Longrider

The NHS database rolls forward – behind time, over budget, but like Frankenstein’s monster awakens slowly. Some patients (like Mrs Longrider and I) have expressed privacy concerns and expressed a desire not to be included on this behemoth. It is, after all our data, is it not? Last month the government rejected such requests. Now, it seems, they may be back pedalling.

The government has bowed to privacy concerns about a new NHS computer system and conceded that patients should be allowed a veto on information about their medical history being passed from their GP to a national database.

Following a Guardian campaign against the compulsory uploading of personal details to the system known as The Spine, Lord Warner, the health minister, will announce a plan that would allow individuals to review and correct their records and withhold them from the database.

This is good news indeed. Evidence that people power can influence even the most autocratic of government departments. However…

Lord Warner said it was not yet possible to guarantee a right of veto. Some doctors were concerned that patients might be putting themselves at risk by refusing access to records that could save their lives in an emergency.

Bollocks! Lord Warner is a pillock of the highest order. How, exactly, have the emergency services managed to save countless lives up until now? How did they manage without a database to tell them what they can glean from the patient, the patient’s relatives and friends, from carrying out tests at the time? For crying out loud! Health care providers are perfectly capable of dealing with an emergency effectively without a database, it’s what they’ve been doing since the invention of medicine. Ah, but, ZANU Labour with its managerial obsession knows better. Frankly, I’ll take my chances with the paramedics rather than allow my details to be uploaded onto a national database and my privacy threatened.

Lord Warner said the government remains firmly committed to the creation of a national database and hopes to persuade the vast majority of patients to consent to their records going on it.

Not me, you won’t.

A public information campaign will be launched shortly, claiming that lives could be saved in emergencies with instant access to information about patients’ allergies, medications and previous treatments.

Bollocks.

The new proposals will not change the government’s plan to upload patients’ names, addresses and dates of birth to the national database. Ministers say the NHS needs a list of who is entitled to free treatment and has legal authority to make this information accessible to authorised medical staff throughout England.

One might almost be inclined to diagnose obsessive compulsive disorder on the part of hmg…

Update: All is not as it seems. See Terri’s comment below. The question is; have you told your GP you want to opt out yet?

Seen on the back of a bus yesterday, the Safety Camera Partnership’s latest campaign:

Less speed = safer roads; it’s a simple equation.

No, it is NOT a simple equation. A suitable and safe speed is defined by influencing factors; the road and traffic conditions, weather, the vehicle’s type, age and condition, the driver’s age, condition, general health, alertness and level of concentration. A suitable and safe speed takes into account a combination of these factors. A lower speed may well mean a lower overall impact in the event of an accident incident and in the event, walking away as opposed to dying. However, good driving and, therefore, good traffic management and education must surely be about avoiding the incident in the first place rather than mitigating the consequences.

Ah, yes, but that’s just a little too difficult – as is thinking, it would seem. An alert driver on a good road in clear conditions may drive perfectly safely and without incident at three figure speeds. It is not speed that causes accidents, it is drivers who drive at inappropriate speeds, who talk on their mobile phones, who eat their lunch, do their makeup, read, change the CD or are just too stupid to multi-task while at the wheel.

What matters is not speed taken in isolation but the driver’s ability to drive the vehicle with consideration for developing hazards and deal with them before they become a problem. Simply forcing people to drive more slowly – and, importantly, simply educating them into thinking that this will make them safer drivers – merely reduces the speed at which they drive badly. It is still possible to die in a road traffic incident at 30mph. Therefore, it would make more sense to train drivers to avoid the incidents in the first place, would it not?

Convincing people who are unwilling or unable to figure it out for themselves that driving more slowly makes them safer drivers is contributing toward making the roads more dangerous. Ah, but, that’s the hard of thinking for you. Always looking for a simple-minded solution rather than stretch the grey matter and seek a properly thought out one.

Ryan Newell comments over at UKIPhome about the impending EU driving licences:

As mentioned earlier the new licences must be renewed every 10 to 15 years. This means that every 10 t o15 years we will be forced to fork out to renew our licences. We can also be forced to pay for a new test each time our licence needs renewing.

There are doubtless plenty of valid arguments against a homogenised EU driver licensing scheme (I’m going to be paying particular attention to the motorcycle proposals). To rage against renewing them every ten to fifteen years however misses a vital point: Our current photo licences are already subject to renewal every ten years. Oh, and I can’t find anything about a new test every time a licence is renewed. I don’t know where Ryan got that one from.

Commander Dave Johnston manages to come up with a spectacularly excellent example of just why the police force should be firmly separated from politics:

DNA samples should be taken from babies and stored on a database to help in the fight against crime, a senior police officer said yesterday.

Commander Dave Johnston, Britain’s most senior murder investigator, said the information could be used to both to solve and prevent crimes.

He also suggested samples could be taken from people when they renewed their passports and from migrants arriving in the country.

Maybe Davey boy should spend less time watching CSI and more time in the real world. Sure, DNA is a useful tool for determining whether someone was at the scene of a crime; doesn’t mean they committed it, though. However useful DNA is to the investigation of a crime, to treat the whole population as potential suspects is going just a little too far. Do we wish to become a totalitarian state or not? Well, better not ask Dastardly Dave, we might not like the answer.

Mr Johnston, the head of the Metropolitan Police’s Homicide and Serious Crime Unit, told The Sun: “We have 300,000 unsolved cases where we have taken a profile at a crime scene but have not yet matched it.”

“As well as solving crime, it would really make someone think twice about committing crime if they knew their DNA was on a database.”

Really? Every advance made by law enforcement agencies is mirrored by advances made by the criminal fraternity. Does dopey Dave really think that someone, somewhere won’t find a ruse to fool the system? Does he not consider the possibility that innocent people will suffer miscarriages of justice as the law enforcement agencies rely heavily on “infallible” evidence (as opposed to effective police work)? Just as they did with Shirley McKie? After all, fingerprints are infallible, aren’t they?

What the fuckwitted Commander Johnston forgets is that he is stumbling into the political arena; bolstered no doubt by the Blair government’s desire to give the police whatever Draconian measure they ask for, for no other reason than that they ask. It is up to politicians to listen carefully to power hungry coppers on an ego trip; nod earnestly, smile and then tell them to fuck off and get on with policing and keep their noses out of politics. Dodgy Dave may think it appropriate to stimulate debate. In a personal capacity as a citizen that is within his rights. As a serving police officer, this is politics and well outside his remit.

I, for one, will never willingly submit my DNA so that Dangerous Dave can eliminate me from whatever enquiry he is currently engaged upon. His job is policing, not documenting, data tagging and cataloguing the population so that they may be treated as criminals. He is there to serve us, not the other way around.

Shami Chakrabati puts it succinctly:

“It is about time we had a debate about whether we want to turn from a nation of citizens into one of suspects,” she said.

“Certainly at Liberty, the answer is No.”

Quite.

I’ve never much liked politicians. This quote sums them up beautifully:

Still, we Americans should be aware of the venality, the meanness, the duplicity, and the downright vilenss of the pompous power-hungry pols who specialize in being elected to Congress.

It would be a simple matter to replace Congress with Parliament and Americans with Britons – it would still scan; it would still be accurate.

I note a spat developing between the Devil’s Kitchen and Chad over at UKIP Home. Chad has decided that DK is a Tory stooge. If that’s what he believes, then he is free to make his case. However, it is in the making (or not) of the case that he crosses certain boundaries. He is unable to comprehend why DK objects to the publicising of personal details – in this case; real names. Chad chooses to write under his real name. Fair enough, that’s his choice. DK, like many of us, chooses to draw a thin veil of separation between online and offline personae. This means that during discussions, we refer to each other by our chosen monikas not our real names. That those details may be found relatively simply does not mean that they should then be publicly displayed – it is impolite, it crosses the boundary of acceptable behaviour. Despite having been asked to refrain, Chad continues to publicise DK’s name and as a consequence may impact on his offline employment prospects. That, frankly, is way below the belt.

Having looked at UKIP Home, I’m less than impressed. It tells me little of what UKIP stands for and an awful lot about how awful the Tories are. Ah, well, there’s nothing new in the silliness of politics. Chad sums this up for us with his comment about who will win the next election:

For example, no political leader would ever publicly say they believe their rivals will win even if the rival has  60% poll share rating.

The reason is obvious; by stating the possibility of your rival winning, you add strength to that frame because you do not want it to happen.

Yes, Chad. It is this intellectual dishonesty that is responsible for the electorate holding the political classes in such contempt. I, for one, would have some grudging respect for a politician who was, just for once, honest about their electoral chances. I’m tired of being lied to by politicians.

Also, implying by not implying that someone has hacked your site is not only childish, but is coming very close to libel. Does Chad have evidence that DK hacked his site – or didn’t, but you know what I mean, nudge, nudge, wink, wink? This, frankly, is a scurrilous slur.

If **** ******* wants to be trusted in a professional IT role, it is time for him to come clean about his involvement or knowledge of who was behind this hack.

I’ve learned more about UKIP – and as a consequence started to take them more seriously – from the Devil’s Kitchen, than can be gleaned from the tedious, spiteful and libellous whinges on UKIP home.

As others pointed out in the discussion at the Kitchen, Chad really doesn’t get it. Why would anyone pay him £2.50 to comment on his blog? It’s not as if you get value for your money, after all. Subscriptions may well deter trolls and spammers, but there are other effective means that do not stifle discussion. I’ll be dammed if I pay a blogger to comment on his blog – that’s why I’m doing it here. Oh, and no one is expected to pay me to comment here. So long as you are civil, then say what you please. Agreeing with me is nice, but not essential.

If UKIP really want to be taken seriously, they will publicly distance themselves from trolls like Chad.

Following yesterdays petulant foot stamping by the Archbishop of York, we have more folk wading into the debate about the “secularisation” of Christmas.

The debate over whether Christmas cards should be traditional with a religious message or secular was gaining momentum last night.

A column by The Daily Telegraph’s Jeff Randall in which he said he was discarding all cards that did not mention the word “Christmas” ignited a fierce debate that provoked more than 200 responses from around the world, the majority in favour of keeping festive greetings traditional.

It was the latest development in a continuing row over attempts to turn Christmas into a “winter festival”.

Is it me, or is this all getting very, very silly?

Gordon Brown has condemned attempts to change traditional festivities and the Archbishop of York said “illiberal atheists” and secularists were trying to undermine Christian beliefs.

John Reid, the Home Secretary, joined the debate by saying he was “sick and tired” of the sort of political correctness which has meant Christmas cannot be called “Christmas”.

The latter, I think. What’s wrong with just doing your own thing? Some of us don’t bother with cards anyway – so at least there’s no danger of offending any Telegraph columnists, one presumes. Or will the opt-out itself cause offence? Oh, dear, better watch out, celebrating the solstice on the 21^st of December with nary a mention of the dreaded “C” word, nor nod of the head to the mythical prophet nor, indeed, any thought of religious ritual. Mrs Longrider and I don’t waste time, effort or money on inane Christmas cards, tinsel, trees or any of the usual twaddle associated with a traditional Christmas. I guess that means that we can rest safe in the knowledge that we’ve offended just about everybody. Still, at least we are equitable about it – everyone gets their fair share of offence.

Get over yourselves already…

Update: It seems that silliness really is the order of the day. Never let inconvenient facts get in the way of complete and utter bollocks a good story, though… (Hat tip Rachel)

Doctor Vee’s post about handwriting caused me to think about the scrawl that passes as my handwriting. As I pointed out in his comments; I use a fountain pen. Old habits die hard. We are supposed to be able to analyse ourselves by the way we write… Ahem, so, let’s look at the scrawl in question below and see what comes up:

According to this site, we are not supposed to write in straight lines. However, mine are almost exactly straight:

A person who writes a straight line may also go straight toward his daily aim. If a person writes in a precisely straight line we may say that person is unyielding.

Ah. Well… Er, yes, pretty accurate. Oh…

What about the space between words? Well, I don’t think the pauses outweigh the words, so it’s this:

When a person speaks with pauses it may be because they are accustomed to pondering and considering before they act. It may also be because the person wants to let the words sink in to the audiences consciousness.

Yup, that’s true enough, too.

Okay, what about the space between the lines – you know, the place people try to read? On balance, there’s a fair bit of space between the lines, so:

A person who writes with wide space lines may live a life of order and system. These people have executive ability and reasonableness. But if the space between the lines becomes too wide it may indicate a person who likes to keep their distance.

I do like order, I do like to keep my distance and I do like to consider myself a reasonable person – at least, I hope I am. I write with a distinctive right slant:

The right slant is the most common and and most natural slant. The right slant is found in people in a hurry, impatient people and the active writer.

Damn! Found out again… And symmetry? I think, on balance, the upper part of the letters are more pronounced than the lower.

When the upper zones are strongly developed we are dealing with a person of intelligence and ambition.

Naturally.

However their emotional development remains infantile.

Ooops!

What about legibility? my writing is generally a hurried scrawl and frankly, barely legible. However, it isn’t really covered. The closest is this:

Legibility is a measure of the writers sense of purposefulness. Legible handwriters make good teachers and speakers. They are sincere and co-operative.

I guess that will have to do. I am a professional trainer and I am used to speaking in public. And the shape of the letter?

Tall capitals are people who tower above the rest. Tall initials come from impressive people.

Hmmm, possibly… My capitals do tower a bit and the initials tend to stand out.. Maybe… The space between letters indicates that I am:

When only some letters are unconnected it shows an artistic and intuitive thinker.

Artistic and intuitive – of course. I would expect nothing else.

You may however, conclude that I’m not taking this too seriously. You may be right. You may conclude that I’m cherry picking the good bits. You may be right.

The Archbishop of York is throwing a temper tantrum over secularists and atheists for the silliness about Christmas decorations and such:

The Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, attacked “aggressive” secularists and “illiberal” atheists yesterday for “throwing out the crib at Christmas”.
  
In his strongest assault yet on attempts to purge Christianity from public life, Dr Sentamu said such people were undermining the country’s cultural traditions. The Archbishop’s comments reflect the growing fury of Church leaders at reports of companies banning Christmas decorations and schools leaving Jesus out of nativity plays.

Well, I understand the Church’s irritation. The pagans must have been a bit miffed when the early Christians came over and started taking over the midwinter solstice festival… And for a church leader to start talking about illiberal… that’s the biscuit well and truly taken, eaten and the crumbs swept away.

Ah, but, whose fault is all this nonsense?

They also signalled his intention to declare all-out war on secularists, who he claimed were unfairly blaming other faiths to advance their own anti-religious agenda.

“Aggressive secularists are trying to pretend that it is possible to enter into the true meaning of Christmas by leaving out Jesus Christ,” he said.

It is; it’s called the winter solstice. You know, the festival you bastards corrupted in the first place.

The silliness over decorations in offices has nothing to do with secularism or atheism, it’s to do with the stupidity of people who are so politically correct that they are afraid of a backlash of offence from people who are not offended. They are too cowed to stand up for what they believe in.

I am prepared to stand up for what I believe in. That’s why I don’t “do” Christmas. That’s why I find people such as the Archbishop deeply repugnant. His “all out war” is something I will withstand fairly simply – that is because I do not need the support of imaginary friends, I do not need to talk to the sky and I do not need him or his daft religion. So, go ahead, Archbishop, do your worst. I still won’t be celebrating Christmas, I still won’t be prostrating myself before an alter to a mythical being that does not exist. I’ll be raising a glass on the 21^st though, as I mark the turning of the winter and the point where the days start to draw out. No cribs, no mythical prophets, no decorations, no baubles, no tree and no silly man in a red coat, just myself, Mrs Longrider and a quiet moment of contemplation.

Dr Sentamu, a Ugandan-born former judge, added: “The aggressive secularists pervert and abuse any notion of diversity for the sake of promoting a narrow agenda. Meanwhile those other faith communities, who have stated categorically they are not offended by Christmas, know that if Christmas falls, they will be next.”

Bollocks! Utter, utter bollocks! A secular society is one where there is freedom of (and from) religion. No one is stopping you practice your religion. No one. Indeed, the only attempts I see here are those engaged in by you in attempting to wage war on my freedom from your religion.

“Why don’t the aggressive secularists and illiberal atheists listen to the great wisdom of Sir John Mortimer, playwright and atheist, who writing in The Daily Telegraph on April 28, 1999, said ‘Our whole history and culture in Europe is based on Christianity, whether you believe in it or not. Our culture is Christian; Shakespeare, Mozart – all that makes life worth living is part of the Christian tradition’ .”

Because it isn’t? That our forefathers were Christian does not mean that Christianity has to be at the core of our culture. All of these things can exist without delusional belief systems. Any civilised society will develop ethics and law, music, literature and art. That those quoted included belief simply means that they were men of their time. Nor does our history mean that we have to perpetuate any single part of it if we choose not to.

Bosses also felt that Christmas trees and tinsel made offices unprofessional, said law firm Peninsula.

They do. But that’s just my opinion.

I don’t give a flying fig what you do at this time of the year – your relationship with your imaginary friend is your business and you can indulge in all the silly, pointless rituals your religion decrees to your heart’s content as far as I am concerned. You see, I’m not threatened by it or you. So, please, just stop trying to blame atheists and secularists for imaginary slights and get on with talking to your imaginary friend and leave the rest of us alone.

I have always detested practical humour as it relies on making people look foolish without their knowledge or consent. Thus, I utterly despised such programmes as Candid Camera and the truly execrable Jeremy Beadle. Now we have Borat.

The makers of the hit film Borat, starring British comedy actor Sacha Baron Cohen, have made a brief appearance in a Los Angeles court.

They are being sued by two young men, featured in the film, who say they were plied with alcohol and duped into making racist remarks.

I don’t find Sacha Baron Cohen remotely funny. His Ali G was tiresome, tedious, unfunny and intellectually lazy. I have no desire to watch this latest effort and will make a point of avoiding it. I have some sympathy with the plaintiffs and hope that they succeed if for no other reason than to send out a message to programme and film makers who regard the general public as fair game for their cheap jokes. However, these two didn’t help themselves over much:

They say the movie’s producers fooled them into signing a release form after being told the film would not be shown in the United States.

Stupidity has its own price. They had an option; don’t sign the release form. They signed – what, I wonder was going on in their tiny minds?