[OT Rant] Re: Portable Apps..?

[Rob Cozens]

Bongu Jim,

>All stated that it would NOT be accepted in any corporate 
>environment in Europe as
>corporations were banning the use of such devices by people in the office.
>No employees were allowed to use such a device in the office.

What follows is a rant...please feel free to trash it without reading 
it (or respond to me privately?):

Society, at least in America, is disintegrating because of the 
prevalent atmosphere of distrust.

* I grew up in a society where people were presumed innocent until 
proven guilty; I live in a society where the government asks its 
citizens to presume there are enemy terriorists among the people around them.

* I live in a society where armed, plain-clothes government agents 
ride planes, trains, & busses with authority to shoot to kill if 
anyone utters the words, "I have a bomb", or otherwise acts suspiciously.

* I live in a society where a major international airport is shut 
down for hours because a luggage screener sees "something that looked 
suspicious" in a suitcase and instead of asking the owner to open the 
suitcase, reports it to authorities who--after talking to the 
owner--take the suitcase to the street and blast it with a water cannon.

* I live in a society where a flashlight found in a public restroom 
is sent to an FBI lab to make sure it isn't actually a bomb, the 
flashlight's owner is being threatened with prosecution, and the 
authorities & news agencies are still making a case that this was not 
the asanine screw up that it was.

 From your post (plus the subway killing in London and the public's 
acceptance of it) it appears this distrust is world-wide and 
permeating the private sector as well.

I thank God that I am old enough to have lived most of my life in a 
freer society; but wonder what quality of life awaits my grandson, 
living in a world where he is distrusted by his government and his 
employer as well.

Society is a joint undertaking; and civilization based on force, 
secrecy, and distrust condems its members to hell on earth.

Rob Cozens

"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."

  --James Madison, April 20, 1795