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Apologies wrong link pasted ...<div><br></div><div>Not <a href="http://blog.scraperwiki.com">http://blog.scraperwiki.com</a>/</div><div><br></div><div>should be... <a href="http://blog.thestraightchoice.org">http://blog.thestraightchoice.org</a>/</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div>Aidan</div><div><br><div><br><div>Begin forwarded message:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>From: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">aidan mcguire <<a href="mailto:aidan@scraperwiki.com">aidan@scraperwiki.com</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Date: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">11 January 2010 10:22:24 GMT</font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Liverpool Linux User Group <<a href="mailto:liverpool@mailman.lug.org.uk">liverpool@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Cc: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Francis Irving <<a href="mailto:francis@flourish.org">francis@flourish.org</a>>, Julian Todd <<a href="mailto:julian@goatchurch.org.uk">julian@goatchurch.org.uk</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Subject: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica"><b>Re: [Liverpool] Open Rights Group : Digital Economy Bill - Manchester, 23rd Jan</b></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font face="Helvetica" size="3" color="#000000" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica; color: #000000"><b>Reply-To: </b></font><font face="Helvetica" size="3" style="font: 12.0px Helvetica">Liverpool Linux User Group <<a href="mailto:liverpool@mailman.lug.org.uk">liverpool@mailman.lug.org.uk</a>></font></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; min-height: 14px; "><br></div> <br><div><div>On 11 Jan 2010, at 08:48, Simon Johnson wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div class="gmail_quote">2010/1/10 Bob Ham <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:rah@bash.sh">rah@bash.sh</a>></span><br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="border-left: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); margin: 0pt 0pt 0pt 0.8ex; padding-left: 1ex;"><div class="im"> On Sun, 2010-01-10 at 01:53 +0000, Simon Ward wrote:<br> > On Sun, Jan 10, 2010 at 01:24:05AM +0000, Bob Ham wrote:<br> > > > It is about talking to people, and I would expect the training to<br> > > > include things such as being polite<br> > ><br> > > This seems odd to me. If you have to explicitly tell people who are<br> > > effectively volunteering to represent your cause, that they need to be<br> > > polite when talking to people, it kind of makes me wonder whether the<br> > > campaign is doomed from the start.<br> ><br> > Some people can be rather “enthusiastic” when advocating something thay<br> > are passionate about.<br></div></blockquote></div><br>Like I said earlier, it makes no difference how many people talk to their MP.<br><br></blockquote><div><div><div>All mps are up for election at the moment so they are more than unusually receptive to campaigns asking them to support things.</div><div>Also afaik Tom Watson is on the advisory board of ORG. <a href="http://www.openrightsgroup.org/people/advisory">http://www.openrightsgroup.org/people/advisory</a></div><div>And he was quite close to the PM. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Watson_MP">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Watson_MP</a></div></div><div><br></div><div>So I will write to my local MP as per the request.</div><div><br></div><div>Also re the point ..."it makes no difference" -if this view is strongly held then suggest people get active in the coming election and do something about improving matters.</div><div><br></div><div><div>For example the democracy club is still looking for volunteers for Bootle, Knowlsley and I think Wigan (most of the other constituencies in the North West have already got a volunteer so if people have not signed up - it would useful if they would or if you know someone who lives in those areas who might be able to devote a small amount of time to trying to improve our democracy then can you pass the link along. <a href="http://www.democracyclub.org.uk/welcome">http://www.democracyclub.org.uk/welcome</a></div><div><br></div><div>And if you get election leaflets make sure you upload them to <a href="http://www.thestraightchoice.org">http://www.thestraightchoice.org</a>/ (liverpool story is the blog story this week) <a href="http://blog.scraperwiki.com">http://blog.scraperwiki.com</a>/</div><div><br></div><div>If Democracy Club arranged a hustings in the NW - would people be willing to come and submit questions????</div><div><br></div></div><div>Aidan</div><div><br></div></div><br><blockquote type="cite">This bill was changed after a meal Lord Mandleson had with a music executive. This is straightforward corruption. Mandleson has been given a back-hander to introduce this.<br> <br>You can't get this changed by trying to persuade your MP. Even if you succeed the clout your MP has is practically nil. Most MPs are backbenchers with little or no influence.<br><br>Lord Mandleson's grip on power exceeds that of the Prime Minister. He is the most powerful man in the country and he has personally intervened to have this put in the bill. <br> <br>You can take as many lessons as you want on getting your point across, it won't matter - because they're not listening. They've been paid not to listen.<br><br>Computers like to follow rules and geeks like to set those rules to create nice, functional programs. We often make the mistake of thinking the real world works in the same way: if we follow the system and there's enough of us then we'll get the right result.<br> <br>It doesn't work like that. Our opponents don't care about the rules. Do you think they wrote polite letters to their MP? Do you think they took lessons in how to get their point across and went to their local MPs surgery? Of course not! They bribed the right man and got what they want done.<br> <br>The right way to get this fixed is to get the telecommunications companys to exert their "influence." They have deeper pockets than the content industry and will be able to out-gun them in the corruption department.<br> <br>I know such views are not popular on these mailing lists but if we're going to direct our effort anywhere, it should be towards that goal. MPs are a useless distraction.<br><br>Cheers,<br><br>Simon.<br><br><br><br><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">_______________________________________________</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Liverpool mailing list</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="mailto:Liverpool@mailman.lug.org.uk">Liverpool@mailman.lug.org.uk</a></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><a href="https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/liverpool">https://mailman.lug.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/liverpool</a></div> </blockquote></div><br><div> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; "><div><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Aidan McGuire</div><div>Blue Fountain Systems Ltd</div><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">1 Alie Street</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">London E1 8DE</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Tel 020 7680 8950</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">Mob 0777 5858 565</div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 12px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 14px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; font: normal normal normal 9px/normal Helvetica; min-height: 11px; "><br></div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; ">This message and any attachments are confidential. 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