The other day, the Australian reported on the chaos plaguing the Department of Immigration and Citizenship caused by independent reviewing of asylum seeker applications. Chaos is clearly Liberal MP Scott Morrison's favourite word to use, and like the Australian, the ABC were happy to quote it as part of their headline when they reported on a High Court decision establishing the legal processes available to asylum seekers a few months ago.

In the words of Inigo Montoya from The Princess Bride: You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.

As far as I'm concerned, Andrew Bolt being sued for deliberately humiliating a bunch of not-black-enough-to-complain people is far from an attack on free speech.

It all started with Bolt, an inflammatory columnist, penning a column about how certain "career Aborigines" were not dark enough for his liking. He published images of individuals and complained about their taking advantage of a system that is in place to reduce institutional discrimination. His words were ignorant, hurtful and racist. He targeted specific people, got their details wrong anyway, and is now being sued under Section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act.

This case is now being depicted as a threat to free speech, the basic argument being that "well, we might not like what Andrew Bolt is saying, but he should have a right to say it."

Bollocks.

Another angry letter! This time it's actually about science, too.

It is almost time for the Australian Government to deliver the 2011-12 federal budget. This time around, however, it's not just funding for Sun destruction that will be overlooked (again) — we are likely to see a funding cut of $400 million to medical research and the end of a program to train science teachers. This has been met with outrage from the scientific community, patients and families who have benefited from such research, and people such as myself who just plain gave up on academic science years ago. The outrage has manifested itself as the Discoveries Need Dollars campaign, which has taken (or is about to take) corporeal form in Perth, Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide and Brisbane.

The following is my contribution, a letter submitted to The Australian today.

The Australian federal election came and... well, never really went. Since the nation delivered a decisive verdict of uhhh..., we have a hung parliament and people seem alternately excited and angry about it.

To put it simply: we have 150 seats in the House of Representatives. Whichever party has most of them forms the government. Since no party actually achieved this, we don't have a government. But without a government most Australians cannot exchange oxygen with the surrounding air (or so you would think), so we need the few independents to figure out what side they're on and form a minority government.

One recurring complaint about this situation is that these independent politicians are holding the country to ransom.

But as far as I'm concerned, complaints about Australia being "held to ransom" by a few independents are completely misplaced. If anything is holding this country to ransom, it is the fact that we have two major parties who would rather sit and pout at each other than do anything to govern.

Disclaimer 1: I am currently assisting in the campaign for the Australian Democrats (of which I am a member) in Western Australia. I also used to be a member of the Australian Labor Party, and served as a scrutineer for them.

Disclaimer 2: I banged this out pretty quickly, and I intend to go back and make corrections, add references, etc. later on. You know, when I don't hate democracy for stealing all my time.

So the aforementioned federal election is almost upon us, and last week the Labor Party's crazy-accumulator, Mark Latham, suggested that voters should hand in a blank ballot paper.

This is known as an informal vote. There's nothing illegal about it, and many people do it to protest compulsory voting (attendance) in general, or to protest the specific candidates or government of the time. See, while it's necessary for enrolled voters to attend the polling place and have their name checked off, they're completely free to do whatever they want with the ballot paper after that. While most of us are putting numbers in boxes — and while I'm trying to figure out how I numbered 55 boxes with 57 numbers — some people write messages in large letters, draw pictures, leave teeth marks... that is, generally render their vote uncountable in some way.

But there are good reasons not to do this, and it basically comes down to this: your vote does more than elect the government.