Two questions for JP

This reminds me of a certain passage from the book of revelations. Will the
National ID card become the mark of the beast?

 

That's interesting. I nearly made the point about why bother having
the card at all - you've got the biometrics with you at all times. The
card is something extra that can be lost/stolen/damaged/broken. Lose
the card and just "read" the people.

Then the cost of putting these scanners everywhere jumped to mind - I
thought it would be prohibitive to kit out the required places. If
they're saying that there will be backup readers everywhere then I
really don't see the point of the card, other than to half-fool the
hard-of-thinking into believing that "their" biometric data is in their
pocket.

Whenever I think about this I see images from just about every
Nazi-future scenario in any film/program I've seen. Maybe it's not
rational, but I'm really not keen on this whole idea.

 

Simian wrote

How would you know it was damaged? I mean, Ivan might get his Nobel
Prize and we could all go over to cern for a piss up and accidentally
walk too close to one of them nice big magnets and the card might go
puuphenbangenphuten and you wouldn't know about it would you.

 

Simian says...

Malta is in the EU now, so that's that plan scuppered

 

Lozzo wrote

Rather than do this after the event you could do something now.
It is pointless writing a letter or a knee mail to Blunkett but pretty
much the same one can be sent to your local MP and the other local
prospective, the Beeb, the papers, the PM, leader of Her Majesties Loyal
Opposition and shadow ministers, etc.

Make a mailing list, let them know your feelings. Repeat every four of
five weeks. And if that isn't enough go on the march and give the
police photographers a really busy day.

 

Every time you go into the Post Office, bank, building society(if there's
any left), railway ticket office, there'll be a tiny little camera that
you'll hardly notice, looking you in the eye.

You ever had the thing where you pay for something with your credit card -
you haven't said your name to the cashier, or introduced yourself in any
way - and they've read your name off your credit card, and they say "Thank
you very much, Mr Smith. Have a nice day." You'll go into a shop, pick up
the latest copy of "Hot Ethnic Bootay" and sidle up to the counter with your
collar turned up, slap down the mag with a nice untraceable fiver. A
scanner you can't even see scopes you out, screen-pops your vitals to the
till readout and the 17-year-old Saturday girl behind the counter smiles
pleasantly and says "Plain brown wrapper, Mr Smith?" In Langley, Virginia,
a spotty 22-year-old geek monitor the transaction in realtime, then turns to
his oppo and asks "Hot Ethnic Bootay? Is that a Commie mag?"

You and everyone else, matey.

 

There was a reasonably interesting piece on the problems of the proposed
ID card on The Register today.

 

If Sandra Bullock wanted my DNA all she had to do was stop screaming,
well, quite that loudly, really.

 

fish says...

Don't you mean the Orcon standard for response times is 8 minutes max in
a built-up area, but it *could* take longer?

Both Manchester Ambulance and MRAS cover a wide area, both services deal
with a lot of calls, not all of which it is necessary for an Ambulance
to attend but you have to anyway, ergo at some point in time it is
entirely feasible for the service to be so stretched that there could be
one vehicle available to respond to a call that covers the whole of the
mapped area for that service.

--
Lesley
ZXR400SP
SBS#11[with oak-leaf cluster]
BOTAFOT#101A UKRMHRC#12
BONY#54P BOB#18
Real burds don't take hormones, they rage naturally

Un-cork me to reply

 

Time to go long on Group 4, methinks ...

 

Yes, but only one with the sheer hypocrisy of the British.

She spent four days trying to get me back inside.

 

I've never heard from them.

 

Page you quote seems to disagree with both of us (though I think if you
agree with me, you could have the decency to say as much).

"The Union Flag, or Union Jack, is the national flag of the United
Kingdom and it is so called because it embodies the emblems of the three
countries united under one Sovereign - the kingdoms of England and Wales,
of Scotland and of Ireland (although since 1921 only Northern Ireland has
been part of the United Kingdom).

"The term Union Jack possibly dates from Queen Anne's time (reigned 1702-
14), but its origin is uncertain. It may come from the 'jack-et' of the
English or Scottish soldiers; or from the name of James I who originated
the first union in 1603, in either its Latin or French form Jacobus or
Jacques; or, as 'jack' once meant small, the name may be derived from a
royal proclamation issued by Charles II that the Union Flag should be
flown only by ships of the Royal Navy as a jack, (a small flag at the
bowsprit)."

[ . . . ]

"The Royal Standard is never flown at half mast, as the Sovereign never
dies (the new Monarch immediately succeeds his or her predecessor)."

 

Really

 

Bwaaaahahahahaha!

Do I refer you to the Russian team, for attacking Germany's camps
system, or the US team, for attacking Germany's use of unrestricted
submarine warfare...[1] ...or any other item?

[1] The Yanks were deftly outmanoeuvred here by the defence team, who
managed to secure an admission that the US Navy used exactly the same
tactics in the pacific, and the Yanks hastily dropped that mode of
questioning....

Nope, ignorant as all hell. Dat's you, boi.

 

You will, Oscar, you will. Quite possibly one day before the statute of
limitations times out on defamation cases, so I'd worry for another 10
years.

 

I have never heard from Russel Jones and Walker.

I do not think JP is sufficiently stupid to have consulted RJ&W.

 

The U-boat campaign you mention was commanded by Karl Dönnitz, who
eventually became the second leader of the third Reich, capital Hamburg,
and had to spend 10 years in Spandau. Grand Admiral Dönnitz was no more
guilty than Robert E. Lee, the German navy the least anti-Semitic arm of
the Third Reich.

In fairness, I cannot blame the imprisonment of Karl Dönnitz on the
British, the decision was of the entire Court. Although the German Navy
is, like the British, their Senior Service, Germany is not really a
maritime nation (part of the reason she could not mount an effective
landing on the British Isles).

As you say, the attacks on the US convoys to the UK, were an effective
campaign, and well worth plagiarism. Like Robert Lee, it is real shame
that Dönnitz was born on the wrong side.

 

Can you justify how it is that "obeying orders" is sufficient for every
action of Her Britannic Majesty's armed forces, but not those of other
countries?

Exactly. The US admitted being in the wrong.

We see this in Iraq over the latest abuse of Arab prisoners. "The
Americans are guilty, not us; it's all the fault of that Piers Moron."

I don't think the British are a superior race.

 

heh. Good point.