Via Peter Black, and Alix Mortimer, comes this marvellous little quizlet which tells you exactly how many times the government or their little minions have lost your personal data in recent times.

I am pleased to report that they have only definitely lost my data twice, with one further time when they might have lost my data, but we can't be sure. So that's a comfort, isn't it? It could have been MUCH worse than that!

Via diffrentcolours and stephashley_fd:

From 1st September 2008, the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust Ltd has generously agreed to match, pound for pound, any *new* income that NO2ID receives. Which means that for every pound you give from 1st September NO2ID will receive TWO pounds to spend campaigning against the ID scheme and database state.

Please send your donation by cheque to our office (please mark your envelope 'JRRT'):

The NO2ID Campaign
Box 412
19-21 Crawford Street
London W1H 1PJ

Or you can donate by credit card or via PayPal using the 'Donate' button on our website, http://www.no2id.net (left hand column)

Double your money offers like this don't come along very often so please, dig deep - encourage your friends, family and colleagues to make a donation. With your help we can stop this.

While you're at it, why not join the campaign, join a local group and/or take the NO2ID Pledge?

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Most of the time I cope quite well with being allergic to chocolate. There's very few times that I miss it so much that I start to think that it would be worth a night in hospital for one small piece... Reading this? That was one of those times. Oh Gods, but I want HP Lovecraft choccies...

(hat-tip: puddingcat)

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( for no sensible reason, the Sesame Street personality test )

Too tired to give you actual thoughts of my own; here are some that belong to other people.

Brilliant internet campaign strategy in Kansas. Yes, THAT Kansas.

Nick Cohen provides a hymnsheet for secularists to sing to.

In soviet Russia, harrassment sexes you. Note to self, don't EVER move to Russia. Meanwhile, in not-soviet USA, bloggers tax government!

Bwahahahahaha! (in case they put content up, The Green Top has capped it).

If you've nothing to hide, you've nothing to fear from a national DNA database, right?

Three from Sp!ked: The Privatisation of Politics, Don't Blame Parents for Cotton Wool Kids (I can't help adding a "because they're sheeple who must follow the crowd!" to that headline), and a nice article about online censorship.

And finally, the Orwell Diaries go live starting tomorrow. Don't forget to add orwelldiaries to your f-list.

They've found the deleted scenes from Metropolis! Sci-fi geeks rejoice! And pray Cthulhu we get a showing of it at the FFW next year...

matgb has a highly amusing post about the hypocrisy of the guy who sued the BBC for showing Jerry Springer: The Opera and upsetting his delicate religious sensibilities (related Facebook group).

Don't watch anything on YouTube which isn't allowed to be there, else you'll get got.

Creationism hits science classrooms in the UK. and we are funding it via the state school mechanism. *I* am paying for some poor kids to be taught complete bollocks as though it is fact. Amused Cynicism makes comment more eloquently than I ever could.

The Torygraph have picked their top ten ever Doctor Who episodes. No surprises that it's Ten-heavy, but perhaps surprising that it contains no Trout. And, obvs, Caves of Androzani should be #1.

James May is amazed that the BBC are upset with him for drinking a G&T, when really, they should be upset with him for putting slices of lemon in it. LIME, James, LIME!

Jeremy Thorpe says Robert Mugabe must die. I guess there's a limit to everyone's Liberalism, eh?

David Davies shows just how pro-liberty he really is. Hey ho. Is anyone actually surprised by this?

Chicky Yog imagines Gordon as a barman and finds him wanting.

The turkeys HAVE voted for Christmas: Mike at PB is right. Any PPC opposing any of the lot who voted for this is going to have a field day.

Is anyone here surprised that you can crack an Oyster card very easily? And this is the system they want to use for our one-stop-shop biometric ID Cards. Making identity theft HARDER? My arse.

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For anyone who still harboured hopes that the American remake of Life on Mars wouldn't be complete bobbins, here's a shot by shot comparison of a pivotal scene.

I have a fondness for Chief O'Brien Colm Meaney, but his Hunt is such a wussy next to Glenister... This makes me sad.

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After yesterday's Love-in with the BBC, I thought I'd balance it today with this piece on why they have got the coverage of David Davis so very wrong.

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After the FFW I always end up spending silly money on something genre related. This year I forked over £42 from my bottomless visa card to amazon for this. It arrived this morning, and it's GORGEOUS. Amazingly, it also contains only 2 films that I already own, even though my Hammer shelf is not tiny by any means.

21 films in a pretty box? I think that's value for money. Please validate this opinion and assuage my nagging sense of guilt...

Good news: GRATS GEORGE!!! Nobody deserves a beautiful wedding more than you, mate.

Bad News: OFFS you have GOT to be JOKING?! Have they learnt nothing whatsoever from all the recent data fiascos? Clearly not. Then again, maybe it's a late April Fool... Or maybe they announced this today in the hopes that it would be burying in all the noise about abortion...

Could be either: Moffat is taking over from Rusty on Who. On the one hand, Moffat has written all of the best episodes of new Who, so even if he takes the show in a bad direction, at least it will be a better-written bad direction... But on the other hand, we don't know what that direction will be. Still, at least we can comfort ourselves with the hope that it's unlikely to involve bloody Billie Piper. We can has TEAM Tardis, and not just DUO Tardis, Oh Grand Moff? Pretty please with a cherry on top?

In order to distract myself from horrible news of man's inhumanity to (wo)man such as this¹ and this² I am watching Question Time and This Week³ with a rather large G&T, have slathered myself in Dr. John Seward⁴, and am reading these amusing tales of Toy Horror that tyrell linked me to. I particularly like the Build Your Own Atomic Lab⁵ and Battlestar Galactica Missile Launcher...

Oh all right; there is one thing that I'm cross enough to blog about even though I'm otherwise happy: if you don't submit to the NIR and pay for an ID card, you won't get a student loan. FFS. Is there not some way we can mobilise a group of anti ID card activists to provide alternative loans for students? I mean, there's the inevitable Facebook group, but...

[this week]Blargh. Ross Kemp on about gang culture... Gang culture is not new in this country. People have been bemoaning the violence of the youth of today since time immemorial; the difference is that it's not just the underclass that are killing each other these days. The middle classes don't just play at it any more like they did when they were mods and rockers... And Michael and Andrew are trying to have it both ways. if you centralise everything, and create a nanny state, which is just as much a Conservative trait as a Labour one, then everybody gets the mindset that the government should do something and nobody wants to do anything themselves. Nobody wants to take responsibility because the government has allowed them to develop the idea that they don't have to take responsibility. It's somebody else's job... Ooooh I take that back! Michael just advocated localism. You closet liberal, Michael ;)[/this week]

ETA: Hello, Miss or Mr BBC Researcher? Am LOVING the Six Nations trailer. Oh yes. Rawr rugger boys.

* dribble *

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¹ thank you sovietkiki
² thank you ginasketch
³ which, let's face it, is my version of Easenders and Corrie - Westminster Politics is just such a drama far removed from reality as a soap opera...
⁴ starts off all lavender and bubblegum, but within five minutes is a fine balance between fruity and floral with a subtle undertone of soft herbal smoke; no one note dominates, and it's a lovely scent.
⁵ there are instructions in the comments which tell you how to build your own, since the kit is no longer available

So I shall just mention that 28 is no age at all, and I am a bit freaked by the fact that he was two years younger than me... And then move on to the good news.

Firstly, as reported by D-notice and Mat, the ECtHR have ruled that banning gay adoption is illegal in the EU. HURRAH!

Secondly, a serious nail in the coffin of ID cards. Double HURRAH!

The winners of 2007's Darwin Awards have been announced. *sporfle* I love the guy on his laptop.

Anyone still undecided on the ID Card database thing? You're happy to give your biometric data to the secret police of a foreign power, then? (with apple-ogies to Uhmericin readers for inflammatory language)

Jesus and Mo dissect circular argument. I adore Jesus and Mo, heretical as they may be, for their clever demonstrations of the silliness of various aspects of organised religion. And not because the provider of wisdom is the barmaid in their local pub. Not at all.

Also, for those of you who have been following the organ donation row and wish to get one over on Gordon Brown before he nationalises your body, and stop the NHS from using your organs to save people's lives, click here. You register for that, and even if you don't trust the opt-out the state will still not be able to "steal" your empty husk body and use it to give other people a chance.

Heavy sarcasm aside, it's something I'm seriously considering. As I said on innerbrat's journal the other day, it gives me amusement to think of a bunch of medical students using my intestines for necklaces and playing catch with my kidneys. I might have to specify that they refer to my corpse as Doris, though.

... I got tagged by James Graham for my Eight for 08. I have been rather lax about reading my f-list recently, James, for which I apologise, but at least I've noticed now ;)

Eight things I can realistically hope for in '08?

1, That my wedding goes off without a hitch, and that I remain as blissfully and vomit-inducingly happy with my wonderful matgb as I am now.

2, That everyone I love is alive and healthy by the end of the year, or at least in no worse state than they are right now at the beginning.

3, That America doesn't have Huckabee for a president in the near future. Because, as burkesworks so eloquently put it the other day, when America farts, the rest of us are stood¹ downwind.

4, That politicians of all stripes start to learn the value of having a decent website, and, more importantly, what a decent website is².

5, That the Labour party's popularity freefall doesn't lead to a Tory government³

6, That I learn to stop procrastinating things which would take no more than thirty seconds (answering emails, a bit of tidying, making sure I eat properly, even going to the loo) in favour of answering memes on t'intarwebz. Yeah, these hopes are getting more forlorn as I go along, aren't they?

7, That I get a nice Trial of a Timelord box set. OK, so I'll admit that the script is (mostly) crap - *shakes fist in the direction of Pip'n'Jane* - but, oh the Sixie goodness. Also on my wishlist of Who DVDs: The Time Monster, Arc of Infinity⁴, Terror of the Autons, The Daemons, Attack of the Cybermen, The Happiness Patrol, and Battlefield.

8, That I get more than 2/4 from what I always say when people ask me what I want: world peace, a large bag of fifty pound notes, a bottle of brandy, and a shag

Dammit, no room for the repeal of SOCPA or the death of the ID-card-and-attached-database project. I have too many hopes all waiting to be dashed...

And now I must tag five people:

Blah. I hate putting people under obligations. Also, I would doubtless tag someone who has already done it, due to the afore-mentioned lax reading over recent days. Therefore, if you want to do this consider yourself tagged. Knock yourselves out.

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¹ stood is a perfectly valid Yorkshire dialect particple of the verb to stand. I would like to see it adopted countrywide over the much more unwieldy standing, but a bit of a forlorn hope.

² In terms of the party I bang on about most, this will mean either them dumping Prater Raines as a preferred option for all their websites, or Prater Raines upping their game massively. I haven't seen a website by them which isn't crap in terms of both design and usability. But especially design. I mean, just look at that homepage! I could do better than that with five minutes in Dreamweaver. With my eyes shut! [/bitchyness] Seriously, people who think website design doesn't matter are like people who think SPaG don't matter, or that you only need to optimise websites for IE because only a minority use other browsers. It's true that good website design doesn't matter to lots of people, but to those for whom it does matter, it matters massively; whereas it doesn't offend the don't-cares if you get it right. Thus, getting it wrong really does matter, because if you get it wrong you offend a small-but-significant minority, but if you get it right you offend not one person. To me, this makes it worth the effort. There will probably be a more detailed post on this in the future... That's FOUR SB's Guide to... posts I need to make now *headdesk*

³ Yeah, that's a bit of a forlorn hope too, isn't it? If it doesn't happen in '08, it'll happen whenever Gordon calls the next election. But if I believed in any Gods my prayers would include please let the next election lead to a hung parliament, and thereafter STV for all! every single night

⁴ How do I love thee, Maxil? Let me count the tights ways.

Vince Cable was on Any Questions just now, a repeat from last night. Mat and I both went awwwwwwwww at the same point ♥ LOL Although my head knows that Vince is only getting such fangirling from most of the press because they know he's temporary, I think it's lovely that he's enjoying himself and he's being utterly adorable about having to step down.

Fantastic response on prisons, well backed up by statistics, and completely blowing the Tory out of the water. I love that the Green lady kept saying "as Vince has said" LOL. YAY for Vince shoehorning ID cards in too ;) Although "High Tech Bungle" sounds like something off a new series of Rainbow.

Nick Herbert is such a tosser isn't he? What a brainless herbert. Why are people applauding him?

My problems with the anthem are manyfold (although I'm not a republican; remind me to do that post at some point):
- it's a dirge (to quote matgb
- the whole idea of God having anything to do with Britishness is 1, inaccurate in our secular society and 2, personally annoying to me
- it's divisive: the Scots, the Welsh and the Northern Irish don't like to sing it (oooh, I'm disagreeing with Vince)
But, changing it would be a pain in the arse. If there was one song that everyone could agree on then that would be fine, but there isn't - I like both Rule Britannia and Jerusalem (to a lesser extent) but I know people who hate both - and until we have a concrete proposal for a replacement, I don't think that discussing scrapping the current one is helpful.

Vince is back on form for the 42 days, though. Still nobody making the Douglas Adams ref.

I link to this merely because this comment made me giggle: Peter Godbold, a churchwarden and Egton village postmaster, had praised his “hands-on approach and superb pastoral care”. (emphasis mine)

This, I am going to say even though charlotte_gore beat me to it while I was at work: Tony, you know what everyone is going to think now? You're a nutter, and you know it.

Proving that Elephants are wise, Millennium makes another fabulous post about why we should allow Nick Griffin et al the freedom to spout their poison: because if they don't say it, how can we rebut it?

And finally, Jock Coats has the best plan that I've seen so far for minimising cock-ups like the one the HMRC made this week. How feasible would a PGP-style key scheme be for government-held data? Yes, it would entail a bit more hassle, but it's got to at least be considered, right?

Poo. Apparently you have to suffer material or financial loss before you can trigger the stripping-of-licence thing mentioned in this post.

On the bright side, the CDs have appeared on ebay....

I have seen comment on a couple of blogs that this might actually be spun as a reason to force the ID card database through because if you've lost everyone's NI number then re-issuing them might be prudent and if you're re-issuing everyone's NI number then you might as well start the database up... This scares the living willies out of me. Anyone up for moving to the I Love Man Isle of Man?

With reference to the HMRC losing my (and every other person in the UK with a child under 16's) name, address, date of birth, National Insurance number and bank details in two easy to use discs (see this entry):

Mister Mat has just pointed out to me (whilst rubbing his hands together and giggling with glee) that under the Data Protection Act any entity registered on the Register of Data Controllers has quite stringent obligations to store data securely. One who fails to do so can be booted off the register by the Information Commissioner. Obviously, someone who is affected by the breach has to place the complaint... Now, can we think of anyone who has been affected by the breach who might want to do such a mean-spirited thing? I think we can... >:D

I do feel a little bit sorry for poor old Darling, though. Clearly this is a cock-up of monumental proportions which has been brewing for some time. Like somebody said in a comment on this entry on PoliticalBetting.com: imagine if Blair had held on for a few more months. Gordon would be being slapped in the face with this, instead of Darling. Alternately, imagine if Gordon hadn't bottled it last month, and had called an election. This would now be confirmation of Tory inability to manage the economy on the scale of the Major Years and the poor old Tories would be reaping the whirlwind. So, on reflection, I'm rather glad it's Darling that's being the patsy for this, as I reserve a special level of hatred for him after the complete arse he made of transport when he was running that. I'm afraid bikerness runs deep.

ETA: No2ID have a cunning plan too. Who knows; between all the cunning plans doubtless being hatched right now, we might actually make a dent in something...

HMRC have sold my details to the mafia let my details fall into the hands of criminals "lost" my bank details, along with those of about 15 million or so other people. Now, really, given the track record of government departments on IT issues, and leaving laptops everywhere, etc. etc., I shouldn't be surprised that Teh Revenoo thinks it's perfectly OK to put everyone's bank details on an unencrypted CD-ROM and send it via the normal mail service (not even registered!), but really, those are my bank details! FFS, Darling, can't you be a bit more careful with my sensitive data?

Predictably, the BBC's Have Your Say on this topic is full of crowing from the anti-ID crowd. I'd join in, if I didn't think it was undignified. My only comfort is that (given my long travails with teh revenoo) I am fully aware that any data they have lost is likely to be inaccurate, out of date, and with typos in it. If it's all 15 million child benefit claimants' bank details, too, then the security services'll be making some effort to find the discs because (for example) among those 15 million are the current Prime Minister and his predecessor.

Seriously, though, are we really going to trust this lot (or, indeed, any lot, all governments being huge behemoths which are only as competent as their least competent flunky) with a huge database of personal information including our very DNA? Are people still going to insist that if you've done nothing wrong you've nothing to fear?

OK, so whenever some media dude interviews a Lib Dem (there's another Chris 'n' Nick debate going on on the telleh right now) they always want to know which of the two main parties the Lib Dems would ally with in the case of a hung parliament.

Now, obviously, no sane Lib Dem would say "Tory" or "Labour" because you then automatically alienate a subset of voters (as Millennium Elephant explains in detail here). But can anyone explain to me why they can't just say We'll vote how we want to vote on whatever issue comes up, and they can choose how they are going to ally with us.? Why does it always have to be an organised coalition? Why can't it be an issue-by-issue, sometimes we agree with one, and sometimes we agree with the other, and sometimes we agree with neither thing? I mean, that's what it actually is, isn't it? In policy terms, sometimes the Lib Dems agree with Labour, and sometimes with the Tories, and sometimes with neither. So why can't they do that in a hung parliament?

(also? Nick is doing better in cosy sofa interview setting than he did on Question Time, but I still prefer Chris. He's being more substantive and detailed and less soundbitey and... Oh dear. Chris just admitted that he has no idea where a briefing document that supposedly came from his office came from and he's not seen it before. He's doing a passable save, but...

At least they both appear to be having some passion today. Nick is now doing his very attractive ID Card spiel, and looks better than Chris on that issue...

* sigh *

I'm really glad I aren't a party member, and I don't have to decide between two options I'm not really attracted to. I'm also leaning towards the view of lots of other people. Can't the Lib Dems junk them both and keep Vince? I like Vince.

* polishes Vince's head affectionately *)

ETA: James Graham at Quaequam Blog has a good dissection of the Lib Dem leadership contest so far. Plug plug. I am linking because I liked the line about Mill at the bottom.

So, it’s been a while since I posted, and the more that’s changed, the more has stayed the same. India and Pakistan are squaring up to each other again (which is going to be fun for those of us who live in and around Bradford). Iraq and Afghanistan are in an even more parlous state than they were last time I wrote. Israel and Lebanon are at it again as well; and in more prosaic news, I got kicked off metaquotes for a minor rule infringement (Oh! The drama!). But rather than chanting "we’re all going to die in a nuclear war! We’re all going to die in a nuclear war! And I can’t even metaquote people about it!" I find myself seeking the silver lining. Or possibly burying my head in the sand. I shall leave it to you to decide.

One thing which is increasing my happiness quotient is that the ID card issue which I was so worried about because of its far reaching consequences looks like being quietly shelved until after the next election, by which point we will have a new prime minister whichever party wins and (hopefully) it will get permanently kicked to the kerb.

Then there’s the tantalising possibility that the cash for peerages row is going to keep on bubbling up until it engulfs our dear Prime Minister. There’s talk that he might be arrested, since two government ministers have been "helping the police with their enquiries" already, and I’ll be most amused if he gets hoist by his own petard for the ridiculous increase in power he has given the police. After his recent comments on the judiciary, is there anyone willing to bet they WON’T throw the book at him, should the case get to court? Just the merest possibility of this happening gives me GLEE!! feelings…

In less earth-shattering areas, I have become very active in Doctor Who fandom since season two/twenty-eight started, mainly to complain, like the old git that I am, about how much better the show was in Colin Baker’s day, and how Doctor Number Ten’s scripts are atrocious. I was extremely amused this morning to read (in an ancient copy of Doctor Who Magazine) somebody saying almost exactly the same things about Colin Baker with regard to the Tom Baker era.

But possibly the most exciting news of all, as far as I’m concerned, is that I shall be receiving my new motorcycle next week. We all have our little routes of escape from terrible reality, don’t we? Sometimes I like to listen to the radio in the dark, for example, or to go on a long run with the dog somewhere deserted. But the best method of escape is to climb aboard my bike and go somewhere completely random. The countryside near to where I live is so beautiful, and the moorland roads are quiet enough to appreciate it without getting stuck in frustrating traffic. There’s such a sense of freedom to motorcycling, which I never get in a car, and I’ve been like a child in the week before Christmas all week.

All of which goes to prove something which I have long suspected.

Human beings can’t live in a constant state of fear. We just can’t. The government keeps on trying to ramp up our fear levels so that they can strip away our civil liberties; there’s a constant threat that the whole world will be engulfed in a terrible war, and our leaders keep trying to use petrol as a fire extinguisher; the media is full of increasingly hysterical stories of death and destruction… And for the most part we all ignore it. We get on with our daily lives, perhaps with a sad shake of the head, or a blog comment.

I’m undecided as to whether or not this is a good thing.

On the one hand, it just goes to show human adaptability. No matter how horrible situations might get, no matter how terrible the outside world becomes, we intentionally get tunnel vision and concentrate harder and harder on the little things to protect ourselves from the horror of the big picture. We complain about the storylines on Eastenders because it’s a comforting, normal thing to do when the world is going to hell in a handbasket; and the cynic in me says that it’s the reason why Eastenders was invented. It IS comforting to think that however bad things get there will still be some semblance of normal life going on.

On the other hand, the activist in me wants to scream at the indolence. If all those of us who think that things are WRONG were to rise up and right the wrongs then the world would be a better place, or certainly a more interesting place. But there’s a little weasel voice at the back of my head saying that maybe that’s what the warmongers think they are doing – rising up and overthrowing evil. And of course, I’m far too indolent myself to do anything other than complain in my blog about the indolence of others.

So, if the situation in the middle east does explode in the next few days, or if India and Pakistan DO start hitting the nuclear button at each other, what will my likely response be? Sadly, I’m not deep enough for it to be “oh the humanity!” or a more original equivalent thereof. I can practically guarantee that if something catastrophic happens in the next few days, my response will involve “…and I didn’t even get to ride my Triumph!”

Hurrah for the indomitable human spirit.