BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: dianavan
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 03:22 PM

I find it very difficult to trust an anonymous bureaucracy or a lying politician. I would rather rely on my own sense of right and wrong to determine what is best for me.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: GUEST
Date: 05 Jun 05 - 03:12 AM

These people know what is best for us. If we have nothing to hide - We should just trust them.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 09:47 AM

Here in Brisbane, the Myer Centre, a 5 storey shopping mall in the centre of Brisbane, once tried to ban sandals on males - insisting that males must wear shoes. A friend of mine made a phone call to some of his 'resistoid' friends (a high school based movement) and by the time he got home, he saw on the TV news that dozens of them were waving placards in protest. 'My God! what have I started?' he said, and carefully moved that business card to the back of his wallet, planning on not using it again in a hurry....

On TV was a mention of a shopping centre that is charging $5 to access the toilet room used my mothers to change their babies or breast feed them - we used to charge a penny to access public toilets a century ago (still have cultural poems about that!) but we stopped that...

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Don(Wyziwyg)T
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 06:40 AM

I agree with everything you say except with respect to baseball caps and hoods, Guest.

With respect, that is a sensible move for two reasons.

1. In the UK (I can't speak for the USA), baseball caps and hooded fleeces have become the preferred dress for muggers, and bank robbers, since the combination hides the face very effectively.

2. It has also become a uniform for disaffected youth, and gangs of faceless youngsters hang around on every street corner, at all hours of the day and night.

It is impossible to tell whether you are looking at a bunch of kids hanging out, or a mugging gang. So people, particularly the elderly, are intimidated by the sight. They are afraid to use an ATM if such a group is present, and, if they are mugged, even with CCTV on every highstreet, there is damn all chance of catching the culprit(s).

I am the last person to wantonly infringe on other peoples choices of dress, but IMHO this is a fashion that needs to be stamped out, as it is per se threatening behaviour. In the case of the kids, there is no intention to threaten, but it IS perceived as threatening by others, and I feel that everyone has (or should have) the right to walk in the street without fear.

Don T.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: GUEST
Date: 04 Jun 05 - 02:02 AM

I don't know about the US but in the large UK cities you appear on CCTV about 100 times an hour.
When driving on the motorway your car is on camera at most junctions.
I was watching one of those police stop programs on tv some time back
showing an example of stupid driving and my motorcycle passed through the cameras lens.
I have a passport, driving license,debit card,national insurance number,national health number now we will have to have a national id card with even more personal information on it.
How long before we will all be micro chipped with a barcode tattooed on our forheads.
This will be done to keep us "safe".
Baseball caps and hooded jackets/sweatshirts are being banned from some shopping malls in the UK.

The lunatics have taken over the asylum.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 05:17 PM

Bobert, in all fairness (whether it's deserved or not) to MG, he didn't say you were uneducated.   He said, "Go figure how uneducated you look, bobert."   What he meant might be a different thing.

And of course, the persona you adopt here does look "uneducated". I don't think anyone is fooled by it, though.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 01:57 PM

LOL, gnu.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: gnu
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 01:55 PM

I am still impressed. It's all Greek to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Ebbie
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 01:17 PM

You're safe with me, Giok. I was impressed.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 12:47 PM

I sort of shot myself in the foot there, mainly because it wasn't the spelling of the Latin tag that I was referring to when I asked the rhetorical question later in the post. That is really what one might call 'hoist with me own petard', ho hum. Still I bet some people wouldn't have known it was wrong;~)
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: A Wandering Minstrel
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 08:21 AM

not bad John, but that should be

custodiet

("Satires" by Juvenal) ;)

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Bobert
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 07:40 AM

Opps...

Back to Betty Ford fir a little tweakin'...

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 03 Jun 05 - 04:23 AM

"Quis custodiat ipsos custodes"


Bobert you done gone taken the goddam bait agin!! [Howzat fir spellin' thar Marty?]
Giok

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 11:28 PM

Yeah, GUEST, 98.6 works fine fir Martin.... It's a trifecta... Represents the number of degrees he thinks he has, his I.Q. and his favorite Chigaco radio station, which of course is yet another right winged-nut call in station...

Don't get no better than that?!?!?!?......

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: GUEST,Sleepless Dad
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 11:19 PM

Let me guess that one Bobert -

The correct answer for Martin is 98.6

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 11:16 PM

"Uneducated", Martin?....

.....hardly.

Seven years o' college an' couple degrees ain't 'xactly uneducated...

Like, ahhhhh, how many degrees do you have???

Ahhhh, if that ain't too personal????

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 11:06 PM

Thanks, Dave O. Since there are some people on here who profess never to check out links, I'm posting the whole song.

The Investigator's Song
(Harold Rome)

I've got a problem that is bothering me;
I've got a real unsolvable mystery;
It would stun G.K. Chesterton, Foil Conan Doyle,
Drive Sherlock Holmes to the wall;
Stump Humphrey Bogart and Bacall;

CHORUS:
Who's gonna investigate the man who investigates the man who investigates me?
I don't doubt my loyalty, But how about what his may be?
Who'll check the record of the man who checks the record of the man who checks the record of mine?
Seems to me there's gonna be an awfully long line.
One more problem puzzles me; Pardon my strange whim.
But who's gonna investigate the man who investigates the man who investigates him?

Who's gonna investigate the man who investigates the man who investigates me?
Maybe they won't like the face he's wearing;
Maybe he'll have too much brass.
Maybe he's a guy who's fond of herring;
Maybe he drinks tea from a glass.
Believe me, brother, that won't pass.
CHORUS

Who's gonna investigate the man who investigates the man who investigates me?
Maybe they won't like the books he's reading;
Or the way he wants to pray.
Maybe he won't have the proper breeding;
Maybe he ran T.V.A.
Believe me, brother, That's out-ray.
CHORUS

Who's gonna investigate the man who investigates the man who investigates me?
Maybe he's the kind does his own thinking;
Maybe tries to use his head.
Maybe he goes in for vodka drinking;
Maybe his corpuscles are red.
Believe me brother, Off with head.


Copyright 1947, by Harold Rome

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:41 PM

Ebbie:

The song is pre-McCarthy era, in the old HUAC days. It's in The People's Songbook. Here on Mudcat, look at The Investigator's Song

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Once Famous
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:31 PM

Go figure how uneducated you look, bobert.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Bobert
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:12 PM

1984 slow arrivin' but it's here an' it ain't goin' away...

And the wierdest part is that the folks who want to do all this snoopin' are the same folks who got elected by tellin' folks that the governemnt had too much power???

Go figgure???

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 09:08 PM

Me too. Yeah. Why not? Just one more and then I have to get to bed, because, tomorrow, I have to sort out what he said... or was that me?

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 07:17 PM

Please put that song ina thread above the line.

Cats watch dogs very carefully, and experienced dogs don't bother experienced cats.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:52 PM

Dave... until you HAVE to have their card to shop at their store. Then, when it says "limit 2 per customer", that's all you are going to get because they have a computer which tells them to order 1000 pounds of bananas at $x per pound because Dave only buys bananas when the price is $X and he only buys two bananas per month at that price.

No? Well, just last week, I tried to open an account at a recently opened bank just up the street, for convenience. When I refused to accept a card with all the 'conveniences', like ATM access and all, I was told it was a requirement. Each teller has a card reader and customers have to swipe their card before the teller can serve them. I don't have an account there.

Ah, it's MY money. It's in MY ass pocket. And the computers and big brother and big business can go fuck themselves.

Rage, I say. Rage. Don't give them the upper hand. They will slap you in the end. That's the real identity theft.

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:31 PM

Is there more to that song, Dave O? It's on the right track!

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:16 PM

The thread title reminds me of the old song:

Who's going to investigate
The man who investigates
The man who investigate me?

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 06:15 PM

Gnu, I understand where you're coming from. I don't adopt the same line of behavior, but I understand you.

As to grocery "member cards", I don't find them a problem at all, at least not at the groceries where I shop. The cards are not attached to me; I did not have to give any information to get the two that I occasionally use, from two chains. Just a matter of asking for the discount card, and "here it is". And they provide a worthwhile discount on many items. I save something like $10 each time I go to the grocery.
No invasion of my privacy.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 03:23 PM

I don't have a PIN. I don't have a debit card. I have written confirmation from my Credit Union that no internet access to my bank accounts is possible. I do not have a 'member card' at any of the supermarkets or department stores or pharmacies or any others. I have one credit card and I use it for gas and maintenance for my truck and nothing else. The only reason I have and use it for my truck is so I can show it if I have to write a cheque somewhere I am not known.

Rage against the technology or it will rule.

Subject: BS: Who Will Watch the Watchdogs?
From: Ebbie
Date: 02 Jun 05 - 03:07 PM

Makes you wonder where all the information that is being and will be gathered by the powers is going to go? Will there be a HUGE database? In this computer age, that is feasible. Will there be a HUGE burst of dirt gathering, blackmailing sleazy 'fact' mongers? That field, imo, will be wide open.

Here is one new policy fraught with possibility for profit...

"Soon, patrons of the Naperville Public Library - at least those wanting to use the Internet - will need more than a library card.

"They'll give a fingerprint.

"It sounds like something out of a Philip K. Dick novel, but the new requirement is in many ways unsurprising.

"The library, like other Internet providers nationwide, has realized computer users aren't always who they say they are. And the technology it will use to check up on them is fairly simple - patrons will press a glass-topped scanner."

Your Fingerprint, Please