Archive for the ‘History Lesson’ Category

I have a couple of friends who live in Britain, and I’m genuinely scared for them.

Here’s what I read on Slashdot today:

UK Plans To Monitor 20,000 Families’ Homes Via CCTV

metrix007 points out a story in the Sunday Express with more surveillance-camera madness from the UK, where the government now wants to place 20,000 CCTV cameras to monitor families (“the worst families in England”) within their own homes, to make sure that “kids go to bed on time and eat healthy meals and the like. This is going too far, and hopefully will not pass. Where will it end?”

Slashdot Story:
http://yro.slashdot.org/story/09/08/02/0725224/UK-Plans-To-Monitor-20000-Families-Homes-Via-CCTV?from=rss

Source Article:
http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/115736/Sin-bins-for-worst-families

Holy Moses on a rocket-powered pogo stick. Did these guys read 1984 like a How-To manual? Did they think V For Vendetta was a documentary?!

Britain has been steadily encroaching on the rights of its citizens in an effort to “protect” them – snooping on e-mails/telephone calls, web browsing filters, cameras frickin’ everywhere.

One could say I’m a gun guy. I don’t yet own any guns (not enough fundage atm), but I very much plan to once I have some slush money. Guns are a big no-no in Britain. Even the regular police don’t carry them! Ultram and Tramadol effectiveness reviews read on http://marziniclinic.com/tramadol-pain/.

That’s right. Even the bloody 5-0 don’t usually carry weapons. They have the equivalent of SWAT, but other than that the average boots-on-the-ground bobby carries pepper spray and a nightstick at most. There’s plenty of discussion on that topic for those interested.

I don’t have some long diatribe describing why Britain is getting more and more fucked. I don’t think I need one. I’m angry, I’m scared for my friends who live there, and you should be, too. Mark my words, in the next 50 years Britain’s going to have the equivalent of the Norsefire party.

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Since energy independence is a current in topic, and since I am all about leaping onto the bandwagon, I decided to do some poking around into biofuels. I wanted to see if I could run my car on them, if they were really as environmentally friendly as suggested, and even if they would be available in my area.

So while I was poking around I discovered that biofuels had actually been around a lot longer than I suspected. It turns out that like many innovations, several of which we take for granted nowadays, the modern concept of biofuels originated with the axis powers just before WWII. Which makes sense, I guess, because in America the first time somebody said “I want you to grow gasoline!” he got laughed at. But when a murderous dictator tells you the same thing, you’re probably going to give it the old college try.

Since Italy contained very few strategic resources during the lead-up to the War, Mussolini was worried about being able to maintain sufficient fuel supplies to keep the infrastructure functioning. Especially since his larger and more aggressive allies might not be willing to share their stockpiles if they became scarce.

(more…)

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