Who Will Protect Us From the Dark Side?
This could be serious:
The UK's Jedi community today expressed concerns that government plans to ban Samurai swords could hinder their freedom to wield lightsabres in public.
The UK's Home Office today issued a consultation paper ahead of legislation intended to ban Samurai blades by the end of the year. In a bid to "protect the public", replica Samurai swords will become illegal to import, sell and hire in Britain.
"But Jedi fear that the Samurai ban would leave them exposed to future legislation against other forms of imitation weaponry that would, Jedi Temple (Neasden) spokesman Indi-Anna Jones warned today. [Indi-Anna Jones! Hahah]
...The Samurai sword ban is only the first step toward compulsory lightsabre confiscations," he said. "Everyone knows George Lucas based his series on the Japanese film The Seven Samurai - the Jedi will be next."
However, not all the 390,000 British Jedi fear the government's reforms.
"The propsals' suggested exemptions for groups such as the British Kendo Association should give us a loophole," claimed UK Jedi Bus-Qyu Simpson. "These exemptions cover swords made in Japan before the existing licensing regime came into force in 1953 or those made by licensed Japanese swordsmiths since that time.
"Everyone knows Jedi-hood is an 'ancient religion', founded long ago in a galaxy far, far away, so it should be safe from this legislation," he said.
And in related news:
Two Jedi this morning turned up at the UN's London HQ to demand official recognition of their religion, The Sun reports.
"Umada" and "Yunyun" - aka 27-year-old John Wilkinson and 24-year-old Charlotte Law - timed their "protest" to coincide with today's UN International Day of Tolerance, which they'd like renamed "Interstellar Day of Tolerance".
Wilkinson said: "We have come here today to ask that we are recognised as the fourth largest religion in this country."
Indeed, more than 390,000 Brits are practising Jedi, according to the 2001 census. Brighton is the country's principal centre of Jedi activity, with 6,480 professing to follow the faith.
Chewbacca was also on hand to petition the UN, and said via translator Yunyun: "It is not fair that there are lots of different life forces across the galaxy that are not getting recognised."
Something else for the Jedi population - whereever they are - to think about!
Posted by: soccerdad | March 07, 2007 at 12:14 PM
SoccerDad: Ha! I wonder if that was intended to be a parody of the far left?
Posted by: Gail | March 07, 2007 at 06:26 PM