-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On Wednesday 05 June 2002 6:16 pm, daRcmaTTeR wrote:
> No doubt...no doubt at all you are 100% correct. But, what to do > drjung? do we patch or plan as one who is wise recently so elequantly > stated here on the list(s). Well, Wired appears to have got a statement from Microsoft that it does partially fund the Alexis de Tocqueville Institute. I shouldn't worry too much about the source and would put up the Peruvian politician's letter as a sort of magic charm protecting all from evil if needed; I have a report in front of me from QinetiQ (despite the silly name, roughly equivalent to DARPA methinks) which says diametrically opposite things to the AdTI. When push comes to shove, who is going to be believed - an organisation with security bred into its very vitals or generalists who may well have been directed towards the issue? (Concerning my specialism, the impertinence of the AdTI talking about air traffic control is unbelievable!) Certainly, in the United Kingdom, these think-tanks are politely listened to then ignored, particularly the overtly political ones. Non-political ones, such as the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, which have built up huge experience which nobody else has outside government, are different. In my old campaigning days (see signature) it was clear straight off that political think-tanks were disliked; a lot of what they produced was self-referential (they existed in vacuo, never having any contact with the general public, and most of the references in their reports were to their own reports) and, among others, the Department of Trade and Industry had great contempt for them. (I always liked to cause a slight frisson in meetings by starting 'as the only elected person in the room ...' :) Alastair PS It is very sad that de Tocqueville, who wrote superbly about American democracy, has an institute named after him (without permission ;) whose ideas appear to be the antithesis thereof. From the Web site, everything that it produces appears to be cast from a predefined _and obvious_ mould; this is a bad American habit which needs to be watched :/ - -- Alastair Scott (London, United Kingdom) http://www.unmetered.org.uk/ -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (GNU/Linux) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE8/l+vCv59vFiSU4YRAs5JAKDFOUvuWoiIWgWGd0pCRFN7HEzzQQCeM8bB ph4pjoY5Sd6vznewtzaHtzM= =HL2g -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
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