Risk Assessment

I have come across a poem which I like very much, as it is the author's intellectual property I'll just post an intro and a link so you can go read it yourself - it's well worth a click.

Since September 11th 2001, 70 people in the UK have been killed by terrorists.

In the same period, 400 people in the UK drowned in their own bathtubs, and 500 people were killed whilst doing DIY.


This poem is called: Risk Assessment.


I used to like bees
I’d watch them bumbling through the leaves
And hum along with their good vibrations
Until I learned that they killed more people last year than THE TERRORISTS did.
Now I write letters to the Daily Mail
Demanding strict border controls on the entrances to hives
And random police raids on patches of lavender.

READ it at:-
http://adaisythroughconcrete.blogspot.com/2009/01/just-or-bust-risk-assessment.html

Response to those who claim "If you are innocent you have nothing to fear"

I came across this blog today written by a guy who innocently wandered into whithall and had the temerity to make conversation with a police officer - this was obviously highly suspicious and resulted in him being arrested by 7 armed policemen, strip searched and held in a police cell, all the usual DNA samples / fingerprints etc and finally, when released without charge, told that “Had you not have been so compliant, I would have shot you, and you would have died”

I have also been reading the story of Stephen Clarke who was arrested in Manchester for allegedly taking photos of sealed sewer gratings. Despite the fact that taking photos of sewer gratings is not illegal and the fact that he didn't actually take any photos! He still got arrested and held for 2 days, DNA samples taken etc etc.

We really must call a halt to this police state in Britain, we used to be a democracy which valued liberty and freedom, now we have already become a police state where we can be locked up without true justification, we are at risk of being shot by armed psychopaths wearing police uniforms, and if a witness attempts to record the event on a camera / mobile phone then they can be arrested as well.

HOW DID WE GET TO THIS STATE?

READ MORE at:-

http://ministryofparanoia.com/2008/my-arrest-story/

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/03/03/manchester-man-arres.html

It might be enforceable in a court of law this contract, but it's not enforceable in the court of public opinion that's where the Government steps in

So Sir Fred Goodwins exorbitant pension is completely legal but that's not good enough for Harriet Harman.

Forgive me for being naive but I always thought that laws were enforced in a court of law and not in "the court of public opinion," as threatened by Harriet Harman.

I'm not a fan of fat cat executives being rewarded for failure whilst ordinary employees suffer, but I do think that the law should be applied consistently - either the contract is legal or it isn't. If Sir Fred's contract is legal then he is entitled to his pension and we should be asking ourselves 'who made this contract?' Shouldn't they be getting a slapped wrist at the very least!

That's the scary thing about this government, the law doesn't matter provided they can win round public opinion.

READ MORE at:-

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7917361.stm

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/UK-News/Sir-Fred-Goodwin-Pension-Harriet-Harman-Hints-At-Law-Change-To-Get-RBS-Pension-Back-From-Banker/Article/200903115231857?lpos=UK_News_Top_Stories_Header_2&lid=ARTICLE_15231857_Sir_Fred_Goodwin_Pension%3A_Harriet_Harman_Hints_At_Law_Change_To_Get_RBS_Pension_Back_From_Banker

Sir David Ormond on Data Mining

Our goverment try to reassure us that this is not a police state, that we have nothing to fear from the increasing amount of information about us being held on databases, yet Sir David Ormond is quoted as saying :-

A significant challenge supporting the National Security Strategy will be how the intelligence community can access the full range of data relating to individuals, their movements, activities and associations in a timely, accurate, proportionate and legal way,

....or Protint. This is personal information about individual that resides in databases, such as advance passenger information, airline bookings and other travel data, passport and biometric data, immigration, identity and border records, criminal records, and other governmental and private sector data, including financial and telephone and other communications records. Such information may be held in national records, covered by Data Protection legislation, but it might also be held offshore by other nations or by global companies, and may or may not be subject to international agreements. Access to such information, and in some cases the ability to apply data mining and pattern recognition software to databases, might well be the key to effective pre-emption in future terrorist cases.

Well that's OK then, if it's to pre-empt future terrorist cases then I've got nothing to worry about have I..............................


READ MORE at:-
http://p10.hostingprod.com/@spyblog.org.uk/blog/2009/02/sir-david-omand-on-protected-information-data-mining-of-personal-sensitive-data.html
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/177604-Spying-on-60-million-people-doesn-t-add-up

And they expect us to submit our children for vaccinations!

Today I read an article in the Telegraph saying that safety regulators will be telling parents not to give their children a range of over the counter cold remedies as the dangers outweigh any benefits.

These remedies have been available for many years and supposedly approved as safe for children yet we find that they are linked to many deaths -

Reports submitted to regulators show that, when cases involving people of all ages are considered, dozens have died after taking medication containing the ingredients and more than 3,000 people have reported "adverse reactions". Diphenhydramine, which is used in Benylin Children's Coughs and Colds, was mentioned in reports of 27 deaths, while chlorphenamine, an ingredient in Tixylix Cough and Cold, was mentioned in reports of 11 deaths.

There has been much debate recently about the safety of vaccines such as the MMR and officials refuse to allow parents to choose alternatives or threaten to bring in social services if the parents refuse to have their children vaccinated.

They claim that there is no evidence the vaccines are unsafe, I dare say that there was previously no evidence that cough remedies were unsafe, do you feel confident that we are being told the unbiased truth?

Are you prepared to take a chance with your children?

NSPCC - Nothing new really

Recently the NSPCC has outraged home educators by attempting to link home education with child abuse, making comments implying that Victoria Climbie was linked to home education.

Rooting around the internet, I have come across an article from 1999 entitled Why this NSPCC advert is harmful to children in which Colin Pritchard (professor of psychiatric social work at the University of Southampton) says 'The NSPCC are playing games'.

The NSPCC's message has to be 'children are at risk'. To put it at its baldest, the NSPCC needs cruelty to children to be seen to occur because, without that, it has no raison d' tre.

So, it seems the NSPCC has been playing this game of false accusations for a long time. It is about time this organisation stopped trying to line its coffers by claiming child abuse in every direction and either got down to truly helping children at a practical level or simply shut up shop and stopped accusing innocent families of horrific actions.

The NSPCC by their own actions are putting children at risk, they are demonising normal loving families and making ordinary people afraid to help children in case they get accused of abuse or paedophilia!

READ the article at:-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Archive/Article/0,4273,3890641,00.html

Philip Pullman in The Times

Philip Pullman wrote the following article for The Times online but it seems to have disappeared into the memory hole, I have reproduced it here before it gets lost for good:

Are such things done on Albion's shore?

The image of this nation that haunts me most powerfully is that of the sleeping giant Albion in William Blake's prophetic books. Sleep, profound and inveterate slumber: that is the condition of Britain today.

We do not know what is happening to us. In the world outside, great events take place, great figures move and act, great matters unfold, and this nation of Albion murmurs and stirs while malevolent voices whisper in the darkness - the voices of the new laws that are silently strangling the old freedoms the nation still dreams it enjoys.

We are so fast asleep that we don't know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? One but not another? Are we a Christian nation - after all we have an Established Church - or are we something post-Christian? Are we a secular state? Are we a multifaith state? Are we anything we can all agree on and feel proud of?

The new laws whisper:

You don't know who you are

You're mistaken about yourself

We know better than you do what you consist of, what labels apply to you, which facts about you are important and which are worthless

We do not believe you can be trusted to know these things, so we shall know them for you

And if we take against you, we shall remove from your possession the only proof we shall allow to be recognised

The sleeping nation dreams it has the freedom to speak its mind. It fantasizes about making tyrants cringe with the bluff bold vigour of its ancient right to express its opinions in the street. This is what the new laws say about that:

Expressing an opinion is a dangerous activity

Whatever your opinions are, we don't want to hear them

So if you threaten us or our friends with your opinions we shall treat you like the rabble you are

And we do not want to hear you arguing about it

So hold your tongue and forget about protesting

What we want from you is acquiescence

The nation dreams it is a democratic state where the laws were made by freely elected representatives who were answerable to the people. It used to be such a nation once, it dreams, so it must be that nation still. It is a sweet dream.

You are not to be trusted with laws

So we shall put ourselves out of your reach

We shall put ourselves beyond your amendment or abolition

You do not need to argue about any changes we make, or to debate them, or to send your representatives to vote against them

You do not need to hold us to account

You think you will get what you want from an inquiry?

Who do you think you are?

What sort of fools do you think we are?

The nation's dreams are troubled, sometimes; dim rumours reach our sleeping ears, rumours that all is not well in the administration of justice; but an ancient spell murmurs through our somnolence, and we remember that the courts are bound to seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, and we turn over and sleep soundly again.

And the new laws whisper:

We do not want to hear you talking about truth

Truth is a friend of yours, not a friend of ours

We have a better friend called hearsay, who is a witness we can always rely on

We do not want to hear you talking about innocence

Innocent means guilty of things not yet done

We do not want to hear you talking about the right to silence

You need to be told what silence means: it means guilt

We do not want to hear you talking about justice

Justice is whatever we want to do to you

And nothing else

Are we conscious of being watched, as we sleep? Are we aware of an ever-open eye at the corner of every street, of a watching presence in the very keyboards we type our messages on? The new laws don't mind if we are. They don't think we care about it.

We want to watch you day and night

We think you are abject enough to feel safe when we watch you

We can see you have lost all sense of what is proper to a free people

We can see you have abandoned modesty

Some of our friends have seen to that

They have arranged for you to find modesty contemptible

In a thousand ways they have led you to think that whoever does not want to be watched must have something shameful to hide

We want you to feel that solitude is frightening and unnatural

We want you to feel that being watched is the natural state of things

One of the pleasant fantasies that consoles us in our sleep is that we are a sovereign nation, and safe within our borders. This is what the new laws say about that:

We know who our friends are

And when our friends want to have words with one of you

We shall make it easy for them to take you away to a country where you will learn that you have more fingernails than you need

It will be no use bleating that you know of no offence you have committed under British law

It is for us to know what your offence is

Angering our friends is an offence

It is inconceivable to me that a waking nation in the full consciousness of its freedom would have allowed its government to pass such laws as the Protection from Harassment Act (1997), the Crime and Disorder Act (1998), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (2000), the Terrorism Act (2000), the Criminal Justice and Police Act (2001), the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act (2001), the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Extension Act (2002), the Criminal Justice Act (2003), the Extradition Act (2003), the Anti-Social Behaviour Act (2003), the Domestic Violence, Crime and Victims Act (2004), the Civil Contingencies Act (2004), the Prevention of Terrorism Act (2005), the Inquiries Act (2005), the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act (2005), not to mention a host of pending legislation such as the Identity Cards Bill, the Coroners and Justice Bill, and the Legislative and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Inconceivable.

And those laws say:

Sleep, you stinking cowards

Sweating as you dream of rights and freedoms

Freedom is too hard for you

We shall decide what freedom is

Sleep, you vermin

Sleep, you scum.

NSPCC reply to AHED

AHED (Action for Home EDucation) recently sent an open letter to the NSPCC expressing concern at the comments made by Mr Vijay Patel in the Independent.

The NSPCC has responded by posting a reply on their Facebook page in which they state they have no position as regards home education from an educational perspective. Our concern is for the safety of children. Our view is simply that those educated at home should have the same right to protection as those taught in school. This is what we have asked the government to consider in its current review.

Quite how this fits with Mr Patel's comment "Some people use home education to hide. Look at the Victoria Climbié case. No one asked where she was at school. We have no view about home education, but we do know that to find out about abuse someone has to know about the child."

They go on to say "the NSPCC has a legitimate concern about the safeguarding of all children whether they are educated at home or at school and that will be the basis of our involvement with the Government review."

Most abused children go to school - so where is the evidence that school and official monitoring safeguards children?

Many children such as Victoria Climbie and the Spry children were already known to the authorities yet nothing was done so why are they trying to allege that there is some inherent danger in home education?

Whilst the government tries to convince us that we are all under threat of imminent attack by hordes of terrorists in order to steal our freedom from us, I believe that the NSPCC are using similar methods to claim that children all around us are at risk of abuse in order to justify their "important position" talking to government and seek greater powers to interfere with ordinary innocent families.

Is the NSPCC trying to divert attention away from its own failings and at the same time seeking to elevate its status and raise more money to pay for fancy offices and over priced advertising campaigns.

I have read that their "Full Stop" campaign has cost £3million, how many children has that saved? How many could have been helped if they had spent that £3million on family support centres or other direct help for children at risk.

If you want to make your voice heard, join facebook and comment on the NSPCC pages - they do seem to sit up and take notice when enough people do this, I think they are afraid of losing the money you all give to them.