Posts by Mr Lodestone 13 publicly visible posts • joined 6 Sep 2007
A possible use for it could be as a display for, and indeed *as*, a pressure cuff (or sphygmomanometer) seeing as that's exactly what it looks like.
This comment was an excuse to write - and verbalise while doing so - the word sphygmomanometer; which is a banquet of articulation.
(mine's the one with the tongue-splint in the pocket)
If they encourage young Republicans to learn how to work the Babbage machines, they might learn of Mr. Darwin's newfangled and outrageous theories.
On second thought, no. I can't feel sorry for them. I want to reach into the GOP's chest and wrench out its cold, dead heart just to see if it really is hard enough to cut diamond.
Why not John Varley's Gaea trilogy? (SPOILER ALERT) Lesbian scenes, topless titanides fighting a living god in the shape of a fifty-foot marilyn Monroe, giant snakes. With all the film allusions in the novels Hollywood would love it.
But please don't Hollywood. You'd screw it up royally. In fact I'm sorry I gave you the idea. Here, look into this while I put my sunglasses on...
"Can we have our ball back please, mister? Yes, it is in your house. Yes it is - and you've got horrible wallpaper and you don't hoover under the soafa either. You'll put a knife in it will you? Just wait until me and the lads move down the street then. We don't want to get hit by shrapnel and bits of you flying everywhere."
Oh, it doesn't have any explosives it it? oh.
Let's not forget all the cash they make out of BBC Enterprises, BBC Worldwide, flogging off select popular shows that we paid for to other countries, flogging off nearly all shows (that we paid for) to BBC Worldwide jointly-owned UKTV (or whatever it's called this week - Dave. Chris. Simon. Something like that.)
I grudgingly pay my licence fee, I willingly pay for the bandwidth I use. That's my limit.
Why not get Bob the Builder - and all the other cash cows that we all were forced to contribute to the making of - to pay for the upgrades to the IPlayer service themselves? Instead of asking US to do it over and over again.
Favourite aunty or not, she's still a greedy bitch, so the icon is Auntie Beeb rifling through all our fucking pockets.
Speaking of mothers, mine is due back from Blackpool shortly, so (providing she hasn't bumped anyone off while there) I think I'll go see if she had a good time. Defending her has made me all misty-eyed, so if she's not back yet I think I'll pretend to be asleep and look surprised when she wakes me up with presents.
She also lived through the blitz and identity cards and suchlike (back when they were actually warranted - you know, during a *real* war, not a fake one) so I'll get her opinions on this. She's a well-informed clever lady who has seen a lot more of life than I have, so as long as she's not trying to force the bin lid down on my father's lifeless feet as I walk in, then I imagine I'll come away from that discussion better informed myself.
The point I was making is that circumstances (and people) out of our control will blur that well-defined line so many posters have drawn around themselves with the 'nothing to hide' pen. How many people will (albeit wrongly) 'fess up to driving a relative or friend's car because the person that they care about has too many points on their licence. How many people have backed up a friend or family member who is carrying on an affair, continuing a lie to cover for that person, sometimes for years.
These are minor infractions (of the heart, marriage vows and road regulations) but to suggest that one turn in one's own mother (and believe me, if she were to be discovered clutching a bloodied dagger above the fresh corpse, I'd still proclaim her innocence) is a tactic worthy of Stalinist Russia. Yes, to reiterate, I'd frame Buddha, Mother Theresa and every orphan worldwide to enable my mum - the one who carried me for nine months and then put up with me for thirty-eight more years - to wriggle out of even a justified incarceration. Wouldn't you? It's your mum, for God's sake! (I can do ad-hominem variants too)
But no, I would not revel in violent or sexual offenders escaping justice in the vacuum created by a lack of any system, nor do I lament the apprehension and punishment of those who have been caught through familial DNA. That would just be churlish.
Are there any Icelanders here who could shed light on just how it works when everyone is on a DNA register. I understand they all complied en masse to a database a few years back for genetic tracing of ancestors. Is crime any lower in Iceland than it was before their database went live? That would be the acid test - a comment from an Icelander. Are you perchance Icelandic? They love their mums.
However, if the UK government were to blindly take both the current genetic wrong-way turns simultaneously - and make me into some sort of wolf/cow/firebug/human chimera - then I would happily let them take my DNA for sampling...shortly before I tore out the throat of the scientists doing so in a vulpo-bovine rage, regurgitated and re-digested same throats a few times, then dropped a huge flammable wolf-cowpat in the DNA centre and ignited it with the friction from my antennae.
Seriously though - fire usually destroys all evidence apart from the fact that someone started a fire. If there is a national DNA database with everyone on file then the career criminals, recidivists and smarter crooks would just take to a spot of arson (like the after-dinner mint after a meal) at the end of any other crime committed. We'd all be on file, yes, but Blighty would burn. Repeatedly and permanently - and we'd still have the same crimes, just with twist of arson to boot.
One of my daughters has her DNA filed with the police (thanks to a one-off petty offence). Now because of that, if my mum (bless her, she's 74 - it's unlikely) were to commit a crime then it could be traced back to her through our bloodline. Now I would cheerfuly fit up Jesus, the Dalai Lama and Ban Ki-Moon to get my mother off the hook, but that's just me. Even if you have nothing to hide (not even an exaggerated insurance claim, or holding just a bit back from the Taxman this year) it is always possible that your present or future loved ones might. 'Nothing to hide' is not the same as 'this doesn't affect me' - that latter one can change at any time.
Also my other daughter was robbed a year ago, and despite the fact that the assailants followed her for a mile - past three CCTV cameras - the police did nothing. I learned from an insider that one of the cams was broken, another a fake and the third only intermittently monitored. If CCTV doesn't work (not even to catch a criminal AFTER the act) what hope do we have for a complete DNA database? or even RFID chips?
Lastly, if we are going to throw money around, I'd suggest we x-ray every container entering this country. Not for VAT-free ciggies or immigrants, but for GUNS. UK companies are forbidden from selling firearms in the country so they must be coming in from outside. And you know what a gun looks like on an x-ray? A gun. Not that hard to spot. Spend the money elsewhere and maybe you can prevent crimes instead of just saying "we caught the bloke who shot your son/father/brother, etc. with magic DNA"
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