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British Spy Agency Searches For Real-Life 'Q'

suraj.sun writes with this quote from the Associated Press:"Britain's domestic spy agency — MI5 — is hunting for its very own 'Q,' of sorts. MI6's sister organization, which carries out surveillance on terror suspects inside Britain and gives security advice to the government, is searching for someone to lead its scientific work. Projects could include everything from developing counterterrorism technology to tackling a biological or chemical attack. 'Looking for a chief scientific adviser to lead and coordinate the scientific work of the security service so that the service continues to be supported by excellent science and technology advice,' MI5's Web site ad reads. MI5 has long had a roster of scientific staff tasked with developing high-tech gadgets, but an official said the service now wants a high-profile figure to lead pioneering work in technology and science. The adviser's work will focus chiefly on creating sophisticated new tools to help security service officers carry out surveillance and analysis work, said a government security official, who requested anonymity to discuss the work of MI5."

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  1. In other news: John DeLancie *NOT* impressed! by Smidge207 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    I am Q. And I don't care for games, just music; see, it's the music that brings me home to my self. If I've been exposed to a day of really bad music, on hold for minutes that seem to be stretching into hours, and it's been Kenny G, or rock ("Classic" or not, I can't take much of it) or the boring and predictable Bam! Bam! Bam! accompanying the rap, hip-hop noise emanating from our 16 year old's room, after a time I need my head and heart cleared and jazz is where I go.

    Sometimes I will find myself needing to explore an old piece that has drawn my attention once again and I will play the same track over and over and over, hearing something in it I haven't ever heard before, though I've listened to it a hundred times. Miles Davis and "All Blues" will catch me like this on occasion. Some poetry is like that for me too and I will re-read a piece again to recapture what caught me the first time, or to hear it afresh to awaken me to what I missed in the first go around. "The Road not Taken" is one like that.

    I have a story of my own that I re-tell now and then because I think it will help others to hear it, even though some I know have probably heard it ten times over the years. In reality I tell it more for me, because I need to re-visit the emotions that were present when the story was born into my life those many years ago. It's a "touchstone" of sorts, a place to which I return to reawaken faith and hope.

    This is the story: But first just a bit of background. This story didn't spring entirely from the moment, there were many "tributaries" that fed into the stream of it. It's often true that a spiritual awakening, or a "miracle" happens when the ground is already prepared for it.

    Not always, but mostly. To be brief I will just say that I had been looking for a way to understand and believe that there was more to life than our just being, as my brother-in-law contended "animated pieces of meat". But I was deep into "proofs" about this. I wanted the facts not just hopeful leaps of faith or assurances from people who burned a lot of incense and meditated all the time. I wanted to be convinced!
    I'm still that way about most politics and "Best apple pie!" claims.

    I had come north from my apartment near El Paso to the mountains outside of Albuquerque. I'd come to visit friends and to gather some shreds of cedar bark from the trees that grow in the area,. I was using six to eight inch lengths of it to create small smoldering fires for the daily ceremonies I was committed to performing at the request of a medicine man I was working with. This was part of my personal spiritual quest. One of the "tributaries".

    He had taught me a little ritual to perform with the trees in order to gather the bark in a "conscious" manner. This was simply a process of taking a pinch of tobacco up to the tree selected and offering a prayer about why I was gathering the bark and that I would be using it for good purpose, and wouldn't be taking much.
    This seemed to me to be a nice way of keeping a person aware of conservation which is what I figured it was really all about.

    I like to keep things "rationally" based. Another tributary was this; I had been seeking a name. I wanted some sort of spiritual identity and through a series of very odd events occurring over the preceding months I had come up with "coyote" a name which carries many levels of understandingâ¦.but this is another story.

    The events which led me to this name could be considered "magical" by some, but for me, they might have simply been random occurrences and I thought I might be making more of them than they deserved. The real dilemma was that I was the one doing the "interpreting". Since I didn't trust anything I might come up with as coming from "The Source", my interpretations didn't amount to any kind of proof I could consider valid.

    So to prove that; the name was real and therefore purposeful, and thus, that there really was a Creator spirit running this show and all of this ceremony and ritual was worth the und

    --
    Is it just my observation, or is eldavojohn an idiot?
  2. in other news by superwiz · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    The Queen of England has declared that, as the head of the Church of England, she has decided that everyone is to worship the pig's head in front of the palace entrance. This is what happens when children run the government.

    --
    Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
  3. i just got off the toilet by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    i shit out an obama.

    plop!

  4. Re:His name was Peter Wright . . . by justinlee37 · · Score: -1, Offtopic

    Oops. Disregard that, I suck cocks. I missed the OP's subject line, "There was a real life Q"