Pickers; can I have yer bike, then?

Sorry, already sold them to buy 3 large boxes of those little blue face masks. They must be REALLY good cos everyones using them on the telly…

GrahamS; don’t be so quick to dismiss ‘conspiracy theories’.

I’m merely entertaining the idea that the development of certain strains of viruses and bacteria, and the subsequent deployment of such agents, on an unsuspecting public, is possible, and as has actually been proven, real.

What if the Government had developed and released a neurological agent, which made people think the Government was all nice and caring?

What if it din’t affect everyone? 😉

Like I said; I can understand the need to study how epidemics work. In order to protect populations against them.

But what if, sometimes, otherwise well-meaning scientists get it wrong? This is the bit that worries me. And due to the Official Secrets Act, lots of stuff is hidden from us.

Moses; my cousin no longer works at Porton Down. Since she worked there, she has developed several serious allergies, which she never had before, and other health issues.

I’m not suggesting there is a definite, incontrovertible link, but it’s a possibility, for sure. I doubt that any studies into whether her condition is as a result of her work there will ever be carried out. And anyway, scientists can be paid off, and told to produce ‘evidence’ that satisfies the Powers That Be.

Hmm, tinternets went all funny, just then…. 😯

BTW; I’m having a bit of fun. But it’s food for thought, eh?

Best to keep an open mind, and all that.

Rudey,

The thing you always overlook in your conspiracy theories is the simple fact that successive governments the world over are self evidently unable to organise a saddle sniff in a bike shed.

Just to support this, take a quick glance through the following highly unscientific and thoroughly inexhaustive list :-

Jacqui Smith: Bath plug porn
Bill Clinton : Smoking habits
Jonathan Aitkin : Being a Lying Arse
Jeffery Archer : Perverting the Course of Justice
Richard Nixon : Watergate
Derek Conway: Illicit funding of his kids at university (and for being shite in the Bill)
Neil Hamilton: Cash for Questions
David Blunkett: Mistaking another mans wife for someone who fancied him etc

There are two US presidents and two British Home Secretaries here, who simply couldn’t hide their own transgressions, let alone a huge illegal state conspiracy.

…………………….. Unless of course their undoing is all part of the greater conspiracy….. where in fact this lot were in fact heroes of the people and have been silenced before they could spill the beans on the big conspiracy………

Bugger…… hadn’t thought of that one !

don’t be so quick to dismiss ‘conspiracy theories’.

I was quick to dismiss your Y2K one because I know it to be bogus through first hand experience.

due to the Official Secrets Act, lots of stuff is hidden from us.

Indeed. But such work is still open to scrutiny in some quarters and the people performing it still have basic human ethics. I’m bound by the Act for several things I’ve worked on – but none of them involved evil genius plans of the Illuminati or whoever you think runs the world.

What if the Government had developed and released a neurological agent, which made people think the Government was all nice and caring?

Well yeah that’s what they put fluoride in the water, as fluorine is a common component in antipsychotics. It helps keep the population calm, subservient and unquestioning.

That’s why I only ever drink meths or my own wee.

is there a list of which water companies do flurinate the water?

I’m sure my teeth are more yellow and i’ve developed plaque between me teeth since moving down south. Can’t be dietary as if anything that’s improved.

Derek Conway: Illicit funding of his kids at university (and for being shite in the Bill)

LOL!

Brilliant! I can’t take any of the other bits seriously (not that it merits it anyway), but that was proper funny. Nice one!

GrahamS; the Y2K ‘Bug’ din’t really materialise, did it? A handful of companies, globally, had a few slight problems, but even you have to admit, the mass-hysteria was completely disprportionate. Still, Symantec et all did ok.. 😉

The fluoride in the water don’t seem to be working. Not on me, anyway. 😯

My teeth are good and healthy, though.

Clearly then RudeBoy, before Porton Down was set up to create viruses in order to sell vaccines (which clearly implies Glaxo or someone secretly funds Porton Down and not the tax payer after all), no-one at all died on a regular basis from any infectious disease whatsoever, and especially not plaugue (2 sorts), TB, cholera, various flu pandemics, yellow fever, smallpox, etc. etc.

Paging Mr. Occam, will Mr. Occam please bring his razor to the front please…

Porton Down originally opened in 1916 as the Royal Engineers Experimental Station as a site for testing chemical weapons. The laboratory’s remit was to conduct research and development regarding chemical weapons agents such as chlorine, phosgene and mustard gas by the British armed forces in the First World War.

By 1918 the original two huts had become a large hutted camp with 50 officers and 1,100 other ranks. Studies in the Great War mainly concerned the dissemination of chlorine and phosgene and, later, mustard gas. By May 1917 the focus for anti-gas defence and respirator development had moved from London to Porton Down.

Only Wiki, I know, but ittul do.

It is also home to the Health Protection Agency’s Centre for Emergency Preparedness and Response as well as a small science park which includes companies such as Tetricus Bioscience [3] and Ploughshare Innovations [4]

So, would they be private companies, then?

Here you go:

I can’t take any of the other bits seriously (not that it merits it anyway)

Ditto right back at yer. 8)

Yep, private companies.
Probably set up by scientists made rednundant by PHLS / HPA or CDE or who want to commercialise some of their work. Start-ups, not multinational conglomerates.

as for the millennium bug, it would have caused a load of grief if it weren’t for the massive sums spent on fixing the programs at fault. or so plenty of mainframe programmers will tell you.

Honestly, there’s no huge conspiracy. Perhaps lots of small ones and cover-ups of cock-ups, though.

GrahamS; the Y2K ‘Bug’ din’t really materialise, did it? A handful of companies, globally, had a few slight problems, but even you have to admit, the mass-hysteria was completely disprportionate. Still, Symantec et all did ok.

Yes it did materialise. Even now people will occasionally run into issues with it.
Planes didn’t fall from the sky or nuclear power stations inexplicably go into meltdown as a few of the more “extreme” aspects of the media predicted might happen.
But no one in the programming community expected them too.

The real effects were far more mundane and less headline-worthy (Terror as Wrong Age Appears on Automated Forms; Empty Database Result Causes Carnage; Bill Sent for Negative Amount; Spreadsheet In Accounts Dept Stops Working: Thousands Dead)

The worst was avoided by people acting before the event. Most companies with their own legacy systems will have had to make some Y2K changes either before or since 2000.

People are already working on the Y2K38 problem – much of this work is on Open Source systems which means you can take a look at the source code and you will see it for yourself. No one is making it up.

Are face masks “utterly useless”?

I have a cousin who worked at Porton Down.

Was she in any way related to the “mate” at MOD who was in the know about helicopters over the Thames, that weren’t there, or had infections up their Y2K, or something?

you know what, its really a case of ‘why worry’.

nuclear weapons in the hands of crazy men, bird flu, some mad f£cker with a knife, drunken drivers, bad drivers, a million and one really nasty illnesses and lets not forget global warming, super volcanos, tsunamis and of course asteroids etc etc etc

then last sat night half the average monthly rainfall fell in one night, a normally placid stream took out a bridge up on the moors a couple of miles from here and a car load of kids coming home drove into the hole and were washed away. of four only one survived and they are still looking for the final body.

with everything that i finds to worry about, for me and my family, i would’nt have seen that coming.

Well the good news is that if Swine Flu does become a pandemic then it could kill 20-100 million people worldwide, like the 1918 Spanish flu (which is the same H1N1 strain as Swine Flu).

That would go a long way to cutting carbon emissions.

Plus, since the elderly are most at risk, it would also help out with the pensions crisis.

It’s win-win really 😉

Yeah, but the Spanish Flu tended to kill off the young adults more than the very old or young, which was strange, possibly due to their stronger immune response. So bank on it hitting cyclists worse than the rest of the population.

Oooo XKCD. Another fan

nice one