Somethings are too shit to expand on

[silver_notebook]

Bush says off record to Blair, ‘You see the irony is what they need to is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's all over...’

A man in a London tube station says to his friend in a low voice that a metal detector was a, ‘piece of shit that wouldn't stop anyone’ and is jumped by police and fined £80.

Can we send those same

Comments

[dans_la_reine]

*blinks* cripes!

on the other hand, you are so cool *ggl*

[silver_notebook]

It is a bit 'cripes'! Not the kind of thing we want here, but sadly our government is sneaking in laws under the auspices of preventing terrorism.

The cool person is my lawyer friend who plans to do pro bono work to try and repeal this new law while she's on her maternity leave. She Rocks!
she's the one who ran a children's photo project in a Palestinian refugee camp last year.

[dasenergi]

You'll be fined if you say shit in public?? What other words are banned?

[silver_notebook]

Shit; hell knows.
The one the spot £80 fine is a new thing to cut down on 'antisocial behaviour', and it's meant to be a way of punishing people for being drunk and load and obscene; which has been an increasing issue in the UK with the increased prevalence of alcopop drinks and extra strong strength beers. Apparently, swearing twice in public can be considered 'causing an affray' so it's a safety-net charge police have used for years to arrest people (though not commonly); however, previously most such cases would be thrown out before they even came before a magistrate. The issue with this was that not only would such a case not have to come before courts to be charged with it, the people involved felt they'd been picked out for quite normal behaviour (London streets are rife with swearing and most people don't give a damn) because of their comment against 'authority'. Such views are always subjective, but the fact the police can now do such things so much more easily is not something most of us are happy about.

[wild_boys]

What. The fuck.
*headdesk*
*headdesk*
*headdesk*

[silver_notebook]

Yer, exactly. When police behave like that it undermines any good and worthwhile work they may do. Also, yesterdays rant at police was the comment by Sir Ian Blair (head of met) that is was 'very unfortunate' that they were being charged under Health and Safety laws for the death of Jean Charles de Menezes (the Brazilian who was mistaken for a terrorist and shot on the tube). Damn right it's unfortunate: there should be charges for manslaughter at the very least.

[wild_boys]

I am glad that Health & Safety regulations have something to say about the number of BULLETS, FLYING THROUGH THE AIR. Cheezis.

Ok. Depressed now.

[silver_notebook]

Depressed now.
Yer; I take comfort in the fact that these things still are quite rare in the UK and are discussed openly - in the media at least. What's concerning, though is that gradually feeling of 'creep'; that government is sneaking these things in under the auspices of 'protecting us from terrorism.'