Oops. After promising a card a day again, I failed to upload one today so we will just have to see what this evening holds. Just listened to the end of Any Questions (Radio 4), as asinine as ever with all the parties in point-scoring mood. Shock, horror...Hilary Benn just promised spending cuts. Hold the front page. Tessa May showed the Tories in excellent form as she pledged to singlehandedly balance the budget by cutting...erm...the ContactPoint database (now that will really make a difference) and got into an argument with David Dimbleby which still shows that the BBC is biased against the Tories but doesn't seem to want to make the first move against Cambo the Magnificent.
All quiet on the Pluto in Capricorn front then.
But does the Magic card tarot have Any Answers for us?! ;)
Goldmeadow Harrier - White - Kithkin Soldier
"It's a proven fact that sling-stones from the dawn side of the riverbank sail the farthest and truest." - Deagan, cenn of Burrenton
A little may go a long way with the above discussion (since this is the only political news I've heard all day - been working on my CV in between consulting my own personal owl-astrologer-person Jerrold Donington - I'll take this card as a reading for Any Questions). A single stone can fell a giant - just ask Goliath - but although we can see both the shooter and the victim, we can't quite see how strong the momentum is behind any particular issue right now. Nevertheless, as Deagan says, what starts out as innocent questioning now may become hotter and hotter an issue as the summer progresses. Just like individual MPs - Derek Conway, the perennial Nick-and-Ann Winterton show, Jacqui Smith - gave us a little bit of gossip over their expenses but nothing too dramatic or too dangerous until the whole hive was kicked over, so questions of public spending - and public spending cuts - may not seem too drastic or even too controversial an issue right now, but with a whole lot of planets lining up in increasingly dangerous positions in the near future, who knows what will spark off another feeding frenzy? Deagan might just live to regret throwing that one small pebble.
Regarding my own opinion over ContactPoint - I do believe there is a big issue over the surveillance society, and it needs to be explored properly (I might get round to writing on it here as well, by which time I hope I shall have an ID card). Nevertheless, I feel the reasons for setting up a database such as this are genuine and necessary, and that the Tories need to properly explore the need for some sort of networking between authorities to protect children and not just say they would abolish it outright. I know it is slightly unfashionable to be pro-"surveillance" (and I know at work I am the subject of a camera so good my employer largely uses it for telling him what sweets we need to replenish the chocolate counter), but although I don't approve of the idea "...if you don't have anything to hide..." I don't personally feel threatened by it. Maybe it is my subconscious taking care of nagging doubts, but Owlperson says it is largely him and largely because I don't have anything to hide. Like all subconscious reactions, I don't approve or disapprove. It just is.
Oh and one other thing. Owlperson asks, "What kind of a word is 'surveilled' anyway?!"
My answer: the sort of word the people who are opposed to it have to come up with to justify an LSE seminar on the subject.
