Re: [suse-linux-uk-schools] Informed legislators!
On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 08:59:34AM +0100, Ian wrote:
On Tuesday 07 May 2002 03:39, Frank Shute wrote:
If our politicians are more `talented & dedicated' than most people, why does it take a Peruvian politician to understand open source software, nail the MS FUD & save his taxpayer's money & confidentiality?
You have to realise that this is one issue and it is not the main concern of most people.
But it should be of concern and politicians in this country should make a stand on it like their their Peruvian counterpart and get people interested in how their money is spent and their personal information held and used.
They might well be dedicated and talented in other fields and technologically weak.
If they were dedicated and talented in other fields then they wouldn't go into politics.
The Peruvian minister probably just happens to also have a background in IT and Open Source in particular. Now if you stood for parliament, Frank, and could get enough people to vote for you ......
Yes, and a squadron of flying pigs passes overhead... Feel free to write to the prime minister and suggest that I should become a `people's peer'. Best not to tell him that I think he's a w*nker though...or it's flying pigs time again. I hereby promise I'll take a principled stand on everything even if it's unpopular (especially if it *is* unpopular) and promise not to tow a party line. I also promise to forego wearing ermine....maybe a penguin skin instead;)
What, our civil servants have been `brainwashed' but our politicians who in their wisdom employ them and are fond of being as hospitable as possible to Mr Gates are `talented & dedicated? If you're not saying that, what exactly are you saying?
Hm, its a bit naive to believe that in these matters civil servants don't advise Ministers.
...and ministers advise civil servants.
My dealings with the Civil Service and BECTa lead me to believe that they are risk averse by nature - if not they would be working in the private sector doing entrepreneurial things.
That's right. But then they have promoted the culture of blame and have thus tied their hands with regards taking any vaguely risky decisions. Worth reading the Reith lectures that were delivered this year regards this.
Now if Ministers are lacking in technological savvy, how many CS will stick their neck out and tell the Minister to cancel the meeting with Bill Gates which is attracting every major newspaper in the land? Lot's of publicity, low risk. That is the nature of politics, its not corrupt but it lacks vision which is why Government is particularly bad at micro managing industrial processes.
My dictionary definition of corrupt is `morally depraved' which sums up that lot pretty accurately IMO. The whole point of being a politician is to take a moral stance on issues yet hardly any of them do that - that's corrupt. The government is obsessed with micro-management because they trust everybody else as much as they trust themselves. ie. not at all. The funniest remark I heard was by the health secretary describing the benefits of tax rises: `We're going to give the NHS huge resources and it's not going to be wasted because it's going to be audited by an independent committee who's members aren't going to be appointed by the government but...by a committee'. My questions: Who appoints the committee members of the committee that appoints the committee members of the committee that oversees the health spending and who's paying for the committees? Do we have these committees for just the country at large or should we have them at the local level too and perhaps regional and also Scotland and Wales...and... Oh sh*t, there goes our tax rise.... -- Frank *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Boroughbridge. Tel: 01423 323019 --------- PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/ Q: How many IBM types does it take to change a light bulb? A: Fifteen. One to do it, and fourteen to write document number GC7500439-0001, Multitasking Incandescent Source System Facility, of which 10% of the pages state only "This page intentionally left blank", and 20% of the definitions are of the form "A:..... consists of sequences of non-blank characters separated by blanks".
But it should be of concern and politicians in this country should make a stand on it like their their Peruvian counterpart and get people interested in how their money is spent and their personal information held and used.
They might well be dedicated and talented in other fields and technologically weak.
If they were dedicated and talented in other fields then they wouldn't go into politics.
Not true. Seb Coe definitely talented in a different field, Maxwell (nuff said :-) ) Hestletine, Tony Blair was a lawyer, and so on. Bit like saying thos who can do those who can't teach. Yes, there are some weak teachers but there are also many who could have made it good in other fields - Sting!
The Peruvian minister probably just happens to also have a background in IT and Open Source in particular. Now if you stood for parliament, Frank, and could get enough people to vote for you ......
Yes, and a squadron of flying pigs passes overhead...
But that's the point really, isn't it?
Feel free to write to the prime minister and suggest that I should become a `people's peer'. Best not to tell him that I think he's a w*nker though...or it's flying pigs time again.
I hereby promise I'll take a principled stand on everything even if it's unpopular (especially if it *is* unpopular) and promise not to tow a party line.
So you probably wouldn't get elected in the first place. You have to fight fire with fire at least to an extent. Tony Blair realised that and that is why he is PM and calling the shots.
I also promise to forego wearing ermine....maybe a penguin skin instead;)
What, our civil servants have been `brainwashed' but our politicians who in their wisdom employ them and are fond of being as hospitable as possible to Mr Gates are `talented & dedicated? If you're not saying that, what exactly are you saying?
Hm, its a bit naive to believe that in these matters civil servants don't advise Ministers.
...and ministers advise civil servants.
Not really, they provide civil servants with broad strategies to implement. Like - get all schools on the web. The details of how to do that are much more likely to come from CS than ministers.
My dealings with the Civil Service and BECTa lead me to believe that they are risk averse by nature - if not they would be working in the private sector doing entrepreneurial things.
That's right. But then they have promoted the culture of blame and have thus tied their hands with regards taking any vaguely risky decisions. Worth reading the Reith lectures that were delivered this year regards this.
Now if Ministers are lacking in technological savvy, how many CS will stick their neck out and tell the Minister to cancel the meeting with Bill Gates which is attracting every major newspaper in the land? Lot's of publicity, low risk. That is the nature of politics, its not corrupt but it lacks vision which is why Government is particularly bad at micro managing industrial processes.
My dictionary definition of corrupt is `morally depraved' which sums up that lot pretty accurately IMO.
Only in your mind. Most are not morally depraved, they just have to do what they think can work. They need to be better convinced that Open Source is a better bet and it *is* counter-intuitive to most of their experience.
The whole point of being a politician is to take a moral stance on issues yet hardly any of them do that - that's corrupt.
Yes they do. Like putting up NI to channel into the NHS. Or commitment to non-legaisation of drugs, or tagging offenders or whatever. There is of course disagreement about which of these is the right thing to do but that is politics.
The government is obsessed with micro-management because they trust everybody else as much as they trust themselves. ie. not at all.
The funniest remark I heard was by the health secretary describing the benefits of tax rises:
`We're going to give the NHS huge resources and it's not going to be wasted because it's going to be audited by an independent committee who's members aren't going to be appointed by the government but...by a committee'.
My questions: Who appoints the committee members of the committee that appoints the committee members of the committee that oversees the health spending and who's paying for the committees? Do we have these committees for just the country at large or should we have them at the local level too and perhaps regional and also Scotland and Wales...and... Oh sh*t, there goes our tax rise....
So get elected and change things! Or vote someone else in. My own view is that the Government seems to be getting into a spiral of bureacratic crud and its rather unfotunate that the opposition is so weak. But then there was a time that the Thatcher government was as dominant and things do change. Regards, -- IanL
On Tue, May 07, 2002 at 11:15:10PM +0100, Ian wrote:
But it should be of concern and politicians in this country should make a stand on it like their their Peruvian counterpart and get people interested in how their money is spent and their personal information held and used.
They might well be dedicated and talented in other fields and technologically weak.
If they were dedicated and talented in other fields then they wouldn't go into politics.
Not true. Seb Coe definitely talented in a different field,
But you can't go on winning olympic gold medals forever.
Maxwell (nuff said :-) )
Talented crook.
Hestletine,
Publisher who's hobby is politics.
Tony Blair was a lawyer, and so on.
Lawyers are over-represented in parliament, probably because they're slimy, untrustworthy, silvery-tongued and like making piles of money.
Bit like saying thos who can do those who can't teach. Yes, there are some weak teachers but there are also many who could have made it good in other fields - Sting!
Teachers are generally fairly well educated and can train people so they could get a job outside of their profession without too much effort and all too often they do. But politicians?!
The Peruvian minister probably just happens to also have a background in IT and Open Source in particular. Now if you stood for parliament, Frank, and could get enough people to vote for you ......
Yes, and a squadron of flying pigs passes overhead...
But that's the point really, isn't it?
Well they must have flying pigs in Peru or they vote for politicians who have something other than `politician' on their CV.
Feel free to write to the prime minister and suggest that I should become a `people's peer'. Best not to tell him that I think he's a w*nker though...or it's flying pigs time again.
I hereby promise I'll take a principled stand on everything even if it's unpopular (especially if it *is* unpopular) and promise not to tow a party line.
So you probably wouldn't get elected in the first place. You have to fight fire with fire at least to an extent. Tony Blair realised that and that is why he is PM and calling the shots.
What you're saying I think is `get down in the gutter with them and roll around in the dirt'. No thanks.
I also promise to forego wearing ermine....maybe a penguin skin instead;)
What, our civil servants have been `brainwashed' but our politicians who in their wisdom employ them and are fond of being as hospitable as possible to Mr Gates are `talented & dedicated? If you're not saying that, what exactly are you saying?
Hm, its a bit naive to believe that in these matters civil servants don't advise Ministers.
...and ministers advise civil servants.
Not really, they provide civil servants with broad strategies to implement. Like - get all schools on the web. The details of how to do that are much more likely to come from CS than ministers.
But the strategies they are asked to implement are bonkers and usually knocked-up on the back of an envelope after consulting some think-tank and a few focus groups.
My dealings with the Civil Service and BECTa lead me to believe that they are risk averse by nature - if not they would be working in the private sector doing entrepreneurial things.
That's right. But then they have promoted the culture of blame and have thus tied their hands with regards taking any vaguely risky decisions. Worth reading the Reith lectures that were delivered this year regards this.
Now if Ministers are lacking in technological savvy, how many CS will stick their neck out and tell the Minister to cancel the meeting with Bill Gates which is attracting every major newspaper in the land? Lot's of publicity, low risk. That is the nature of politics, its not corrupt but it lacks vision which is why Government is particularly bad at micro managing industrial processes.
My dictionary definition of corrupt is `morally depraved' which sums up that lot pretty accurately IMO.
Only in your mind. Most are not morally depraved, they just have to do what they think can work. They need to be better convinced that Open Source is a better bet and it *is* counter-intuitive to most of their experience.
The arguments about open source software is beyond them. Most of them with a few exceptions are ignorant about anything outside of politics and very few are top-notch industry people or scientists or professors...or even politicians for that matter. I'll write to my MP about it and see if I can get any kind of response or action.
The whole point of being a politician is to take a moral stance on issues yet hardly any of them do that - that's corrupt.
Yes they do. Like putting up NI to channel into the NHS. Or commitment to non-legaisation of drugs, or tagging offenders or whatever. There is of course disagreement about which of these is the right thing to do but that is politics.
Yes they do these things but I don't see that it's through any kind of moral compunction - it's just fire-fighting. You can only cut public services so far and for so long before the rabble (thats you & me) start to get rebellious and vote you out. And this fire-fighting is remarkably ill-informed. For instance the crisis in the NHS is largely due to bed-blocking by geriatrics which is in turn caused by an unwillingness to put money into the private sector ie. nursing homes. That's done for political reasons or even `moral' reasons if you like. They'd rather let the health service go down the toilet and spend £1000 a week on a hospital bed than pay a private nursing home £350 a week. Even though the latter option is better for the patient, the hospital, my tax bill and my health.
The government is obsessed with micro-management because they trust everybody else as much as they trust themselves. ie. not at all.
The funniest remark I heard was by the health secretary describing the benefits of tax rises:
`We're going to give the NHS huge resources and it's not going to be wasted because it's going to be audited by an independent committee who's members aren't going to be appointed by the government but...by a committee'.
My questions: Who appoints the committee members of the committee that appoints the committee members of the committee that oversees the health spending and who's paying for the committees? Do we have these committees for just the country at large or should we have them at the local level too and perhaps regional and also Scotland and Wales...and... Oh sh*t, there goes our tax rise....
So get elected and change things! Or vote someone else in.
I can't get elected and there's nobody decent to vote for!
My own view is that the Government seems to be getting into a spiral of bureacratic crud and its rather unfotunate that the opposition is so weak. But then there was a time that the Thatcher government was as dominant and things do change.
I always got the feeling throughout the Thatcher regime that the opposition might get re-elected and I had high hopes when Blair was elected with a huge mandate. Those hopes have been dashed and he turns out to be worse than Thatcher - her principles were wrong but at least she was principled. Depressingly I can't see any of the opposition parties getting elected any time soon and even if they did I'd have my doubts as to whether things would improve. Hence, I'm packing my bags and moving to Finland. -- Frank *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Boroughbridge. Tel: 01423 323019 --------- PGP keyID: 0xC0B341A3 *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* http://www.esperance-linux.co.uk/ Competitive fury is not always anger. It is the true missionary's courage and zeal in facing the possibility that one's best may not be enough. -- Gene Scott
Bit like saying thos who can do those who can't teach. Yes, there are some weak teachers but there are also many who could have made it good in other fields - Sting!
Teachers are generally fairly well educated and can train people so they could get a job outside of their profession without too much effort and all too often they do. But politicians?!
Do a survey of the education backgrounds of teachers and politicians and I think you will find politicians at least as well educated. Many politicians have to get jobs outside their profession when they lose elections ;-)
But that's the point really, isn't it?
Well they must have flying pigs in Peru or they vote for politicians who have something other than `politician' on their CV.
No its just unusual but it has happened somewhere ie Peru.
So you probably wouldn't get elected in the first place. You have to fight fire with fire at least to an extent. Tony Blair realised that and that is why he is PM and calling the shots.
What you're saying I think is `get down in the gutter with them and roll around in the dirt'. No thanks.
Then you will never influence anything. I wouldn't quite put it as getting down in the gutter but in a war if you take the attitude that you aren't going to fight because fighting is distasteful you will almost certainly lose. And this is a war between Open Source and Closed source. Freedom I believe is worth fighting for.
Not really, they provide civil servants with broad strategies to implement. Like - get all schools on the web. The details of how to do that are much more likely to come from CS than ministers.
But the strategies they are asked to implement are bonkers and usually knocked-up on the back of an envelope after consulting some think-tank and a few focus groups.
That is your perspective on politics. Most people don't seriously think this way. If you feel really strongly about it you have an option to try and change it. Again that is politics. Moaning about it won't help, do something about it.
Only in your mind. Most are not morally depraved, they just have to do what they think can work. They need to be better convinced that Open Source is a better bet and it *is* counter-intuitive to most of their experience.
The arguments about open source software is beyond them. Most of them with a few exceptions are ignorant about anything outside of politics and very few are top-notch industry people or scientists or professors...or even politicians for that matter. I'll write to my MP about it and see if I can get any kind of response or action.
Good idea because the only way of prodding politicians into action is if they think it matters to large numbers of people. The more they get petitions, Open Source in the media etc etc, the more likely they are to sit up and take notice. Perhaps targeting the opposition might be useful too. Give them some amunition to chuck at the Government.
Yes they do these things but I don't see that it's through any kind of moral compunction - it's just fire-fighting. You can only cut public services so far and for so long before the rabble (thats you & me) start to get rebellious and vote you out.
But that is what politics is about. They are trying to reflect the wishes of the people - demos, democracy. That's why they need to be convinced that OS is an issue that will lose them votes if they don't do anything.
And this fire-fighting is remarkably ill-informed. For instance the crisis in the NHS is largely due to bed-blocking by geriatrics which is in turn caused by an unwillingness to put money into the private sector ie. nursing homes. That's done for political reasons or even `moral' reasons if you like. They'd rather let the health service go down the toilet and spend £1000 a week on a hospital bed than pay a private nursing home £350 a week. Even though the latter option is better for the patient, the hospital, my tax bill and my health.
I can't get elected and there's nobody decent to vote for!
Better curl up and give in then ;-)
My own view is that the Government seems to be getting into a spiral of bureacratic crud and its rather unfotunate that the opposition is so weak. But then there was a time that the Thatcher government was as dominant and things do change.
I always got the feeling throughout the Thatcher regime that the opposition might get re-elected
Not until John Smith then Blair. There was no chance and we are in the earlier part of this regime.
Hence, I'm packing my bags and moving to Finland.
Hm, don't they have the highers suicide rate in the World? Say hello to Tux for me ;-) Regards, -- IanL
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But it should be of concern and politicians in this country should make a stand on it like their their Peruvian counterpart and get people interested in how their money is spent and their personal information held and used.
They might well be dedicated and talented in other fields and technologically weak.
If they were dedicated and talented in other fields then they wouldn't go into politics.
Not true. Seb Coe definitely talented in a different field, Maxwell (nuff said :-) ) Hestletine, Tony Blair was a lawyer, and so on. Bit like saying thos
The Blair family isn't short on lawyers. "Too many lawyers in government" is a complaint made both here and (even more) on the other side of the Atlantic.
participants (3)
-
Frank Shute -
Ian Lynch -
Mark Evans