[Sussex] Microsoft fails to comply

[Geoffrey J Teale]

Just to add some LINUX content.  Only one political party (to my
knowledge) currently has Open Source software in it's manifesto.  Can
anyone guess which party it is?  

Richie Jarvis <richie at helkit.com> writes:
>>
> Well, you are right - but the alternative of a government owned system
> is worse - because then nobody gives shit about what they do, because
> the government pays peanuts, and gets monkeys.  At least a private
> business can pay its employees a decent wage to motivate them.  A
> system of proper regulation helps, but the regulation at the moment
> has no teeth (I think we agree on that?)

Well.  Hmmm, yes and no.  There are countries where government owned
healthcare, etc, works very well - the caveat is that those countries
have high tax rates and pay these people well.   

The problems we have stem all the way back to the 1970's.  We
suffered from the trade union actions in the 70's and that swung
political opinion too far the over way.  Thatcherism was (and is)
economic extremism borrowed from the US model.  Without putting too finer
point on it the period 1979 - 1996 crippled our system and gave us the
lie that you can run a country without anyone paying for anything.
Our public services did get screwed up in the last 8 years, sure they
have significantly improved either, but we are still living in a Tory
style economy.  It's a better managed economy (more stable at least),
but the government still sell us the line that every thing will be OK
if we just drop our trousers, bend over and let "BUSINESS" do whatever
it pleases.

> The NHS is crumbling under its own weight.  Not that the alternative
> is any better.  Private health care is something that cannot be
> sustained - 
> Insurance is a con, and the poor cannot afford it.

Absolutely.  I do agree that there are whole areas of the NHS that can
be made radically more efficient.  I just don't think that the line
that either the Tories or the Labour party are taking is addressing
that at all.  They are simply saying "lets make cuts" because they
think it's a vote winner.  

What the NHS needs is a single well funded management team dealing
with resourcing and supplies allowing local management (i.e. Doctors)
to make decisions without having to worry about those things.
Certainly no doctor should have to worry about buying services from
another trust.  

What the NHS, and indeed patients, don't need is "choice" touted about
by both the red and blue parts of parliament.  How will we make this
choice?  If I get cancer I want to be sent somewhere where they can
help.  In an ideal world that place would be close to my home.  Am I
an expert of cancer care?  Do I want to have to choose at a time like
that?  Surely that money would be better spent on more beds and more
nurses.  Most importantly increasing nursing wages and making training a
more attractive prospect.  "Choice" is a cheap vote winner.  It make
me sick.


>>
> Bollocks to the newspapers - they are a disease that should be stamped
> out - 

Wohooo!

>part of the reason that things are getting as bad as they are is
> the newspapers sensationalising the things that are going wrong, and
> don't report whats going right.

Right on the ball.  My hatred for the Daily Mail knows no bounds :-)

> True - and that is most of the problem with our politicans today - in
> fact, that is the underlying problem behind democracy in general - if
> you have a fixed term of office, then the people who try and achieve
> power are only interested in short term goals.  The things we should
> all be concerned about (planet death, etc) are long term things that
> politicians couldn't give a shit about.  Mind you, its always human
> nature to put it off until another day.

Yup.  Human nature pretty much defeats humanity at every turn, and yet
we still seem to succeed (at least at the species level).  Just
waiting for the day the cockroaches finally take over (or maybe they
already have.... ewwww).

> Yes - thats one way to do it.  Taxing the disgustingly rich at more
> than 40% is not going to make that much difference - taxing the
> ordinary man at 40% hurts.  Hell, I don't even care if I have to pay
> more income tax, as long as they abolish all the other taxes such as
> VAT, tax on petrol, cigarettes, booze, houses, living, etc -
> collecting it all by one method seems alot more efficient and sensible
> to me.

Can't say I disagree.  Problem is taxing anyone is unpopular - not
least because it hurts millionaires who happen to be the sort of
people who own newspaper and television stations....  think I've made
that point already.  Of the three "major" parties only the Lib Dems
want to add another tax bracket (50% for real high earners).  

> The problem with the current incarnation of the labour party is not
> it's apparent desire to become tory, but the disturbing invasion of
> personal liberty.  Did you know you are now not allowed to make any
> changes to your own electrical wiring in your own home without
> recourse to our beloved government?  

I'm intrigued.

In what context?  Or rather, what sort of wiring changes?  Obviously I
can change a plug.  I mean building regulations are not new, and they
exist for a reason.  If you're making major wiring changes it would be
nice to have that safety checked (not least from the point of view of
the next occupants of the property).

> And yes, I know they are not that
> far apart any more, I just hope (and pray) that the tories won't be
> quite so authoritarian as blair, blunkett and that rabble - they are
> the real danger, purely because of the road they have started us down
> - the road where we won't be able to do what we want.

Ah yes.  Unfortunately the tory core vote actually demands the sort of
action that Blunket and Clarke have been taking.  This is part of what
I mean about them being the same.  Part of the reason the tories are
so ineffective as an opposition party is that they find it very
difficult to argue against policies that are basically the same as
their own.

> Hey, I shall be totally honest - I always lean towards the
> conservative moral, and have sympathies with the liberals - labour
> gives me the squealing whinnys!  However, all I can see at the moment
> is that our political system is on the verge of merging into a large
> gooey mess, where no one can distinguish between the parties, and it
> scares me to think what life will be like if it continues like that.

We're becoming like the USA.  The CO-INTEL-PRO/McCarthy trials in the
1950's made left wing attitudes socially unacceptable.  We've become a
country where tolerance and taxation have become dirty words.  

I think a lot about the number of times I here people talking about
"being PC" and how its "ridiculous".  Do people really believe that
the concept of not being deliberately offensive to people is a bad
thing?  I'm forever hearing people talk about how they are forced to
be PC, but I never see it in real life.  All I see is racist people
who get pissed off when they get into trouble for it.

Immigration is another issue that I don't see.  I remember seeing how
much trouble was caused when 6 Iraqis were moved into a town of 42,000
people in North Wales.  Thats not an immigration crisis - that's
racism.

How many of us work with Australians, South Africans, New Zealanders,
Canadians or Americans?  How often do people complain about that?
This country is stuck in the dark ages.

> What to do? I dunno, communism is a failure (mainly because it tries
> to overrule human nature), and democracy seems to be going the same
> way.  

Careful.  Democracy and Communism are not two different things -
true communism is a far more democractic model than the society we
live in.     

>Monarchy worked for a while, but can't anymore because the serfs
> have arisen.  

De Tocqueville made the point that a benevolent monarchy is a better
society than any democracy.  The trouble is not all monarch are
benevolent.  I for one cannot see any dictacratic model being better.

> What other alternative is there?  We have a zombie in
> the white house, and a puppet in No 10 who is more interested in
> kissing arse than running the country.  At least if the tories get in,
> then it might change - whether for the better or not, who can say?

Can't see it.  I'll be voting "yellow" - because even if they won't
get in they'll be a more effective opposition than the tories. :-)

-- 
Geoff Teale
Cmed Technology    || Free Software Foundation
gteale at cmedltd.com || tealeg at member.fsf.org