The Health & Safety geniuses in Britain have decided that bins must be checked for sleeping, vagrant, drunk, drugged up individuals prior to their emptying. According to the Health & Safety Executive (HSE) website, there have been 3 such deaths in the last year. The HSE is taking the piss though, if I were a bin operative (can’t say “bin men”, it’s un-PC) I’d be insulted that H&S think that I’m incapable of smacking the side of a bin and looking inside it.

Their solution? Well, it comes in the form of a 7 page document offering “guidelines” on how to deal with “people occupying a waste container or receptacle, (commonly called a bin), usually for the purpose of sleep or shelter – but not necessarily restricted to such purpose”. The commonly called a bin part is golden – you can’t make this up! This is followed by 3 pages on how to “assess the situation”, and finally, a 3 point bin-checking check list:

1. Banging on the sides of the bin with or without a suitable tool for such a purpose. (May I ask what constitutes a suitable tool for banging on the side of a bin?!)
2. Lifting of the lid of the bin, taking care to ensure that the person undertaking the check does not put themselves at risk by doing so by, for example, climbing up, or dislodging waste which might fall upon the checker.
3. Carrying out a visual examination of the surface of the contents. NB: Physically disturbing and rummaging around in the contents is not recommended or required, although a suitable tool such as a reach pole or robust stick could be used to prod the contents if desired.

A stick?! We can’t have this, banging on the sides of the bin with a STICK. England isn’t a Third World Country (not just yet, anyway). These men need portable MRI machines. A stick. Really! The rest of the world will laugh at us! And, what if some poor innocent bin dweller’s eye gets poked out?! Sorry HSE – I think it’s back to the drawing board with this one..

AND, what if a psychopath is hiding in a waste container with a knife, or a terrorist with an AK-47, or a tiger?! No, no, it’s far too dangerous!!

Instead, every bin should be laid horizontally by means of a crane, then carefully opened by a police officer (or a PCSO having received appropriate training) in riot gear, then slowly tilted upward by said crane so the contents can come out and injury to any dweller of the container can be minimized. Nonetheless, paramedics should be on standby. The whole process to be supervised by at least two municipal officials in hi-vis jackets and hard hats with clipboards and clicky pens. A full risk-assessment must be conducted beforehand by middle-ranking H&S executives… – wearing hi-vis jackets, not to forget. The entire street, and, depending on the circumstances, neighborhood, should be blocked off to all traffic for the duration of the process.

Maybe we just ought to put warning stickers on the bins:

BEWARE! USING THIS CONTAINER AS A BED RUNS THE RISK OF DEATH BY MECHANICAL CRUSHING!!!
*** COUNCIL ACCEPT NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DEATHS THAT OCCUR DUE TO BREACH OF THOSE GUIDELINES.

I’m not making light of death by trash compactor, in fact, bins should be checked. Especially since horrible people throw puppies and babies in them. But this HSE BS is really taking the piss.

Oh, and if someone is found sleeping in one of your bins, do you get a fine for incorrect waste sorting..? So beware people of Britain, not only will you be woken up at 6 am by glass clanking and cans rattling, you will hear the sound of a bin operative banging on the side of your bins. Maybe the cast of Stomp could give them a hand between touring..?

Ok, so I did a post a few months back on biometrics.. I was just watching the UK Prime Minsters Debate and Gordon Brown was talking about how biometric passports have been integrated in an attempt to help curb illegal immigration.

Um… Ok, as Clegg brought up, you cannot control immigration from countries from within the EU. I’m not going to get into this whole immigration argument, but sadly, he’s right. Within the EU, anything goes. They can’t really track anyone. It’s a bit ridiculous. People are given free reign to come and go as they please.

Speaking of which, I flew into London Luton Airport last month. It was a Friday at around 8 am. I got off the plane and walked into the terminal – to be met by about 50,000 people. It seemed that about 20 flights had landed at the same time! “Oh god,” I thought to myself, “it’s going to take HOURS go get through customs!” But then I remembered the fancy biometric passport machines with the retina scanner (which I wrote about in my previous post). So, with a new found spring in my step, I head towards the customs desks, following the giant biometric passport symbol and the hoards and hoards of people. As I come towards the partition that leads past the zigzagging line of bodies waiting to go through passport control, and along to the biometric passport reader, I realise – with horror – that it’s closed. “Bloody machines must be broken”, I thought to myself. And I began the slow treck towards passport control.

After only about 10 minutes (surprisingly), I make it to the desk, and a nice customs officer checks my passport. “Are your machines broken”, I ask him, motioning towards the row of biometric machines behind him. “Oh, no”, he replied, “they’re only on for certain hours during the day”. He hands my passport back to me. “What, the quietest ones”, I ask him, before turning around to stare at the ever growing crowd behind me and then proceeding to walk towards the baggage carousels.

It wasn’t until after I got home that I reaslied how ridiculous it was. How much money was spent on these machines? And they only have them running a few hours each day?! Why? It can’t be because of a lack of man-power.. It just made me even more irritated. Not only are they keeping all of this data to turn the world into a Orwellian 1984 type scenario, they’re spending a HELL of a lot of money trying to do it!

On a side note, my passport has a plastic page in it which contains the chip. It’s a few mm thick and the chip and wires clearly visible through the clear plastic. My boyfriend just got a Hungarian passport, which also bears the biometric chip logo. But, I can’t tell where the hell it is! There is no plastic page, there is no thicker page, there is nothing at all to indicate where the chip on this passport is. He was fingerprinted and retina scanned when he got his passport, so obviously the information is on there somewhere.. but did they manage to make these chips paper thin?! Can anyone shed some light on this?!

Crack out the bottle opener ladies! According to “new” studies, a glass of wine every day will help you stay slim.

This American study from Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston  studied 19,200 women aged 39 and over and asked about their drinking habits. Their weight gain was recorded for the following 13 years. Not surprisingly, all of the women gained weight, but those who reported to drink “moderate” amounts – which consisted of a glass or two of wine each day gained the least weight.

But the researchers noted that not all types of alcohol are equal – hard liquor and beer are less friendly to the waist line.

So, with this information, the researchers decided that one theory for this is that the livers of regular drinkers develops a separate method of breaking down alcohol, with surplus energy turned into heat, rather than fat.

Another theory is that maybe the age old saying of “everything in moderation” could be true…

Or alternatively, since this study does not appear to prove that wine is the sole reason behind these women gaining less weight. It could be that they exercise more, or that they eat a more balanced and healthy diet? Or it could just prove that women who throw back a few glasses of wine each day lie about their weight! Who knows!

It’s groundbreaking research, nonetheless!!!

Also, it has been proven that eating too much fruit will make you fat. And the acid in fruit – if ingested too much – can lead to tooth decay.

Fruit is of course, very good for you. I am not trying to tell you to not eat fruit. But it’s the crazy people who take it a step too far, and go and a diet, vowing to be more healthy. And instead of eating a salad and an apple for lunch, they eat 6 salads, 5 apples and 2 grapefruits.

*Just because it’s healthy, doesn’t mean you should eat 70 times more of it*

The fact that someone needs to research this means that there is clearly a problem. I mean, isn’t it just common sense!? It’s like telling someone that water is good for them, so they go and drink 6 gallons of water. What will happen? They will die from drinking too much water! Ok, this may be a bit of an extreme example, because I don’t think too much fruit can actually kill you, but I think you see my point.

Eating reasonable amounts of nutritious food with a bit of excercise – even just a brisk walk will make you healthy.

And I’m not even going to start on the study by the British fish & chip people claiming that cutting the chips bigger will be more healthy – something about how the oil is absorbed when they are fried.

If they’re that bloody concerned about obesity etc, then the governments and councils should stop allowing McDonalds and Burger Kings to be built on every corner! Keep the humble chippy and let the fast food joints go!

This is going to be the BEST thing you heard all day. A job centre in England refused to display an advertisement asking for a “reliable worker” because they risk being sued by unreliable workers for being discriminatory. Have you ever heard anything more ridiculous?!

The ad said the following:

Domestic cleaner required immediately for local hospital. A variety of different shifts available. Must be fluent in written and spoken English for Health & Safety reasons. Previous experience preferred. If you have a current CRB, it would be an advantage but not necessary. Training will be provided. Must be reliable and hard working

I wonder why they didn’t go after the part where they wanted fluent written and spoken English.. Isn’t that discriminating against 75% of the British population?! And I presume “Health & Safety” has now magically become a proper noun – because of the capital letters?

So the job centre refused to display the ad because they didn’t want to be discriminatory. Does this mean that soon I sue a law firm or hospital for discrimination because I don’t hold a law degree or any medical qualifications? Of course not! What a giant load of rubbish.

The person who banned this job should be in line waiting to find a new one because it seems that they are too incompetent to do their present one.

But it doesn’t really surprise me. I mean, this is coming from a country with a government that is allowing hoards of foreign people to come and be workers when a huge percentage of the population is just sitting on it’s bum, in a council house, drinking lager on a sofa watching daytime TV with a pack of cigarettes surrounded by a whole bunch of babies and collecting welfare cheques. There’s just no incentive for anyone to do anything..

But if you think about it, what percentage of the “unreliable” people would actually have the energy to go out and find a lawyer to fight a case for them because of the wording in this ad being discriminatory? Probably not very many, since they’re unreliable and lazy!

Bah.

Kerry Robertson and Mark McDougall have their lives ruined by social services who take their newborn baby from them

I did a post in November about the young couple from Fife, Scotland – Kerry Robertson, 17 and Mark McDougall, 25. For those of you who can’t be bothered to click, I’ll do a quick summary:

- Miss Robertson and her fiance wanted to get married prior to the birth of their baby, but in September 2009, 2 days before their wedding, the council made them cancel their wedding – claiming that Miss Robertson who was 5 months pregnant at the time,“did not understand the implications of getting married” – because she has learning difficulties…

- So the couple didn’t get married, and by November when she was 7 months pregnant, social services said that they would take her baby away from her at birth because she was “not clever enough” to raise the child.

- After being threatened, the couple fled. They took whatever money they had saved and fled Scotland to raise their child elsewhere. An anonymous person had been helping them pay for their housing, and their family and friends had donated clothes, baby furniture etc.

Last Friday, in a hospital in Ireland, Kerry Robertson gave birth to her little boy, Ben – who they had picked out the name for back in November. Four days later, Irish social services came in and took the little boy away from them. The midwives who had been helping Miss Robertson had to leave the room because they were so distressed at seeing the young mother having her baby taken away from her.

According to Family Law, Fife social services are well within their rights to go after the couple IF they believe that the child is SERIOUSLY at risk by staying where he is.

I cannot see why they want to ruin these poor young peoples’ lives. It’s utter lunacy. All this poor girl wanted was to do was get married and raise her baby in a loving family environment, with her loved ones and friends nearby for support. But no, these bloody social services paper-pushing idiots are not letting her. They keep saying “learning difficulties”, “learning difficulties” .. well, bloody what kind of learning difficulties?! She was going to school (which shows that she has discipline and patience), and even her boyfriend didn’t know she had any “learning difficulties” until after they had begun dating.

The social services really need to get their arses in gear and stop harassing this couple. If she has learning difficulties then HELP her to raise her baby and go after the parents who are neglecting and abusing their children. It doesn’t make sense. Watch, they’re going to sterilize and CRB check everyone who wants to have a baby next. And then implant chips in everyone. And burn all of our books.

And apparently, according to the father, the social services had the wrong name and wrong date of birth on the “baby removal order” – which essentially makes this kidnapping. And what happens to all those underage parents who think that it’s fine to go on a 24 hr booze binge and leave their kids at home? Sh*t all happens – they have another baby and get more benefits.

I hope she gets baby Ben back and gets a whole lot of compensation from the council.

fruit & vegetables vs. pills & medication

Ok, it’s time for another round up of the week’s stupid health news.

I found this fantastic article on Wednesday with a dreadfully long winded headline: Don’t eat cereals that change the colour of the milk: Unlikely but brilliantly simple rules that will transform the way you eat

No, I didn’t make that up!!! Feel free to read it, it’s really quite insightful! Here are some of my favourite bits:

Don’t eat cereals that change the colour of the milk
Um, I thought that it was because of cocoa powder – which is good for you, right?! I get the ones that are coloured purple or bright green etc, because I’m sure that’s all awful chemicals and colourants etc.. but what about Nesquik? It looks suspiciously like dog food, but cocoa is natural.. actually, I guess it depends on whether or not cocoa is good for you or not this week! And what about Fruit Loops?

Avoid foods Grandma wouldn’t recognize
I’m not sure that my Grandma would know what tofu is let alone recognize it.. Or goji berries.. Or ginseng.. Well, my Chinese Grandma would of course know what they are and how to best cook them.. Is this rule calling White people stupid?! lol

Buy smaller plates and glasses
I’m pretty sure that if I went by this rule, it would only encourage me to help myself to more helpings – since the tableware is smaller!!! Makes me think of Zoolander “What is this.. A school for ants?!?”

It’s not food if it has the same name in all languages
I’m going to pull the Chinese card again and say “TOFU”!! … I wanted to be smart and think of more things, but I got nothing…!

Ok, that’s enough of that.. If you want to read more of these stupid rules, then check out the link!

Now for some happier health news! A study done in the UK showed that the average woman burns 48,000 calories per year by shopping! So now we have an excuse to go running around the shops! But it’s true, especially if you don’t drive and you have to rely on public transport or walking to bring all of your new treasures back home! Carrying stuff is a workout in itself!

And finally, this isn’t really health news, but I’ll throw it in anyway. According to yet another useless study, the weight of the average woman’s purse/handbag has decreased by 50% over the last two years. Apparently, this is due to the take-over of gadgets like BlackBerries and iPhones replacing the heavy cell phone and bulky address books/planners. I don’t know about you, but my purse always weighs a ton! And it’s full of so much crap! I have to have about 5 lip glosses and hand cream, and maybe some ibuprofen, and maybe a book, and of course my glasses case, a nail file or 2.. and then there are receipts, loose change, old bus passes, Mentos <3 .. And what doesn’t help is the fact that the new hot thing is those great big giant purses – even “small” bags are still really big. So ok, your phone might not weigh 2lbs like it did before, but to me, if there’s more space, then I’ll cram more crap in there. Maybe an additional hand cream and a few more lip glosses!!!! Did I mention that make-up makes me happy???

They should have factored in the weight of a woman’s handbag when doing that shopping study.. I remember when I was in college, they had some chiropractor people come in and weigh people’s school bags to see what kind of long term damage hauling a heavy bag around all day was doing to them.

Check out last week’s stupid health news too!!

1. The fizz in carbonated drinks might cause weight loss!
Researchers believe that injections of carbon dioxide will trick the body into causing fat to shrink – therefore making the subject thinner. This has been tried and tested in Italy, and apparently the results were good. The next trials will be in the USA – targeted on overweight subjects. I can see if this is actually proved to be right, there will be people injecting cola and stuff into themselves.. Remember the lady who injected cooking oil or something into her lips… yuck.

2. Baby formula is apparently just as good as the real thing!
According to some “expert”, baby formula is just as good as breast milk. He said that babies fed on breast milk were only SLIGHTLY healthier – but this was because of conditions when they were in the womb, and NOT because of the milk. I think that in a world where we can grow ears on the back of mice and find treatments for disorders like haemophilia, that the formula that is available to babies must be pretty good. But isn’t breast-feeding like bonding between mother and baby? And it’s what it’s there for.. It’s free, sterilized, readily available. What’s better than that?!Of course, if a mother is unable to breast feed, then yes, of course, formula is the alternative. Makes me wonder what baby formula company sponsored this research…..

3. Smacking your child will make them more successful!
Good news for advocates of smacking your child when they are naughty and misbehaving – bad news to those who are against it! According to researchers, children who were smacked up to the age of 6 tended to do better in school, do volunteer work and go to university. I received the odd smack on the bum for being bad when I was a kid.. And I’m not unbalanced or anything. I think as long as discipline is carried out consistently, then the child will grow up to be solid member of society.  Obviously there is a lot more to go with that – other parenting factors, a nurturing and loving home, patient care givers etc.. But I don’t see what’s wrong with the odd smack! So YES! Finally a decent health article!!!

4. Eat yourself skinny!
Christ, I must have read about 4 of these articles this week. Skinny-mini columnists proclaiming that their love of food keeps them skinny. And then they mention that they cycle to work, go to the gym, take kickboxing classes, eat expensive organic food, and “indulge” on meat only once a week. Ok, they admit to the occasional burger (not a tofu one).. But eating nuts and couscous every day with a cucumber and yellow bell pepper salad does not constitute it being a meal. Yes, I’ll admit, it’s bloody healthy, but where is the KD and steak & kidney pies?! I really admire people who have the willpower to go the gym on a regular basis – and those who can afford the ghastly gym fees.

5. Women who don’t vote are less likely to have pap-tests, mammograms, etc
Yet another useless study. The money for this research should have been spent on getting the women to a doctors office to have them checked. The head researcher behind this said that women don’t go to vote because of their hectic and/or disorganized lifestyle. Therefore, because of time management, they do not have time to go vote, go to the doctor etc. A study from the US said pretty much the same thing. In families with more children, *both* parents were more likely to not go to get screened.  The authors said “This is probably because parents have less time to get screened, and prioritize the needs of their children above their own”.

I don’t understand useless studies. There must be better things for the research money to go towards – not for a bunch of scientists to sit around finding the correlation between women voters and cervical screening. And skinny people drinking zero calorie water and non-fat lattes really piss me off..! Maybe I’m just jealous because they are successful columnists and I’m not!! Yes, that’s probably it!
Ok, I’m going to wallow in self pity and have a cola and eat a bag of Doritos!

Happy Saturday!

DNA led to the exoneration of an innocent man and the capture of a guilty one YEARS after the crimes were committed.

There was a story from a few days ago from Florida. James Bain, now 54 years old, was exonerated after being jailed for 35 years for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted when he was 19 for burglary, kidnapping and rape of a 9 year old boy. In 2001, the state of Florida passed a statute that allowed old cases to be re-opened for DNA testing. After this happened, Mr. Bain submitted 4 motions to have his case re-opened for testing, but was refused each time. On the fifth time, his motion was granted and he was entitled to a hearing. The  presiding judge stated “He’s just not connected with this particular incident… Mr. Bain, I’m now signing the order, sir… You are a free man. Congratulations”. And with that, the courtroom erupted into rapturous applause.. Just like in a movie.. But movies normally end there. Have you ever stopped to think about what kind of lives people like Mr Bain would have after being released from prison where he had been kept wrongly for 35 years for a crime he didn’t commit??? I’m sure there’s some kind of compensation or settlement from the state – probably quite hefty in this case, given the amount of time he did for this crime..

Luckily for Mr. Bain, his loving mother put her car and house into her son’s name saying that “I want him to have something by himself. He’s suffered enough”. Mr. Bain had been very worried about his mother’s health, as she had been in and out of hospitals for a long time. I mean, poor guy.. At least he can be with his family, and they are loving and supportive.

The victim was informed of Mr. Bain’s situation. Imagine how they must feel.. DNA evidence cleared the man that they believed committed a horrible crime against them.. But that means that a guilty man has been roaming free for the last 35 years.

And he served that long for not even killing someone while killers are paroled and allowed back into society.. I mean, the crime was awful, and the guilty party should definitely be made to do the time.. but it’s still terrible!

And then on the flip side, there was a story from the UK today about a British man, Paul Hutchinson, being caught for a murder he committed 26 years ago. He raped and murdered a young woman, Colette Aram, and after sending a letter taunting local police for not being able to catch him, blended back into society. During the original investigation, police heard how a man was seen in a pub sipping lemonade with his victim before killing her, and they took hundreds of pieces of DNA from the pub and found DNA from both the killer and his victim. Years later, in 2003, the authorities began to use a new method of family genetic profiling by seeing if a killer’s profile is related genetically to anyone currently in their database. In this case, they got a hit, by catching Paul Hutchinson because his brother’s DNA was already on file.

How amazing is that. 26 years, this man has probably been patting himself on the back every single day while living his “normal” life because he had literally gotten away with murder. But then they got him.. And he admitted to the terrible crime he committed. The girl’s poor family. I hope they finally feel some justice to the terrible things that happened to Colette.

Sorry for the depressing post, but the wonders of DNA are good – because they allow innocent people to be exonerated and guilty people to be finally able to be caught.

So today is VickyC.me’s 1 month birthday!!!

Thanks to all of you lovely people, I’ve had more than 1000 page views and over 600 visitors!

Which is AWESOME!!!!!!

I really appreciate all your views.. It really does make me happy!

As I said in a previous post, I’ve joined Twitter.. So follow me!! Tweet Tweet!! x

Thanks again for all your support!!!

Be sure to check VickyC.me every day for new posts.

Also, we will giving away prizes soon – so stay tuned!

With that being said, I’m going to have a celebratory drink.

It makes you wonder about things like this swine flu vaccine. Are they secretly injecting people with mysterious things?! Are they saving the needles for DNA?! I know I’m being crazy, but what if they were? I mean, there are people that are having these RFID microchips implated in their kids “in case they get lost”. My cat has one of those.. And if you’ve seen Zeitgeist then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Gradually, these microchips will store more and more information. And then if you piss off the men in charge, they turn off your chip and you become nobody – no ID, no history, no anything. In Hong Kong, they have the chipped cards for the underground (like the Oyster card in London and the Opus card in Montreal), and they want to integrate it with an ID card. So this one card will be your travel card, your ID card, your driver’s license. If that gets lost, stolen or even worst cloned, you’re buggered. They’ve already shown that the passport chips can be cloned – there’s a video online of a guy changing a passport to have Elvis’ information on it. And then what happens? No one ever belives you are who you say you are, so you’d be really stuck. You can’t use a credit card without a piece of ID or call your bank or even the gas board, etc without giving them 16 pieces of information.

I could keep going, but I’m sure most of you have either fallen asleep or stopped reading. For those of you who haven’t. Thank you! I’ll throw some links at the bottom if you’re interested in checking out the whole RFID/Biometric thing.

But let me know what you think. Am I being a complete crazy person or is there sense in my ranting? I’m interested to know!

Lord, where do I start?! This whole biometric thing is getting a little out of control. I’m going to recount a few of my experiences in crossing borders from the last year or so.

Those of you who have travelled to the USA who aren’t Canadian or American will know what I’m talking about. Around a year and a half ago, I crossed from Canada to the USA – I had to officially leave Canada and “re-enter” to get a work visa. I know it sounds dodgy, but don’t worry, it’s completely legal. My girlfriend kindly offered to drive me from Montreal to Plattsburg NY and back again. We got to the US border and the Border Patrol guard told her to park her car and made both of us to go to the customs office. We went into this office where a whole bunch of burly customs officials were walking around with their guns. They asked us both if we’d have been arrested. If you looked at my friend and I, you would understand the ridiculousness of this question. I had to complete a form, get an eye scan and pay them to get a stamp in my passport. My friend told me later that she was scared – “why were they retina scanning you?”, she asked. They didn’t believe that we were just going to Plattsburg for lunch. But we made it, brought some clothes – which we declared to Canadian customs; and I got my papers.

Then, about a month ago, I travelled from Spain to the UK. What amazed me was that the time it took me to lift my bum off the seat on the plane and giving my mum a hug was no more than 10-15 mins. Here’s why. So I got to passport control in Luton Airport, and they had a new system going. Instead of waiting in line for a cheerful customs agent to make sure your passport picture looks like you, they have these gates that you go through. There are two gates. At the first one, you scan the chip in your passport. The gate opens, you walk through, it closes behind you. Next, there are footprints on the floor that you stand on, and you look into this device that scans your face. Apparently this machine scans the retina, the distance between the eyes, nose, mouth etc., this biometric information will be used in future to determine that you do in fact belong to your passport. Then it opens up and you go on your merry way. And apparently it’s supposed to make passport control go a lot quicker.. In my case, it did. I guess quite a lot of people still have the old style passports that aren’t fitted with chips.

After a few hours of thinking about what had happened with this whole scanning business, I thought, ‘wait a minute, did they scan my face when I got my passport?!’ I’m pretty sure they didn’t, and my mum said that the initial scan is probably them just collecting data. Which is a bit scary really. According to Direct.gov.uk, the information that is contained is that of the passport holder’s face – according to the picture on your passport. I’m sure you can’t see the detail in my iris from a photograph… I don’t know, it’s all a bit dodgy. What if you’re wearing contact lenses?! Does that mess up the scan? Oh, and I was transferring in Amsterdam, and the man looked at my picture and told me to remove my glasses and tuck my hair behind my ears. I kindly offered him additional pieces of ID which he declined…

But then, from swiping or scanning your passport, they know all your information anyway. Whenever I arrive in Canada, the nice customs man tells me that I went to school and worked in Canada.. Yes, Sir, I know that… One year I came back and started pulling out my diploma, bank statements and various other pieces of paper and the man thought I was crazy. But sometimes you do need to show them a whole assortment of paperwork and they still look at you like you’re going to walk out of the airport and start plotting to blow up the world or something. I called Immigration Quebec once and actually got hung up on because the lady didn’t believe I was who I said I was. I was absolutely hysterical. Thankfully when I called back, the person I spoke to fortunately had more than 2 braincells to rub together, and actually was able to help me. Just thinking about that makes me REALLY angry…

And this whole thing with countries sharing information is supposed to be an attempt to stop illegal immigrants, identity fraud and criminals and such – which I can completely understand; but what does that mean for the rest of us? What’s next? Already Canada, USA, UK and Australia are pooling their biometric data. I mean, if they are JUST using it for this purpose, then I suppose it’s ok.. But then I’m sure it will get taken a step further.

It makes you wonder about things like this swine flu vaccine. Are they secretly injecting people with mysterious things?! Are they saving the needles for some kind of DNA profiling pool?! I know I’m being crazy, but what if they were? I mean, there are people that are having these RFID microchips implanted in their kids “in case they get lost” or to “stop terrorist activity”. My cat has one of those.. And if you’ve seen Zeitgeist then you’ll know what I’m talking about. Gradually, these microchips will store more and more information. And then if you piss off the men in charge, they turn off your chip and you become nobody – no ID, no history, no anything. In Hong Kong, they have the chipped cards for the underground (like the Oyster card in London and the Opus card in Montreal), and they want to integrate it with an ID card. So this one card will be your travel card, your ID card, your driver’s license. If that gets lost, stolen or even worst cloned, you’re buggered. They’ve already shown that the passport chips can be cloned – there’s a video online of a guy changing a passport to have Elvis’ information on it. And then what happens? No one ever believes you are who you say you are as it is, so you’d be really stuck. You can’t use a credit card without a piece of ID or call your bank or even the gas board, etc without giving them 16 pieces of information.

I could keep going, but I’m sure most of you have either fallen asleep or stopped reading. For those of you who haven’t. Thank you! I’ll throw some links at the bottom if you’re interested in checking out the whole RFID/Biometric thing.

But let me know what you think. Am I being a complete crazy person or is there sense in my ranting? I’m interested to know!

CBC News – Canada & US to Share Refugee Fingerprints
Canada.com – Canada & US to Share Refugee Biometric Info
Direct.gov.uk – Biometric Passports Explained
Timesonline.co.uk – Baby’s Passport Becomes Bin Ladens
Timesonline.co.uk – ‘Fakeproof’ E-Passport Cloned in Minutes
Zeitgeist – Official Website – site contains links to movie on Google
Youtube.com – Hackers Create Elvis’ Passport
Wikipedia.com – RFID Microchip