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from the just-when-you-thought-that-things-couldn't-get-worse dept.
The Economist has a short blurb on a crowd dispersal used against stone throwers in Israel.
It smells like raw sewage mixed with putrefying cow's carcass, and it might soon be Israel's latest high-tech export. Skunk, as it is appositely called, has been used by Israeli soldiers since 2008 to disperse Palestinian protesters. Now it has attracted the interest of law-enforcement agencies in America which, after riots in Ferguson and Baltimore, crave better ways to scatter rioters without killing or injuring them.
The good news is it is entirely non-toxic, and allegedly drinkable, and serves to clear the area with no injuries. There are reports of its use go back several years
Palestinians call it simply "shit."
"How can you describe this stuff?" said Muad Tamimi, whose gas station on the front line of Nabi Saleh's standoffs is often bathed in it. "It's beyond foul water, like a dead body and rotting food together, which no soap or perfume can take off - I'm hit with it and nobody goes near me for days."
The bad news, is there is some indication that US Police departments are starting to order the Feculent fragrance for their own crowd control situations.
A report this week that Skunk is now being sold to American local police departments was initially confirmed by a Maryland-based company claiming to be the vendor; but then swiftly retracted.
It remains to be seen how this "collective environmental punishment" will go over in the streets of the US where people call the police on dog walkers that fail to pick up after their pet.
Original Submission
(Score: 2, Insightful) by rigrig on Saturday June 06 2015, @02:42AM
It remains to be seen how this "collective environmental punishment" will go over in the streets of the US where people call the police on dog walkers that fail to pick up after their pet.
Are there crowds of dog walkers that refuse to pick up after their dogs, or am I missing some other way this is relevant?
Completely unrelated: (disclaimer: I don't know how it works in the US, and I don't have a pet myself) If your society decided it doesn't want excrement all over the place, and created laws that say you can't let your pet crap all over the place and leave it there, calling the police seems the civilized reaction to someone leaving shit in your neighbourhood. (especially if you're paid to look after said pet)
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 0, Disagree) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 06 2015, @02:51AM
Well, no. The civilized reaction is to raise the topic at the next town council meeting and suggest signs be posted reminding folks to "please pick up after your pet." The uncivilized reaction is to carry a gun around the neighborhood to shoot pets and their owners. Calling the police lies somewhere in between.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday June 06 2015, @03:44AM
The civilized solution could be to spray it with this stuff. That might doubly get the point across.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 06 2015, @01:30PM
There's usually signs already posted. The dog owners are simply assholes who don't feel like picking up after their pets. So calling the police seems to be the only realistic answer; when people are assholes like that, the only thing which will make them change their ways is the threat of force.
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Grishnakh on Saturday June 06 2015, @01:34PM
Are there crowds of dog walkers that refuse to pick up after their dogs,
Yes. This is America, where a large portion of the population is composed of self-centered assholes who don't feel like doing anything they aren't literally forced to (like by armed policepeople), because they think it's "beneath them" and someone else should do it. These people tend to be upper-middle-class white people.