Liberty and Taboos

David Irving's Austrian jail sentence has justified the Iranian newspaper's disgusting retaliatory competition. Sadly, the free-speech arguments propping up the publishing of those inflammatory Danish cartoons cannot bear the weight of Europe's biggest taboo: denying the reality of the Holocaust. I'm appalled that it's taken a hateful Iranian newspaper to show up the double standards of European law.

This paves the way for anti-Semites to claim that it's mere coincidence that Iran's sworn enemy, the Jews, had to be offended in order to point out this hypocrisy. The Iranians can now claim with a straight face that had the cartoons been published in Texas they would have called for taboo-busting material mocking the faked Moon landings!

Olympic Glory for Internet Spammer

Our Winter Olympic gold medallist, Dale Begg-Smith, made his fortune through an internet business that delivers spam, viruses, trojans, hijackers and other malware to vulnerable computer users. His website (now taken down) brags about 20 million pop-ups per day. Oh and he also has a business flogging pop-up preventing software!

As someone who has wasted many hours ridding computers of these infestations, is it churlish of me to suggest the IOC Anti-Doping Agency test him for sampling his clients' wares? No blood or urine required: a 30cm ruler would suffice.

CFA and Back Burning

The CFA is allowed to burn private property without permission, review or compensation (The Age, 11/2/06)? No wonder arsonists and pyromaniacs keep trying to join the service!

AWB and Corporate Donations

We're right to scoff at AWB executive Charles Stott's impoverished definition of "donations" as requiring a "potential benefit in the future" (The Age, 9/2/06). This is not foremost in most individual's minds when donating. But what about companies? Corporate philanthropy - whether cash donations or staff fence-painting days - provides numerous "soft benefits" such as brand building, community goodwill, team bonding, political lobbying, employee morale and tax concessions. Indeed, it's difficult to reconcile purely altruistic donations with corporations law: directors must maximise shareholder value or risk jail. (Of course, what shareholders do with their dividends on disbursement is up to them.)

In light of this, which publicly listed company can honestly claim to make donations without any possibility whatsoever of "potential benefit in the future"? Perhaps BHP and AWB should be judged by the standards of their peers.

Howard Government Scandal-By-Numbers

After ten years, I think I've figured out the Howard Government's winning formula for running a scandal. Once the story breaks a new line is adopted each week until the issue peters out: "We didn't know", "We weren't told", "We didn't ask" and "We didn't have to ask". If it's still running after a month, use "The public has moved on".

Sadly, this pattern will continue to work until the electorate understands that "we didn't know" means "we can't run the Government". Ministerial responsibility demands that ministers should not be able to shield themselves with ignorance.

Heffernan Is A Disgrace

The best way to deal with disgraceful bullies like Bill Heffernan is to stand up to them. I hope Parliament House has bike sheds, so senators can take him around the back and set him straight.

Something Stinks

Some inner-city property owners - by-and-large a wealthy bunch - have figured out how to get richer: dump their poo in our river (The Age, 2/2/06). Whether their actions are deliberate, negligent or accidental the effect is the same. They're ducking their costs and passing them on to everyone.

Is the State Government going after these law-breakers? No, it can only stand back and sprinkle taxpayer largesse on a few lucky farmers. After all, running down infrastructure and leaving poorer neighbours (and future generations) to pick up the tab on environmental damage has been the winning formula of successive governments at all levels.

This is one case where I'd welcome a little government hypocrisy.