statism watch

Isla Whitcroft, The Daily Mail
September 2, 2008

The pink leaflets are ready, the posters are poised to go up and the advertising slots have been booked both on kids and primetime TV and radio.

Tomorrow marks the start of a new academic year. It is also the launch date of a campaign which heralds the introduction of the biggest mass vaccination programme for more than a decade.

By the end of September, there will hardly be a Year Eight girl (aged 12-13) in the country who doesn’t know that, barring an opt-out, she is shortly to receive three injections of the drug Cervarix, which will offer her 70 per cent protection against cervical cancer.

Later in the year, another 300,000 girls aged 17 and 18 will be vaccinated before they leave school. By 2012, most girls over the age of 12 should have received the vaccine.

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[In line with an emerging global mandate for 'Intelligent Traffic Systems' or ITS, Transport Canada has awarded the contract to develop this technology to startup Globis Data and its partner MIxpertS Inc. As explained on the Transport Canada Website, "All cell phones currently sold by Bell Mobility have a built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) chipset that can, when augmented by the Bell Mobility network, determine their position to a relatively high degree of accuracy." Based on a P3 agreement with Transport Canada, ITS Canada, the local chapter of a global network of ITS associations tied in with government and academia, is driving these initiatives along with partners in the EU and the US Department of Transport including NASCO, the CANAMEX trade corridor, and other associations enabling electronic tracking along controversial multi-modal trans-continental trade routes. So, far from being a discrete project to help motorists 'escape traffic jams', these initiatives are actually the building blocks of far-reaching changes being made to global transportation infrastructure. And does anyone recall giving Bell Mobility permission to use their GPS data to enable this?]

CBC News
September 2, 2008

Relief could be down the road for motorists looking to escape traffic jams in Ottawa thanks to new technology being tested in Ontario.

Ottawa-based Globis Data has created a system that tracks drivers’ cellphone movement with GPS technology to generate information used to create real-time traffic maps.

The maps would be available online or on drivers’ cellphones.

“Our server pings the cellphone, and determines your location,” explained Barrie Kirk, an engineer and Globis Data president. “If we know where you are now, and where you were three or four minutes ago, we can work out how far you’ve travelled in that time.”

The technology holds promise, said Ata Khan, a civil engineering professor at Carleton University.

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Lucy Cockcroft, The Telegraph
September 2, 2008

Councils are recruiting residents to report anyone who drops litter, fails to recycle their rubbish properly, or who allows their dog to foul the streets.

Advertisements looking for people to sign up for the unpaid “environmental volunteer” jobs have been posted across the country in recent months.

Critics said the scheme is encouraging a Big Brother society where friends and neighbours will be encouraged to “snoop” on one another.

The recruitment drive follows news that the Home Office is granting police powers to council staff and private security guards, allowing then to hand out fines for low-scale offences and ask for personal details.

Matthew Elliott, of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, said: “Snooping on your neighbours to report recycling infringements sounds like something straight out of the East German Stasi’s copybook.

“With council tax so high, the last thing people want to pay for is an army of busybodies peering through their net curtains at their neighbours as they put out their rubbish.”

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