So, everyone should have their Protect and Survive booklets by now.
What’s all that about, then? “Go in, stay in, tune in”? What? We’re to turn the TV on?
Why?
There are sixty five million people in this country, near enough. (Slightly less, year on year- the UK population is dropping.) Imagine there was a WTC type attack on London. Let’s ignore the fact that, substantially, this is impossible, as we just don’t have any buildings that large. But let’s say it happened. Three thousand people die.
Three thousand divided by sixty five million? One in twenty-one thousand. I’ll take those odds. Those are better odds than I have on crossing the road without getting hit by a truck. Six people in 100 000 die of road traffic accidents every year in the UK. That’s one in 16700, or thereabouts. These odds are considerably better than the average person gets on cancer (one third) or heart disease (50%) or smoking-related illnesses (15%, plus probably a good chunk of the other two.)
So, let’s say it cost the government nothing to design the booklet. Since those civil servants would have been drawing a salary in any case, this is close to true. And let’s say it cost them a pound to print and distribute each copy. That’s close enough. There are twenty one million households in this country.
Twenty one million pounds. That’s a lot of money to spend on a booklet that contains, substantially, no information at all, and which does not, in any meaningful sense, reduce the possibility of a terrorist attack.
Couldn’t they have spent that money- our money!- on something more useful? Like hospitals? I would wager that twenty M spent on hiring doctors and nurses, buying some latex gloves, disinfectant and mops would save more than three thousand lives a year just in the reduced MRSA cases in just one major hospital.
Or maybe they could spend it on a healthy school meals programme. Healthy kids become healthy adults. 21M goes a long way in school dinners.
Or they could spend it on paying some traffic cops, instead of putting up cameras which actually do not detect dangerous driving at all.
Or they could spend it on training schemes for inner-city kids who would otherwise end up at least triplespazzed up on crack, doing gunmurder to get the money for their clarkey cats.
Or… or… or…
Why the hell did I vote for these evil surveillance state propagandists in 1997?
In an effort to abate the insanity on THIS side of the ocean our concern now turns to the manner in which we’ll be permited to vote.
Namely, the blackbox ballot machines, mfgrd by Diebold. The CEO of Diebold has already been quoted as saying he’s willing to do everything in his power to ensure BushCo. gets back into office.
So. . . looks like yet another controversial election is on it’s way.
Don’t suppose you could hack into that venue and use your power over bits and bites for the good of us all?
I still don’t understand why you need voting machines anyway.
I think a “show of hands” or applause meter would do just fine, but apparently we’re so beyond “that” point we need to deal with what’s at hand. There is a very serious concern regarding these voting machines and I don’t think the normal channels of democracy can hold back this tide of things to come.
So. . . can you lend us the benefit of your wizardry?
No, she can’t.
The appallingly low turnout for elections in the US is what enables this to happen. The level of fraud possible with these machines is minor, but the elections are so closely contested that minor fraud can make a big difference. Meanwhile more than half of your electorate just don’t bother to vote in the first place.
I do tend to feel that those that don’t even try to use their vote deserve to lose it.
Look what happened in Venzuela. Look at the people queuing around the block, queuing for *hours*, the polling stations having to stay open until midnight (supposed to close at 4pm) to allow the unexpectedly huge numbers of people to vote. Result? the US-sponsored recall vote was soundly trounced.
High turnout favours the liberal agenda. Most people are of a liberal bent, but the Nazis always vote.
Get the vote out.
And to return to the theme I meant to post on. No, Jasmine can’t “fix” this with technical wizardry. Or, let’s say it, of course what you mean is *you’re* asking her to commit election fraud by cracking computers somewhere. Even if she can (and I’d rather she didn’t try to find out), why trust one election fraud and not trust another?
To reiterate what I said in the other rant: If people are too apathetic to vote, they deserve to lose it.
I still haven’t got my terror warning leaflet/pamphlet/book/whatever it is. I could understand if I lived in Rural-On-The-Inbred, Shropshire but shouldn’t I get priority living near a naval base?
I do not know what to do. I’m running out of food because I haven’t received any information on how to tell if Sainsburys has been infiltrated by al Qaeda.
Mark, in the event of a society-crumbling catastrophe, find Jasmine, get to her, and try to be useful enough to be allowed to stay in her tribe. :-)
(smiling, but not joking)
And in event of emergency, do what I say, when I say it. Seriously.
Dilberta, what is wrong with voting using a ballot box, a piece of paper, and a marker pen? Hm? You just hire some bank tellers to count them for you. It’s simple. It’s worked in this country for four centuries.
I KNOW what you’re saying, and I HEAR YOU loud and clear!
However, it’s not MY DECISION as to HOW votes get cast/counted. I see the process slipping further and further from the channels of democracy afforded us.
Rachel, chill girl! Geeeeezee what’s a girl to do, all I wanted was to start a revolution and that’s probably directly related to the shedding of my uterian lining.