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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

A description of EO’s Government Policy Group and its work, can be found at:
http://www.education-otherwise.org/Legal/Consultations/GovConsultFrtPg.htm

The following report is my description of a meeting between DfES and EO on December 19th 2006 for ‘an exchange of views’, and ‘pre-consultation discussions’. DfES appear reluctant to confirm their proposals for the consultation, and hesitant to state whether they are determined to go ahead with the consultation or not. This is reflected in the fact that DfES have not agreed the notes from the meeting, although more than 3 weeks have elapsed since the notes were sent to them. This description is therefore my views of the meeting, and the formal record will be the notes when they are issued. The purpose of a pre-consultation meeting is for DfES to hear the views of stakeholders, and to ‘sound out’ the draft proposals. The delay in agreeing the notes, and going ahead with the consultation suggests that this process has not gone as smoothly as they might have liked. There have also been indications this week (w/c 22nd January) that the policy team are reconsidering aspects of the proposals in the light of feedback, and are discussing aspects of the consultation further with ‘stakeholders’.

It should be remembered that everything discussed at the meeting was provisional proposals from DfES on possible draft versions of the consultation. The consultation might or might not go ahead, and any of the items proposed might be withdrawn or altered if a consultation occurs.

1) INTRODUCTION

Further to DfES signals in late November and early December that they were about to conduct a new review of local authority arrangements for home educators in England, Education Otherwise were invited to DfES, Sanctuary Buildings, London to hear from DfES the intended content of the consultation and have an initial “exchange of views”. The meeting took place in London Tuesday 19th December. The meeting lasted an hour and a quarter. The EO team was Jill Fisher (former chair of EO), Martin Wise (Vice chair of EO) and Phil Hicks (Chair, Government Policy Group). The DfES representative was Peter Walsh who may be the coordinator of the consultation, but he has indicated it is equally likely that Elaine Haste, the official normally responsible for home education, will have that task. He said he has also met with Norman Wells of Family Education Trust http://www.famyouth.org.uk/, and would meet with Jane Lowe of HEAS http://www.heas.org.uk/ The consultation was not fully written, and the start date has not yet been fixed, although January has been mentioned more than once, and more recently February. The consultation will be open to all to respond to, and will last for 12 weeks.

2) SCOPE OF POLICY CONSULTATION

DfES are planning to conduct a full public consultation via the e-consultation website http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/ about the statutory framework for home education. Individuals can register their interest in participating in this consultation, and in being advised of its launch, by contacting the DfES official for home education Elaine Haste, at Elaine.HASTE@dfes.gsi.gov.uk. For information on what to say look at the information flier at http://www.filecrunch.com/file/47v or look at the campaign pages which will soon be available on the EO website.

Local authorities are telling DfES that there is difficulty with ensuring/defining suitable education and with addressing some welfare concerns. DfES believe that the current situation between local authorities and home educators can to be improved by better regulation. DfES recognise that home educators are concerned about LAs going beyond their powers and that there is a wide variation in local authority practices around the country. DfES want to engage with home educators and want to improve policies.

The present plans for the consultation focus on three main areas:
1. Compulsory registration of home educators
2. Clearer standards defining ‘suitable’
3. Monitoring of standards

3) CHANGES TO THE LAW

DfES are considering introducing new law (changes to primary legislation) which would alter the legal framework which currently exists. The stated intention is to make clear the rights and responsibilities of parents, and the main intention would be to define what is ‘suitable’ education by parents at home. It was mentioned that the changes may supersede existing case law, so they could amend the meaning of the existing s7 and s437 by further defining the terms used, or they might replace those sections, but DfES did not state precisely how they would go about changing the law. They did confirm that if this went ahead it could take some time, one or two years, as new legislation would need to be added to a suitable passing bill, or be proposed as a specific item. It was mentioned that standards might be specified by regulations enabled by new primary legislation.

4) COMPULSORY REGISTRATION OF HOME EDUCATORS

DfES see compulsory registration as a means of simplifying the present situation. Section 4 of the Education and Inspections Act 2006 requires LAs to identify children who are not receiving education. To do this they have to find children who are not in school and eliminate home educated children (who are not missing education) to leave those ‘missing education’. EO’s recent response to a consultation on section 4 can be found at http://www.tiny.cc/nle3H. (Section 4 comes into effect in February 2007). Section 12 of the Children Act gives LAs some powers to gather data from other agencies to do so (the information is gathered into an Information Sharing Index * ISI). EO’s response on a consultation on section 12 can be found http://www.tiny.cc/LnYIk). This means that all families who are not now known to LAs are increasingly likely to be identified, or notified to LAs. There are a large range of public bodies who are obliged to notify the LA of children who they are aware may be missing education. While officials need not notify the LA of children who they are told are home educated, it is likely that some will. (EO are considering modifying the text on membership cards to state that section 4 does not require the notification of home educated children to the local authority, so that the card with the statement can be shown to officials. While this will not protect all families from discovery by the LA in the long term, it may slow down the process). LAs will hold a register of children who are not in school and record their place of education. DfES think that compulsory registration will save home educators the problems of being notified in the Children Missing Education and Information Sharing Index arrangements. It would also save them money as they would have less need to follow up children notified to them but who are not on their registers.

We avoided speaking to this subject at any length because it was less important than the questions of standards and monitoring, and if standards and monitoring are not accepted, then ISI, CME and registration are not required. We commented that since they plan to be in annual contact with all home educators, compulsory registration will not save LAs any costs as they will have to make regular contact anyway. We stated that compulsory registration will be seen as a change to parents rights and will be strongly opposed by many home educators.

5) STANDARDS FOR SUITABLE EDUCATION

DfES say that they are not considering anything as specific as the national curriculum, but certainly something more prescriptive than a list of characteristics. They described their intention to set a standard of outcomes rather than provision. They mentioned outcomes for literacy and citizenship, ie children should be able to communicate well and access public services, and be familiar with public institutions. The pubic communications unit mentioned to one home educator it was anomalous that independent schools had standards to meet, but home educators did not. (Independent schools do not have defined curricula, but have standards – mainly for provision. The independent schools “standard” is described in part C of the information pack on this page http://www.dfes.gov.uk/reg-independent-schools/, and the underlying legislation is http://www.opsi.gov.uk/SI/si2003/20031910.htm ).

We presented arguments at length to make the point that any form of standard would be restrictive, and would cut across parents’ right to determine the form of educational provision and responsibility to match it to a child’s ability and aptitude. Flexibility is needed on the part of LAs to allow parents the discretion they have responsibility for, and standards conflict with that flexibility. The setting of standards would cut across many forms of home education that are currently exercised successfully by parents. Because children are individual and home education is tailored to the child, there is and can be no common standard to measure it. DfES produced the hard cases argument at this point, asking what they do when it’s not apparent that a child is making progress or that parents are making effective provision, and parents are unresponsive to enquiries. They are concerned that some parents are unwilling or unable to make suitable provision. EO presented the characteristics listed in the Scottish Guidance on Home Education (See Appendix) as a counter point, arguing that in the existing legislative framework its possible to make a professional judgement that suitable education is being provided by considering whether some of the characteristics are evident. The characteristics in brief are parental involvement, an educational ethos (not necessarily formal), learning experiences available, activities offered, and resources provided. We presented several scenarios of learning outcomes where no formal curriculum would have been apparent over long periods but the outcomes were good. We pointed out that for many home educated children with special needs and unusual learning styles, any form of age related standard may be an ineffective measure. For example when a child is ready to read may vary from 3 years to 13 years or later, but late reading often still leads to academic outcomes which fulfil the child’s potential. We mentioned that at the start of home education there may be long periods of apparent lack of activity while a child adjusts to the new approach. The parents’ approach and philosophy is the only reference point for evaluating whether they are being successful in making suitable provision. Also the alternative options need to be considered, even if HE outcomes appear poor, that child might have the same or worse difficulties in a local school. On average home education outcomes are generally good when compared to school education.

DfES confirmed that the consultation will contain specific outlines of what is being suggested regarding standards and monitoring.

6) MONITORING

DfES are considering proposals to require parents to have an annual interview, with children present, and to fill in a pre interview questionnaire giving some details of the child’s activities and progress. EO responded that flexibility is required to meet different families’ needs and situations, as happens in best practice around the country now. Reports, and voluntary discussions without the child present are equally valid ways of assuring the LA that education is being provided. The point was made at length, and with examples, that many parents are strongly opposed to meeting the LA, and that conflict with schools and LAs may make such meetings inappropriate for parents and especially children who have had difficult experiences before leaving school. EO suggested that it’s impossible to evaluate outcomes for a single child until many years later. We argued that the existing legislation is adequate, and provides a firm foundation for good practice, being a sensible balance between parental rights and primary responsibility for education, and the state’s role as a backstop in extreme situations.

Although the subject of welfare was not specifically covered in our discussion we know that Normal Wells of the Family Education Trust discussed it with DfES and they confirmed that they accept that they do not have powers to insist on visits to the family’s home.

7) EVIDENCE BASE FOR DfES’ CONCERNS

DfES acknowledged that the evidence base is limited. The studies which have presented conclusions from which the consultation proposals are drawn lack impartiality and objectivity. These shortcomings are discussed in detail in a briefing paper on the background to the consultation at http://www.tiny.cc/mBGKL

8) COST OF IMPLEMENTATION

DfES acknowledged that this will cost a lot in first contact and monitoring costs. EO argued that the result will also be more court cases rather than less.

9) GYPSY, ROMA, and TRAVELLER COMMUNITIES

DfeS state that “research” suggests there are concerns about home education within Gypsy, Roma and Traveller communities. They say that home education in those communities is sometimes an excuse not to provide a suitable education. Local Authorities feel the current arrangements for monitoring are not good enough. The underlying research is by Arthur Ivatts: http://www.dfes.gov.uk/research/data/uploadfiles/RW77.pdf The objectivity of the “research” has been criticised by home educators and some local authorities. The study makes the presumption that within their particular communities travellers can be considered likely to be ill equipped to provide sound home education. This is prejudicial to these communities and this premise, and the conclusions based on it, need to be reexamined. Also Mr Ivatts goes on to make recommendations for all home educators based on his observations about the situation of the particular group he was studying. These conclusions are beyond the scope of his study so the recommendations should be discounted.

EO should not be considered to represent Travellers who home educate other than in the general sense of home educators. Traveller Communities are not well represented in the membership base or active in making their views known through EO, so EO cannot speak effectively about unique aspects of their situation. Separate communication will be needed directly with traveller groups.

10) ENGLISH GUIDELINES

DfES stated that it is planned to issue the English Guidelines in February or March. DfES may choose to do proceed with changes to legislation as a result of the consultation, or may not. Either way the guidelines will fill the gap at present and may be sufficient if new legislation is not proposed.

11) CHANGING THE LAW WOULD BE EXPENSIVE AND UNPRODUCTIVE

In the last sections of the discussion we argued that the present system works fine, and that trying to create criteria against which to measure education will make things harder for the LAs not easier. Also that these plans, which they envisage would reduce the need for SAOs, would probably have the reverse effect – ie if they have rules, then they will end up with broken rules, so they will need to make more s437 prosecutions than before.

12) SUMMARY

DfES propose to issue a full consultation in January or February on changes to the law on home education.

The consultation has been motivated by local authority concerns about their perceived welfare responsibilities under Every Child Matters initiatives.

The evidence base that there are real problems underlying local authorities concerns is very poor, and was acknowledged by DfES at the pre-consultation meeting to be limited. The studies are neither impartial nor objective.

There is no evidence base for concluding that new legislation would improve educational outcomes. Nor has there been any comparison of the education outcomes recognized by home educators, and how they differ from local authorities expectations.

EO will advise DfES throughout the consultation that the existing legislation is perfectly adequate. Introducing new regulations will seriously damage outcomes for a proportion of home educated children, and put others at increased risk. It would not offer any significant positive benefits, and the cost of monitoring and of prosecution when provision is deemed unsuitable will be enormous.

APPENDIX 1

Typical characteristics of an efficient and suitable education are included in section 5 of the Statutory Guidance on home education issued by the Scottish Executive in 2004

• Consistent involvement of parents or other significant carers * it is expected that parents or significant carers would play a significant role, although not necessarily constantly or actively involved in providing education.
• Presence of a philosophy or ethos (not necessarily a recognised philosophy) * it is expected that the parents have thought through their reasons for home educating, showing signs of commitment and enthusiasm, and recognition of the child’s needs, attitudes and aspirations.
• Opportunities for the child to be stimulated by their learning experiences.
• Involvement in activities * a broad spectrum of activities to cater for wide varieties of interests appropriate to the child’s stage of development.
• Access to resources / materials required to meet the objectives of the parents * such as paper and pens, books and libraries, arts and crafts materials, physical activity, ICT and the opportunity to interact with other children and other adults.

(Improved versions of these characteristics were proposed in section 3.15 of the EO response to the draft English EHE Guidelines 2005. http://tinyurl.com/3c7m22 ).

The government of Bliar is thinking about bringing in Nazi style education guidelines to control home-schooling.

Now for those of you who think that its over the top to use the word ‘Nazi’ in this (or any) context, let me reassure you that I am not the first to use this word in association with this government, and it is also absolutely appropriate to use this word here, because control of Home Educators was mandated by the Nazis at Hitler’s command, in order to ensure uniformity amongst all growing up and subsequently living under the rule of the Third Reich.

The present German government has not erased these Nazi laws from their statute books, and adheres across all political parties, to the Nazi principles that ‘Home Schooling is Bad’, laid down by Hitler. Read this assessment of the sad state of Home Schooling in Germany from the Washington Times and my original post about the police hauling off German children to forcibly attend school.

Not to be left out of the rush to exert total control over everyone everywhere, Bliar’s government is preparing a ‘consultaiton’ on Home Schooling, and amendments to the law. That means they have already made up their minds about what they want to do:

“We believe the best place to educate a child is actually in school.”

Article from The Guardian, Home schooling ‘triples in eight years’

[…]

You can be sure that they have written up a long shopping list that they know no one will swallow, and are in the process of testing the water so that they can see what will be accepted with the least resistance:

The DfES 2007 consultation about changes to the law on home education was expected during January but DfES now say: “FURTHER WORK IS NOW BEING DONE, AND MINISTERS HAVE NOT YET MADE ANY FIRM DECISIONS ABOUT WHAT MIGHT BE INCLUDED”. The government now has its sites set on taking away the rights and responsibility of UK parents to choose the form of education they wish their child to have. They are doing this by the back door – making it appear that this only affects home educators. This issue does not only affect Home educators it affects all UK parents. Up until now the law has stood like this:

The responsibility of parents in England and Wales is clearly established in section 7 of the Education Act 1996 (previously section 36 of the Education Act 1944):

7. The parent of every child of compulsory school age shall cause him to receive efficient full-time education suitable-

(a) to his age, ability and aptitude, and
(b) to any special educational needs he may have,

either by regular attendance at school or otherwise.

This law is about to be changed and our right to determine our children’s education removed. If they can take away this most fundamental of rights, there is no limit where this will lead. Determining what and how our children learn will become the responsibility of the state, if we resist we will be breaking the law and our children forcibly removed.

Europe is way ahead of the UK on this, Hitler made home education illegal and this law has never been revoked. At this moment children in Germany are being forced to school by police, HE families are having to flee to Austria for sanctuary, a German teenager has been sectioned because she is school phobic. When this case was taken to the European court of Human rites, the German government’s dictat was upheld.

That is from an HE mailing list.

The law as it stands is perfectly adequate. All are required by law to be schooled. It is the parents responsibility to ensure that the child receives an education. Rightfully, the law does not go into detail about what education is because that can only be defined by a parent. This is well understood on some level even by parents who send their children to school; all over the world there are PTA’s and parent involvement in school decisions.

Home schooling is as natural as breast feeding. Most home-schooled children are at least two years ahead of their peers. Certainly the family life of home-schoolers bucks the trend in society of families not eating a daily meal together. And lets not forget the latch key kid syndrome, where both parents work and children are simply left to their own devices. Home-schooled children are better off in all the factors at which the UK was shown to utterly fail when it comes to the welfare of the child. Read the UN authored report in full.

“We simply cannot ignore these shocking findings”
BBQ

says Bob Reitemeier of the Children’s Society. This is true, and what will certainly make matters worse is if parents who want to Home School are prevented from doing so or interfered with in any way.

Its clear that the government has no answers whatsoever. They are obviously incapable of organizing schools. Members of the Cabinet again and again remove their children from the state sector or poorly performing schools and then give glib excuses or no excuse at all, as the utterly grotesque Diane Abbott did,

“You can’t defend the indefensible – anything you say sounds self-serving and hypocritical.”
BBQ

We agree with Ms. Abbott. You cannot defend the indefensible. We also agree with her decision to move her child to a school best suited to her child’s needs. A parent’s first responsibility is to the welfare of their offspring. What is utterly offensive is the idea that people like Ruth Kelly, Diane Abbott and Harriet Harman can decide what is right for everyone else while they pick and choose the best options for themselves.

Making any rules that will affect Home Schooling in the UK is absolutely indefensible. Government has no business interfering with the private affairs of the family, bad record on education or not, and certainly, you would have thought that with such an appalling record on education and schools, and cabinet ministers fleeing from ordinary schools, this government would be a little more circumspect and humble when it comes to telling Home Schooling parents what they should and should not be doing, and how they should educate their children.

George Osborne, Shadow Chancellor said of the UN report:

“I don’t actually think government has the answer to all these problems.

“This is not all about politicians in Westminster passing laws, it’s about social responsibility, it’s about parents taking greater responsibility for their children…”
BBQ

Indeed. Lets think about what Home Schooling actually means.

It means that either the Mother or Father or both parents spend many more hours with their children than is the average, on a daily basis, teaching them, guiding them, feeding them and eating with them. What could be more natural and healthy than that? Home Schooling is ideal parenting. It is parents taking not greater, but full responsibility for their children. It is something to be held in the highest esteem, a dream of all parents, many of whom have to hold down two jobs just to pay the bills.

Mothers who stay at home to teach their children are the gold standard of mothering. Which is better for society, all mothers in the population going out to work, or all mothers staying at home with their children teaching them?

What I am trying to illustrate is that parents who Home School should be actively encouraged to do so, and not interfered with. They are what society actually needs; a return to real family life, to full time parenting. Anyone who is against that is actually for the further destruction and dismantling of society. They are for the feral children that ravage cities, that cause the knee jerk requirement for ‘ASBOS’ and Control Orders.

Once again, we see that Bliar and his cabinet colleagues are completely clueless about families and what they really mean. This is hardly surprising. All of the women in the cabinet gave up mothering to become career politicians; they have no idea of what it means to raise children correctly, never mind Home Schooling them. The men in the cabinet are twentieth century men; blinkered ignorant and utterly useless. But I digress.

In a country like the UK, full to the brim with museums, places of interest, steeped in history, there is no better schoolroom than the entire country.

Home schoolers are very organized. They use The Internets. They meet regularly for social events and trips to museums, and in London this activity is nothing less than wonderful. Many institutions recognize Home Schoolers as a group, and put on special events for them; theaters, museums, and any place you can imagine are more than happy to put on special events and lectures for Home Schoolers. The richness of the Home Schooling life is second to none. Anyone that knows anything about Home Schooling understands this, and once again, Home Schooled children outperform state schooled children in every metric that counts and many of the ones that don’t.

Finally, the law as it stands with reference to Home Schooling is perfectly fine. Home Schoolers get on with their work, pass their exams, attend University, and lead fruitful lives. There have been Home Schooled children in the UK since cave men taught their sons how to shape flint spear heads; the current mania for all children to attend some sort of institutionalized school is, in the long view of history, an aberration.

Parents are home-schooling because its better for the children, better for the family and better for society. They are a highly intelligent, motivated and dedicated group. Any attempt to interfere with them is wrong. This is not Germany. We are not Germans. The British are free people, a man’s home is his castle and woe betide the person who tries to interfere with it and his family.

We will not accept any ‘guidelines’ whatsoever. Home schooling parents specifically do so to get away from the corrosive, anti-family influence of the incompetent state.

The DfES would be far better off spending its time trying to fix the horrific mess it has made of the state school system, rather than viciously and vindictively trying to destroy something that it has no understanding of, which works perfectly and which, if they interfere with it, will only suffer from their corrupting touch. They should actually be consulting with home schoolers to try and fix the hopelessly broken schools in their charge.

Brian Farmer, Research Associate of the John Birch Society.

One would have thought that all vestiges of National Socialism were erased, when the Federal Republic of Germany was established after World War II. But those who created post-war Germany apparently were willing to extend freedom to the German people only just so far. They were not willing to allow German families the right to educate their children outside of the state-run system.

That stands in stark contrast to America’s Founding Fathers’ view of education. Nowhere in the U.S. Constitution does it state that education comes under the authority of the federal government. And the Tenth Amendment makes it perfectly clear that “The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States, respectively, or to the people.”

Our Founders understood very well the perils of a compulsory educational system run by the federal government. As Sheldon Richman wrote in his book Separating School and State:

Throughout history, rulers and court intellectuals have aspired to use the educational system to shape their nations. The model was set out by Plato in The Republic and was constructed most faithfully in Soviet Russia, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany…. One can see how irresistible a vehicle the schools would be to any social engineer. They represent a unique opportunity to mold future citizens early in life, to instill in them the proper reverence for the ruling culture, and to prepare them to be obedient and obeisant taxpayers and soldiers.

While the number of home-schooled children is growing in the U.S., and has reached almost a million today, home-schooling in general does not always get a very favorable press. A recent network television documentary on home-schooling highlighted situations of neglected or abused children, parents who were portrayed as neurotic sociopaths, etc. It’s no surprise that teachers unions are against home-schooling and lobby states to make home-schooling as difficult as possible for families, by setting up a regulatory maze for parents to contend with.

Despite the Constitution’s clear restriction on federal government involvement in education, the federal Department of Education was created during the Carter administration. Is it mere coincidence that the performance of American students on a variety of standardized tests has steadily deteriorated, since the Department of Education was established?

As pointed out in the article, despite the increasing popularity of home-schooling in America, it is threatened with being made illegal. This threat comes from the attempts to form regional trade blocks, such as the North American Union, which is an obvious imitation of the European Union. And the ultimate threat comes from the United Nations, which is pushing member states to embrace international law. The long line of U.N. conferences over the years makes it clear that the final goal is to create an international system that will control every aspect of human activity everywhere on the planet, including education.

Just because Hitler liked the arrangement of centralized education doesn’t mean that we should. Education should be left up to the choice of the parents in their local communities, not coerced by an unaccountable bureaucracy, regardless of its political label.

[…]

http://www.jbs.org/node/2884

I wrote about the German Police enforcing Nazi Laws on home schoolers a month ago.

Now it seems that the rest of the world is catching up, and are rightfully horrified. My emphasis:

Earlier this month, a German teen-ager was forcibly taken from her parents and imprisoned in a psychiatric ward. Her crime? She is being home-schooled.

On Feb. 1, 15 German police officers forced their way into the home of the Busekros family in the Bavarian town of Erlangen. They hauled off 16-year-old Melissa, the eldest of the six Busekros children, to a psychiatric ward in nearby Nuremberg. Last week, a court affirmed that Melissa has to remain in the Child Psychiatry Unit because she is suffering from “school phobia.”

Home-schooling has been illegal in Germany since Adolf Hitler outlawed it in 1938 and ordered all children to be sent to state schools. The home-schooling community in Germany is tiny. As Hitler knew, Germans tend to obey orders unquestioningly. Only some 500 children are being home-schooled in a country of 80 million. Home-schooling families are prosecuted without mercy.

Last March, a judge in Hamburg sentenced a home-schooling father of six to a week in prison and a fine of $2,000. Last September, a Paderborn mother of 12 was locked up in jail for two weeks. The family belongs to a group of seven ethnic German families who immigrated to Paderborn from the former Soviet Union. The Soviets persecuted them because they were Baptists. An initiative of the Paderborn Baptists to establish their own private school was rejected by the German authorities. A court ruled that the Baptists showed “a stubborn contempt both for the state’s educational duty as well as the right of their children to develop their personalities by attending school.”

All German political parties, including the Christian Democrats of Chancellor Angela Merkel, are opposed to home-schooling. They say that “the obligation to attend school is a civil obligation, that cannot be tampered with.” The home-schoolers receive no support from the official (state funded) churches, either. These maintain that home-schoolers “isolate themselves from the world” and that “freedom of religion does not justify opposition against the obligation to attend school.” Six decades after Hitler, German politicians and church leaders still do not understand true freedom: that raising children is a prerogative of their fathers and mothers and not of the state, which is never a benevolent parent and often an enemy.

Hermann Stucher, a pedagogue who called upon Christians to withdraw their children from the state schools which, he says, have fallen into the hands of “neo-Marxist activists,” has been threatened with prosecution for “Hochverrat und Volksverhetzung” (high treason and incitement of the people against the authorities). The fierceness of the authorities’ reaction is telling. The dispute is about the hearts and minds of the children. In Germany, schools have become vehicles of indoctrination, where children are brought up to unquestioningly accept the authority of the state in all areas of life. It is no coincidence that people who have escaped Soviet indoctrination discern what the government is doing in the schools and are sufficiently concerned to want to protect their children from it.

What is worrying is that most “free-born” Germans accept this assault on their freedom as normal and eye parents who opt out of the state system with suspicion.

The situation is hardly better at the European level. 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.”

While it is disquieting that Europeans have not learned the lessons from their dictatorial past — upholding Nazi laws and sending dissidents, including children, to psychiatric wards, as the Soviets used to do — there is reason for Americans to worry, too. The United Nations is also restricting the rights of parents. Article 29 of the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child stipulates that it is the goal of the state to direct the education of children. In Belgium, the U.N. Convention is currently being used to limit the constitutional right to home-school. In 1995 Britain was told that it violated the U.N. Convention by allowing parents to remove their children from public school sex-education classes.

Last year, the American Home School Legal Defense Association warned that the U.N. Convention could make home-schooling illegal in America, even though the Senate has never ratified it. Some lawyers and liberal politicians in the states claim that U.N. conventions are “customary international law” and should be considered part of American jurisprudence.

[…]

Washington Times

Wow.

As you can see, there are many people who understand perfectly that the right to educate your child is fundamental to your freedom and to the health of ‘society’. A society full of people educated out of a single system is one where everyone is not compliant like sheep, one where a totalitarian government cannot easily take hold, because everyone thinks differently on a fundamental level.

This is directly analogous to the times in the UK where there were only two television channels being watched by millions of people. It was easy to get a single message across to everyone simultaneously, and to herd thought in this way. Now, with many different outlets for thought, it is much harder to steer opinion. The Muslims watch their news on The Islam Channel which has a distinctly different take on reality and what is and is not news.

By eliminating home schooling on a wide scale, you make it much harder for a group of outsiders to exist and to have any sort of voice, and as we know, in the age of the internets, it takes a very small number of outsiders to completely change everything.

German schools are used, overtly, to control and shape society keep everyone in thrall. That is why the Germans (and the populations of Belgium, Italy and other EU states for that matter) accept ID cards without question. That is why they have no understanding of human rights. I have been saying this since 1995, when I wrote a lightweight analysis of the German Constitution, which gives rights and then takes them away with the same breath.

Now these Nazis are breathing down our necks via the EU and the UN. We won’t have it.

The philosophies that are injected into the minds of children in the state sector are simply horrifying. Completely artificial concepts like ‘Hate Speech’ are taking hold in the previously (more) free thinking west because the teachers are drilling this drivel into the young, who take it on faith that indeed there is such a thing as ‘Hate Speech’.

The same goes for all of the other lies and molten lead doublethink that gets poured into the minds of young students – and it doesn’t just happen in the classroom. Schools that are requiring students to be fingerprinted to get books out of the library or to eat lunch are softening up the students to accept this method of criminal control, this violation, as normal and acceptable. The indoctrination runs across the most innocent of actions and activities, and we have the absolute right to say ‘no’ to it and to educate our children to our own standards and in our own philosophies, whatever they may be.

Brother, I’ll drink to that!

Most people reading Cryptogon inside the U.S./Britain are familiar with nonstop feelings of impending doom and frequently asking themselves questions like:

Am I next?
Is this it?
Can I escape?
Is it too late?
Has everyone gone nuts?
Have I gone nuts?
Is this job killing me?
What booze is on sale?
etc. etc.

That was what it was like inside my head for about two years before I bought my one way ticket to New Zealand.

What was the actual escape like for me?

After a couple of hectic days of selecting what to take with me, and what to leave behind, the time arrived for me to get to the airport.

As I was groped and fondled by defenders of the Homeland at airport security, I went into a kind of dreamlike trace. “Will I make it out to the other side of this thing?” I wondered. The cacophony of the checkpoint became a sort of languid hum. The fat TSA employee started to move its lips, but I don’t remember what it said. I complied, on some instinctual level. A few minutes later, I was standing just beyond the security checkpoint, holding my shoes and belt in one hand, and my falling down pants with the other.

I exchanged a couple of brief, humiliated, what-just-happened-to-us? kind of looks with other travelers, many of whom were not Americans, and not used to being treated like that.

I walked to the appropriate Air New Zealand gate and sat down. I took my mobile phone out and called a couple of people to say one last goodbye. Then I called the voice mail system for my phone and changed the greeting to something close to this:

“Hi, you have reached Kevin. I have left the United States and don’t have any plans to return. Goodbye.”

Minutes later, hundreds of people, including me, took our seats in the belly of the large white bird. Minutes after that, it hurdled down the runway and out over the Pacific Ocean, veering South and West. I’ve never been able to sleep on aircraft before. But I did on that flight.

Once I was in Auckland, I had to catch another flight to reach the Far North, my wife (she went over a few weeks before me) and my new family. I walked to the domestic departures area in the Auckland airport and asked an Air New Zealand employee where the security checkpoint was, because I somehow wound up at the gate without passing through one.

“There is no security checkpoint for domestic flights, sir.”

You can imagine my shock at this remarkable statement.

“There’s no security checkpoint?!” I asked.

“Nope. Not for domestic flights,” she smiled.

I felt like dropping to the ground and kissing the polyester airport carpet, but I didn’t.

I took a seat and mumbled to myself, “I’m not even out of the airport and things already seem better here.” That was my first big epiphany in New Zealand, and they just kept happening. (Maybe someday I’ll write more about this. In short, if you’re having doubts about the lies you’ve been taught all your life about the U.S., run with those feelings. Run for your life.)

When I read the story below, I wondered, “How long has it been since I escaped America?” As of today, I have been in New Zealand for exactly one year. On reflection, I think back on my life in America as a vague and distant nightmare. The United States has became a vast nut house inside a debtor prison. I’m still not over the euphoria of being out. […]

http://cryptogon.com/?p=448

By Paul Craig Roberts

The Bush-Cheney regime is America’s first neoconservative regime. In a few short years, the regime has destroyed the Bill of Rights, the separation of powers, the Geneva Conventions, and the remains of America’s moral reputation along with the infrastructures of two Muslim countries and countless thousands of Islamic civilians. Plans have been prepared, and forces moved into place, for an attack on a third Islamic country, Iran, and perhaps Syria and Hezbollah in Lebanon as well.

This extraordinary aggressiveness toward the US Constitution, international law, and the Islamic world is the work, not of a vast movement, but of a handful of ideologues—principally Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Lewis Libby, Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, Elliott Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, John Bolton, Philip Zelikow, and Attorney General Gonzales. These are the main operatives who have controlled policy. They have been supported by their media shills at the Weekly Standard, National Review, Fox News, New York Times, CNN, and the Wall Street Journal editorial page and by “scholars” in assorted think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute.

The entirety of their success in miring the United States in what could become permanent conflict in the Middle East is based on the power of propaganda and the big lie.

Initially, the 9/11 attack was blamed on Osama bin Laden, but after an American puppet was installed in Afghanistan, the blame for 9/11 was shifted to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, who was said to have weapons of mass destruction that would be used against America. The regime sent Secretary of State Colin Powell to tell the lie to the UN that the Bush-Cheney regime had conclusive proof of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

Having conned the UN, Congress, and the American people, the regime invaded Iraq under totally false pretenses and with totally false expectations. The regime’s occupation of Iraq has failed in a military sense, but the neoconservatives are turning their failure into a strategic advantage. At the beginning of this year President Bush began blaming Iran for America’s embarrassing defeat by a few thousand lightly armed insurgents in Iraq.

Bush accuses Iran of arming the Iraqi insurgents, a charge that experts regard as improbable. The Iraqi insurgents are Sunni. They inflict casualties on our troops, but spend most of their energy killing Iraqi Shi’ites, who are closely allied with Iran, which is Shi’ite. Bush’s accusation requires us to believe that Iran is arming the enemies of its allies.

On the basis of this absurd accusation—a pure invention—Bush has ordered a heavy concentration of aircraft carrier attack forces off Iran’s coast, and he has moved US attack planes to Turkish bases and other US bases in countries contingent to Iran.

In testimony before Congress on February 1 of this year, former National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said that he expected the regime to orchestrate a “head-on conflict with Iran and with much of the world of Islam at large.” He said a plausible scenario was “a terrorist act blamed on Iran, culminating in a ‘defensive’ US military action against Iran.” He said that the neoconservative propaganda machine was already articulating a “mythical historical narrative” for widening their war against Islam. [Testimony in PDF]

Why is the US spending one trillion dollars on wars, the reasons for which are patently false. What is going on?

There are several parts to the answer. Like their forebears among the Jacobins of the French Revolution, the Bolsheviks of the communist revolution, and the National Socialists of Hitler’s revolution, neoconservatives believe that they have a monopoly on virtue and the right to impose hegemony on the rest of the world. Neoconservative conquests began in the Middle East because oil and Israel, with which neocons are closely allied, are both in the Middle East.

[…]

http://www.vdare.com/roberts/070228_lost.htm

Like I have said before, if any country can turn around from a situtation like this, the usa can. It will however, cost nothing less than trillions of dollars in reparations and literally, the heads of the conspirators listed above.

Nothing less will set the balance right, and even that may not be enough.

cj bolland gets back to what he does best, stompers with an eery rhythmic precision, only this time employing very sophisticated effects and mix editing …. check out the new album at http://www.last.fm/music/CJ+Bolland/The+5th+Sign

Someone Clever Said:

Mr. Porter,

Interesting piece on WTC 7. We’re all hoping it is only a bit of doctored footage.

If it is not, please do let us know what is about to happen in or around Iran. And be so kind as to give us more than 20 minutes notice.

A classic comment from The Editors Blog where a totally retarded liar and propagandist tries to wiggle out of the complete fiasco of the ‘documentary’ and subsequent ‘911’ lost footage scandal.

We and many others have said for years that BBQ is a totally controlled, propaganda pumping, palace of prostitutes, and now the whole world knows it.

Their imbecilic staff don’t even have the self preservation common sense to simply say, “we messed up”, which would be far more believable than the ‘daddy knows best’, ‘there there’ pat on the head tone that scumbag Richard Porter takes.

They all have this attitude, from Dimbumblebee down; snot nosed, supercilious and condescending. Listen to the slimy Guy Smith slither around as Alex Jones questions him about his odious piece of shit ‘documentary’. This is what your license fee goes for; the salaries of liars and bastards who spit in your face as they collude in dismantling this great country.

It is completely impossible that they have lost the original tapes. Broadcasting industry standards make it impossible. This is why:

“I’m an archivist with the CNN News Library in Atlanta, and I can tell you with absolute certainty, the mere idea that news agencies such as ours would “misplace” any airchecks from 9/11 is preposterous. CNN has these tapes locked away from all the others. People like myself, who normally would have access to any tapes in our library, must ask special permission in order to view airchecks from that day. Multiple tapes would have been recording their broadcast that day, and there are also private agencies that record all broadcasts from all channels – constantly – in the event that a news agency missed something or needs something. They don’t just have one copy… they have several. It’s standard procedure, and as soon as the second plane hit, they would start recording several copies on other tapes machines all day long.”

What they are claiming is simply impossible. It is a lie.

As can be seen from above, private agencies will also have copies of that days footage. The totally insulting line of Porters:

So if someone has got a recording of our output, I’d love to get hold of it.

Simply beggars belief. So we are supposed to supply you with the footage? IF someone has a recording of it? Surely he must know at least what that CNN guy knows about what happens to live footage of a big event – if he does not, he should be SACKED.

Note his tone, like the details don’t matter, as if he doesn’t really work there, and has no special knowledge of the workings of the BBQ…and he is one of the editors.

This really is astonishing, not that they are lying but that they are lying so badly.

and finally, a taste of what is spreading all over the internets:

I’m not a conspiracy nut. But this footage of your reports of WTC7 collapsing a full 20 minutes prior and repeatedly discussing it’s collapse is highly suspicious.

If you were talking about a building that never did collapse, well then you’d just look imcompitent. But as we all know, building 7 did, in a feat that suspended all laws of physics and logic, collapse spontaneously due to fires on floors 7 " 12.

You can’t possibly expect us to believe this. Let’s look at all the pieces here.

1. BBC reports for 20 solid minutes that WTC7 has collapsed when even in the live shot it stands as sturdy as the day it was built.

2. The idea that WTC7 would collapse spontaneously due to minor fires and minimal damage to the north face is laughable and an insult to intelligence. But it did, approximately 5 minutes AFTER BBC’s report….or at least 5 minutes after Jane Standley’s live shot was disconnected.

3. BBC loses all of it’s 9/11 footage so this cannot be reviewed or explained. My nephew still has all his VHS tapes from that day. He recorded almost every news station for 24 hours straight. He’s 19 now. He was 13 when it happened.
So, a 13 year old can be more responsible with his VHS tapes than one of the largest news organizations?

4. The archive footage is mysteriously pulled off of youtube and google video repeatedly and without provocation or explanation.

5. BBC’s response is, ‘there is no conspiracy. it was a mistake.’

Grant us logical thinkers at least one thing. This is highly suspicious. The BBC needs to reveal what source they drew the conclusion that WTC7 had collapsed.

Oh, and the ez-out phrases like ‘it appears’ and ‘we’re receiving reports that..’ were not used throughout this footage.

Especially when the anchor starts talking about the (lack of) body count since there was so much time to evacuate since the collapse of WTC1-2.

The BBC needs to reveal what source they drew the conclusion that WTC7 had collapsed. I do not necessarily think the BBC is a witting participant in some 9/11 conspiracy, but it’s definitely looking like you were a pawn. Revealing who/where the BBC received the information that WTC7 had collapsed would be a good start in clearing your name.

Its over BBQ; you have LOST!

Gmail is still letting ‘obvious’ spam through, i.e. spam with the word ‘viagra’ in the body or the subject. Here is a screen-grab of the the inbox of the account that I am using for testing. Yuck!

When these messages were subsequently collected with Thunderbird, out of the 86 messages collected from the filtered POP mail, the baysian filtering caught 64 spams, 20 spams were not caught and two emails were legitimate.

On all my Gmail accounts where the email is sent directly to an @gmail.com address, the spam filtering is near flawless and I rarely see a spam message. On this account however, the email is collected from a POP3 account to test wether or not gmail’s world-famous spam filtering can be used to eliminate spam from a dirty POP account.

Amazingly, Gmail is failing to catch spam that Thunderbird’s baysian filtering picks up easily; what can we infer about how Gmail’s spam filtering works by this? There are 1397 spams that Gmail has caught from this POP gathered mail, so it is working on some level…very interesting!

As previously alluded to:

The Telegraph reports

A boy of eight who weighs 14 stone could be taken into care in a landmark step in the fight against childhood obesity.

[…]

Tomorrow a child protection conference will take place, which could lead to moves to take Connor into care unless his diet is improved.

[…]

Two specialist obesity nurses, a consultant paediatrician, the deputy headmaster of his school, a police officer and two social workers will sit on the panel which will decide his future.

[Your life in their hands -mm]

He could be put on the child protection register, along with victims of physical or sexual abuse, or on the less serious children in need register.

Connor’s mother, 35-year-old Nicola McKeown, said: “If Connor gets taken into care that is the worst scenario there could be.

“Hopefully we will be able to work through it and come up with a good plan and he will just be put on the at-risk register or some other register.”

[You can count on that, pet – mm]

Until recently her son was getting through four packets of crisps a day and demanding snacks every 20 minutes as well as eating three main meals, including dinners with four Yorkshire puddings.

Miss McKeown, from Wallsend, near Newcastle-Upon-Tyne, said Connor refuses to eat healthier food such as fruit or vegetables.

[…]

“I try to be strict with him and limit what he eats but some days I just think, ‘my God, you have had so much today’. It worries me sick because I can hear him choking on a night time and he gets nosebleeds very frequently.

[…]

Tam Fry, the chairman of the Child Growth Foundation, an obesity charity, said: “Parents should be held to account.

”Allowing such obesity is child abuse.”

[…]

Obviously in this case the mother realises that her son’s health is being undermined and is trying (but failing) to remedy the situation. So why should the mother (and son) be penalised like this when it obvious she *wants* assistance. And why should the two of them be put on a national register that will eventually be NIR -ficated when it is no business of the state to parent children?

This year 14 stone
next year 12 stone
…
until mandatory fitness clubs?

or show funerals for the obese?

This is a reply to a post on a Home Education mailing list; it was written by a glove puppet (or a perfect imitation of one). Note the flawed logic, doublethink and straw man tactics that are common to all glove puppet / inflitraitor posts. Yes, ‘infiltraitor’.

Here we go:

> I’ve been reluctant to pass comment on the Government’s HE monitoring
> proposals as I think I’m in the minority on this list but, having
> read the comments on the BBC site, I think I will take the plunge.

uh oh.

>
> Doesn’t monitoring imply 2 concerns – child protection and ensuring a
> ‘suitable education’? The Victoria Climbie case sparked the whole
> thing off and it concerns me that my children have been ‘invisible’
> for all of their lives.

I can scarcely believe what I am reading. You sound just like one of Bliar’s cabinet with that ‘Victoria Climbie’ nonsense. Just because one child is hurt that doesn’t mean that all children in the UK must be registered in an Orwellian system of controls. There is no logic in it. Crime is like rain; you will never be able to prevent it, you need to learn to live with it. You do not destroy the very foundations of your life because of it i.e. not going outside ever because it MIGHT rain and you MIGHT get wet and you MIGHT catch a cold you BUY AN UMBRELLA, and use it when you like. You do not get the government to shield you from the rain, or build a giant roof over the entire UK to ensure that you are always dry.

> I could do anything to my children and nobody
> would know.

Yes, you COULD, and you COULD also take a kitchen knife and kill your postman, or burn your own house down with a box of matches, or strap your children in your car and drive into the sea to drown them. You could do alot of things…bad things…but you WONT, and the vast majority of people never do, and just because you have the capability to do these bad things that doesn’t mean that everyone should be under total state control. Not only that, state ‘monitoring’ of everyone and every child will not prevent a single crime, especially the silent crime of child abuse.

> A comment on the BBC site mentions ‘thick, weird …
> downright barmy’ parents home educating and people have been quick to
> reply ‘but we’re not weird’ etc. But what happens if an ‘evil’ parent
> chooses HE? Where’s the child protection?

Wheres the logic? You sound like the type of glove puppet infiltrator that Bliar’s government employs to monitor groups that they consider could be a threat. The same sort of people were used against the fuel protesters. They would attend meetings and this would happen:

The new recruits spent a lot of time arguing against taking any action and spreading doubts about the need for it. “They were saying things like: ‘Think of the hospitals, what happens if it goes like 2000?’”…

Read all about it here: http://tinyurl.com/2ftbvg the organization is,

…the National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU). Few have heard of it, but its role in controlling dissent is central.

They infiltrate groups, and go onto the internet posing as people on the side of any cause, only to present government arguments as if they are coming from inside the group, as we are reading in your post. They are the ones who always write, “Nothing to hide, nothing to fear” on the subject of ID cards on every forum out there. They are the ones who pollute the BBC ‘Have Your Say’ comments with pro government propaganda. Beware of people who say they are willing to give up their rights or accept more government control because a single person got hurt. Its Bliar logic, and they and their arguments are utterly bogus, scripted nonsense.

> I would gladly give up my
> children’s invisibility to protect other children. It is a worthwhile
> price to pay if it prevents a child going through a similar ordeal to
> Victoria’s. (And I am aware the Victoria’s case wasn’t HE based but
> it could have been.)

And there you go! Its pure Blair speak. You admit that the Climbie case is irrelevant to HE, but cite it as a reason to give awy your privacy (which you incorrectly call ‘invisibility’) anyway, saying that it COULD have been related to HE. That is utter nonsense, and you know it. We all know it. “He who would trade liberty for some temporary security, deserves neither liberty nor security” Benjamin Franlkin. You and your children will have neither security nor liberty if you are willing to give up your right to live without the government looking over your shoulder. The worst thing about it is, no amount of monitoring can prevent crime, and so you are advocating giving up liberty for NOTHING. That is completely insane.

> Of course the level of monitoring/interference should be the real
> debate. Will they simply try and find the ‘invisible’ children and
> put them in the same inspection regime as the others? Or will the
> regime be toughened up for all HE children? I have to say I’m
> optimistic for a number of reasons. What resources will there be for
> all the extra ‘found’ children like mine? Will local authorities
> really be prepared for extra children AND extra supervision? I think
> not.

Astonishing. Firstly, the ‘real debate’ is wether or not the government has any business regulating HE in any way. And once again, there is no such thing as an ‘invisible’ child. HE’d children are not ‘invisible’; stop characterizing them in this way, it is pure evil and a propaganda technique. Secondly, you are saying that you are willing to give up your rights, then you are saying that you are not too worried because even if you do, there are not enough staff to watch everyone! You are not very good at this game are you?

I will help you.

If they decide that all children in HE are to be monitored, what they will do is put the burden on YOU. YOU will have to report somewhere with your children regularly to be inspected. YOU will have to fill out forms detailing your children’s performance. YOU will have to obtain a license to educate your children at home.

Get the picture?

> Also Summerhill School (the ‘run by students’, ‘no rules’ school) has
> survived inside the school OFSTED inspection system. And, as a
> teacher, I’m inspected and, although it’s very irritating for me, it
> doesn’t stop me teaching my students the way I feel is best. In other
> words I listen to the inspectors comments and simply ignore those I
> don’t agree with. I haven’t lost my job yet. And very often they make
> suggestions that I actually agree with!

This has nothing to do with us free parents who want nothing to do with you, your OFSTED inspections, ‘your’ opinions and your vile way of interacting with the system whilst pretending to be against it, and all the time bolstering it.

> We live in a country with a history of compromise and ‘fudging’.
> Isn’t this going the same way?

We are not going to submit to any of the government’s new, draconian, Soviet Style controls; that means NO to the children’s database, NO to ID cards and NO to the introduction of compulsory schooling, or ANY interference in HE.

> Sorry I couldn’t resist putting another point of view into a debate
> which seems rather extreme – ‘change nothing’ or ‘ban completely’– at
> the moment.

It was deliberate, and the language you use is highly indicative of you being a shill. We are on to your games however; you don’t play them very well and really, its not your fault. Bliar is asking you and your glove puppet colleagues to do the impossible – argue for the rights of children and families to be destroyed. No one will go along with it, on any level.

If you are indeed a genuine person, not in the employ of the government, I am even more horrified that you could write such drivel and present it as a valid argument.

What you are advocating is nothing less than the mass enslavement of all the children in the UK. No one in their right mind would advocate that, even as a theoretical possibility, because it is so abhorrent and contrary to the natural feelings of any parent or human being.

If you are not a glove puppet, then you may not realize that we are in the middle of a war for our freedom and the freedom of generations of British Citizens. This is not the time to play games with ideas like, “gladly give up my freedom and the freedom of my children”. If this response has come across as particularly harsh I hope that that is the case, because people like you who advocate, even in theory, the enslavement of my children are my mortal enemies.

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

Here’s an old economist conundrum about queues.

Here we go.

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

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

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

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

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

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

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

But this simple account has a devastating implication.

Are you a thespian or an economist?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

NOW HOLD ON A MINUTE THERE BUSTER.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

[…]

The Reporters at BBQ

This is a concatenation of utter gibberish.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Without beer, its harder to do.