Silence is poison

Dateline: September 9th 2009 - Athens


Today at twenty minutes past midnight the world fell silent. In a phenomenon believed to be unprecedented in human history nobody has now spoken for almost 6 hours. Some had predicted this silence, most notably the organisation known as Freethinkers and Rational Scientists (FARS) but most people had poo poohed the idea.

At midnight GMT new human rights legislation came into force worldwide and the biggest database ever built was opened for business. The Global Offence Database was receiving 20 or 30 registrations per second within 2 seconds from internet connexions all over the globe. Within 3 minutes the transaction rate to GOD had ramped up to hundreds and then thousands per second. By the time the database system collapsed 7 and a half million notifications of offence taken (NOTs) had ben permanently registered on the database. A fail over clustered database system came online immediately at the United Nations and while the UN is saying nothing we are led to believe that close to a billion NOTs are now registered and transaction rates have steadied to 3 thousand per second.

And while all of this computer activity was underway a concerted police presence worldwide was arresting thousands of people in city centres around the globe. Prisons and police cells are widely believed to be full in all major capitals and metropolitan centres.

The new human right bestowed upon the world's citizens by this particular legislation can be simply stated: "The right not to be offended by anything that any other human might speak, write, or signal by whatever means." Railroaded through the UN by religious bodies and minority rights organisations it was widely understood that this new human right would produce a climate of peace and harmony - only FARS predicted a deafening silence.

As far as we can tell this text is the only language based output from the planet for close to 6 hours. We will not be silenced. We expect the knock at the door any moment but we repeat our message of the last year "Your rights are my gags". Stay tuned - we may be back.