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It is likely that a National Identity Register — the database at the heart of the ‘ID cards’ scheme — will kill people, by leading murderers to their victims. It is nearly certain it will be used, as many existing databases have already been, to harrass and to stalk individuals and to commit crimes against them.

Because it is intended to be universal, because it will contain or connect to so much information, and because it will feed other official databases, the National Identity Register has much more potential for harm than the often patchy official records that already exist.

The ID scheme is being designed to keep track, throughout your life, of where you live and all your contacts with organisations that use the Identity and Passport Service’s ‘verification service’. They are intended to include health (e.g. registering with a GP) and social services (e.g. applying for benefits), also banks and employers. Your track may be followed by anyone interested in you who can gain access to the system or a copy of your ‘audit log’…

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Blagojevich and Harris were accused of a wide-ranging criminal conspiracy that included Blagojevich conspiring to sell or trade the Senate seat left vacant by President-elect Barack Obama in exchange for financial benefits for the governor and his wife. The governor was also accused of obtaining campaign contributions in exchange for other official actions.

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Attached to the U.S. District Court complaint is an FBI affidavit, excerpted below, alleging that Blagojevich was caught on wiretaps noting that the Senate seat “is a fucking valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”

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In a conversation with Harris on Nov. 11, the charges state, Blagojevich said he knew Obama wanted Senate Candidate 1 for the open seat but “they’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation. [Expletive] them.”

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(and merry x-mas to you too, forrest!)

(thanks, Richard)

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The proposal by the CEOs of the Big Three automakers to work for $1 a year has gone over like a lead balloon with taxpayers, a new survey shows, with a clear majority believing that the car bosses do not deserve such a bloated salary.

The University of Minnesota/Opinion Research Institute poll released today shows that 87% of those surveyed “strongly agree” with the statement, “If the CEOs of General Motors, Ford and Chrysler earned $1 a year they would be egregiously overpaid.”

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Could you paint a replica of the Mona Lisa using only 50 semi transparent polygons?

click the link for an answer

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Dear Mr. Blessit,

I’ll just come right out and say it. Your plan to put a cross into orbit is misguided.By your own admission, no one will be able to see it. What purpose does that serve? What is the value of a cross that can’t be seen?

I want you to do something. Please go outside on Christmas Eve, the night before one of our holiest holidays,and look at the moon. Do you know what you’ll see? It won’t be a cross; it’ll be a crescent moon, the symbol of Islam. Everyone in the Northern Hemisphere will see it. How can an invisible cross beat that?

Forget about your puny dream of launching a little girly-cross into orbit. Your plan needs to be much more ambitious if you’re going to upstage the Muslims. Think big; launch a project to sculpt the moon into a giant cross.

Yes, I know it sounds too expensive to carry out, and that’d be true if you limited your approach to the use of secular technology. But you’re an evangelist, damn it. You can cut a lot of the cost by employing the many faith-based technologies we’ve acquired from the pure research being conducted in the field of creation science.