Worrying trends
The following has been on the wire of Assoc Press
Kids buy lunches with scans of fingers
Tue Sep 5, 7:11 AM ET
The never-ending march of technology now means school children here can pay for their cafeteria sloppy joes with their fingers.
Rome City Schools is switching to a scanning system that lets students use their fingerprints to access their accounts. In the past, students had to punch in their pin numbers.
"The finger's better because all you've got to do is put your finger in, and you don't have to do the number and get mixed up," said Adrianna Harris, a second grader at Anna K. Davie Elementary School.
The new system speeds lunch lines, said city administrators. It's being phased in to Rome High School, Rome Middle School and all the city's elementary schools. The city hopes to have the system in use next month system-wide.
Some parents are uneasy with having their children's fingerprints scanned, and wonder about how well the information is secured.
"It may be perfectly secure, but my daughter is a minor and I understand that supposedly the kids have the option to not have their prints scanned, but that's not being articulated to my daughter," said Hal Storey, who's daughter is a 10th grader at Rome High.
At least there are no lions...
While it may appear to be the picture is not of the savanna in Southern Africa somewhere and there are no lions lurking in the high grass - at least I hope not. In fact that photo was taken in Parkland in the South-East of England just outside London on 07/26/2006 and it shows, to some extent, the effect that the heat of around 33 C is having and the drought.
Whether this is Global Warming due to CO2 in the atmosphere, something I still have to be convinced off entirely, or whether, and this is more likely, it is a case of the Earth cycles of hot spells and cold spells that run about every 500 yeas and we are just coming up to the peak of such a hot spell slowly but surely the fact remains that we will have to get used to the fact, so it would seem, that we will have such summers with us for some time to come and even that the winters will be dryers though maybe even colder, then again not. The other problem for the South-East of England is also the fact that there are too many houses and too many people living here and there just are not enough resources. Why everything has to congregate in the area around the capital and as far down south as Devon (yes, people commute thus far to offices in London) beats me, especially in today's society with ADSL and Internet and all that jazz.
If there is a contributing factor of the way we deal with the environment then I guess we all will have to wake up and mend our ways and traveling x-amount of miles by car or train to offices such a distance away day in day out is NOT conducive to a good environment. The same is true as regards to recycling and energy production, whether we are talking about electricity or gas. We can produce electricity, like the Swedes do, from waste and we can also get gas, gas with which to cook and heat, from waste. That, however, could be the subject of another post,
© M Smith, July 26, 2006
Railroad system with same restrictions now as planes
Security scanners to be used at all railroad stations across the United Kingdom checking passengers for those dangerous sharp and pointy things called knives; those evil things that can attack people.
The Transport Secretary, Alistair Darling, said trials in London of metal detectors to detect weapons such as knives had been "extremely successful". He told the BBC's Sunday AM programme that the technology would be employed at stations in other cities including Manchester, Leeds, Edinburgh, Glasgow and Cardiff.
It can then only be assumed that soon travel on the railroads will have the same check-in times as have airports making public transport even less an option for people going about their legitimate business traveling from one part to another in the country.
The trial at Tube and train stations in London, known as Operation Shield, has been running for two months. British Transport Police officers with stop-and-search powers and sniffer dogs use mobile airport-style scanners to check passengers.
The Conservative homeland security spokesman, Patrick Mercer, welcomed the move, but said detecting potential bombers should be a top priority.
What beats me on this is how this is going to solve any problems such as terrorism? When was the last time anyone heard of a train being hijacked with the use of knives? Unless they have scanners able to detect explosives it will be rather difficult to do anything about bombers. Yet another move in the UK to have anyone carrying a knife made into a criminal, basically. I know, there are some police officers in the high ranks who have said that they cannot see a reason for any person to carry a knife on them as there would be no uses for a knife that they could think of.
Maybe someone should educate those morons. A knife is a tool and not a weapon, primarily, and anything can be used as a weapon if one would so desire, even a humble walking stick or a rock. A knife is not a evil instrument, as so often portrayed - in the same way as guns are being portrayed as such - but it is the use handling the knife or the gun who is either good or evil in his or her intent and use of the instrument.
Patrick Mercer, the Conservative homeland security spokesman further stated: "We welcome any attempt to lessen crime on our transport system, but the fact remains that 53 people were killed in the London bombings last year and we currently have no equipment of any sort anywhere in England that can detect explosives," he said.
"There has been one brief trial, on one line, and there are further trials planned, but these are the sort of measures that should have been started in September 2001, not almost six years later."
So, there you have it. We do not even have the technology to sniff out bombs and, if they stop a determined suicide bomber with explosives in a backpack or bag or on his body and he detonates it there and then, what then? Then you still have an incident that potentially could kill and injure tens if not hundreds. The truth is the target is people carrying knives and not bombers and it will be the ordinary person with a knife on them who will fall foul of this operation.
© Veshengro, April 3, 2006
Internet Explorer Users Beware!
IE Exploit Strikes, Installs Spyware
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb.comFri Mar 24, 8:25 PM ET
The unpatched CreateTextRange vulnerability in Internet Explorer is already being used by at least one Web site to install spyware on users' machines, a security organization said Friday.
"We just received a report that a particular site uses the vulnerability to install a spybot variant," the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) warned Friday in an alert. "It is a minor site with insignificant visitor numbers according to Netcraft's 'Site rank.'"
Disclosed only Wednesday, the flaw in IE 5.01, 6.0, and the January version of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview has security vendors worried because a patch isn't available from Microsoft. Thursday, as news circulated that a working exploit had been publicly posted, Microsoft said it was working on a fix.
Even before the site exploiting the CreateTextRange bug was discovered, security companies had raised alarms. The ISC bumped up its InfoCON level to "yellow" for the first time since the Windows Metafile fiasco in late December, when another "zero-day" flaw hit Windows users.
"It's a relatively trivial mod[ification] to turn [the exploit] into something more destructive," the ISC warned. "For that reason, we're raising Infocon to yellow for the next 24 hours."
Symantec raised its ThreatCon status indicator to "2" and boosted its Internet Threat Meter's warning for Web activities to "medium" because of the bug.
Although it's unclear exactly whether the Spybot-distributing site is drawing users to its poison or simply waiting for the unwary to stumble across the URL, it's likely the former, Scott Carpenter, director of security at Secure Elements, said in an e-mail to TechWeb. "The most probable vector for this worm will be in the form of spam with malicious links that will tempt users into clicking on a link that takes them to a malicious site."
In December (and after), hundreds of sites used the Windows Metafile bug to load spyware, including keyloggers and backdoor Trojans, onto unsuspecting users' PCs.
Rumors that Microsoft would release a patch before April 11, the next regularly-scheduled patch day -- such releases are dubbed "out-of-cycle" -- was quashed by a Microsoft spokesman who refused to commit the company to a date.
"Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take appropriate action to help protect our customers," he said in a verbatim repeat of Thursday's advisory. "This will either take the form of a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs."
So, what should users expect, say, over the weekend and early next week?
"It's hard to say at the moment, since this is just the beginning," said Alain Sergile, a technical product manager at Internet Security Systems' X-Force research. "But if SANS' report is accurate, I think we'll see additional targeted attacks where spam is sent to users at a specific organization in the hope that someone clicks on the link and downloads the malicious code so the attacker can infiltrate the network."
Because it remains an unpatched vulnerability, "everyone should consider this a zero-day kind of threat," added Sergile. "That means people will be caught flat footed."
Microsoft has recommended that users disable Active Scripting in IE until a patch is posted, but Sergile said that wasn't really a workable solution. "That will kill the capability of a large number of Web sites. The Web isn't much fun without those [scripting] capabilities." Instead, he recommended users visit only sites they know are safe.
Or turn to another browser. "The problem is in how Internet Explorer interprets the scripting call. Firefox doesn't have this problem."
By Gregg Keizer
TechWeb.comFri Mar 24, 8:25 PM ET
The unpatched CreateTextRange vulnerability in Internet Explorer is already being used by at least one Web site to install spyware on users' machines, a security organization said Friday.
"We just received a report that a particular site uses the vulnerability to install a spybot variant," the SANS Institute's Internet Storm Center (ISC) warned Friday in an alert. "It is a minor site with insignificant visitor numbers according to Netcraft's 'Site rank.'"
Disclosed only Wednesday, the flaw in IE 5.01, 6.0, and the January version of IE 7 Beta 2 Preview has security vendors worried because a patch isn't available from Microsoft. Thursday, as news circulated that a working exploit had been publicly posted, Microsoft said it was working on a fix.
Even before the site exploiting the CreateTextRange bug was discovered, security companies had raised alarms. The ISC bumped up its InfoCON level to "yellow" for the first time since the Windows Metafile fiasco in late December, when another "zero-day" flaw hit Windows users.
"It's a relatively trivial mod[ification] to turn [the exploit] into something more destructive," the ISC warned. "For that reason, we're raising Infocon to yellow for the next 24 hours."
Symantec raised its ThreatCon status indicator to "2" and boosted its Internet Threat Meter's warning for Web activities to "medium" because of the bug.
Although it's unclear exactly whether the Spybot-distributing site is drawing users to its poison or simply waiting for the unwary to stumble across the URL, it's likely the former, Scott Carpenter, director of security at Secure Elements, said in an e-mail to TechWeb. "The most probable vector for this worm will be in the form of spam with malicious links that will tempt users into clicking on a link that takes them to a malicious site."
In December (and after), hundreds of sites used the Windows Metafile bug to load spyware, including keyloggers and backdoor Trojans, onto unsuspecting users' PCs.
Rumors that Microsoft would release a patch before April 11, the next regularly-scheduled patch day -- such releases are dubbed "out-of-cycle" -- was quashed by a Microsoft spokesman who refused to commit the company to a date.
"Upon completion of this investigation, Microsoft will take appropriate action to help protect our customers," he said in a verbatim repeat of Thursday's advisory. "This will either take the form of a security update through our monthly release process or providing an out-of-cycle security update, depending on customer needs."
So, what should users expect, say, over the weekend and early next week?
"It's hard to say at the moment, since this is just the beginning," said Alain Sergile, a technical product manager at Internet Security Systems' X-Force research. "But if SANS' report is accurate, I think we'll see additional targeted attacks where spam is sent to users at a specific organization in the hope that someone clicks on the link and downloads the malicious code so the attacker can infiltrate the network."
Because it remains an unpatched vulnerability, "everyone should consider this a zero-day kind of threat," added Sergile. "That means people will be caught flat footed."
Microsoft has recommended that users disable Active Scripting in IE until a patch is posted, but Sergile said that wasn't really a workable solution. "That will kill the capability of a large number of Web sites. The Web isn't much fun without those [scripting] capabilities." Instead, he recommended users visit only sites they know are safe.
Or turn to another browser. "The problem is in how Internet Explorer interprets the scripting call. Firefox doesn't have this problem."
ENGLAND: The day is coming when British Muslims form a state within a state
The Telegraph Group
February 19, 2006
For the past two weeks, Patrick Sookhdeo has been canvassing the opinions of Muslim clerics in Britain on the row over the cartoons featuring images of Mohammed that were first published in Denmark and then reprinted in several other European countries.
"They think they have won the debate," he says with a sigh. "They believe that the British Government has capitulated to them, because it feared the consequences if it did not.
"The cartoons, you see, have not been published in this country, and the Government has been very critical of those countries in which they were published. To many of the Islamic clerics, that's a clear victory.
"It's confirmation of what they believe to be a familiar pattern: if spokesmen for British Muslims threaten what they call 'adverse consequences' - violence to the rest of us - then the British Government will cave in. I think it is a very dangerous precedent."
Dr Sookhdeo adds that he believes that "in a decade, you will see parts of English cities which are controlled by Muslim clerics and which follow, not the common law, but aspects of Muslim sharia law.
"It is already starting to happen - and unless the Government changes the way it treats the so-called leaders of the Islamic community, it will continue."
For someone with such strong and uncompromising views, Dr Sookhdeo is a surprisingly gentle and easy-going man. He speaks with authority on Islam, as it was his first faith: he was brought up as a Muslim in Guyana, the only English colony in South America, and attended a madrassa there.
"But Islamic instruction was very different in the 1950s, when I was at school," he says. "There was no talk of suicide bombing or indeed of violence of any kind. Islam was very peaceful."
Dr Sookhdeo's family emigrated to England when he was 10. In his early twenties, when he was at university, he converted to Christianity. "I had simply seen it as the white man's religion, the religion of the colonialists and the oppressors - in a very similar way, in fact, to the way that many Muslims see Christianity today.
" Leaving Islam was not easy. According to the literal interpretation of the Koran, the punishment for apostasy is death - and it actually is punished by death in some Middle Eastern states. "It wasn't quite like that here," he says, "although it was traumatic in some ways."
Dr Sookhdeo continued to study Islam, doing a PhD at London University on the religion. He is currently director of the Institute for the Study of Islam and Christianity. He also advises the Army on security issues related to Islam.
Several years ago, Dr Sookhdeo insisted that the next wave of radical Islam in Britain would involve suicide bombings in this country. His prediction was depressingly confirmed on 7/7 last year.
So his claim that, in the next decade, the Muslim community in Britain will not be integrated into mainstream British society, but will isolate itself to a much greater extent, carries weight behind it. Dr Sookhdeo has proved his prescience.
"The Government, and Tony Blair, the Prime Minister, are fundamentally deluded about the nature of Islam," he insists. "Tony Blair unintentionally revealed his ignorance when he said, in an effort to conciliate Muslims, that he had 'read through the Koran twice' and that he kept it by his bedside.
"He thought he was saying something which showed how seriously he took Islam. But most Muslims thought it was a joke, if not an insult. Because, of course, every Muslim knows that you cannot read the Koran through from cover to cover and understand it.
The chapters are not written to be read in that way. Indeed, after the first chapter, the chapters of the Koran are ordered according to their length, not according to their content or chronology: the longest chapters are first, the shorter ones are at the end.
"You need to know which passage was revealed at what period and in what time in order to be able to understand it - you cannot simply read it from beginning to end and expect to learn anything at all.
"That is one reason why it takes so long to be able to read and understand the Koran: the meaning of any part of it depends on a knowledge of its context - a context that is not in the Koran itself."
The Prime Minister's ignorance of Islam, Dr Sookhdeo contends, is of a piece with his unsuccessful attempts to conciliate it. And it does indeed seem as if the Government's policy towards radical Islam is based on the hope that if it makes concessions to its leaders, they will reciprocate and relations between fundamentalist Muslims and Tony Blair's Government will then turn into something resembling an ecumenical prayer meeting.
Dr Sookhdeo nods in vigorous agreement with that. "Yes - and it is a very big mistake. Look at what happened in the 1990s. The security services knew about Abu Hamza and the preachers like him. They knew that London was becoming the centre for Islamic terrorists. The police knew. The Government knew. Yet nothing was done.
"The whole approach towards Muslim militants was based on appeasement. 7/7 proved that that approach does not work - yet it is still being followed. For example, there is a book, The Noble Koran: a New Rendering of its Meaning in English, which is openly available in Muslim bookshops.
"It calls for the killing of Jews and Christians, and it sets out a strategy for killing the infidels and for warfare against them. The Government has done nothing whatever to interfere with the sale of that book.
"Why not? Government ministers have promised to punish religious hatred, to criminalise the glorification of terrorism, yet they do nothing about this book, which blatantly does both."
Perhaps the explanation is just that they do not take it seriously. "I fear that is exactly the problem," says Dr Sookhdeo. "The trouble is that Tony Blair and other ministers see Islam through the prism of their own secular outlook.
They simply do not realise how seriously Muslims take their religion. Islamic clerics regard themselves as locked in mortal combat with secularism.
"For example, one of the fundamental notions of a secular society is the moral importance of freedom, of individual choice. But in Islam, choice is not allowable: there cannot be free choice about whether to choose or reject any of the fundamental aspects of the religion, because they are all divinely ordained. God has laid down the law, and man must obey.
'Islamic clerics do not believe in a society in which Islam is one religion among others in a society ruled by basically non-religious laws. They believe it must be the dominant religion - and it is their aim to achieve this.
"That is why they do not believe in integration. In 1980, the Islamic Council of Europe laid out their strategy for the future - and the fundamental rule was never dilute your presence. That is to say, do not integrate.
"Rather, concentrate Muslim presence in a particular area until you are a majority in that area, so that the institutions of the local community come to reflect Islamic structures. The education system will be Islamic, the shops will serve only halal food, there will be no advertisements showing naked or semi-naked women, and so on."
That plan, says Dr Sookhdeo, is being followed in Britain. "That is why you are seeing areas which are now almost totally Muslim. The next step will be pushing the Government to recognise sharia law for Muslim communities - which will be backed up by the claim that it is "racist" or "Islamophobic" or "violating the rights of Muslims" to deny them sharia law.
"There's already a Sharia Law Council for the UK. The Government has already started making concessions: it has changed the law so that there are sharia-compliant mortgages and sharia pensions.
"Some Muslims are now pressing to be allowed four wives: they say it is part of their religion. They claim that not being allowed four wives is a denial of their religious liberty. There are Muslim men in Britain who marry and divorce three women, then marry a fourth time - and stay married, in sharia law, to all four.
"The more fundamentalist clerics think that it is only a matter of time before they will persuade the Government to concede on the issue of sharia law. Given the Government's record of capitulating, you can see why they believe that."
Dr Sookhdeo's vision of a relentless battle between secular and Islamic Britain seems hard to reconcile with the co-operation that seems to mark the vast majority of the interactions between the two communities.
"Well, it isn't me who says Islam is at war with secularisation," he says. "That's how Islamic clerics describe the situation."
But isn't it true that most Muslims who live in theocratic states want to get out of them as quickly as possible and live in a secular country such as Britain or America? And that most Muslims who come to Britain adopt the values of a liberal, democratic, tolerant society, rather than insisting on the inflexible rules of their religion?
"You have to distinguish between ordinary Muslims and their self-appointed leaders," explains Dr Sookhdeo. "I agree that the best hope for our collective future is that the majority of Muslims who have grown up here have accepted the secular nature of the British state and society, the division between religion and politics, and the importance of allowing people to choose freely how they will live.
"But that is not how most of the clerics talk. And, more significantly, it is not how the 'community leaders' whom the Government has decided represent the Muslim community think either.
"Take, for example, Tariq Ramadan, whom the Government has appointed as an adviser because ministers think he is a 'community leader'. Ramadan sounds, in public, very moderate. But in reality, he has some very extreme views. He attacks liberal Muslims as 'Muslims without Islam'. He is affiliated to the violent and uncompromising Muslim Brotherhood.
"He calls the education in the state schools of the West 'aggression against the Islamic personality of the child'. He has said that 'the Muslim respects the laws of the country only if they do not contradict any Islamic principle'. He has added that 'compromising on principles is a sign of fear and weakness'."
So what's the answer? What should the Government be doing? "First, it should try to engage with the real Muslim majority, not with the self-appointed 'community leaders' who don't actually represent anyone: they have not been elected, and the vast majority of ordinary Muslims have nothing to do with them.
"Second, the Government should say no to faith-based schools, because they are a block to integration. There should be no compromise over education, or over English as the language of education. The policy of political multiculturalism should be reversed.
"The hope was that it would to ensure separate communities would soften at the edges and integrate. But the opposite has in fact happened: Islamic communities have hardened. There is much less integration than there was for the generation that arrived when I did. There will be much less in the future if the present trend continues.
"Finally, the Government should make it absolutely clear: we welcome diversity, we welcome different religions - but all of them have to accept the secular basis of British law and society. That is a non-negotiable condition of being here.
"If the Government does not do all of those things then I fear for the future, because Islamic communities within Britain will form a state within a state. Religion will occupy an ever-larger place in our collective political life. And, speaking as a religious man myself, I fear that outcome."
This article has now been removed from the pages of the Telegraph Online, however, and in its place appears the following statement: "This story has been removed for legal reasons." - I wonder what they are afraid of?
"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms... disarm only those who are neither inclined not determined to commit crimes... Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man"
Thomas Jefferson's commonplace book, 1774-76, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment (1764) by criminologist Cesare Beccaria
Thomas Jefferson's commonplace book, 1774-76, quoting from On Crimes and Punishment (1764) by criminologist Cesare Beccaria
Firefighters Refuse to Help Non-Member
<><><>
Mo. Firefighters Refuse to Help Non-Member
MONETT, Mo. (AP) - Rural firefighters stood by and watched a fire destroy a garage and a vehicle because the property owner had not paid membership dues. Bibaldo Rueda - who was injured battling the flames Monday - offered to pay the dues as the fire blazed away, but the Monett Rural Fire Department does not have a policy for on-the-spot billing, Sheriff's Detective Robert Evenson said.
Fire Chief Ronnie Myers defended the no-pay, no-aid policy, saying the membership-based organization could not survive if people thought the department would respond for free. The department said it will fight a fire without question if a life is believed to be in danger.
Rueda used a garden hose and buckets to fight the flames while firefighters stood by on the road, watching in case the blaze spread to neighboring properties owned by members. The fire eventually burned itself out.
Rueda said no one told him about the dues policy when he moved in 1 1/2 years ago.
<<><><>>
At least in the UK the Fire Service, even the rural ones, will put out a fire regardless, because that is their job, even the volunteer brigade and the same with volunteer fire fighters, say, in Germany, where many rural communities rely on their volunteers fire fighters, the Freiwillige Feuerwehr.
In this country many, many years ago things like that did happen when the fire brigades were part of the insurance companies and would only attend to fires at their members' properties. One of the reasons houses used to have the insurance companies plaques in various forms attached to the front of their houses. And there are the Americans trying to tell us that they are so much better. Good God! That system is from just after the Middle Ages and surely not fit for 2006.
Cat on Ruegen dead with H5N1 bird flu...
...But o problem for humans, we are told, as, so they say, no human has ever caught bird flu from a cat.
The question is not as to whether humans can catch bird flu from a cat but rather, and this is not a question anymore but fact, the virus has crossed the species barrier. How did the cat get it? Cats do not catch and eat swans but smaller birds and mice. So, what has happened? Because we are also told that bird flu will only affect fowl, such as ducks, gees, chickens and some other exotic birds. Which small birds, that would be prey for a straying cat, have now caught it and that would mean that the danger is much greater than what we are being told. Once again TPTB have decided that the people are sheeple and have to be treated like mushrooms, being kept in the dark and fed with horse manure. The virus now has crossed the species barrier and this means that it is mutating or has already mutated. A cat is a mammal and I don't know of cats living very close to birds. Something does not add up. Just some food for thought as I do not have any answers.
Veshengro
...But o problem for humans, we are told, as, so they say, no human has ever caught bird flu from a cat.
The question is not as to whether humans can catch bird flu from a cat but rather, and this is not a question anymore but fact, the virus has crossed the species barrier. How did the cat get it? Cats do not catch and eat swans but smaller birds and mice. So, what has happened? Because we are also told that bird flu will only affect fowl, such as ducks, gees, chickens and some other exotic birds. Which small birds, that would be prey for a straying cat, have now caught it and that would mean that the danger is much greater than what we are being told. Once again TPTB have decided that the people are sheeple and have to be treated like mushrooms, being kept in the dark and fed with horse manure. The virus now has crossed the species barrier and this means that it is mutating or has already mutated. A cat is a mammal and I don't know of cats living very close to birds. Something does not add up. Just some food for thought as I do not have any answers.
Veshengro
Bird Flu in Germany
It would appear that we are not being told the truth as to the extent of the bird death from H5N1 bird flu on the German Island of Ruegen in the Baltic. A contact on mine in Germany not all that far from there with friends on the island has told me of the entire island being a bio security zone with the Bundeswehr (German Army) in full NBC gear collecting the dead birds by the truck load. The talk is of a full pandemic. So, why are we being told that only ONE swan had died? One can only wonder. Talk in the headlines of the London Evening Standard of late morning of Friday, February 24, was of food and water rationing to be enforced in case of a bird flu outbreak and all public transport to be suspended in London. Either they know something or someone is overreacting.
Veshengro
It would appear that we are not being told the truth as to the extent of the bird death from H5N1 bird flu on the German Island of Ruegen in the Baltic. A contact on mine in Germany not all that far from there with friends on the island has told me of the entire island being a bio security zone with the Bundeswehr (German Army) in full NBC gear collecting the dead birds by the truck load. The talk is of a full pandemic. So, why are we being told that only ONE swan had died? One can only wonder. Talk in the headlines of the London Evening Standard of late morning of Friday, February 24, was of food and water rationing to be enforced in case of a bird flu outbreak and all public transport to be suspended in London. Either they know something or someone is overreacting.
Veshengro
UK ID Card
UK ID Card
Or
How the sheeple are being lied to
The ID Card Bill, which soon, I am sure, the way TPTB work in this, and other countries, will be law and sooner or later forced upon every subject of her Britannic Majesty (please everyone wake up to the fact as well that there is no such thing as a British Citizen but that all are subjects of His or Her Britannic Majesty and not much more than serfs - Charlton Heston, President of the US NRA was right in that), to have such a card, probably even with an RFID chip in it identifying where the bearer of this card is at any given time, as it will be compulsory, do not for one moment think not, to have said card on one at all times. The bill has been introduced to the sheeple that it would prevent terrorism and ID theft. In truth it will neither. It has nothing whatsoever to do with preventing terrorism, ID theft or even benefit fraud but everything with people control. People control, plain and simple, nothing else. Terrorism is a smoke screen behind which they all have begun to hide and if that does not work to convince the sheeple then they use other "benefits" in order to have people accept such measures. This was also what was being done in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and everything came in increments and this is the same in the UK and the rest of the EU and in the United States. Let those over there not for one moment that this will not also come to them. They already have their version of the Gestapo though called Department of Homeland Security. Those who cannot see that may want to consider what the Gestapo's main office was called; the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Security Main Office of the Reich (roughly translated) - in other words, the Department for Homeland Security of the Third Reich. I know that there are some who have seen the similarities and some have even created rather interesting and poignant posters to that effect and, yes, I know, presently we still have a freedom to do such things under the various constitutions but, and here comes the but… how long will we be permitted to continue to do so. Already now the governments, yes even and especially the US government (and I am sure the UK one as well), appear scared of the blogger and blogs and the private individuals and NGOs' use of the Internet, as can be seen by the fact that a recent exercise of the US security forces was dealing with the threat, yes, threat posed by bloggers as regards to the information they can spread to the people without government censors being able to put a lid on it early enough. Why? Does anyone really believe that our free press is free? You must be joking! However, the blog-sphere is and that is a problem for the governments, even so-called free and democratic ones as those of the USA and the West per se.
Currently all the restrictions that we are being faced with in the UK and elsewhere also come, like they came to Nazi Germany, in increment, a bit at a time. In Nazi Germany, like now, there were incidents of fake terror (the fire in the Reichstag for which a mentally challenged young Dutchman was held responsible who also, conveniently, happened to be a Communist), the same fake terror as has happened throughout the ages whenever governments wanted to oppress their own people. It was always done in the name of "state security". I advise people to get a-hold of a copy of the document entitled "Fake Terror"; it sure is an eye opener as to what may be going on. It is the same, as regards the increment of things, with the disarming of the people in the UK. Always it is "for the good of the children" whether it was the banning of all handguns (and restricting of other firearms and shotguns) and then the law about knives. The truth is that they had even, initially, a number of years back, envisaged of outlawing, sort of, all knives and to have us use the nylon ones. Oh dear! All of Europe is already laughing about our restrictive laws appertaining to knives and for instance that the Boy Scouts are no longer permitted to carry even folding knives (in case they hurt themselves with them - duh?). I remember when they used to wear sheath knives (and rather large ones at times) and even hatchets (God forbid - they didn't did they?) on their belts when hiking. When I was on official business for a number of years on the European mainland, and especially in Germany, they still carried the Scout "dagger", which was a direct copy of the Hitler Youth one, made indeed by the very same company/ies that made those then, and no one blinked an eyelid when the Scouts, called Pfadfinder (Pathfinders) over there, "marched" thru a town or village with every boy having a big knife on their belts.
Only on Monday, February 13, 2006, the discussion began again about handgun possession in the UK; in this instance as regards to the British Olympic shooting team(s) who cannot train in the UK because of the ban on keeping handguns and have to travel abroad for training. During a radio program that was dealing with that a woman who apparently had lost someone in the Dumblane shooting incident (which would never have happened had the police done their job and on top of that were British civilians permitted to own and carry firearms, for had any of the teachers been armed and trained Hamilton would never have gotten to where he got to) that we should not allow handguns in civilian hands not even in the hands of our shooting teams; rather, the woman argued, the law needs to be tightened up further. Duh? How much further can it be tightened up? Why do they not understand, and that is civilians and politicians alike, that you do not combat gun crime on the streets of the UK cities, towns and villages by taking even airguns away, etc. but by actually legally allowing law-abiding civilians carry handguns and defend themselves and their neighborhoods. Criminals do not go into a gunstore and purchase a firearm that way. They use the Black Market and ALWAYS have done so. You do not remove guns from the streets by making possession of firearms for the general public illegal. The only way you get guns off the street is by eliminating the criminals - period!
Oh dear! We have come rather a long way here considering we started about the ID Card legislation going thru the British Houses of Parliament, but I believe that all that was said links with it. The ID Card is a means by the government for people control and not in any way, shape or form any tool intended to combat either terrorism, ID theft or benefit fraud. We have enough ID presently that could prevent any of those. As to ID theft: the ID card will not stop it. Rather the opposite. It will also make it much more difficult for anyone whose ID has been stolen to rectify the matter. All this card is intended for is absolute control of the government as to us as individuals, to our movements, etc.
Think!
Or
How the sheeple are being lied to
The ID Card Bill, which soon, I am sure, the way TPTB work in this, and other countries, will be law and sooner or later forced upon every subject of her Britannic Majesty (please everyone wake up to the fact as well that there is no such thing as a British Citizen but that all are subjects of His or Her Britannic Majesty and not much more than serfs - Charlton Heston, President of the US NRA was right in that), to have such a card, probably even with an RFID chip in it identifying where the bearer of this card is at any given time, as it will be compulsory, do not for one moment think not, to have said card on one at all times. The bill has been introduced to the sheeple that it would prevent terrorism and ID theft. In truth it will neither. It has nothing whatsoever to do with preventing terrorism, ID theft or even benefit fraud but everything with people control. People control, plain and simple, nothing else. Terrorism is a smoke screen behind which they all have begun to hide and if that does not work to convince the sheeple then they use other "benefits" in order to have people accept such measures. This was also what was being done in Nazi Germany in the 1930s and everything came in increments and this is the same in the UK and the rest of the EU and in the United States. Let those over there not for one moment that this will not also come to them. They already have their version of the Gestapo though called Department of Homeland Security. Those who cannot see that may want to consider what the Gestapo's main office was called; the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, the Security Main Office of the Reich (roughly translated) - in other words, the Department for Homeland Security of the Third Reich. I know that there are some who have seen the similarities and some have even created rather interesting and poignant posters to that effect and, yes, I know, presently we still have a freedom to do such things under the various constitutions but, and here comes the but… how long will we be permitted to continue to do so. Already now the governments, yes even and especially the US government (and I am sure the UK one as well), appear scared of the blogger and blogs and the private individuals and NGOs' use of the Internet, as can be seen by the fact that a recent exercise of the US security forces was dealing with the threat, yes, threat posed by bloggers as regards to the information they can spread to the people without government censors being able to put a lid on it early enough. Why? Does anyone really believe that our free press is free? You must be joking! However, the blog-sphere is and that is a problem for the governments, even so-called free and democratic ones as those of the USA and the West per se.
Currently all the restrictions that we are being faced with in the UK and elsewhere also come, like they came to Nazi Germany, in increment, a bit at a time. In Nazi Germany, like now, there were incidents of fake terror (the fire in the Reichstag for which a mentally challenged young Dutchman was held responsible who also, conveniently, happened to be a Communist), the same fake terror as has happened throughout the ages whenever governments wanted to oppress their own people. It was always done in the name of "state security". I advise people to get a-hold of a copy of the document entitled "Fake Terror"; it sure is an eye opener as to what may be going on. It is the same, as regards the increment of things, with the disarming of the people in the UK. Always it is "for the good of the children" whether it was the banning of all handguns (and restricting of other firearms and shotguns) and then the law about knives. The truth is that they had even, initially, a number of years back, envisaged of outlawing, sort of, all knives and to have us use the nylon ones. Oh dear! All of Europe is already laughing about our restrictive laws appertaining to knives and for instance that the Boy Scouts are no longer permitted to carry even folding knives (in case they hurt themselves with them - duh?). I remember when they used to wear sheath knives (and rather large ones at times) and even hatchets (God forbid - they didn't did they?) on their belts when hiking. When I was on official business for a number of years on the European mainland, and especially in Germany, they still carried the Scout "dagger", which was a direct copy of the Hitler Youth one, made indeed by the very same company/ies that made those then, and no one blinked an eyelid when the Scouts, called Pfadfinder (Pathfinders) over there, "marched" thru a town or village with every boy having a big knife on their belts.
Only on Monday, February 13, 2006, the discussion began again about handgun possession in the UK; in this instance as regards to the British Olympic shooting team(s) who cannot train in the UK because of the ban on keeping handguns and have to travel abroad for training. During a radio program that was dealing with that a woman who apparently had lost someone in the Dumblane shooting incident (which would never have happened had the police done their job and on top of that were British civilians permitted to own and carry firearms, for had any of the teachers been armed and trained Hamilton would never have gotten to where he got to) that we should not allow handguns in civilian hands not even in the hands of our shooting teams; rather, the woman argued, the law needs to be tightened up further. Duh? How much further can it be tightened up? Why do they not understand, and that is civilians and politicians alike, that you do not combat gun crime on the streets of the UK cities, towns and villages by taking even airguns away, etc. but by actually legally allowing law-abiding civilians carry handguns and defend themselves and their neighborhoods. Criminals do not go into a gunstore and purchase a firearm that way. They use the Black Market and ALWAYS have done so. You do not remove guns from the streets by making possession of firearms for the general public illegal. The only way you get guns off the street is by eliminating the criminals - period!
Oh dear! We have come rather a long way here considering we started about the ID Card legislation going thru the British Houses of Parliament, but I believe that all that was said links with it. The ID Card is a means by the government for people control and not in any way, shape or form any tool intended to combat either terrorism, ID theft or benefit fraud. We have enough ID presently that could prevent any of those. As to ID theft: the ID card will not stop it. Rather the opposite. It will also make it much more difficult for anyone whose ID has been stolen to rectify the matter. All this card is intended for is absolute control of the government as to us as individuals, to our movements, etc.
Think!
Product Review - LED Lenser V8 Turbo
LED Lenser (Photon pump) V8 Turbo
Product Details:
Crystal reflector tube system. LED Lensers reflector tubes are lined with Italian crystal and precisely shaped to "pump up" the light produced by the LED for a broader, more powerful beam.
High intensity light chip.
24-carat gold contacts - gold is a superior electrical conductor, which minimizes energy lost at the contact points and maximizes energy that goes into light production.
Solid metal casings - most competitors have plastic.
High Wattage LEDs - LED Lenser uses only the highest wattage and the finest quality LEDs. We laboratory test our lights to determine precise milliwatt output.
Batteries included 4 x AG13.
Length: 7cm.
Weight: 38 grams
Lifetime guarantee.
Price: approx. GBP 9.99
Agents in the UK: Ledco Ltd. www.ledco.co.uk
Manufacturers: Zweibrüder Optoelectronics GmbH www.zweibrueder.com
The "Photon pump" V8 Turbo is a small but extremely powerful miniature flashlight of the LED Lenser Optoelectronics range. Seeing that my own example was not a sample but was given to me as a FREE gift at a tool and DIY exhibition for attending I was, obviously, wondering as to what quality this would indeed be, as, let's admit it, most advertising gifts are not necessarily quality and I must say that I am extremely surprised. Obviously the little light is the standard product with the exception that, in my case, it bears the logo of the exhibitions it was to commemorate.
The light of the flashlight is to powerful that the warning not to look directly into the light is something that should definitely be heeded. I did not heed it and I had problems with my vision for a while after. Self-inflicted injury for sure and as the warnings were clearly visible on the package I had no one to blame for it by my own stupidity. According to the "fact sheet" the light is visible for 2,000 meters and though not having tested it I do not doubt it in the least as indoors and out it outshines a seven-LED flashlight of mine.
The body - small as it is - is of solid metal, is galvanized, so it appears, and I must say that I was rather surprised as to the weight of this little device.
Featured in the Frankfurt Museum for modern Art and a winner of two prestigious design plus awards, the V8 turbo is a design classic. Shook proof and water resistant. The innovative LED light chip lasts for up to 100,000 hours making this the ultimate key ring accessory.
If all of the flashlights produced by Zweibrüder Optoelectronics in Germany, who are behind LED Lenser, are of the same quality as this little light that was given to me by a representative of the British agents at the show mentioned then one cannot go wrong investing in one or more of their flashlights.
This small little light designed, theoretically, to be carried as a key ring attachment, really packs an unbelievable punch as regards to brightness and distance of beam and does make an ideal small light to add to anyone's survival kits and such. The only disadvantage, I guess, is the fact that the batteries are not one of the common garden variety but rather button batteries of the type mentioned in the specifications. However, the little unit given to me not only came fitted with a set of batteries but had a spare set included in the blister pack as well. That should at least provide somewhere in the region of 500 hours of light.
Reviewed by Michael Veshengro Smith ©
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