ID cards – Prog Gold

How was such a terrible environmental disaster allowed to happen? Deep Sea News has at least some answers in The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill: A Timeline. And guess what – the whole affair has Halliburton’s mucky fingerprints all over it.

Dill and Honey flavour potato chips anyone? Satay and Ginger? Frikadelle? Avocado & Lobster?

If you thought Walkers crisps fans came up with some weird flavours in their “Do Us A Flavour” competition (last year’s winner, Builder’s Breakfast, allegedly tasted of bacon, eggs, sausage and baked beans) then you should see some of the suggestions in the Dutch version, Maak de Smaak. 95% of the entries can be dismissed as mere variations on that classic cloggie theme, kaas, kaas en kaas, garnalen met en beetje kaas, but there are some interesting entries, like the aforesaid Avocado & Lobster – mind you, whether the suggestions will translate into actual recognisable flavours remains to be tasted. Walker’s is still way ahead of Lay’s in the PR stakes though: their latest marketing effort is to tie new flavours to the world cup. Anyone for a bratwurst crisp?

Who says Merkins don’t get UK politics? A masterly summation of the election so far, by Stanley at Unfogged:

Let’s see. Labor and Tories are both lame-os. Brown, because, basically he’s boring, and there’s a recession about, and something about the banks, plus Britons are still smarting from the Blair decision to play wardude alongside Bush in Iraq, which was totes expensive and morally squicky at best. Cameron, because, despite being young and charismatic (not to mention riding a bike to workâ€”did I get that part right? I remember something about a bicycle), he’s a privileged wanker.

There’s also the fact that that Cameron has (it’s not original but I can’t remember which commenter wrote it) a waxy-melty face like a Victorian doll. No really, just look:

Victorian wax boy doll

But do go on:

But! This year, they had very, very special US-style, televised debates, which, gasp!, propelled Liberal Dem Clegg into the national spotlight, and it’s possible that now, mayhaps, the Liberal Dems could win a plurality, but, no matter what, it seems no single party’s going to outright take it, so some sort of coalition of governing parties is inevitable, not to mention likely to be unstable. After all, the last time there was a comparable power-sharing agreement (in the 1970s? writing this from memory is easy, because I can seemingly make stuff up), the whole thing went in the can within six months or so.

So, lots of crazy uncertainty abounds, and no one’s really happy about the whole mess. But the queen’s position is definitely safe (for now)

Yup, that’s pretty much it.

Believe, indeed. We didn’t think the Labour Party would do such an illiberal and opressive thing as to force biometric ID cards on an unwilling populace either. But they did, because they were shit scared of being accused of being soft on immigration, just like Obama and the Dems. Now look where they are in the polls. Goodbye Gordon, Goodbye, Obama…

OMFG. This latest from Oklahoma is utterly inhumane. I’d even call it torture. From the Rude Pundit:

The Oklahoma Legislature Will Look Inside Your Daughter’s Vagina (Part of the “Your State Sucks, Too” Series):
The brutal assault on womenâ€™s rights continues in states where youâ€™d expect there to be a brutal assault on womenâ€™s rights. This weekâ€™s yahoos are the members of the Oklahoma legislature who voted by a veto-proof majority to require pregnant women who want an abortion to get a vaginal-probe ultrasound in order to show them the fetus. There is no exception for victims of rape or incest.

In other words, if you are a woman who wants a perfectly legal medical procedure in Oklahoma, you must submit to the forced insertion of an implement into you, even though that act carries medical risks (you know, perforation, infection, that kind of stuff) and serves no actual medical purpose. It’s just to be total dicks about abortion.

In otherer words, the Oklahoma legislature wants to sodomize pregnant women.

Like I said, OMFG.

What was it Jacqui Smith said about ID cards recently?

“Like every other citizen, they [pilots] ask themselves what will happen to the data they are coerced into providing; whether it will it be safe, whose hands might it fall into, and what might they do with the data?”

Well,quite.

If you, like me, have been indulging in the bitter pleasure of having our belief that most elected politicians are deceitful, greedy, entitled egotists confirmed yet again, have you not idly wondered what fresh hells the government’s been quietly getting away with under cover of media furore? Me too.

MPs may be focused on covering up their corruption and incompetence, scrambling desperately to hold on to their lucrative seats, while bleating about data protection and invasion of privacy, but the implementation of the many repressive and unnecessary laws they’ve steamrollered through rolls inexorably on for the rest of the population.

First off, if you thought ID cards were a goner, think again. Spyblog reports that the planned advent of biometric ID cards is going ahead full steam . While we were boggling over 88p bathplugs, massage chairs and moatcleaning fees, four pieces of secondary legislation were laid before Parliament under the Identity Cards Act 2006:

They are The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Information and Code of Practice on Penalties) Order 2009, which allows government to require referees to vouch for your existence, and keep their details on the database too; and

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Fees) Regulations 2009, which lays down a Â£30 charge just to apply for an ID card; and

The Identity Cards Act 2006 (Provision of Information without Consent) Regulations 2009 which allows for the sharing of your information by the government, without your consent, with the tax authorities and with credit reference agencies.
Secondly, Justice Secretary Jack Straw has told Parliament that although he’s backed down on trying to make inquests secret whenever it suited the government, he’s still going do it, but by using other legislation.

“Where it is not possible to proceed with an inquest under the current arrangements, the government will consider establishing an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005”.

And who’d decide it was not possible to proceed? Jack Straw. Of course.

In legal news, the Attorney General and the police are collaborating on new legislation that will give ‘law enforcement’ – now there’s a nicely nebulous name – power to, amongst other things, remotely scan your hard-drive.

Oh yes, and terrorism legislation was used to spy on eight people suspected of committing benefit fraud.

But most worrying for any British parent is the announcement that the illegal government database containing your child’ fingerprints and other physical and personal details is about to go live:

Frontline professionals will start using the controversial children’s database ContactPoint from next week, the government has announced. Up to 800 frontline practitioners, including social workers, health professionals and head teachers, in early adopter areas will be trained to use the Â£224m system from Monday 18 May.

New Labour may have set all this repressive legislation in motion, but now the machine of enforcement grinds on regardless of expenses scandals or public opinion. And like disgraced Labour MP Shahid Malik claims to have done, the government will enforce the rules, however unjust and or illegal they may be, “One million percent by the book”.

MPs may be corrupt, but then we knew that already. This receipts hoohah is mere confirmation. Parliaments may rise or fall, but Government goes on – and I’m more worried about what the State is actually doing right now, and how to oppose it effectively, than I am about the petty bourgeois aspirations of Labour members or the mole problems of Tory grandees.

Though I do wonder just how far that purple-jowled prick of a Speaker Michael Martin can inflate himself in pique before he has an apoplexy.

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