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09:57 am
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opposition to britain's nascent dictatorship?
the british government continues to try to ram their house arrest bill through parliament。 given the indifference to their enabling act， there is a surprising amount of opposition coming：
Mrs Follett (Stevenage), now married to novelist Ken Follett, said the system of control orders proposed by Home Secretary Charles Clarke bore “an extraordinary resemblance” to those used under apartheid. [...]
“House arrest hampered but didn’t stop him,” she said.
“That is probably why, just before his five year order was due to expire, he was shot dead in front of our two young daughters in their bedroom.
“In the days that followed I tried to comfort them by telling them we were going to go to Britain where people were not detained without trial or put under house arrest.”
more comment on this over at hammerton's place。 he also points to the scottish parliament rejecting the human livestock bill， following some bizarre politicking。
i still find it odd that bliar and co feel the need for more repressive laws when they already have an enabling act。 hammerton suggests that they might find using the enabling act to be too much like hard work， or perhaps because "only the fanaticised masses can be guided" and the british public "are not ready yet"。
Current Mood:  tired
Current Music: Space - The Female Of The Species
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02:21 pm
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amusing kanji/japanese: twisty roads
as usual， hover for readings to the japanese。 click to see the other articles in the amusing kanji/japanese series。
today's kanji is nowadays pretty much only used in classical japanese。 the word of the day is 之字路， which literally is a road shaped like the first character of those three characters (之)， or "a twisty road"。 that first character can be read lots of ways， including shi， no， kore and yuku。 'no' is the japanese possessive particle， nowadays just written in hiragana： の。 'kore' means this， which is again just written in hiragana nowadays： これ。 'yuku' is an older form of the verb "to go"， which is normally written with the same kanji as the modern form： 行く。
probably the most likely place a foreigner will see this kanji is in people's names。 for example， the common surname "inoue" can be written： 井之上 (it can also be written 井上， 井ノ上 or 井乃上)。
this kanji is usually written in two strokes by most japanese people， very similarly to the way you write a hiragana e (え)。 that is in fact incorrect： the character should be done in three strokes。 first the small vertical at the top， then top horizonal and diagonal down as one stroke， and finally the bottom across stroke。
the other two characters in the word above mean character (字) and road (路) respectively， so even more literally a twisty road is a "shi character road"。
this message was brought to you from the department of not many people know that。
as usual， hover for readings to the japanese。 click to see the other articles in the amusing kanji/japanese series。
Current Mood: tired
Current Music: Bonnie Tyler - (You Make Me Feel Like A) Natural Woman
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