On 29 August 2012 12:14, Ben Finney <[email protected]> wrote: > Adrian Colomitchi <[email protected]> > writes: > >> On Mon, 2012-08-27 at 20:30 +1000, Astrid Nova wrote: >> >> > Please have a look at and send on the article linked to below on an >> > issue that could affect us all catastrophically. The article >> > supplies a really good argument against what the government is >> > mooting. >> >> "Could affect"? Why the past tense? > > That's not the past tense; the word “could” doesn't tell you whether > it's past, present or future. > > Rather, “could” in this usage is the subjunctive of “can”. Astrid is > saying that it's possible, at some point in time, for the issue to > affect us all catastrophically. > Agreed. The word may could also have been used. Regardless I didn't read Astrid's sentence as being past tense.
Back on Topic... >From the Age... Victoria's Privacy Commissioner Anthony Bendall has spoken out against the proposal stating that it's against the presumption of innocence that we value and believe in. In a heated submission to the inquiry, Victoria's acting Privacy Commissioner Anthony Bendall dubbed the legislation ''characteristic of a police state'', arguing ''it is premised on the assumption that all citizens should be monitored''. http://www.theage.com.au/technology/technology-news/security-scheme-worthy-of-police-state-20120828-24yun.html Regards George _______________________________________________ Free-software-melb mailing list [email protected] http://lists.softwarefreedom.com.au/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/free-software-melb
