Too much, too late

Yesterday I poked fun at Beazley's terror tactics, wherein he suggests we lock down whole suburbs and conduct house by house searches for suspicious terrorist activity (http://guambatstew.blogspot.com/2005/09/beazley-supports-individual-liberties.html). Well, the joke is on me.

"The Prime Minister, John Howard, said yesterday that there was overwhelming community support for tougher laws.... The federal Opposition Leader, Kim Beazley, has called for powers allowing police to lock down entire suburbs and carry out house, vehicle and people searches without judicial approval, but Mr Howard said these laws already existed. Mr Beazley said that while the powers did exist in NSW, they did not exist uniformly across all jurisdictions." http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/pm-resists-useby-date-on-terrorism-powers/2005/09/26/1127586800232.html

Howard mailed out "be alert but not alarmed" refrigerator magnets to us a year or so ago. So I tried. But now I cannot help but be both.