DZJ

Strikes in France! Water found in ocean! Snow discovered in Antarctica!

Hehe, it wouldn't be bloodlust, honest! Simply doing my bit for common sense, one round at a time.

I agree about sport, I just found the apparent conflict amusing. As for these sorts of rules, it seems that in an increasingly liability-mindful environment the response to any situation requiring judgement is to hedge bets with blanket policies. I wouldn't think that policy is being deliberately perverted, so much as once a policy is formulated it has to be implemented in a rigorous way or else it becomes irrelevant and possibly opens up a body to the exact same litigation as before. Of course partly this is all our fault - if we weren't quite so keen to sue at the drop of a hat, we wouldn't have businesses and public institutions protecting themselves like this. It's just that pot of gold at the end of the legal rainbow is sooo enticing... Or we could just shoot all the lawyers....

Apparently affection is outlawed, but individual or collective violence is actively encouraged! What lesson do you think that's teaching the little darlings? [EDIT - Was wondering, would people call this the rise of litigation culture, or the demise of common sense? Or are they the same thing?]

As someone who is daily at the mercy of the mainline and Underground - never fear, there's always public transport!

'Patriot' Act, anyone?

I imagine the Lord Chief Justice will come and clap you in irons, before hauling you off to the Tower of London, to be on the safe side.

Gp Capt WGG Duncan Smith (father of the politican Ian Duncan Smith) in Spitfire into Battle

Either that, or we reach for the kettle and have a nice cup of tea...

I would agree, were it not for the actions of certain other free men who strapped themselves with explosives and killed 52 of my fellow Londoners, or of yet other free men who tried to do likewise two weeks later. There's seems to me an important distinction, and I'm speaking generally here rather than specifically to you, in perception between American and British views of the 'War on Terror' (which, by the by, I think is an extraordinarily bad name to give one's foreign policy) 9/11 was an attack by foreign nationals while the London bombings were carried out by otherwise fully assimilated British citizens. Britain has an indigenous Muslim population of a size and concentration that the US, so far as I know, does not. Islamic extremism is therefore a largely external threat for the US, but in Britain is a force that has to be combatted within a large domestic population, the overwhelming majority of whom are decent, law-abiding British citizens. I don't pretend to know where the balance should fall between liberty and security, but in the current climate a certain amount of care has to be taken. A balance has also to be struck between vigorous anti-terrorist policing, and the risk of further alienating those who are at risk of radicalisation. Overall I'm satisfied that the correct decision has been made here, though the non-unanimous (10:1) verdict perhaps reflects the ambiguity.

Not in isolation, no. In this case, the defendant's possession of a range of material, coupled with her membership and support of extremist groups and her advocacy of violence was sufficient for a jury to convict. I think it ought to be remembered that she was cleared of a more serious charge. It may be that this woman was simply a misguided fantasist who built up some sort of persona which led her to acquire this material, but post-7th July I'm not sure we have the luxury of giving such cases the benefit of the doubt.

She wasn't convicted for the poetry, she was found "guilty of possessing documents likely to be used for terrorism" though I wouldn't expect a rag like the Mail to understand the difference.

Thanks for that. I'd be interested to find out what the original justification was for that law - maybe I'll do some digging.

Came across this on the BBC, was wondering if any of our resident Floridian skydivers can shed any light... http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7081038.stm Is this true?

I'm just trying to imagine the brou-haha if Cheney had called Obama a 'black sheep'...

Urgh, Elephant and Castle [shudder]

Lieutenant X has nothing to say, but many ways of saying it...

For what it's worth, I agree with Andy's earlier post. I don't think there was any disrespect intended. We might criticise him for keeping better hold of his stuff, but it's a bit much to accuse him of dishonouring the ceremony. At the same time, I think the guard reacted correctly given the protocol of the occasion. All this has set me thinking of Britain's Unknown Warrior (a recipient of the Medal of Honor), and with 11th November fast approaching, I thought you folks might be interested to read the inscription on his Tomb at Westminster Abbey. -- BENEATH THIS STONE RESTS THE BODY OF A BRITISH WARRIOR UNKNOWN BY NAME OR RANK BROUGHT FROM FRANCE TO LIE AMONG THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS OF THE LAND AND BURIED HERE ON ARMISTICE DAY 11 NOVEMBER 1920, IN THE PRESENCE OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE V HIS MINISTERS OF STATE THE CHIEFS OF HIS FORCES AND A VAST CONCOURSE OF THE NATION THUS ARE COMMEMORATED THE MANY MULTITUDES WHO DURING THE GREAT WAR OF 1914 - 1918 GAVE THE MOST THAT MAN CAN GIVE LIFE ITSELF FOR GOD FOR KING AND COUNTRY FOR LOVED ONES HOME AND EMPIRE FOR THE SACRED CAUSE OF JUSTICE AND THE FREEDOM OF THE WORLD THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE -- Lest We Forget

I'm just surprised that of all the laws on the statute book the only thing they could make stick was a bloody health and safety charge. (I was about to say heads should roll, but it struck me as a bit distasteful given what happened to De Menezes). A £175,000 fine? That'll sting for a force with a budget of millions.... This is/was a clusterfuck in bed with a cock-up and a balls-up.

When you put it that way, terrorism seems positively inviting. It's obviously the more cost-effective way of advancing an agenda...

It could be worse, you could poop too little.

Oh, I don't suppose for a moment that you are. I read a lot of history, and it often seems to me that some of man's most base and degenerate instincts can lie very close to the surface, even when that societal surface is highly sophisticated and developed(I suppose you could say 'liberal', in its proper sense). Further it seems that it doesn't take much for that surface to crack, or even shatter completely. Given that, I tend to see talk of casual brutality and such to be a hairline crack in that surface. When what might well be idle talk works its way into the accepted landscape, words have an insidious way of eventually becoming actions.

[reply..... Give little Johnny a note to take home and he'll probably eat it.... I have a solution to that - write it on a piece of lettuce! No way that's passing Johnny Chubbybuttocks' lips!

I refer you to post no. 19. And for what it's worth, I understand your venting, and for a lot of it I sympathise, even agree. I suppose my real objection is that I find loose talk of killing burglars (or whatever other short term gratification someone might hunger for when they've been wronged) often leads to increasingly fascist ways of thinking (no, I'm not calling you a fascist). And with politics being what it is, people sometimes wind up with governments that give them exactly what they want... (Now that probably seems like a stretch, but it's just a gut feeling)

One cannot imagine why you would chortle so heartily...