All That Secrecy Is Expensive
During the 2003 fiscal year, the federal government spent more than $6.5 billion securing classified information, according to a new “Secrecy Report Card” from OpenTheGovernment.org, a coalition of...
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An urgent call to action!
The No2ID campaign has established an e-petition aimed at 10 Downing Street demanding the end to plans for imposing mandatory ID cards and pervasive state databases recording a vast range of what you...
View ArticleQuote of the day
Sensible blog Spyblog, does an excellent job of pointing out how the state likes to keep an eye on us via CCTV systems, ID cards and by collecting our DNA. As a servant of the state it worries me, and...
View ArticleComing to a bin near you, the spy that tells how much rubbish you create
The Guardian reports: Residents of Croydon, south London, have been told that the microchips being inserted into their new wheely bins may well be adapted so that the council can judge whether they are...
View ArticleTravelling with the Big Brother
The land of the free is imposing privacy-busting requirementson its visitors. At America’s insistence, passports are about to get their biggest overhaul since they were introduced. They are to be...
View ArticleLiteralmindedness and the redefinition of thought
Compare this: By 2050 earlier, probably — all real knowledge of Oldspeak will have disappeared. The whole literature of the past will have been destroyed. Chaucer, Shakespeare, Milton, Byron — they’ll...
View ArticleA new kind of freedom
As the report stage of the Identity Cards Bill approaches in the Lords, a reminder of one highlight from the first day of the committee stage Hansard, 15 Nov 2005, Col.1012: Lord Gould of Brookwood:...
View ArticleGerman border controls – things ain’t what they used to be…the ‘Dodendraad’
Recent events in Germany may have led some to ask if Germany still controls its borders. Well of course the German Federation does, it had an entire Border Police Force, the Bundesgrenzschutz to do...
View ArticleGoogling ‘Welsh evil’ (or ‘BBC stupid’)
They were thrown into ecstasies of suspicion by finding we possessed a French translation of Hitler’s ‘Mein Kampf’. If that had been the only book they found, our doom would have been sealed. It is...
View ArticleElections have consequences – and so does arranging that they don’t
There’s a Snoopy cartoon that starts with Linus telling Violet he is running away from home. “I know a joke about running away from home”, says Violet. “A boy at a street crossing tells a friend he is...
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As annoying?
We’re confident that North Carolina’s politics will annoy us from the right as much as California’s does from the left, but we’re equally confident that center-right North Carolinians won’t try to...
View Article“Does Britain have free speech?”
The title is quoted from a Quillette article (h/t instapundit) inspired by the following letter to author James Flynn from Tony Roche, publishing director of Emerald, explaining their decision to drop...
View ArticleXinjiang: where lives don’t matter
Twenty prisoners live in one small room. They are handcuffed, their heads shaved, every move is monitored by ceiling cameras. A bucket in the corner of the room is their toilet. The daily routine...
View ArticleWhy they fear their lying eyes
cult conversions … occur by using doctrine to resolve some core emotional vulnerability. … A… clear sign that one is dealing with a cult indoctrination … is making the mark live up to contradictory...
View ArticleI could not have said it better myself
(Nor, indeed, have I ever yet said it as well.) as a law professor I try to see all sides of public and legal issues, and in my teaching and writing to present the best case for each contesting view in...
View ArticleBeware the prepared PC put-down
“But despite that [her years of experience]”, the lady said, “I still had to get re-certified. It started with an equality and diversity test, and I got the first question wrong.” “Everyone does”, said...
View ArticleIs Omarova evil (and stupid) or stupid (and evil)?
In 1989, Boris Yeltsin visited a supermarket in Texas (in the past, such things were reported even in the NYT): “When I saw those shelves crammed with hundreds, thousands of cans, cartons and goods of...
View ArticleVaccines: some seek confidence, others a confidence trick
A dailysceptic article on the phenomenon of negative vaccine efficacy points out how routinely analysts still assume an efficacy minimum of zero, despite some negative vaccine efficacy examples having...
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They used to feel the need of adjectives
The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has a dire warning for us. There was a time when it was “bourgeois freedom” or “freedom to starve” or something. There was a time when they felt the need of some...
View ArticleBehind Putin and Trudeau stands Xi
At the start of WWII, Britain and France imposed a blockade on Germany. They believed the blockade had contributed greatly to victory in WWI – and they liked the thought of doing it again far better...
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