Opinion Australia

I think that verdict was the least that could have been found. Yet there are *still* unanswered questions even allowing for the months of evidence and the twenty million pounds the inquest has cost. We still need information concerning the White Fiat Uno that reportedly sideswiped the car she was travelling in. We also need information regarding the driver of that car.

The conspiracy theory runs that the driver was a security agent posing as a paparazzo who hit the car at an opportune moment, then destroyed it (the Uno) by burning it. It was then claimed he later died of natural causes. The theory runs that this agent might have been ‘vanished’ deliberately to hide the source of the order her was given… or might well have been killed to cover up the source.

Either way this is as far as we go with the inquest… unless that is someone can find ‘the smoking gun’ that conspiracy theorists are convinced is out there somewhere. Do *you* have it??

Was reading a story about a father who arrived at the scene of a road crash where two of his young sons, his sister in law and two of her children were being loaded into stretchers. As he was checking on his 9 year old son, he was informed the 6 year old had died in the back of the ambulance.

The cause seems to be, yet again, a truck driver deciding he had time to run a red light rather than waiting for a few seconds until the lights changed in his favour. I say yet again because it happens here, with monotonous regularity… often with fatal consequences. We’ve seen trucks do it, we’ve seen *buses* do it. It’s an insane way to drive but it seems ‘might is right’ in the eyes of the drivers who know they’ll probably survive any crash.

Not so for the kids who died!!

I know we all whinge about the ‘big brother’ tactics of putting CCTV cameras everywhere, but if ever there was a case to be made for placing them in certain spots, then placing them on *all* traffic light controlled intersections has to be one of the strongest. It’s time *all* traffic lights were monitored and penalties for trucks running them leading to an automatic loss of licence – no arguments.

Full story of crash here.

Uncomfortable reports are surfacing around the globe about ‘confirmed’ DNA testing that ‘shows conclusively’ little Madeline McCann missing now for over 4 months was given sleeping tablets in a sufficiently high dose to kill her!

The DNA that produced these results is said to have been found in the boot of the hire car the McCann’s used on their holiday. There are also reports that Kate’s diary had references to how much stress the kids were causing her, especially Maddie’s high spirited nature. The conclusion reached by many seems to be that Kate McCann administered the drugs to the girl. Whether this was accidental or deliberate would be for a jury to decide *if* these results are both true, and sufficient to bring a case to trial.

If it was true of course we’d need to know how either of them would have (or could have) removed, and disposed of their little girls body to hide their culpability. Seems a bit of a horrible thing to suggest a parent might have done to their child… especially to such a cute little 4 year old girl.

I’ve no idea if the reports are true or not… but if they *are* true then it’s a tragedy in many many ways. Not just for Maddie, but for her parents and siblings… and also for any other child that goes missing because people might be less inclined to give such fervent support to a search after this.

Hopefully she’ll turn up safe and well somewhere… but it’s getting increasingly less likely by the day… and by the leaked report

More on the story here.

One of the problems with giving police extreme powers is that on occasion they tend to use them badly.

Whilst APEC was on this week, a guy walking across the road in front of a motorcade was arrested in front of his 11 year old son and spent 22 hours in a cell with no access to a lawyer waiting to be freed. The basic story told like that seems almost reasonable. The police were intent on protecting the world leaders and that’s what they did.

However, on closer examination it seems they might well have stepped way over the line between caution and over reaction.

The entire story (so far) can be read here in and from reading it you can see how easy it is to fall foul of the law when simply going about your life doing nothing wrong.

This picture (from ninemsn) shows Greg being arrested and to be fair, whilst I know appearances can be deceiving, he really *does* look like an ordinary guy doing ordinary stuff.

As far as I could tell, the only crime this guy committed was to not realise Sydney had been turned into a virtual war zone where martial law was in force. I think in retrospect Greg McLeay will consider himself lucky not to have suffered the same fate as Jean Charles de Menezes in London in 2005 and have died for nothing.

Whatever else it is, was or might be… I just see this sort of behaviour as *very* unaustralian and is indicative of the way the fundamentals of our society have deteriorated under John Howard.