Dubya is trying to roll back the clock on abortion, fellow travellers! He wants to have human embryos classified as actual persons. Can you believe it? How inhumane is that? We all know that fetuses are just clumps of cells. In fact, so are most right-wingers. Personally, I think we should all be able to abort them anytime, anywhere!

Here's one I'd really like to see in the bottom of a bucket (and I mean that in a really life affirming way).

Why has the whale shark been fished to near extinction? This story cites its highly valued flesh as the main reason. But I smell a conspiracy. The whale shark is still a shark, right, but it's also a vegetarian, living only on plankton. I suspect that American livestock oppressors and fast food conglomerates are worried that if people see that a fish can subvert its species' gastronomic paradigm, then Homo sapiens is not going to be far behind. They find that idea very threatening indeed, fellow travellers!

So, do your bit to bring down the Great McSatan. Repeat after me: Power to the whale shark! Power to the whale shark right on!

Yet more vicious Eurocentric propaganda about our fellow traveller Saddam.

In yet another ill-informed and malicious column, ultra-conservative Miranda Devine attacks the so-called "therapy culture". In it, she blames Kurt Cobain for his own death, and accuses grief counsellors of irrelevance. Well, I happen to be a grief counsellor, and I find that accusation deeply, deeply offensive. In fact, I'm going to counsel myself about it. How? By retreating to my spa to have a good long cry, that's how.

And after that? Well, who knows.

All I can say, fellow travellers, is that if my lifeless body is disovered on my futon after an overdose of valerian, well, you'll know who to blame, won't you?

Many people would say that that because no-one should be above the law Winona Ryder deserves a prison sentence for shoplifting. Sounds plausible on the surface, but has anyone paused to think more deeply about this case? Being a movie star is an intensely stressful and demanding occupation, after all. An she is working in a very male-dominated culture that is extremely hostile to empowered and talented women. Also, she is a role model to millions of young women the world over. Imagine the devastating effect on their psyches if she were to be put in jail for such a trivial offence!

This event should be put in context. I think she should be given a formal apology, and then be allowed to keep that dress.

Not only is the media universally sexist and racist, it's also extremely speciesist. If you look a this story about a woman who is suing for distress over unwittingly eating live maggots in a tin of drinking chocolate, you'll see that the story is from a very human-centric point of view. It's all about her distress, her nausea, her lawsuit against the company.

Although she is a woman, and her grievances should be given priority over those of testosteroids, I do think that the kerfuffle is quite absurd since the maggots -- or should I say, "pre-flies" -- were the ones who suffered most in this event.

Really, why are we still mourning the Bali dead when appalling events like these are taking place on a daily basis? It makes me very angry fellow travellers. It really does.