Twitter Sued By British Soccer Player 264
norriefc writes "Here in the UK super injunctions are all the rage. These are injunctions that bar the press from even mentioning that the injunctions exist. Recently a Twitter account exposed several of these super injunctions and named several people involved and what their alleged indiscretions were. Now one 'famous' soccer player is trying to sue Twitter and the yet to be named tweeters for invasion of privacy, apparently in ignorance of the Streisand effect. I'm doubtful of an American company paying much attention to UK anti-free-speech laws"
Quandary (Score:3, Insightful)
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How an I supposed to know what I am not allowed to say ...
Exactly so Sir. I don't know who was served with super-injunctions which prevented them from saying things about some anonymous person (or persons) and also prevented them from even talking about the fact they can't talk about it, but I certainly haven't been told I can't talk about it?
Hmmmm. That Super-Injunction's not looking quite so Super now is it!
Honestly, I really couldn't give a toss about what footballers get up to off the pitch - actually, I don't really care what they do on the pitch either,
Re:Quandary (Score:4, Interesting)
A superinjunction is sent to named individuals or organisations. But it includes an additional clause to "Any person who knows of this order..."
Thus if you know of the superinjunction, you are forbidden from saying what the superinjunction says you can't say.
If you don't know of the superinjunction, you can say what you like.
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Thus if you know of the superinjunction, you are forbidden from saying what the superinjunction says you can't say.
If you don't know of the superinjunction, you can say what you like.
In this case one of the things the court is ordering is that the identity of the person posting the tweet be revealed. So how does the court know that the tweeter was either aware of the existence of the superinjunction or, if they were aware of the existence of a superinjunction, that the person about whom they were tweeting was the subject of the injunction?
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Because the tweet mentioned the two people and was tagged #superinjunction. Pretty easy really.
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Thus if you know of the superinjunction, you are forbidden from saying what the superinjunction says you can't say.
If you don't know of the superinjunction, you can say what you like.
I'm dizzy.
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To the best of my knowledge, the law says that people are entitled to their privacy. If you violate his privacy then you may well be liable for damages caused by that breach. It's up to the court to decide whether they were entitled to privacy and whether you violated it.
Unlike the US, the courts can apply prior restraint. That is, if a publication is going to breach privacy, you can get a court injunctio
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Because you read the article. Or at least the summary. So you and I both know that there's someone out there that plays sports, that had an affair with a smoking hottie (scroll up for the name). So clearly, you can't say "Tiger Woods". [google.com]
Wait... Who were we talking about again?
'famous' soccer player (Score:5, Funny)
Why would Ryan Giggs try to sue Twitter over exposing his affair with Imogen Thompson? It doesn't make sense...
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Because he's pissed that it was some page nobody looks at and not a The Sun exclusive shocking story that would at least put his name in SOME context into people's mind.
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Super-injunctions “best publicity value&rdqu (Score:2, Offtopic)
Several tedious Z-list celebrities have demanded Twitter user @injunctionsuper post details of their tawdry and squalid lives too [newstechnica.com].
[REDACTED] tweeted: "Rumur that I hv super-injunction preventing publication of 'intimate' photos of me n my bank account. NOT TRUE! Also, tits. FER FUXAKE PLS RT"
The revelation that decent British people can read things on Internet services that aren't even based in the UK has left celebrities and politicians shocked, shocked that people actually have ways of gaining informatio
Re:Super-injunctions “best publicity value&a (Score:4, Funny)
It's not just the Internet. Spanish press published the identity of said soccer player weeks ago. We must eradicate the teaching of foreign languages in Britain!
Actually it is fair to say that the last decade or so of educational policy already did a pretty good job of that, but at least now we know it's a good thing.
tag story with ryan_giggs (Score:5, Informative)
See title, tag the story so no one misses it :D
Re:tag story with ryan_giggs (Score:4, Informative)
The "unnamed" soccer player in the news story. He's a veteran player for Manchester United and formerly played internationally for Wales.
Re:tag story with ryan_giggs (Score:4, Informative)
Plenty of info on Wikipedia too. I'm glad they stuck to their promise and didn't censor.
Ryan Giggs gagging order [wikipedia.org]
The comments about him being skint are laughable. He plays for Man Utd - one of the richest teams in the world.
England's worst kept secret.
Can someone clarify (Score:4, Informative)
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The fact that he hasn't come out and announced the rumours as libellous confirms the story. The other week, Jemima Khan was wrongly named and she promptly put that story to bed.
I am still trying to grapple with the stupidity of his legal advice.
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the stupidity of his legal advice.
Why? I'm sure it's turning out to be quite lucrative for his lawyers...
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the stupidity of his legal advice.
Why? I'm sure it's turning out to be quite lucrative for his lawyers...
Surely they can only take that path so far before he gets different lawyers.
Re:Can someone clarify (Score:5, Informative)
The footballer in question (I'm in the UK and I will take no part in mentioning of names), obtained a UK court injunction stopping his name from being published, under UK privacy laws. There has been no mention of libel, but under UK law you have a right to privacy from the press. Although this is only the case if you are rich and can afford such injunctions.
A famous welsh footballer who has played professionally for the same top club for 21 years, winning 12 Premier League titles and two UEFA Champions League titles could certainly afford such an injunction.
Re:Can someone clarify (Score:4, Informative)
There are no privacy laws in the UK, which is at the heart of the dispute. Judges are making caselaw out of the Human Rights Act, and therefore the European Convention on Human Rights. The balance between article eight privacy and article ten freedom of expression is unclear, and because European caselaw isn't incorporated into UK caselaw, and anyway there isn't very much of it, this is all pretty unexplored.
What's happened now is not that his lawyers are suing Twitter as a defendant, they're trying to get a Norwich Pharmacal order against Twitter. That's an order that says "I want to sue someone, and you have information that is important to that action". It doesn't injunct Twitter, and wouldn't even if they were a UK company, it merely demands they hand over information they have. It's going to be a car-crash, because Twitter don't (and don't need to) authenticate users, IP numbers have already been found to be insufficient evidence of identity as part of the ACS:Law debacle, and as others have pointed out there's US legislation (SPEECH Act?) which makes assisting overseas censorship an offence for a California company. "CTG"'s lawyers (like we don't know who it really is) appear to think the Streisand effect is a good thing.
Re:Can someone clarify (Score:4, Informative)
Not Anti Free Speech. (Score:2, Informative)
The UK doesn't have any anti free speech laws. It has laws against Libel and Slander, and there are some european laws on privacy that the UK courts are inerpreting in a rather broad manner to give rise to these superinjunctions. I suspect Twitter will just tell the UK lawyers to go to a US court first, and it'll stop there.
Re:Not Anti Free Speech. (Score:5, Insightful)
The UK does have anti-free speech laws, and libel/slander are examples of them - restriction of speech. Every country has laws like these, because every country has decided that completely unrestricted speech is unwise.
However some countries cling to the concept of free speech as a propaganda tool. Their people are so indoctrinated to believe that their country has free speech and that makes their country special that they convince themselves that any law contradicting this belief must therefore not be actually restricting speech. So you get convoluted explanations as to why laws that quite clearly restrict people from saying things aren't actually curtailing free speech.
If I am restricted from knowingly saying untrue, disparaging things about another person, then that is a restriction of my speech. There's no getting away from that. You can either think the law is bad because it curtails free speech, or you can accept the idea that restrictions on free speech is sometimes acceptable. The more common third option, "excusing" the law (most likely by redefining "speech" to exclude the unwanted speech), is not intellectually honest.
To put it another way - if it's an anti-free speech law that you have grown up with, then you are likely to be unable to recognise it as an anti-free speech law. It's just the way things are for you. If it's a new law that is being introduced, then you are more likely to recognise it as such.
Twitter's probably reponse (Score:2)
Joss Whedon was right (Score:2)
Fight Club Rules? (Score:4, Funny)
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I would imagine that the first rule is not to become embroiled in tawdry affairs that might embarrass you should they become public knowledge, especially if you are married.
Streisand Effect? needs renaming (Score:2)
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Presidents (Score:2)
Unwarranted bullish attitude by geeks (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like with Digital Rights Management / Defective by Design, you see a lot of silly bullish attitude from geeks on this site: "Ever heard of the Streisand Effect? All DRM will eventually be beaten!"
This is a serious attack on people's rights. What people are forgetting is that while this Welsh footballers privacy is being protected, the big brother's star Imogen Thomas' right to publish accounts about her own private life is impeded. In this particular case, this may seem irrelevant, after all, she's just a gold digger looking to make some money selling her story, right? But what if some famous actor / sports star slept with your wife and when you wanted to expose the wanker, he slaps down a super-injunction on you. How humiliated would you feel? And what if this was actually about something that had serious public interest?
Just like with DRM, bullishly stating that "we'll always beat them" is besides the point. Just because YOU [tm] may have the means and no qualms about breaking this stupidity imposed on you by law, that doesn't mean everyone are willing to break the law and open themselves up to the legal consequences.
AND: the fact that Twitter is American is more or less meaningless. Since they operate in Britain, they have to abide by British law and may well have to give up the names of the people involved. And you know what? Chances are they live in Britain.
This is serious stuff, people's rights are under threat, and arrogance doesn't help anyone.
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Everything that you say is correct. This is serious and the rise of the super injunction is not a good thing; even if they are largely aimed at the tabloid press who are a bunch of bottom-feeders.
None of this, however, changes the fact that the situation is farcical and absurd. It reminds me of the stupidity of the Peter Wright spy-catcher affair, or the entirely ridiculous spectacle of an actor lip-syncing Gerry Adams for two years because he was a terrorist.
It might be serious and because of this, it's mo
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Do Twitter operate in the UK? They were talking about opening an office in the UK recently [mediaweek.co.uk] but I don't think they have yet, and the legal action is against their US operation. People who access their website from the UK have to do so within the bounds of UK criminal law, and if anything do is deemed to be "publishing" they are at risk under UK libel and defamation laws, but n
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This is a serious attack on people's rights. What people are forgetting is that while this Welsh footballers privacy is being protected, the big brother's star Imogen Thomas' right to publish accounts about her own private life is impeded. In this particular case, this may seem irrelevant, after all, she's just a gold digger looking to make some money selling her story, right? But what if some famous actor / sports star slept with your wife and when you wanted to expose the wanker, he slaps down a super-injunction on you. How humiliated would you feel?
How humiliated would I feel if someone famous slept with my wife and the internet was prevented from echoing that fact ad nauseum. Not humiliated at all, as a matter of fact. I would be grateful to be able to divorce her and get on with my life with a minimum amount of drama.
The only "right" in danger here is the "right" to profit, either financially or in the esteem of they type of people who follow celebrity gossip. Imogen Thomas is not prevented from prostituting the sad details of her own life. She
Conspiracy (Score:2)
Yeah, trying to suppress the morale when the UEFA Champions League final is only 7 days away.
Who ever that post that tweet must be working for FC Barcelona.
Manchester United for LIFE!
Re:Streisand effect (Score:5, Informative)
Just search [twitter.com] on Twitter for Imogen Thomas, the girl he had his affair with. His name will likely pop up in the first few tweets.
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You want to know what is posted on twitter? Ask Google: 'football super injunction' [lmgtfy.com]. For me, the first link returned was something called 'CaughtOffside.com', who obviously need to be sued in England until the pips squeak.
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Still, while signing on to the UK Yahoo website to check one of my mail accounts, at the top of their "TRENDING NOW" list shown on the portal page was the name of a well-known British footballer which was a borderline dead-giveaway for me (unless some other story I didn't know about had gained massive prominence overnight).
Do I reall
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She has? Over what?
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They also fail to point out that these women have knowingly slept with married men who have families and then attempted to make money off it by going to the press. Must be nice to be able to make a good living out of lying on ones back.
Re:Ryan Giggs (Score:4, Informative)
I'm fairly certain that 'allegedly' is unnecessary in this case. i.e it's Ryan Giggs, definitely. :p
CTB's real name is Ryan Gigs (Score:5, Interesting)
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Not likely. The SPEECH Act of 2010 was designed to prevent this. Anyone who tries to sue in a US court in a way that is designed to squelch free speech can be subject to damages. Since it would be a civil rights case, the damages could be tripled if I recall correctly.
Re:CTB's real name is (redacted) (Score:2)
Maybe now he will sue /. as well,
More likely as it has no UK 'presence' (AFAIK) he will want the courts to order UK ISPs to block /.
They already have the mechanism for CP use (google 'clean feed').
The 'great firewall' - coming to your country soon (including the US - see latest copyright infringement proposals).
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I just can't believe any law firm would have the time or resources to research and go after several thousand people, just because they tweeted, retweeted, linked or otherwise used a certain person's name.
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Couple that to the fact that this list is rapidly expanding even as we type. Those Demotivator people should make a new poster for "futilty."
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Reprehensible as the RIAAs actions are, they are a huge, very rich organisation with top lawyers. Here though we are talking about an individual footballer. Even he doesn't have the money to fund such a long, drawn out campaign.
Re:CTB's real name is Ryan Gigs (Score:4, Insightful)
But the lawyers will have eaten all his money before he finds that out.
Re:Sounds like someone 'famous' is out of cash (Score:5, Informative)
Let's see if this makes the Guinness Book of World Records for "Shortest time a case lasted in court until being thrown out."
Twitter is a social networking site. If I had people talking trash about me on their Facebook wall, it would make no sense at all to sue Facebook because of what that person said.
Assuming CTB is Ryan Giggs (which is a popular belief) then's he's certainly not short of cash. (The Evening Standard has his net worth at £22 million - http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/mailFrameset.do?url=http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/sport/football.html?in_article_id=420790&in_page_id=1779).
I think the only reason it'll be thrown out is that Twitter is not UK based. If it were, then as it exercises some editorial control (i.e. removes spam and illegal comments on request) it's viewed as a publisher and therefore is treated the same as a newspaper and would fall foul of our (super)injuction laws.
I run a big football (soccer for the septics) site/forum (thankfully not connected to Ryan Giggs) and there is (we're told on very good authority) a super-injunction placed by one of the club's owners. Not being mainstream media, we've no legitimate way of finding out the details of the injunction, yet we can be prosecuted if one of our forum members publishes the allegations.
The law in the UK surrounding citizen journalism and internet discussion is an absolute ass. Value your constitutionally protected freedom of speech
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Nothing to do with infections. It's cockney rhyming slang.
septics == septic tanks == yanks
Australians often say 'seppos' too, stands for 'septic (tanks)'.
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Yep. It's rhyming slang rather than general abuse (unless you take offense at being called a yank, of course, which I guess quite a few people could).
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Must be damned hard to keep track of though.
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That is because it's slow and simple, like the people.
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Stating the obvious but:
septic = septic tank = yank = americans.
Re:Sounds like someone 'famous' is out of cash (Score:4, Funny)
septic = septic tank = yank = americans.
Obvious for whom?
obvious for whom = temple of doom = Indiana Jones
Re:Sounds like someone 'famous' is out of cash (Score:4, Informative)
Obvious only to those familiar with Cockney rhyming slang [wikimedia.org], which is going to be an extreme minority in the US.
Go on, click the link and have a butcher's.
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So, septic tank, rather than say gas tank, petrol tank, oxygen tank, external fuel tank (like the ET on the all-American Space Shuttle), water tank. Or drifting away from containers, battle tank, M1 Abrams tank, Sherman tank, .... Or frank (like frankfurter, a generally phallic reference),
But why focus on just term "yank" anyways? If you follow the etymology of it, it originates from a disparaging term for Dutch settlers in New Amsterdam, and around the time of the colonial war (err, A
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So, septic tank, rather than say gas tank, petrol tank, oxygen tank, external fuel tank (like the ET on the all-American Space Shuttle), water tank. Or drifting away from containers, battle tank, M1 Abrams tank, Sherman tank, .... Or frank (like frankfurter, a generally phallic reference),
Yes, one could have also used "Sherman" as a reference to Yanks, as Sherman is easily understood to be a "Sherman tank" and tank rhymes with Yank. Congratulations, you now understand Cockney Rhyming Slang.
But why focus on just term "yank" anyways? ... *blah blah blah* ... It's called respect, which it seems some people still haven't learned.
If you think someone is lacking in respect when referring to Americans as septics, then you truly are very American indeed.
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The difference there would be that the word "Sherman" comes from the name of the American General William Tecumseh Sherman. The tank itself was well respected as a strong and efficient machine.
"Septic", on the other hand, still refers to a box full of shit.
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In rhyming slang, the word you're using doesn't hold any significance or meaning. It's about what it refers to and then rhymes with it. The fact a Sherman tank was a nice piece of equipment in it's day is completely besides the point, because you're not talking about Sherman tanks at all when you use it in rhyming slang. Equally so, the meaning of the word "septic" isn't relevant at all.
By the way, thanks for the etymology story of the term "Yankee". I love etymology and love it even more when it involves t
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It takes an American to bother understanding the language they speak, and can recognize an insult built upon another insult? Interesting. I guess I honestly have some misconceptions of how the rest of the world operates.
Nope, you're over-thinking this. It's about as insulting as calling an Irishman a paddy, i.e. not very. The origin of the term doesn't necessarily reflect its modern usage. Berk is a classic example of this. It's used as a very mild insult, of the kind that you'd hear on daytime TV, yet it's rhyming slang for cunt. The long form is "Berkeley Hunt". Whether the originators thought this bunch of fox hunters were cunts is anyone's guess, but few people today even know the origin of the term, and I doubt many p
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Lighten up Skippy!
I know a guy who became known by the nickname 'Skippy' and hated it. Plenty of seemingly well minded people told him to 'get used to it' or 'just go with it'. He worked on it, and eventually many stopped even in private conversations to which he wasn't a party. It was sad on some levels that a mentally challenged man have to make such an effort to reclaim his very name from what would be assigned to him by a random fool at the wrong time. I haven't seen him in years, or been around the
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Good. As a second generation Chinese American there are still people calling me Chink. And that was from some younger generation, contradicts what you see on 2008 presidential elections results ( about younger people more tolerant to people of different culture and/or different skin tones).
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In the case of rhyming yank with septic tank, I doubt the derogatory nature was an accident.
Re:Sounds like someone 'famous' is out of cash (Score:4, Informative)
Not being mainstream media, we've no legitimate way of finding out the details of the injunction, yet we can be prosecuted if one of our forum members publishes the allegations.
I thought that in order to be bound by an injunction, you had to be served it?
As I understand it, every time a superinjunction is issued it gets sent out to a massive number of media organisations telling them that there is an injunction that they can't report on, but not revealing what the injunction is about. That's how everyone in the media knows which injunctions they can't report on.
Obvious solution (Score:2)
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I know it's trendy in the UK to pretend otherwise, but calling it soccer originated with you people, not Americans. It was an abreviation for association football, which is what you used to call it to distinguish it from rugby football.
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Correct. We're not all so ignorant though; I don't actually care what people call it.
When talking to most Americans it removes ambiguity to refer to it as soccer, just as referring to "American Football" in the UK, when talking about the American game, removes the ambiguity for us. If you say "football" in the UK people will assume you're talking about soccer, if you say it in the US they'll assume you're talking about American Football. It's all about tailoring your language to your audience.
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And there were thousands of years of native American cultures there before the Europeans showed up. It's the last group in charge that sets the policies. I'm not aware of any US treaty with the UK or with the UN that would mandate the US follow such injunctions. I'm sure the UK would love US based companies to follow such policies.
It's a troubling principle. The fact that it was used for a "famous footballer", rather than being generally used for rape victims or abused children, indicates that it's main pur
Re:Sounds like someone 'famous' is out of cash (Score:5, Informative)
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As much as I may disagree with the legal action on the part of this sportsguy (if it is an actual law, shouldn't the lawmakers by the way of the magistrate / DA / whatsit be chasing down whoever broke the court ordered silencing?)...
I fail to see how it is bullying. It's a legal action. I'm presuming they asked nicely first and Twitter told them that they have no intent of releasing that information voluntarily and come back with a court order while snickering as they realize the many
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it would make no sense at all to sue Facebook because of what that person said
Oh, but it would; sue the company, and you make it their problem-
I am not saying it is right, but I do not understand your comment since this happens all the time, and all around the world; see blog hosting sites, streaming sites, torrent linking sites, file sharing sites ... EVERYBODY does it, they always go after the first person they can identify, and that will usually be the hosting site.
Real life (off-internet) analogy; you throw a party, someone craps on your neighbor's lawn (great party) - who do yo
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Why on earth would it be thrown out?
Step 1 - get a Norwich Pharmcal order against Twitter
Step 2 - get a Norwich Pharmcal order against The ISP identified in Step 1
Step 3 - either contempt of court proceedings or libel proceedings, or both, against the person identified in Step 2
Step 4 - profit
Note there are no question marks anywhere.
Re:so who is it? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Super Injunction (Score:2)
"I am sorry to say I cannot give you that information. Now, stay tuned for a special Family Guy Clip."
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWFW0B9EBx0 [youtube.com]
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Wikipedia link [wikipedia.org]
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Yeah, her breasts are unusually unusually spherical.
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Amen to what you just said. Each to his own, but I've never found fake breasts to be attractive.
Re:England (Score:5, Funny)
Nice try Prince Charles.
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Hey, what's your beef with the old lady?
As the Pistols sung, God save the Queen. She's not behind any of that shit, it's not like she has any real political power. Hell, she can't even go into the parliament!
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And all the proceeds from that land goes straight into the treasury in exchange for us providing her with a salary.
Although if she did dissolve parliament I'm more than certain she'd have a revolution on her hands fairly sharpish. It'd be the Roundheads and the Cavaliers all over again.
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She serves two purposes. One is continuity. She has been meeting the Prime Minister every week to discuss the issues of the day for several decades. This, at least according to several former PMs, makes her a very useful advisor. This utility disappears when she dies. She should really have been including Charles in these meetings for the last 10 years, so that he does eventually take over he can do the same thing. Without that, going to be a bit useless.
Her second role is as a constitutional failsaf
Re:England (Score:4, Informative)
It's vanishingly unlikely a monarch would refuse to give royal assent. The last time it happened was 1707.
Re:Free Speech (Score:4, Informative)
Because it could make business in the EU problematic. If a foreign media organisation were to be found in contempt of court (in this case impossible as I doubt Geeknet Inc. has been served with this injunction) then the company directors could become the subject of a European Arrest Warrant.
It's the same reason that libel tourism is so popular; unless you have no intention of entering or doing business in the EU, you need to abide by the rules of our courts.