No, really, WHAT THE F@#%?????

In a month when Kevin Rudd dusted off John Howard’s refugee policies, Tasmania got the government that didn’t really want it, and anybody ranked higher than Mayor got a free televised helicopter flight over the Barrier Reef, it seemed like a good time to once again ask “what – – the – –  f@#%????”

Jailing Hearts and Minds

The war in Iraq is over and the war on Afghanistan is about to be reclassified as a holding action, at least until it’s reclassified as a war again. Which is all for the good, so Americans can get back to what they’re good at – winning the War on Drugs. Of course, most returned soldiers will confirm that fighting a war on drugs can get very messy and result in bad judgment calls – like this one, recently reported in the Houston Press.

Making it clear why you don’t mess with Texas, and thanks to the “covert assistance of local citizens”, a Texan jury sentenced drug czar Melvin Johnston III to 6 decades in prison. With a minimum of overkill, a SWAT team had raided Kingpin Melvin’s home and found two rocks of crack in a jacket pocket. The 1.2 grams, mentions Houston Press, weighed slightly more than half a 2.2 gram American dime.

And just across town from Melvin, in another great American story of justice restored, 54-year-old Henry Wooten was imprisoned for 35 years over possession of 4.6 ounces of marijuana. Unfortunately for Wooten, the quantity confiscated was sufficient to see him tried and charged as if he had been in possession of 5 pounds of the substance. Fortunately, though, the judge went easy on him, considering that the prosecutor asked for 99 years.

The Right to Log Out

Cory Doctorow at weird news aggregator Boing Boing reports that Australian seniors have been in touch with web pirates as they seek to protect their right to death. Exit International is an Australia-based assisted suicide group whose average member is over 70 years old. They expect that when Kevin Rudd’s Great Firewall comes down, their site will no longer be accessible to members. To, literally, get around this they have turned to Australia’s Pirate Party (yes, we hadn’t heard of them either) to produce a slide presentation explaining “firewall circumvention for seniors”.

Child porn producers and religious fundamentalists should stop reading here, but environmental and social justice activists, take note.