Our Chance For Viler Misdeeds

THE Olympic torch extinguished - it would be great to see. Raining on the parade of this Nazi ritual would be one of the proud moments in the history of Australian irreverence. Forget Earth Hour, the smarmy exercise in bourgeois sanctimony invented by the sad Luddites of the Sydney Warming Herald. Reducing the torch to a smoking stick really would be something to be proud of - an "iconic" moment, to use one of the more abused adjectives of our time. Following that near-snuffing in Britain, The Australian is reporting there are now "fears of torch protests in Australia" - fears! - while the ABC says the Canberra leg of the torch is on "protest alert." Alert! Even so, Gordon Brown formally 'greeted' the flame at No.10. (No, not that flame). The ridiculousness of this evokes the tickertape parade for the inanimate carbon rod in Deep Space Homer. China has called the protests "vile misdeeds." We should do better by humiliating those Blue Wiggles with a real Aussie blowout. And The Chaser could revive Bazza's flaming underpants.