The Last Ditch by Tom Paine

In another appalling week for civil liberties in my benighted country, I am leaving it to the rest of the blogosphere to despair about Jackboot Smith, our obnoxious Home Secretary, champion expense-fiddler and founder of the British brownshirts. I am not going to speculate about why she is so keen to prevent the press reporting dissent. I am not going to rail about her cravenly giving in to threats of violence, made by a peer of the realm in the once-proud "mother of parliaments"

I am not going to comment on the fact that Liberty has fallen silent. I am trying hard not to think about how enthusiastically our gallant law enforcers follow her orders, without regard to their legality or morality. I refuse to speculate about how extreme those orders can become before they rediscover their manhood. Nor will I so much as raise an eyebrow at the Conservative Party declining even to comment.

Instead, I am going to show you an example of human ingenuity. Enjoy.

http://video.ted.com/assets/player/swf/EmbedPlayer.swf