Britons named world's biggest emitters
 

This issue has heated up over the last few months and is going to become a bigger issue in the future. The EU has been hashing this over, all summer, trying to figure out how to balance it with their, carbon footprint/emission reduction, goals. The EU, particularly the French and Germans, have been adamantly opposed to including aircraft in the emissions trading scheme. Maybe they are jealous of Briton's lead in airlines?

Given the thread title, I thought this was going to be about national flatulence rates. All that beer and egg-and-chips...

Seriously, your title is misleading. Britons are the biggest per capita source of emissions from air travel.
The biggest per capita source of emissions in total remains the USA.:us:
Still, it's an interesting point. With the huge distances in travelling within the USA, I'd have thought they would fly much more. I guess the sucky weather in Britain makes them all want to escape to Spain whenever possible, and who can blame them?
I'm all for high speed trains, MUCH lower emissions. Planes are still faster while in motion, but all the sodding about you have to do to get on a plane adds a lot to the total travel time, so for short and mid-length journeys, trains can be quicker door-to-door.

That was the whole point, ZenG: to pull you in...

So why not "snot-dribbling naked chick hung upside-down over a vat of liquefied head's with a feather duster up her arse while being tased by George Bush"?

Oh yeah, we've already had that thread.

We've already had every thread before. We're like a bunch of broken records around here.

I hope that their data is better than indicated by their ability to convert between units.

China and India will beat us out as the biggest emitters within the next three years.

(edited)

What, you don't believe 603kg equals 95lb, in Britain? Is The Guardian conversion-ally challenged?

Of course, converting from kg to lb isn't strictly a unit-conversion issue, as kg is a unit of mass and lb is a unit of weight (force) and one needs to account for the local gravity constant, as well as other factors.

http://photos.mongabay.com/07/co2_sh...0-2030-max.jpg

http://photos.mongabay.com/07/world_...0-2030-max.jpg

http://www.mongabay.com/images/2006/..._1990-2025.jpg

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/09-carbon_emissions.htm

Biggest in total, true (and China may well be there already). But per capita, you guys still kick arse.
I wonder how it works out per unit of GDP? Whose economy is the most efficient at creating wealth with the lowest emissions. I'd tip Japan. Industry here is mostly high-tech, and public transport is fantastic.
Anyone got any -gasp- facts?

EDIT *follows links in Mercenary's post* Good graphs, Merc. I'll look for per capita and per GDP breakdowns.

There might be some here: http://rainforests.mongabay.com/09-carbon_emissions.htm

I have not looked.

Thanks Merc, couldn't find the breakdowns I wanted there but some interesting (and generally depressing) stuff. Especially that renewables have lost market share in the US since 2002 :( This bodes ill.

http://www.mongabay.com/images/2006/..._1996-2004.jpg
http://www.mongabay.com/images/2006/...y_con_2005.jpg

But back to the main issue here ... who does fart the most?

Chinese, with all that cabbage?
British, with their beer and egg-and-chips?
Americans, because everything is usually their fault? (joking, UG!)
Russians ... Borscht ....
Anyone?

An expanding economy will do that.

Only if the non-renewable sector is expanding faster than the renewable sector. Like I said, it bodes ill.

I think Australians fart the most and loudest in public because we're all uncouth and crass and descended from convicts.

And we give them scores out of ten, for technical difficulty and artistic merit.

I'm not so worried about being descended from convicts. What worries me is that quite a few of us must be descended from prison guards. Ughghghgh.

Better that than puritans.

Well I'm probably the offspring of a traitorous wench who slept with an occupying force - be it Viking, Roman or Norman...

Maybe that is why the Aussies seem to get along better with the Yanks than most of the previous colonials? :p

Probably all three, over the generations.
Not all of those wenches were willing traitors.
And most Antipodeans share a similar heritage, with plenty of Irish and maybe a bit of German thrown in.

Of course! I'm descended from a whole line of women who valued their life over their chastity. Makes sense ;)

:lol:

Due yocks, ZenG.

I'm a descendant of a puritan. *shivers violently*

Most Watched as well?



Copy paste:
~Civil-rights groups speak out over Britons' long-accepted 'Orwellian' way of life
By Kim Murphy | Los Angeles Times

10/19/2007

GLOUCESTER, England — It used to be that troublemakers could lounge on the planters outside the McDonald's here and pick apart the geraniums to their hearts' content.

A Polish immigrant hamburger salesman might complain — as if! — or someone's grandma would tell the offending group of hoodlums to knock it off, if she dared.

But these days, Big Brother does the job.

The closed-circuit television camera lurking just down the street from the fast-food restaurant bellows menacingly at the first sign of danger to the flora or a cast-off cigarette butt or fast-food wrapper, for that matter. "Pick it up," commands a booming voice from ... where, exactly?

The CCTV cameras in Gloucester and several other British towns now come equipped with speakers, meaning Big Brother is not only watching, but he's telling you what to do.

"When people hear that, they tend to react. They pick up the litter and put it in the bin," said Mick Matthews, assistant chief police constable in this old cathedral city of 110,000 in the rolling Cotswold Hills.

For all the increased anti-terrorism security measures in the U.S., there is probably no society on Earth more watched than Britain. By some estimates, 4.2 million CCTV cameras, or one for every 15 people, quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, monitor the comings and goings of almost everyone — an average person is caught on camera up to 300 times a day.

Thanks in part to Britain's history of terrorist attacks by the Irish Republican Army, some early, high-profile law enforcement successes helped imprint the potential benefits of closed-circuit television on the popular imagination. With more than $200 million in funding since 1999, CCTV was a fixture in British cities long before attacks by Islamist militants began prompting other governments to step up surveillance of their populations.

Cameras are fixed on lampposts and on street corners, above sidewalks, in subways, on buses, in taxis, in the stores, over the parking lots, in mobile police vans and in some cities, even perched in the hats of police officers walking their beats. Surprisingly clear images of Britons engaged in apparently nefarious activities have become a staple on the evening news; few of the country's many terrorism trials unfold without the jury being presented with multiple images of the defendants carrying alleged backpack bombs or driving up to a storehouse of explosives.

Pub patrons in one town last year had their fingerprints scanned as they walked in (bringing up their criminal records on a computer screen); some cities are talking of putting electronic chips in household trash cans to measure output; a toll-free "smoke-free compliance line" takes snitch reports on violators of the new national ban on smoking in public places.

The DNA profile of every person ever arrested — even those briefly detained for, say, loitering and released without charge — is on file in what is believed to be, per capita, the largest such database in the world, with 3.9 million samples. It includes the genetic markings of an estimated 40 percent of Britain's black male population.

For the majority of Britons, polls show, there is nothing wrong with much of this monitoring.

"I didn't know the camera was even up there until it started talking," said Clive Anthony, who blinked and twirled for a moment one recent afternoon while shopping in downtown Gloucester when the CCTV camera started barking at something. "I haven't got a problem with it, basically. To my mind, if you're doing what you're supposed to be doing and going about your business, just because somebody's watching that, it's not taking anything away from me."

Public acceptance of closed-circuit television skyrocketed after the murder of toddler James Bulger near Liverpool in 1993. In CCTV footage that shocked the country, the killers, a pair of 10-year-old boys, were shown leading the trusting boy away from a shopping center.

"The last known sighting of this boy was on CCTV. And there was this kind of iconic image that was used to say, 'If we had more CCTV, we would be more likely to spot horrible crimes like this,' " said Kirstie Ball, an expert on surveillance systems at Open University Business School in Milton Keynes. "It got to a point where if you were opposing CCTV, you were in favor of child murder."

But a growing number of people, including some police officers and the country's information commissioner, are beginning to wonder if Britain isn't watching itself too closely.

"Local communities are pushing very powerfully for closed-circuit television. What they say is, I may live in this little village that has no history of violent crime, but I'll feel safer if I've got CCTV," said Ian Readhead, deputy chief constable of the Hampshire police, who recently warned that Britain risks "an Orwellian situation with cameras on every street corner."

"Suppose Mr. Brand is seen walking down the local street with Mrs. Wight. 'What's that about?' someone will ask. And in a village environment, it begins to cause a rumor; it begins to cause intrigue," he said in an interview. "You really only want to deploy this kind of equipment when you have clear knowledge of an identifiable situation, and when you've achieved your objectives, you want to take it down."

In a round-the-world survey conducted by Privacy International, a London-based civil-rights group set up to monitor government infringement on privacy, Britain was roughly keeping company with Russia and China near the bottom, colored in black on a world map, with the U.S. not far behind, in red. Britain has no written constitution, no bill of rights and no privacy act. Its privacy protections are enforced mainly through the European Convention on Human Rights and a limited data protection law passed in 1998.

"In the area of visual surveillance, we are so far ahead of the field that it's beyond measurement," said Simon Davies, the group's director.

Britain's information commissioner, Richard Thomas, has warned that the country is "waking up in a surveillance society" and has called for greater public discussion of what it really means to make one's life a virtual open book.

"The U.K. has more CCTV cameras per head of population than any other country in the world, but it's not only that," Thomas said. "Every time we use mobile telephones, every time we use credit cards, every time we use the Internet for shopping or a search, every time we interact with the government for social security or taxes or passport checks, every time we go to our doctors or hospitals now, we are leaving an electronic footprint. And this of course is not just a U.K. issue; it is an international issue."

Government authorities say their new surveillance tools not only guard against terrorists but also against welfare cheating, illegal immigration and the juvenile delinquents who plague many of Britain's cities.

"The public don't have a problem with being protected from thugs or having CCTV cameras that catch murderers or DNA that solves horrendous crimes that left victims and families without justice for 20 years," former Prime Minister Tony Blair said, responding to growing concerns before leaving office. "But there must always be safeguards."

Although studies have shown the CCTV cameras have had a negligible effect on crime in most areas where they're placed — other than parking lots, where they help prevent thefts — police say they are an invaluable tool in catching suspects after the fact, helping track missing children or the elderly and directing police to potential problem situations before they escalate.

In Gloucester, the CCTV cameras not only talk, they can be linked to software that scans vehicle registration plates to track suspects even before they have committed crimes.

"If there's a criminal we're interested in, not necessarily in a position to arrest him, but if you're trying to track this criminal, learn his lifestyle, his movements, his vehicle number will be put into the system, and any time he comes into the city, his movements will be tracked," said Roger Clayton, chief inspector of Gloucester.

Sometimes, these days, the wrongdoer is merely someone who gets caught riding a bicycle in the downtown pedestrians-only zone.

"Please dismount from the bicycle," the offender is told, by someone, somewhere. They're never sure who.~


I thought this was pretty creepy. No.....more like....scares the shit out of me.

Yeah. We are the most watched nation in Europe.

If a grandma dared to tackle a group of youngsters in this way she could quite possibly be beaten to death by said group. It's happened a few times now, that an adult has tried to tell a gang of kids to stop being destructive/noisy and they've turned on him like a pack of wild things. Police advice now is,do not attempt to intervene with a group of teenagers. Is it any wonder many people feel safer with cameras around?

This is a very important point, and one I tried making to rk on the issue of cctv and the 'Big Brother' effect. The concept of the Big Brother state, in Orwell's novel, is top-down. Much of the surveillance in my country is there because the people have asked for it, in many cases actively campaigning to persuade councils and police forces to install more. This is far from top-down. This is what happens when a democratic government and its agencies respond to the urgings of the populace.

From here;
And that's the bottom line, is it not?

I might point out that despite our acceptance of such monitoring there is huge unease and opposition to the proposals for both ID cards and a National DNA database.

So the general attitude is something along the line of, the police are only taking DNA samples from criminals and n'er do wells, but they shouldn't sample everyone?

We are well trained in double-think here. Like all the mobile phone users want universal coverage, but no-one wants a phone mast within 10 miles of their home, workplace, child's school, playground etc etc.

So we want anyone vaguely suspect on a database, so they can be locked up indefinitely, but the idea that Mrs Smith down the road should have her cheek swabbed is ludicrous.

NIMBY!

*grins*

Oh please, I have to deal with a lot of NIMBYism in my work. Frustrates the living hell out of me. It always amazes me how quickly people can whip up a protest group steering committee if it involves the slightest change to the look of their street, but damn, can ya get these people out of their houses when something big is going off?

Many industries have the same problem with nimbyism, some rightly so. It's a big problem in a lot of ways though. someone's always going to be unhappy. The trick is to start paying people to accept having things in their back yard. Then you get swamped by people being pissed of because they weren't offered. ;)

Doesn't really matter what you do, you can't win.

At least you have a fair amount of space over there. We're such a crowded little island that everything is in someone's back yard.

lol...believe me Sundae, it can be 500 km's away and someone will still claim it's in their personal space. ;)

Skeletons popping out of the closets, going "booga booga!"
 

Hell, on my father's side, I am myself -- of one William _____, a glover by trade, from a village south of Norwich in East Anglia, who hit Massachusetts in 1638. Some of his grandkids had these really Massachusetts Puritan Old Testament names, too. When the Puritans let up, they became Congregationalists, I'm told.

I think my mother's people, Scots by way of Northern Ireland, were a couple centuries later.

I manage. I just plays me bagpipes...

I can claim one genuine convict: Richard Welch. Transported for life in (I think) 1802, and none of this wimpy stealing-a-loaf-of-bread nonsense. The charges:
:jail: Firing a pistol at Mr J. Dennis with intent to kill him.
:jail: Firing a pistol at Mr J. Dennis with intent to disable him.
:jail: Firing a pistol at Mr J. Dennis with intent to do him actual bodily harm.
:jail: Merely firing a pistol at Mr J. Dennis.
:jail: Being in unlawful possession of a firearm.
:jail: Burglary in the house of Mr J. Dennis.
(My favourite: )
:jail: Being in the High street, with his face blackened, and being otherwise disguised against the statute. :ninja:

The phrase "threw the book at him" comes to mind. Also, given that this was in Ireland, the phrase "You land-owning English bastard" might also fit in somewhere, but we don't know the complete details.
He was found guilty of the first four charges, judgment being reserved on the remaining three.
He was originally sentenced to be hanged, but this was commuted to transportation for life, and eventually he was paroled on condition he remain Down Under.
Five generations later his offspring was a lord mayor of a council in Sydney.

My great-great...not sure how many greats-grandfather on dad's side was a country parson, who went out to India with the British East India Company. Did very well for himself and his offspring became Indigo plantation owners. In fact Dad's family were the last of the great Indigo families in India. Grandfather, as the second son, would not have inherited the family estate anyway, so he went into governance. He was Chief Auditor of Indian railways, with (I kid ye not) his own train, or rather a train for his own use.

He used to tell fabulous stories, like when some bandits (or rebels, I could never be sure) tried to derail his train. I don't remember at what point he ended up stood on a rock firing his army revolver, but it was a good story:P Oh and the time his servant was bitten by a poisonous snake, whilst they were out hunting crocodile.


Brits may have come across the Fast Show, with Paul Whitehouse. The old man telling stories, really reminds me of Grandfather, right down to the green leather chair he's sitting on.

~snip~"If there's a criminal we're interested in, not necessarily in a position to arrest him, but if you're trying to track this criminal, learn his lifestyle, his movements, his vehicle number will be put into the system, and any time he comes into the city, his movements will be tracked," said Roger Clayton, chief inspector of Gloucester.~snip~

Here in the United States the people are saying that you at least need probable cause. I guess that is the difference between Americans and Britons. Not that I'm sitting here calculating differences, but I believe in peoples right to privacy.

If I were there I think I would get confused between the actual trash and the actual receptacle and might throw the wrong thing in the wrong place...but I am a rude American. :)

It's suprising what we can get used to. Being investigated without cause has never made me feel safer.

Yea....I do think catching people for loitering and then releaseing them is a great idea and a great way to spend the public's money and your time.....I'm not sure why we should put up with people doing nothing in the wrong place here in America. We should adopt this all across the United States...just like Colorado where people were caught loitering in public parks.

This sounds to me like probable cause. Just not enough evidence to actually issue an arrest warrant. You can be breathalised, or have your bag searched, if the police feel they have reasonable cause for suspicion. That doesn't mean they have enough evidence to convict. If the police were only ever able to search/question/breathalise or investigate people when they already have enough evidence for an arrest then they would be unlikely to ever gain that evidence.

He's not said that anybody they don't like the look of will be tracked; he's suggesting that if they have reasonable grounds for suspicion they will continue to monitor and investigate that individual. I would have thought that constituted much of police work.

Yes...you are right Dana. That statement is too ambiguous to tell. Now isn't it?

It's alright if you are all under a self-imposed investigation in Britain and you don't mind. Hey, if that's what you guys really want-do it. The people have spoken.

Oooh...I've got that Kafka feeling...I hate that feeling.:(

I will not accept this in the country I live in if I get the choice. People have a right to privacy. I am an adult that doesn't need to be told how to throw my trash away or how to wipe my own ass.

Tell me when they finally report the OmegaVision goggles and how it's ok to peer into your home and watch you scratch your ass on the way to your fridge for milk. :) (the scenarios could get worse from there) When will you say enough is enough? When is when? How far is too far?

I don't think you need to be filmed all the time Dana. As fun as that sounds.....:) Is it ok to be taken in for suspicion of loitering if it keeps the real loiterers off the streets?

Gee...take out the smilies from Ciceros' posts and there you have rkz.

I don't know how Dana and other Brits feel about what you've put in your last couple of posts Cicero, but from the outside looking in (and also being from a country with very similar laws) I'd say you've got no idea. That's the problem with some people from the US. You're so wrapped up in your own ideals about things that you can't see that there are other ways of doing things which might be just as good... or heaven forbid. Even better!

I know Ali....

Some people have this version of heaven that happens to be my version of hell and vice versa. American or not.

But I would still like the answer from Dana....on when will enough be enough because I give a flip about her opinion.

I don't think people get taken in here for loitering. Unless it's loitering with intent

I dunno. When will it enough be enough in America? In another thread we see that your president and whitehouse can act outside of the law, on such things as phone tapping without a warrant. Yet Americans consistently point to our law enforcement and cameras and tell me that this is an invasion of our privacy.

If the people are requesting, nay demanding, more cctv, who are the police and politicians to deny them that? If the police have enough evidence to suspect a criminal, but not enough to issue an arrest warrant, should they just throw up their hands and say "oh well, let him go, don't bother watching him or attempting to gather evidence about his activities"?

Honestly Cicero, I think you guys have a strange view of freedom. There's a real double standard in what you allow in your own country and what you perceive as amiss in mine.

This may be the line Cicero is looking for:
CCTV cameras only film public places. (Checks "L" is correctly used in that phrase ;) )

On the street, if there were a police officer, they could stand and keep an eye on you. I have no problem with that. Inside your home, the police need a good reason (or your permission) to enter.
I am fine with CCTV in public places. I am opposed to it if it is used inside peoples' homes, especially against their will.
This gives Dana her protection from street hoodlums, and Cicero her privacy - inside her own home. You can't expect privacy on the public street, can you?

Cicero, your arse-scratching is indeed your own business, but throwing out your garbage is, I believe, public business. Once it leaves your home, you expect the city to deal with it. What if Mr Burns decided to start putting nuclear waste in the domestic garbage?
Mind you, that can go pretty extreme. In Japan, you must (a) sort your garbage into appropriate categories and (b) put it out in transparent plastic bags, so that people can see if their neighbours are doing the right thing. Not shocked yet? When this was first introduced, you had (by law) to write your name and address on all the garbage you threw out! Even in Japan this was going too far, and they fell back to the clear bags bit, figuring that shame and neighbourly disapproval would do the trick. Mostly it does.

I'm not imposing these double-standards. I don't like it going on in my country, and it happened without my vote, so I have to sit around and work with people here of like mind that want the Patriot Act destroyed. I also don't like a lot of the policies in my own country, and it's hard for me to watch other countries adopt, and adapt policies we created that we won't even follow through with. Or are trying and haven't managed yet...This is a global situation and calling me an American with double-standards doesn't illuminate any fact about that. I watch this happen to myself without my consent, and it's just strange to watch people that adopt these policies on purpose. The "watch you scratch your butt" comment- well it stems from what is actually happening in America. I've been saying enough is enough before W got to the White House. I knew of the electronic surveilance before the patriot act and I stood in the streets and said enough was enough then too. Unfortunately...no one gives a shit.

My president? Well it's uncomfortable (that you put me and that guy in the same sentence), but it's true, he's "my president"...our president here has done tons of things I don't agree with and I traveled to his ranch to tell him so. I didn't vote for him, but then again, neither did a lot of people. I actively helped to campaign against him. That also didn't work. Don't tell me I have double-standards. I don't agree with these new surveillance societies straight across the board. Especially where I live.

Again, when is enough going to be enough? Do you have a direct answer for this question? How much of your privacy will you give up before you will say "this is enough for me to feel safe"? Is it what is in place now in your country, or do you think you guys need to take it further? This is an honest question I have here....I'm not trying to trash England and the vote of it's citizens! Seriously! I am trying to understand it. Genuinely.

:rant:

Okay, if it's an honest question I will give an honest answer, but this is only my opinion. We Brits live cheek by jowl, we're a small and rather crowded island. There is a certain mentality that is bred into small island dwellers - they put a higher premium on consideration for others than they do for what Americans call "freedom". We have a different view of freedom here, and a lot of it is to do with feeling protected and knowing that if you have to obey the laws then someone or something is going to ensure that your neighbours observe it too.

I haven't spoken to a single Briton who has a problem with being filmed by CCTV. And I don't know many who believe this is the thin end of the wedge and eventually we will have cameras in our homes or any other of the outlandish predictions. While we have cameras on the streets it makes sense to use them. Note the policeman in Gloucester was referring to a criminal, not a member of the public. This is someone with a criminal record, known to the local police, perhaps on parole and suspected of breaking his parole conditions etc etc. Not Ms Cicero headed down the street to get a McDonalds with her two kids. Am I bothered that the police have some people under surveillance? Nope. They could watch me for years and not have anything on me - and if they did it would be tough luck on me for breaking the law.

I know how frustrated the police get, when they know someone is responsible for a one person crime wave but they don't have enough to convict. They are using tools already in place to try to redress this - surely better than fitting up a usual suspect for a random crime, knowing that he was at least responsible for others they didn't get him for.

And speakers identifying people breaking the law? I'm all for it! I would have personally hidden in a rubbish bin on the pedestrian-only New Walk and shouted at the cyclists with a megaphone if I could - it was a steep hill and the freewheeling bikes caused so many near-misses (and accidents apparently, I just never witnessed one). And littering... well let's put it this way, if I was a 6 foot 2 imposing bloke I would never suffer to see anyone drop litter in front of me. It's disgusting and anti-social and I'm all for people being reminded of that.

We are a stubborn race. If there's something we're not happy with we complain in big enough numbers for it to be changed. It generally works. The reason the bin monitoring didn't go ahead was public disapproval. When is enough? I don't know yet, but if we get there you'll hear about it.

Probably didn't help any, but that's my two penn'orth.

But then, we literate people, both sides of the pond, just can't help but remember a word, from a different guy named George...

...telescreen.

For me, the big issues in 1984 were the restriction of everyday goods and the manipulation of information in order to manipulate the populace. Not the telescreens - which I do not believe will ever happen.

And it's not literate people in this country who reference Big Brother, it's the same people who say, "political correctness gone mad!" at every story the newspapers put that spin on. Most people who make Big Brother comments don't even realise it's not the title of the book, let alone have read it (this is not referring to you, UG, it is my personal experience in this country)

Obviously you can be perfectly literate and not get the moral to a story.

We can go ahead and nail down specific details and lose sight of the "big picture".

If everyone drowns themselves in obscurities and in details about said, obscurities, (literature or not) we will all be comfortable and not half as confused as I am right now.

I am going to go stick my head in the dirt, bury it, and leave my ass in the air. Wait....no I'm not.

Please? Would you scratch it too? I've got my CCTV camera all lined up... ;)

I sure will Zen, because that is my new angle on how to break all the cameras and not get charged with anything.....lol!
:)

:lol:

Did you ever wonder if the popularity of large-brimmed hats and caps, and big dark glasses, corresponded to the density of CCTV cameras? Or am I attributing way too much rationality to urban bad boys? These people get tattoos and wonder why they are identifiable.

Oh yea....what are they going to charge me with?!? Destruction of public property by way of ugly butt?!?

Sure, I'll be identifiable...But cite the law that says it's illegal for my clothed butt to be so ugly that it breaks cameras!!

Hah! CCTV cameras would be lucky to distinguish between my butt and my face in the first place...... Hell, most people on the Cellar can't even do that!!!

lol!!

Nyuk nyuk nyuk!

That happens all the time. "1984!" was a punchline in a Peanuts strip from the earlyish Sixties. Charlie Brown was figuring when he'd be an adult...

The novel itself quite completed my allergy to communist totalitarianism. It's more than any other single thing why I so often visibly desire to feed a busload of fascisto-communists, brothers under the skin as we all know, into Room 101. Perhaps after dragging them down U.S. 101. It being just the other end of town. "My object all sublime, I shall achieve in time..."

You do know that Orwell was a socialist right?

And you do know it was just a story right? lol

[quote=Cicero;399400]Obviously you can be perfectly literate and not get the moral to a story.

QUOTE]

hey- it's a good time to quote myself.
:D


*side-note*
Dana...are you going to answer my question?

When will enough be enough? How do I know? Enough of what? CCTVs specifically? Or is there some meta problem/direction of travel encompassing CCTVs, police drug tests, monitoring of suspected criminals etc ?

I get the impression you think the latter...I don't necessarily group those things into a single journey. They are societal and/or systemic responses to specific problems or needs. They are entirely contextual.



[eta. I didn't answer earlier because I haven't really had the headspace to think through my reply. In some threads that doesn't really matter...but in this one I wish to be cogent, or at the very least clear. This issue is difficult to argue...as there seems to be a very distinct cultural difference in our thinking. Though we use the same base language, some of our base assumptions are alien to each other, I think. Only some, in many ways we are culturally alike. But this is one of those areas.*smiles*