You got YOUR OWN INDIVIDUAL NAME? Well, weren’t YOU the lah-de-dah, prancin’ around and being all nose-in-the-air with your own personal NAME! We got to share a name with 50 other people, which meant we could only use it when we died while walking through the erupting volcanoes to get to the cemetary to stand in line – while dead! to be buried with all the other people with the same name!
Is there no thread topic that can’t be hijacked into a Monty Python parody?
This parody’s dead. 
No, it’s just pinin’ for the fjords!
Seriously though; in the wake of the London bomb attacks last week, we had to endure all the bullshit arguments about ID cards all over again; I swear I even heard one interviewee say “This incident highlights the pressing need for ID cards” and “ID cards wouldn’t actually have prevented this incident” in the same breath.
NOBODY expects a hijack into a Monty Python parody!
…what?
Could be worse…could turn into a Johnathan Swift parody!
Besides, I’d love to see what the Python boys would do to satirize a monstrosity just as this.
What is this “name” you speak of?
My favourite was the asshat who floated the idea that ID cards are needed so we can identify who’s been blown to little bits more easily. (My paraphrase). Listen moron. If their driving licence, credit cards and all the other crap we carry around with our name on it was blown to pieces, so would the fucking card. Unless …
Titanium ID cards, with aerodynamic styling and sharpened edges so we can decapitate potential suicide bombers/people who are a bit swarthy looking from a safe distance. Yes, that’s the ticket. :rolleyes:
…but what about the rocket monkeys? We were promised rocket monkeys. I want to see the rocket monkeys …
[Obscure Simpsons Quote That Somehow Seems Relevant]
Lisa, I’d like to buy your rock.
[/OSQTSSR]
Do the rocket monkeys wear the rockets on their backs, or do they sit on top of them?
Okay, you didn’t come across with the rocket monkeys, so I tried to train some rocket monkeys of my own. Now the police are charging me with cruelty to animals, and the local news media are saying perfectly awful things about me. This is all your fault …
Having observed a ew IT disasters, EDS, being one of the main culprits, I just can’t imagine how this would come in within budget and actually work.
However, just because the system won’t work, this will not help you much when you have to present you ID to some busybody bureacrat who will not have the authority to ignore it and provide you with the services you requested because the system has locked up.
So far every large UK governemental IT project has cost three to four times the original estimate, and in some cases these projects never functioned fully, think of the Child Support Agency for example.
So far independant estimate put the cost at around £10Bn to £19Bn rather than the £6Bn the governement claims, the independant estimate happend to come from the London School of Economics whose report authors have been severely criticised by the governement -who commissioned the report in the first place!
Although I can provide no proof othr than instinct and wry observation about what I have seen happen on the ground in large government organisations, I am pretty sure it’ll pan out to well over £30Bn and it will still not do what is being asked.
It will cost far more than the £1.9Bn per annum to maintain, and there will be a crisis in staffing levels as these will be set too low, and the pay will be such that the agency will not be able to purchese the services of those with the necessary competance.
The capping in the cost of the ID card is stupid, simply because the means to fund it will be drawn from general taxation, which we all pay anyway.
I would like to see what the likely effect will be on the legal system, because this will have to be enforced and this must ultimately lead to judicial sanctions, there will be additional costs associated with crime directly related to forgery, ID card theft and usage but you can bet no extra money will be set aside for this, so other areas of law enforcement will have to be scaled down.
One very unpleasant prospect is that if they actuallly got this to work, it would be possible to link it up with things like the proposed road traffic pricing system, so now you would effectively have a real time citizen tracking device for every person in the country.
Anyone care to tell me what the relationship is supposed to be between citizen and governement ?
Casdave covered the IT angle.
Consider the record of Government over the Millenium Dome, railway privatisation and the Scottish Parliament building.
'Lord Fraser of Carmyllie has published his report into the Scottish Parliament following an eight month inquiry set up to investigate the processes and decisions that impacted on the cost and timescale of the building.
At the point at which the inquiry was called in July 2003 the Holyrood Parliament building project was two and a half years behind schedule with costs running approximately ten times more than the original estimate of £40m.’
http://www.rics.org/Builtenvironment/Buildingcosts/holyroodinq.htm
ArchiveGuy,
I enjoyed that show! Well, all of it except for the terrible misuse of “whom” in one place. The dancers were quite hilarious.
OK, am I the only one reading this like Scumpup is suggesting that HSHP was soliciting blow jobs from his mother?
I liked the dog with evolving disguises.
Thanks–I was worried it got buried too quickly… 
Actually, in the UK the government owns your behind lock, stock, and two smoking barrels. It can do anything it wants to you at any time.
Not according to the EU charter on Human Rights.
This is why I used the term ‘citizen’ instead of what we formerly were, ‘subjects’
…and the term ‘subjects’ is why I continue to despise royalty, but it would seem there are those among our glorious leaders who still think in the old way.
Which, really, is about the only way unique ID #'s are going to prevent fraud.
As I understand it, while there is a certain utility to worker tracking numbers for ridiculously complex systems like Social Security/Social Insurance, a general ID card serves no additional purpose but the ease of total identity theft.