[cripplecreek]

"Prison ship" LOL. Sounds like some of the hyperbole used by our OBL.

[Last Dakotan]

Australia is a floating prison ship. At least it was.

[raybbr]

Most of those detained are Indonesian fishermen seeking lucrative shark fins. They are fined and sent back to their villages but their ships are burned.

How do you "burn" a burro?

[CindyDawg]

Magnetic boots, too?

[TimSkalaBim]

"A couple of centuries ago people were condemned to hulks for stealing bread," said Pauline Spencer, from Victoria state's Federation of Community Legal Centres. "Now we're looking at people being condemned to these hulks for stealing fish. . .," she told reporters.

What a bunch of hyperbolic nonsense. There's a huge difference between this:

And this:

Modern prison ships have all the amenities. They're like cruise ships, just you can't leave.

[El Gato]

Hmm, maybe a use for all those decommissioned aircraft carriers, troopships, etc., rusting away in the mothball fleet. Plus the detainees could chip the rust away and repaint. Win Win.

[Tancred]

"This policy harks back to Australia's penal history, when we should be at the forefront of compassionate and human solutions to border issues," Greens Senator Kerry Nettle said in a statement

There's this trouble with the compassionate approach--you let other people break your laws & ignore the sovereignty of your country and soon you don't have a country anymore.