IMS_Blog

Well, the move didn’t exactly go swimmingly, what with the hired van breaking down on the busy inner ringroad after no more than 15 miles. I should have known when I saw the dents all over it when I picked it up. All I can say is don’t take the last van on offer from Practical’s York branch. Great thanks must go to Gary and especially Ed who came back the next day once a new van had been sorted to help complete the move.

Anyway, I’m in now, though still surrounded by boxes. I’m posting this using the same dial-up connection I had before leaving but with the phone line already here (which I don’t even know the number of). Don’t have a clue where it’s being charged to, but I’d better keep it brief. Phone should be sorted Friday, Sky Monday and broadband shortly after.

I’ve just broken my first thing in the new house, damaging the door which covers the boiler in the kitchen. Oops.

Anyway, must go.

Busy packing, and packing and packing. Also, because of move, internet access subscription got cancelled, which means I’m now on a "pay-as-you-go" dial-up connection…not ideal. Anyway, must go, er, pack!

I’m surrounded by boxes. Little boxes made of…well, cardboard mainly. There’s a lot of them; so many it’s becoming difficult to find places to put them and I’m running out of empty ones. The saddening thought is they’ve all got to be unpacked at the other end of the move!

Resist ID cards and the invasion of our liberty and privacy. Sign the petition

I seem to be getting quite political in my old age. That’s to be excused I think, when the Queen’s speech allows a barely elected government to reintroduce such concepts as ID cards. Presumably Labour now dislike Thatcher so much because she caused them to miss their 1984 target date.

The government, via their queen puppet, talked a lot about respect. Yet they seem to have forgotten that respect is something earned, and is a two way street. They are showing little respect for the populace they are supposed to represent, nor for the traditions and fabric of the society they claim to be protecting. That is a society which isn’t changed by legislation, however hard you try, but by cultural and popular shifts of opinion and education. Indeed, good legislation reflects the beliefs and desires of the people, not the other way around. Having been given a clear signal by those people that there proposed policies are not popular, the government have responded by disrespectivly reintroducing them.

Of the measures proposed in Blair’s Orwellian government the most worrying must be ID cards. They seem pretty determined to make sure they have control. Hiding behind a shield of new technology will solve all ills (no, it won’t) and you’ve nothing to hide, they try and convince us that it’s all for our own good. Despite the fact they can’t produce a hard, good theory as to why this would help at all. Don’t be fooled by being told they won’t be compulsory to carry either. You won’t need to. The power of the scheme lies not in the card itself but the huge, all seeing database behind it. That database will carry biometric information on all citizens. That’s fingerprints (and possibly iris scans/facial features—well, why not, DNA). They won’t need the card, they’ve got you, and you carry all that biometric data around.

It doesn’t stop terry either. Countries with similar cards have been subjected to terrorist attacks (ETA in Spain for example). Not only that, but this was never felt necessary when the IRA were a clear and present danger. It doesn’t help with illegal immigration. The point of illegal immigrants is that they are outside the systems anyway.

It does pave the way for the government to do whatever the hell it pleases, in your best interests of course. Remember, if you’ve done nothing wrong you won’t mind a policeman outside your door, watching you not do it.

I won’t even begin with the idea of compulsory lie detector tests (no matter what the crime, far to easy to extend an idea once it’s in place), or effectively “means testing” legal aid (with all means testing there are always those just on the border who slip through cracks). And exactly who “incitement to religious hatred” pans out in terms of free speech is worryingly unclear.

This government does not have a mandate for such sweeping, police state (and yes, the term is justified) legislation. It must be opposed.

The BBC—that’s the “state” TV (and radio, web, etc) service in the UK—just updated their weather forecasting graphics. It’s caused something of a storm (if you pardon the intentional poor pun) and many comments. I’m not surprised. I don’t like them. Not one bit. Well, OK, I kind of like what they tried, just not how they’ve ended up.

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I for one welcome our self-replicating cubic overlords ;-)

An entry in which I discuss why for once I didn’t abstain but actually voted for a major political party, and how that makes me feel far from empowered and more disenfranchised and disliking of the process than ever.

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Rumble strips. On roads. The things which are slightly raised ridges that cause a rumble when driven over, warning you to slow down. They’re annoying me. It’s not really the basic concept that I have a problem with. If I’m approaching a junction, or a built up area with a lower speed limit, for example, then they’re a useful (though almost always unnecessary—the junction/speed limit/whatever is invariably already in view) additional note to the driver. what I do object to is that in the majority of cases they stretch across both sides of the carriageway. That’s across the side of the road leading away from the junction, or into the higher speed limit area. Why? I am, almost by definition, at that point accelerating (and these things are often present for such a length of road that I’ve even finished accelerating). I’m going well above the speed they’re designed to make the “rumble” at; but why not? I’m pretty much supposed to be. In this situation the rumble makes no sense at all, but is nothing but an aggravating annoyance.

The truly annoying thing is that in places they’ve been done properly, and the rumble strip only runs across the half of the road where it makes sense. Surely that must be cheaper and less disruptive in the first place? Why can’t they manage that whenever they make them (and yes, new one’s do keep appearing)?