http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050913/ap_ ... hild_files

Well, that's only to keep children form dissapearing from government screening. There have been a number of occasions where neglected children were kept from government help organizations for years because of change of adress and things the like.
I havent't heard anything about keeping criminal records in the same file yet.

check out the article. Basically they're talking about making a single database where all your information is kept, from birth to death. Different departments can only access their own portions of hte database, but they can raise 'flags' that other departments can see.

IE, your doctor can see if you have a police flag (ie, you recently got arrested) and secretly test you for drugs. He sees you've used drugs, so he raises a flag. The school sees police and medical flags, so it tells the teachers to watch you closely. Maybe child protective services sees this and figures you must have bad parents (since you have flags on medical and police) and launches an investigation, maybe takes you away from your parents.

I may be exagerating what it's really going to be used for, but the general idea is what the article discusses. Personally, I don't want people to keep this kinda shit on me. My high school, for one, no longer exists, so I imagine al those records have probably been lost/destroyed by now. And I like it like that.

I'll check out the article when I'm sober again...

Yay. Holland is so far forward. I remember opening a topic on this once. It ended up with the conclusion being: That the people in general do not favour such a system because of the risk of it being misused by government.

I don't think the system that's currently in place is so very different anyway. Unless you're a societal borderline person who lived as a hobo you're in this or that record anyway. But meh, I'll read the article in a minute.

Didn't really know where to post it, and since this was about Holland:

http://edition.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europ ... heroin.ap/

The idea migth be interesting if worked out properly, but it will be about sensation no doubt. So i think it will be a bad example. Can't wait untill some belgian channel decides to copy (buy) the program though

lol...I wanna see that show.

I'm not sure about the LSD use...he's going to take it...on a couch...while being supervised by his mother? Sounds like a recipe for a bad trip right there.

Especially this part was interesting:




So legalizing weed doesn't create an outburst of usage or anything, as some ppl would have us like to believe. Not that I needed those numbers to 'know' that anyway, things are perfectly normal in Holland and Belgium (two only places where cannabis use is legal? Maybe there's another place, dunno) as far as society and dope goes.

there are certainly other places in the world where cannabis usage is ignored. Like India. And Germany. :p

But anyway...I see no problem with legalization.

Definitely. And no problem with the program either. Can't inform people enough on stuff like this, I say. Bad things most of the time happen when ppl don't know wtf they're doing.

It's all really the same discussion as that other Dutch show a year or two ago, 'Sex doe je zo' ("this is how sex works") on national tv. It was an informative mainstream show on sex and many of its aspects meant for adolescents (anyone really) with explicit scenes, content and whatnot. In terms of the US, it was hardcore porn. There was a lot of blabla about that in parliament as well before it started, but look, the program ran and the world didn't explode.

If you don't want ppl to get STD's, unwanted pregnancies, drug overdoses and whatnot, teach them how to do those things safely. You can't stop ppl from having sex (hah) or doing dope, so might as well perform damage control. The "lets just ban it and have super-tough sentences" for dope or "let's just not talk about sex and say abstination ownz u" for sex measures clearly aren't working.

abstinence is for idiots.

The only people that practice abstinence are people that can't get laid and religious zealots. I say bring on the porn!

Hehehe....I reckon it's really only the former, even. Most places were abstinence is preached crawl with STD's, now where would those come from?

It's like many women and diets. When you see them (like at work) they're always on a diet and eating nothing but half an apple for lunch or something, yet they never seem to lose any weight. On the contrary even in some cases. Mighty fattening apples!