I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars – the rest I just squandered.
BBC News: Football legend George Best dies
Tags: sport
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Year: 2005
The first rule of Security Theatre is never to talk about Security Theatre. (ruidh)
Foot-in-mouth Vanstone ‘must resign’
ASTOUNDING comments from Amanda Vanstone ridiculing federal airline security measures and questioning increased spending on national security warranted an apology and the Immigration Minister’s resignation, Labor frontbenchers said last night.
In a wide-ranging speech to Adelaide Rotarians, Senator Vanstone dismissed many commonwealth security measures as essentially ineffective. “To be tactful about these things, a lot of what we do is to make people feel better as opposed to actually achieve an outcome,” Senator Vanstone said.
Like Bruce Schneier I don’t know who she is but I also happen to think Amanda Vanstone is right about airline security.
A lot of what is presented as security measures are mere shams to create the illusion of security to make it look to the paying customers that the airlines value their lives and are doing what they can to ensure safe travel.
During her Adelaide speech, Senator Vanstone implied the use of plastic cutlery on planes to thwart terrorism was foolhardy.
Implied? I’ll say it outright. It’s stupid. For all its faults, I’m always pleased when Northwest Airlines gives me a real metal knife, and I am always annoyed when American Airlines still gives me a plastic one.
As one commenter wrote in Schneier’s blogpost the replacement of real cutlery with plastic knives and forks is more likely due to a financial motive than a question of security.
Senator Vanstone has a great grisly turn of phrase also.
I asked him if I was able to get on a plane with an HB pencil, which you are able to, and I further asked him if I went down and came and grabbed him by the front of the head and stabbed the HB pencil into your eyeball and wiggled it around down to your brain area, do you think you’d be focusing? He’s thinking, she’s gone mad again.
I’m liking her more and more. As you might expect opposition politicians are calling for her resignation because as I wrote at the start: The first rule of Security Theatre is never to talk about Security Theatre.
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Armed police
The BBC reports that there has been much debate over whether to arm police.
Police used ‘dum dum’ bullets to kill de Menezes
Cops could face criminal charges
Woman Pc shot on child’s birthday
Train more of us to use guns, say police
Tags: security
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The return
Teaser trailer for Superman Returns
Even though you have been raised as a human being you are not one of them.
This trailer for Superman Returns hits all the right notes for me, sent a chill up my spine to hear the Brando voiceover which has been lifted from the original Superman movie.
On the small amount of evidence here I’d have to say that it seems there has been a return to form for the adaptations of DC comics. Following a number of years in which I felt they had failed with their movies there seems now to be a resurgence of quality with Batman Begins and this.
Dame Stella Rimington the former head of MI5 has said that she believes that ID cards won’t make us safer
Asked at a further education conference whether she thought ID cards would make the country safer, Dame Stella Rimington replied: “No is the very simple answer, although ID cards have possibly some purpose.
“But I don’t think anybody in the intelligence services – not in my former service – will be pressing for ID cards.”
Her own opinion was that ID cards would be of use “but only if they can be made unforgeable”.
She added: “If we had ID cards at great expense and people can go into back rooms and forge them they will not make us any safer.”
Of course the Tories leapt on Rimington’s ID card rejection, what has the world come to when I find myself siding with the Conservative party against a Labour government.
The Conservatives said today that criticism of ID cards by former MI5 chief Dame Stella Rimington showed the government’s justifications for their introduction were “completely bogus”.
Dame Stella told a meeting of college heads yesterday that no one in the intelligence services favoured the government’s plans to introduce biometric identity cards.
She warned that they would be “absolutely useless” unless they could be made impossible to forge.
Dame Stella’s opinion will no doubt be dismissed as ‘out of touch with what the public wants’ by the government as they only seem to accept expert opinions of those experts whose opinions agree with their own.
The government has by and large given up on the prevention of terrorism aspect of the ID card proposal, which I find worrying as they now seem to focusing on the arguments about costs. This might indicate they think they have won the battle of ideas that ID cards are necessary and the only real question is whether the public will accept the high monetary costs of the scheme.
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Freedom! Forever!
I’m not sure I like the tagline of Freedom! Forever! but the new posters for the movie V for Vendetta based on the comic by Alan Moore and Dave Lloyd are awesome.
They have gone for a look very reminiscent of the posters for German Expressionist movies of the Twenties and early Thirties. The choice is probably deliberate as the Expressionism movement preceded the rise of Fascism in Germany and thus echoes the background of the events in the movie which takes place in a dystopian future Britain that has become a totalitarian state.
The four posters can be viewed at the following urls
Poster 1
Poster 2
Poster 3
Poster 4
I think the second one is my favourite.
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MJ for MS in UK
Vote Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka for mayor
#1: 5937% rise in dense, fog-like air pollution from the flesh skinning factory below the Silent Hill Historical Society. First of all, I feel Mayor Barkley owes all citizens an explanation as to why he ever agreed to award Murderous Blackened Soul Decay Ltd. a business license allowing them to operate directly beneath the Historical Society. Their business has been pumping countless cubic tons of thick white fog into our town, dramatically reducing visibility and complicating travel of any kind!
Why just yesterday I found myself lost while walking to my own mailbox! After walking for three hours, I eventually realized the pollution had turned me completely around, and I was standing in the middle of the dead field full of cancerous pulsating beasts who shriek eternal murder through their dead, vacant eyes. Remember Ed Barkley’s campaign promise to – and I quote here – “remove all cancerous pulsating beasts who shriek eternal murder through their dead, vacant eyes and replace them with festive non-denominational holiday decorations”? What exactly happened to that promise, Ed?
Although not a resident of Silent Hill I have visited it on many an occasion and it is quite ludicrous the amount of urban decay that has been allowed to occur there turning what was once a beautiful vacation spot for the family and I into what is quite literally a hellhole.
I dearly hope that the citizens of Silent Hill see sense and vote in Rich “Lowtax” Kyanka so that I may return to that once-fair town.
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90 days defeated. 28 days approved
The House of Commons has rejected Tony Blair’s call to allow police to detain terror suspects for up to 90 days without charging them.
MPs voted against by 322 votes to 291, with 49 Labour MPs rebelling.
Then followed a vote on a rebel Labour amendment for increasing the detention period from the current period of 14 days to a period of 28 days. That was passed by 323 votes to 290.
The story is covered by the Guardian and the BBC.
I’m pleased that it was defeated, shows that some Labour backbenchers have the balls not to follow the party line and I believe democracy has prevailed. There seemed to be a lot of public support for the proposed extension so it could be argued that the MPs voted against the wishes of their constituents but there has been so little real public debate of the issue that I don’t believe that the general public was informed enough to make a judgement on it.
It has really pissed me off that supporters of the 90 day period kept saying “well the experts tell us that this is the length of time needed.”
Which fucking experts?
The police you say. What about all the fucking independent experts who are saying that such an amendment will not achieve what it is set out to do and in all likelihood will cause further problems and increased insecurity.
Of course the police want to hold suspect without charge for longer, they’d support any move that gave them increased powers. Yet given recent events can we really trust their judgement on who is or who isn’t a terrorist suspect and who should be held without charge.
Of course the government will not fall following this defeat, I wouldn’t wish it to, and I very much doubt Tony will go either although his authority has taken a severe bashing.
But it’s the stupid cunts own fault. I really don’t know what is going on in his fucking head. I’m sure he’s imagining there are terrorists around every corner poised to strike at 45 minutes notice.
BBC News: Q&A: Blair’s terror bill defeat
What are the implications of this defeat for Tony Blair’s government in the commons.
BBC News: Point-by-point: Terror debate
The main points so far from the debate over whether to extend from 14 days to 90 days the length of time police can detain terrorist suspects without charge
Have your say on this issue at the BBC forum
Curious Hamster gives his response to the vote results.
Public opinion is not always the best indicator of what is best for the country. It’s a difficult problem to tackle without suggesting some form of intellectual elitist power structure which opens a huge new set of problems. That’s part of the reason why democracy can be so fragile and why protecting it properly is so very important.
I’m agreement on the fact that public opinion is not always the best indicator of what is best for the country.
Also disturbingly I’m in the position of having admiration for David Davis the Shadow Home Secretary who made some excellent points in the debate before the vote.
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Vote on 90 days today.
The House of Commons today will vote upon the government’s proposal to extend the detention period without charge by the police of terror suspects allowed from 14 days to 90 days.
The always excellent Curious Hamster presents his analysis and opinion on this issue.
The fact that the police want a 90 days detention period has been repeated ad nauseum by Blair and Blair. As regular readers may know, this doesn’t cut much mustard with me. I suspect I’ve never explicitly stated why that is…
The police are charged with protecting us against terrorists. Their focus is, as it should be, on preventing terrorist acts and capturing terrorists. For understandable reasons they have a very narrow focus on the problem.
I couldn’t agree more with this. Government should of course listen to the views of the police and take them into account but the police should not be dictating government policy.