Glass Half Empty

These are the boxes you use in defence of liberty. You use them in order. Someone appears to have gotten over-excited in London tonight, I'm not sure who yet, and tried to jump from 2 to 4. But it should have been somewhat obvious, I think, that when you do this, you will often get this (and man, that first one's NOT an image I'm comfy with). Both photos sourced from this slideshow.

I don't disagree with the student protesters. Hell, some of them were my students. Some of them were my friends. I strongly suspect that most of the most violent protesters were not students. I think the raising of the fees cap deserves a great deal of attention, given that it is being supported by a party that I and many other people voted for on the express understanding that they would oppose (not review, oppose) a raised cap.

I also think it's a crying shame that the tuition fees protest is overshadowing the other issues involved in this latest financial package such as similar fuckery currently going on in the incapacity benefit system, not to mention the emasculation of the Fleet Air Arm.

I fear that this is not the government I voted for.

EDIT: Some suggestion that the Westminster Bridge kettle is still closed, people and children trapped on the bridge by the police, at 0120, in the freezing night. If true, that's fucking criminal. Warren Ellis has friends on site, and expresses my thoughts better than I do: "She’s silent right now: I’m presuming her phone ran out of charge, as predicted, and hoping she’s not still in the kettle, which, others on Twitter are reporting, is still active at 1230am. There are children in there. This is how we treat our children when they question us, now: by cowing them, in the dark and the cold."

EDIT THE SECOND: After-action report from a journalist who was in the main body of the protest. An interesting read.

The Glass: empty