First up, a man’s conviction for raping a child is overturned when it turns out that he was 1000 km away at the time of the incident. The Australian Federal Police prosecuted Frederic Arthur Martens despite failing to check the evidence that he said would exonerate him. In fact they claimed they had checked and the evidence didn’t exist. The AFP then prevented Mr Martens from collecting the evidence himself by seeking bail conditions that made it impossible. Martens appealed his conviction while the task of collecting the evidence fell to his family who are, unlike federal police officers, not paid to do this line of work. When the family found the evidence that clearly exonerated Mr Martens, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions objected on the grounds, and we are not making this up, that Mr Martens should have provided the evidence earlier. Martens has been in jail for two years. And this, dear readers is the icing on the cake:

A spokeswoman for the office of the CDPP said it had prosecuted the matter in accordance with policy.

In accordance with policy? Talking Squid optimistically awaits the necessary resignations.

In related events, police charged a 12 year old boy with receiving stolen goods. The goods in question? One chocolate frog and a cheap door sign. The police have reluctantly decided to drop the charges in the light of the media drawing attention to their unfathomable loathsomeness. Could this have anything to do with the fact the boy is Aboriginal? Surely not. Police routinely charge white children in the same circumstances, do they not?

Blatant vote-grabbing baloney Grocery Watch is finally scrapped having wasted $7.7 million dollars. Our Glorious Opposition, having opposed Grocery Watch from the start, is pleased that the scheme is about to be scrapped. Er, hang on. No. Now they’ve accused “Consumer Minister Craig Emerson of a ‘lack of professionalism’ in his decision to announce the scrapping of the website.” It seems that in their desperation to hold on to the one policy point they were winning on, the opposition has decided to make as much mileage as possible from the government’s backdown. Even if it means criticising the government for doing what they said it should do.

Meanwhile, the Equal Opportunity Commission rules against a woman who wanted to start a travel company for women-only trips. Previous exemptions have been allowed for women-only gyms, lesbian-only dance parties, and gay-only pubs. The justifications for these rulings are, respectively, that gym-going women “wanted to feel safe” while “exerting themselves, dressed in certain attire,” that gay men “got sick of people coming in and ogling the gay men having their recreational pursuits,” and that lesbian and bisexual women “did not feel they could have their dance parties in an environment where they could feel safe and secure if it was open to men.” All arguments that apply equally to women seeking male-free holidays, one would think. What elevates this from legal inconsistency to outright insanity, though, is this:

The judge ruled there was not enough evidence to show it was necessary to limit a human right and ban men outright from travelling with her company.

So going on a shopping trip with women who don’t want you there is now a fundamental human right? Did the Victorian Charter of Human Rights and Responsibilities find one solitary man who felt infringed by this heinous oppression? Who knows? We certainly won’t be getting much sense out of a commissioner who says,

…exceptions and exemptions under the Equal Opportunity Act exist to try to promote equality.

You mean the government can exempt ventures from the Equal Opportunity Act in order to promote Equal Opportunity? Talking Squid could have appreciated thoughtful exemptions to promote social cohesion or to protect vulnerable people or whatnot, but an exemption to promote the thing you’re exempting from? That’s seriously screwed up.

And finally, according to this headline,

Rudd surprises troops in Afghanistan

Memo Prime Minister: it’s one thing to make unannounced visits to Afghanistan, but we would caution against any attempt to sneak up behind soldiers on point duty.