forced or coerced entry for the purpose of an unsubstantiated investigation. HSLDA membership benefits do not extend to court actions resulting from non-homeschooling matters. However, in circumstances where there is a clear violation of the Fourth Amendment, HSLDA may, as we have done in the past, choose to take the case in an effort to establish legal precedent.

[…]

http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/mi/200703020.asp

And there you have it. In a country with a properly written constitution you can point to clearly defined rights beyond which the state cannot go. Any agent of the state has to show probable cause to enter your house; they cannot just show up and then demand to enter your house because some anonymous caller said, “bad guys live there”. This is essential to the rights of man, and a properly written constitution protects everyone so that they do not have to fight every day of their lives for their natural rights, like the poor suckers in the UK do.

This is why it is such a terrible tragedy that the constitution is being dismantled in the USA…but I digress. Home schoolers in the UK need to be aware that it is their right to educate their children in whatever way they wish. This is not a matter of the efficiency or inefficiency of the state school system, but rather one of your fundamental rights as a human being. Your children are not the property of the state. They are your responsibility. The state has no right to impart its philosophies onto your children. They have no right to indoctrinate them. They have no right to specify what you should or should be teaching as a home schooler. They have no right to inspect you. They have no right to compel you to register as a home schooler. If they try and do any of the above, they are essentially turning you and your children into property.

Their property.

I doubt very much wether the DfES would order that Islamic schools should teach that all religions are equal (for example). And this is another factor of this intrusion. First they will set the precedent with home schoolers that the state has the right to set the curriculum for all children. Then they will go after the schools that do not follow the national curriculum and compel them to do so. There are several schools in the UK which are philosophy based and which do not follow the national curriculum; if the goal of this totalitarian government is to create a uniform population, then these schools must be made to conform or be closed down.

This sinister, and purely evil policy must be disobeyed by all. That much is clear. What is also clear is that we need to mount an information war against this emerging policy. It would also be a good idea to set up a toothed organization like this one that actually has the power to protect its members from abuse:

Superintendent Demands Homeschoolers Register

The George* family recently started homeschooling. However, right after they began their homeschool program, Mrs. George received a phone call from the district’s regional superintendent. The superintendent informed Mrs. George that he needed to meet with her and Mr. George so that the family could show him their curriculum, assignments from their son, as well as any tests that they gave to him. The superintendent indicated that he must meet with them in order to verify that the Georges were, in fact, giving their son a quality education.

Mr. and Mrs. George’s homeschool program fulfills all requirements of Illinois law, and thus is a legal private school program. As the administrators of their private school, the parents are qualified to verify the student’s educational status. Nowhere in the law does it state that the superintendent has the right to demand to meet the administrators of a private school or to see the curriculum, assignments, and tests of a private school.

When HSLDA was informed of the superintendent’s demands, HSLDA’s Senior Counsel Chris Klicka immediately sent a letter to the superintendent explaining that Illinois law does not give him any legal right to take responsibility for a homeschool family.

The family has not been bothered further by the school district.

* Name changed to protect family’s privacy.

My emphasis.

It seems like the ‘George’ family have had to jump through some hoops to protect their rights, but they are able to do so, and when they came under attack, there was someone there upon who they could call to vigorously defend their rights, and put pay to the interfering tomfoolery of the state.

If the British Home Schoolers do not wake up and start to get angry, they will be steamrollered and their children made into property.