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#268979 - 09/11/2005 19:54 Re: Is France unique? [Re: wfaulk]
blitz
addict

Registered: 20/11/2001
Posts: 455
Loc: Texas
Quote:
It also wouldn't make abortions illegall it would just leave that decision up to the individual states. Chances are that it would remain legal in half or so.


Thank you for stating this. I had a post I was working on and you beat me to it. 39 states is what I've read (wherein it would be legal).

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#268980 - 09/11/2005 19:57 Re: Is France unique? [Re: bonzi]
blitz
addict

Registered: 20/11/2001
Posts: 455
Loc: Texas
Is it being reported or represented anywhere about a religious element of the rioting? Is there any truth to some stories that it is young Muslims who are rioting? Is it germane?

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#268981 - 09/11/2005 20:15 Re: Is France unique? [Re: JeffS]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
I think the Supreme Court is so important because whoever the president is, he will be gone in a few short years. But the makeup of the Supreme Court will affect the US (and the rest of the world through influence) for a long time to come.

Exactly, which makes the current state of affairs in travesty of justice called Supreme Court so serious. As I already noted here (earning me a carefuly worded remark on my naivete by Jim or Bitt ), one can bet with 90% probability how each of Justices will vote on any given case. Their decisions almost always reflect their, pardon the expression, values (a.k.a. prejudices). Which means that they don't give a damn for law or Constitution, just their personal prejudices or political agenda. At very best, the conservative ones play spiritual mediums trying to divine what plan a bunch of slave owners* had in mind 230 years ago for the premier nucler and high-tech superpower.

*) OK, probably not all of The Founding Fathers were slave owners, but you see my point.
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#268982 - 09/11/2005 20:18 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
Is it being reported or represented anywhere about a religious element of the rioting? Is there any truth to some stories that it is young Muslims who are rioting? Is it germane?

Many or even the most of rioters seem to be young Muslims, but the religion does not seem to be a significant factor, as far as I read.
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#268983 - 09/11/2005 20:21 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
Quote:
It also wouldn't make abortions illegall it would just leave that decision up to the individual states. Chances are that it would remain legal in half or so.


Thank you for stating this. I had a post I was working on and you beat me to it. 39 states is what I've read (wherein it would be legal).

Thanks pointing this out, but my point was that outlawing abotion does not significantly lower its prevalence, just makes it more dangerous.

39:11? Not that bad.
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#268984 - 09/11/2005 20:28 Re: Is France unique? [Re: bonzi]
blitz
addict

Registered: 20/11/2001
Posts: 455
Loc: Texas
Quote:
just makes it more dangerous.


Might be more inconvenient but not likely more dangerous for the woman. Obviously, it has exactly the same danger to the fetus as before...

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#268985 - 09/11/2005 20:42 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Quote:
Might be more inconvenient but not likely more dangerous for the woman.

So, taking soon-to-be-clinic-free Mississippi for example... you are thinking that women living below the poverty line there will just hop on a Delta shuttle and fly to Syracuse if they decide they want an abortion?
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#268986 - 09/11/2005 20:51 Re: Is France unique? [Re: wfaulk]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
To continue this tangent, I've often looked at the recent civil unrests in Europe -- Yugoslavia comes specifically to mind -- and wondered how these people who formerly lived next to each other fairly peaceably for generations could suddenly come to the point of burning their neighbors' houses down.

Yugoslavia is a completely different matter, in so far that this was not the case of civil unrest, but aggressive war of one country against its neighbors and former members of the same union (although your question of how one could burn one's neighbor's house under any circumstances is still relevant in our case and bothers me, too, of course). You should have followed Milosevic's rise to power in late 80's: the similarity with Mussolini (more than Hitler) was uncanny.

There were no "centuries of hatred" between Serbs and Croats one often reads about (which makes it even more difficult to understand the bloodshed). The first conatact we had was when Serb refugees fleeing the Turks ware given some land in exchange for military duty in the border regions (a short Wikipedia article). But then, what possesed Italians and Germans in 1920's an 30's?

Blah, the layer of civilization is so thin...
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#268987 - 09/11/2005 20:58 Re: Is France unique? [Re: jimhogan]
blitz
addict

Registered: 20/11/2001
Posts: 455
Loc: Texas
Quote:
you are thinking that women living below the poverty line there will just hop on a Delta shuttle and fly to Syracuse if they decide they want an abortion?


I haven't thought that far in advance. Maybe there could be a shuttle paid for by proabortion activists to pick women up once a trimester or something. Perhaps even the federal government could pay for it. Republicans would probably go for it since it would help keep the welfare costs down.

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#268988 - 09/11/2005 20:59 Re: Is France unique? [Re: bonzi]
JeffS
carpal tunnel

Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
Quote:
Their decisions almost always reflect their, pardon the expression, values (a.k.a. prejudices). Which means that they don't give a damn for law or Constitution, just their personal prejudices or political agenda. At very best, the conservative ones play spiritual mediums trying to divine what plan a bunch of slave owners* had in mind 230 years ago for the premier nucler and high-tech superpower.
I'm interpreting this statement as saying that you believe to it is bad for members of the Supreme Court to vote their values, but you also believe that it is bad for them to try and strictly interpret the Constitution. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, what would you say is the correct way to decide law?
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

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#268989 - 09/11/2005 21:32 Re: Is France unique? [Re: JeffS]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
I'm interpreting this statement as saying that you believe to it is bad for members of the Supreme Court to vote their values, but you also believe that it is bad for them to try and strictly interpret the Constitution. Correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm not, what would you say is the correct way to decide law?

Obviously, voting one's values without regard for laws is wrong. But, starting every other opinion with "The Founding Fathers intended..." is also wrong, and just serves as justification for imposing one's conservative values. How do they know what Mr. Washington intended, and why would that be relevant today? What Justices have is a text, however ancient, brief, vague, self-contradictory, open to interpretation it might be. They cannot help but interprete it, and one's personal values are bound to insinuate themselves into one's reasoning, but that interpretation should be made in the context of today's world, values, problems.

It's late and I am not thinking very clearly, but let me just say that I would expect of nine top judges in the country to agree on constitutionality of a given law more often: the Constitution is the same, the logic has not changed, and they live in the same world.
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#268990 - 09/11/2005 22:09 Re: Is France unique? [Re: bonzi]
Anonymous
Unregistered


Quote:
Quote:
Quote:
It also wouldn't make abortions illegall it would just leave that decision up to the individual states. Chances are that it would remain legal in half or so.


Thank you for stating this. I had a post I was working on and you beat me to it. 39 states is what I've read (wherein it would be legal).

Thanks pointing this out, but my point was that outlawing abotion does not significantly lower its prevalence, just makes it more dangerous.

39:11? Not that bad.


Well things like murder, theft, and file sharing are illegal, but people still do it. Maybe we should legalize those actions as well, you know, to make committing crime "safer".

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#268991 - 09/11/2005 22:15 Re: Is France unique? [Re: ]
Anonymous
Unregistered


Also, I think your average innercity and/or trailer-trash slut will think twice about mashing it with every cock in sight after the first time she has to stick a coat hanger up her dirty box in a dark alley.

It´s so much easier to pay $200, get some free pain-pills and sit on your whored out ass collecting a welfare check from Uncle Sam.

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#268992 - 09/11/2005 22:43 Re: Is France unique? [Re: ]
Heather
addict

Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 510
Loc: NY
Quote:
Also, I think your average innercity and/or trailer-trash slut will think twice about mashing it with every cock in sight after the first time she has to stick a coat hanger up her dirty box in a dark alley.




No one wants to hear about your mother Billy.
_________________________
Heather

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." -Susan B Anthony

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#268993 - 09/11/2005 23:27 Re: Is France unique? [Re: hybrid8]
Gallagher419
journeyman

Registered: 14/12/2004
Posts: 95
Quote:
In the USA this type of event happens every time a sports team loses (or wins) a major title. Nothing justifies the wanton destruction of property, but at least it's not sparked because of a soccer game.

Seems to me that someone has forgotten that there was a riot in Vancouver after a Stanley Cup loss and there was also a riot after a Gun N Roses concert in Vancouver as well!

Pot, Kettle. Kettle, Pot.

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#268994 - 09/11/2005 23:30 Re: Is France unique? [Re: ]
Mataglap
enthusiast

Registered: 11/06/2003
Posts: 384
Quote:
Also, I think your average innercity ...


*plonk*

Thank you for making my life better by demonstrating how ignorable you are.

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#268995 - 09/11/2005 23:58 Re: Is France unique? [Re: Heather]
Anonymous
Unregistered


Quote:
Quote:
Also, I think your average innercity and/or trailer-trash slut will think twice about mashing it with every cock in sight after the first time she has to stick a coat hanger up her dirty box in a dark alley.




No one wants to hear about your mother Billy.


You´re my mother?


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#268996 - 10/11/2005 00:40 Re: Is France unique? [Re: ]
Heather
addict

Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 510
Loc: NY
Quote:
You´re my mother?


Are you an inner city minority?
_________________________
Heather

"I distrust those people who know so well what God wants them to do because I notice it always coincides with their own desires." -Susan B Anthony

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#268997 - 10/11/2005 01:48 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Quote:
I haven't thought that far in advance.

Guess not.

Quote:
Maybe there could be a shuttle paid for by proabortion activists to pick women up once a trimester or something. Perhaps even the federal government could pay for it. Republicans would probably go for it since it would help keep the welfare costs down.

Glad this is worth a smiley for you.

I was probably being too clever in my rhetorical question of what some impoverished female citizens of Mississippi might do. I am going to make a wild guess, though, based on your carefree answer, that you have probably never watched a teenager die from septic shock.

Years ago, many years ago, I made a deal with some female coworkers: I would keep my residual Catholic reservations and opinions about abortion to myself if they would agree to stop lecturing me about my obligation to flee to Canada to avoid the draft. You see, I did not think it was their place to lecture me, them not having received their notice yet.

I really don't get the male willingness to weigh in so heavily on how women must behave, what women must do. Is this Saudi Arabia? And the hypocrisy and blindness. The most righteous, vehement pro-lifer won't have to look too far to find a friend or relation who has had an abortion but who did so in secret. But they'll never realize that. They'll just keep picketing to make sure the young women of Mississippi behave according to their rules.
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#268998 - 10/11/2005 13:27 Re: Is France unique? [Re: jimhogan]
blitz
addict

Registered: 20/11/2001
Posts: 455
Loc: Texas
Quote:
I really don't get the male willingness to weigh in so heavily on how women must behave, what women must do.


I never stated my position on abortion. You are leaping to conclusions. I was simply stating that there are alternatives for people in places like Mississippi. I don't care that much about it since I've never been involved (like you say that I know of). If I were pressed for my opinion I would say I have always thought it was a little strange how that the little trip from the uterus to air could make so much difference. That thought however is simply because I remember when my wife was pregnant with my kids we would drag out this some incredible pictures in some book or other) about their development. Ironically that book was filled with high contrast pictures of dead fetuses... just beautifully shot somehow backlit against a jet black background.

I think it is exceedingly strange it is used as birth control because people won't use real birth control (due to ignorance and poor education largely insisted upon by perhaps well meaning but ill informed religious groups). I say perhaps well meaning because I am convinced that there is an element of mean spiritness in the religious right's dogged insistence on the issue. When I see protesters, I know damn well there are some that have taken advantage of Roe vs. Wade in their own past. Would I want my teenage daughter (if I had one) to have that option available... hell yes. Would I prefer she didn't have to have one either through birth control or abstinence ... double hell yes.

As you are no doubt are aware, poverty has being studied to death. I cannot decide whether I agree with the latest studies or not but the one I find most intriguing is to not treat it as a social condition but as a series of small individual choices. Statistically speaking, most impoverished people are women and children. Also, statistically speaking, if women graduate from high school, do not get married in their teens, do not have children out of wedlock and get a job, they have a 90-95% chance of not being impoverished. How to convince people growing up in poverty to make those decisions will have to be determined by smarter people than me.

To that end: however, I support free federally funded abortions for impoverished women... the whole nine yards. I was reasonably serious about the charter jets to these 11 states to pick up women in need of abortions if that is what it takes. I can't tell you why (since I think it is pretty close to murder (say 6")) but the alternatives (with all their ramifications) are just as bad.

I did watch my mother die of septic shock if that counts.

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#268999 - 10/11/2005 14:30 Re: Is France unique? [Re: tanstaafl.]
Tim
veteran

Registered: 25/04/2000
Posts: 1522
Loc: Arizona
Quote:
No... we as a country (no, let me re-phrase that: enough gullible people to create a 50.2% majority vote) believed and were taken in by the lies, deceit, and intimidation espoused by the Republican party.


I'm still amazed, even after all the time since the election, that people don't believe there were other issues. Apparently, the only thing people care about is abortion, gay rights and how to proceed with OIF (and why doesn't anybody care about OEF anymore?).

- Tim

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#269000 - 10/11/2005 15:03 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
jimhogan
carpal tunnel

Registered: 06/10/1999
Posts: 2591
Loc: Seattle, WA, U.S.A.
Quote:
I never stated my position on abortion. You are leaping to conclusions. <snip much>


That may be true. And I would almost verge on apologizing if I didn't reread what set my comments off:

"Might be more inconvenient but not likely more dangerous for the woman."

I thought, and still feel like this was pretty flippant, never mind wrong. Leaving aside all of the woulda-shouldas of birth control and sexual behavior, I have no doubt that the religious right, if they had their way, would leave us with abstinence as the sole defense. This is of course unless their daughter becomes pregnant in which case I figure that there is a 1-in-20 chance that their doctor will decide that their are clinical indications for a little <nudge-nudge, wink-wink> dilation and curettage.

I am not certain, but I'm guessing that women have been having abortions since long before Jeff's Christian god was invented and that they will likely be having them, albeit perhaps with some more advanced RU486, long after Jeff's god has joined Zeus in the Religion Hall of Fame. In the meantime, his followers/inventors see fit to preside over the lives of others...women...make those lives more difficult and potentially more dangerous, history and individual freedom be damned.

I mention Mississippi. Mostly because it was featured in a news story about the success of anti-clinic activity. It is not inconceivable to me that in the not-too-distant future, the Mason-Dixon line will become significant in yet another way.
_________________________
Jim


'Tis the exceptional fellow who lies awake at night thinking of his successes.

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#269001 - 10/11/2005 15:47 Re: Is France unique? [Re: jimhogan]
JeffS
carpal tunnel

Registered: 14/01/2002
Posts: 2858
Loc: Atlanta, GA
Quote:
I have no doubt that the religious right, if they had their way, would leave us with abstinence as the sole defense.
This is not my position. I believe in forms of birth control other than abstinence and don't believe that they should be relegated to only married people. People should make their own decisions about sex and protection.
Quote:
long after Jeff's god has joined Zeus in the Religion Hall of Fame.
We'll see . . .

Quote:
In the meantime, his followers/inventors see fit to preside over the lives of others...women...make those lives more difficult and potentially more dangerous, history and individual freedom be damned.
Regarding your accusation, I am not cavalier about anyone's individual freedom- unfortunately it seems that there are two freedoms to protect- that of the child and that of the woman.

I absolutely agree that making abortion illegal and then feeling the work is done is wrong. The women we're talking about need help and protection- that is our collective responsibility. And if you mean to imply that there are no Christians helping these women then you are mistaken. There are plenty, it's just that unfortunately, like most of society's needs, the need is overwhelming and these organization's efforts fall short. But sacrificing the freedom and life of the child is not a good way to meet those needs.

You claim that women's lives will be more dangerous if abortion is outlawed and I think you're right. Would unborn children's lives be less dangerous? I think so, though certainly some would still die.

And how would this play out if we were talking about 2 week old babies? Would that change things? If legalizing the killing of 2 week old babies made it safer for women who did it, would we consider allowing it?
_________________________
-Jeff
Rome did not create a great empire by having meetings; they did it by killing all those who opposed them.

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#269002 - 10/11/2005 16:02 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Quote:
Would I want my teenage daughter (if I had one) to have that option available... hell yes. Would I prefer she didn't have to have one either through birth control or abstinence ... double hell yes.

Same here -- although I follow news stories and BBS threads about gay rights in the US, that's because I think gay rights is a shibboleth of a free and fair society rather than because I have any personal plans to become either American or gay. The issue of abortion rights, on the other hand, is closer to home: my (unofficial, secular) goddaughter is growing up in the United States, and although she's way too young still for this to be an immediate issue, Supreme Courts last for ages and it genuinely worries me that in seven or so years' time, if the right-wingers get their way, she might not have access to impartial abortion advice, proper clean medical abortion facilities, or for that matter HPV vaccine.

Peter

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#269003 - 10/11/2005 16:27 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
wfaulk
carpal tunnel

Registered: 25/12/2000
Posts: 16706
Loc: Raleigh, NC US
I seem to remember a ship set up out of Ireland for Irish women to have legal abortions in international waters.
_________________________
Bitt Faulk

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#269004 - 10/11/2005 16:47 Re: Is France unique? [Re: wfaulk]
peter
carpal tunnel

Registered: 13/07/2000
Posts: 4172
Loc: Cambridge, England
Quote:
I seem to remember a ship set up out of Ireland for Irish women to have legal abortions in international waters.

That ended up not working out, except for shaking up the debate in Ireland a little. Other BBC stories I found while searching, put a figure of 6,000/year on the flow of Irish women into private British hospitals for abortions.

Peter

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#269005 - 10/11/2005 17:51 Re: Is France unique? [Re: peter]
blitz
addict

Registered: 20/11/2001
Posts: 455
Loc: Texas
Quote:
this was pretty flippant


Perhaps it seemed flippant. It certainly wasn't meant that way. I think the whole abortion issue is so full of hypocrisy as to not even be a real debate.

Back to your orignal question "Is France unique?" Not intending any smugness or joy in the position that France now finds itself, I do think it is more than symbolic that it can be summed up with the image of a French muslim throwing a molotov cocktail made with a French wine bottle filled with gasoline refined from oil from a muslim country.

I suspect there is a larger religious element to the rioting than is being admitted to by the French. I also suspect there is a simmering general resentment by French muslims over the continuing attempts by the French to secularize muslims. They, the French, are likely fomenting the very thing they are trying to supress.

Wasn't it just a year ago when the French banned head scarves by muslims in public schools? With that simple edict, aren't the French stigmatizing muslims within their country. Is that law symbolic of the French attitude towards an element of their own population? How is a muslim supposed to reconcile the conflict between their religious beliefs and French law?

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#269006 - 10/11/2005 21:05 Re: Is France unique? [Re: JeffS]
RobotCaleb
pooh-bah

Registered: 15/01/2002
Posts: 1866
Loc: Austin
"I support fourth trimester abortions."

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#269007 - 10/11/2005 21:05 Re: Is France unique? [Re: blitz]
bonzi
pooh-bah

Registered: 13/09/1999
Posts: 2401
Loc: Croatia
Quote:
Wasn't it just a year ago when the French banned head scarves by muslims in public schools? With that simple edict, aren't the French stigmatizing muslims within their country. Is that law symbolic of the French attitude towards an element of their own population? How is a muslim supposed to reconcile the conflict between their religious beliefs and French law?

French banned all relgious symbols in public schools, thus, theoretically, making oppression equal for all. Is headscarf more important to a Muslim girl than yarmulke to a Yewish boy (belonging to some of more fundamentalist sects)? Christian cross probably is less important to its wearer. Anyway, I agree that the state being separated from religion means it should not care whether schoolkids wear some religious symbol or other.

That said, I don't think that religious freedom should be absolutely unrestricted. For example, I think that perpetrators of clitorectomy should be prosecuted as if they mutilated their victim in any other way, religion and custom or not. I agree with Ayaan Hirsi Ali, at least in the part about human rights always trumping freedom to exercise religious rites.

But I really believe this is much more about unemployment and general feel of lack of future than religion.
_________________________
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#269008 - 10/11/2005 23:37 Re: Is France unique? [Re: BartDG]
Geoff
enthusiast

Registered: 21/08/1999
Posts: 381
Loc: Northern Ireland
Quote:
I can easily see this happening in Belgium as well. More specific in cities like Antwerp and/or Brussels where also a lot of immigrants live. There already have been some small riots in the past few nights, as per France's example. (on a -for now at least- smaller scale)


I've just started working for a client in Brussels this week and got home tonight for the weekend. While I didn't personally witness any sign of trouble, there was quite a bit of chat around the lunch table about it for a day or two, and it sounded like there was some sporadic and organised disturbances, with half a dozen or so cars burned not far from my apartment or the client's office, by all accounts.

I'll be back again on Monday, and travelling to and fro between now and Christmas. Having been to university in Belfast, you'd think I wouldn't be too worried about 'a bit of local difficulty', but I suppose it goes to show how things have changed at home over the past decade when I say I was more than a bit concerned... You used to be able to set your calendar by where the latest riot was

Of course, some idiot somewhere in Belfast is going to want to break France's new 'car torching record' more than likely
_________________________
Geoff
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