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As I noted a few weeks ago, John Winston Howard has defended the rights of people to say ridiculous things.

It's less than a week till the start of the world's third (or maybe even second) biggest World Cup tournament: the ICC Cricket World Cup.

Not one, but two grisly tales reported today by Australian Associated Press:

Firstly, A 37-year-old woman has been charged with stealing a piece of Peter Brock's crashed car containing his racing number "05" while collecting the racing legend's body for the coroner.

A 21-year-old man was arrested on Monday after he allegedly tried to cash a cheque for USD 50,000 at the Chase Bank in Hobart, Indiana that was signed "King Savior, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, Servant".

Associated Press takes up the story.

Not much I can say about yesterday's Why It Looks Like My Uncle Oscars as I had only seen one nominated film, which picked up two WILLMUOs.

I was pleased to see "An Inconvenient Truth" win the WILLMUO for best documentary. I saw it at its Australian premiere at the Sydney Film Festival last June and bought the DVD in the week of its release (and have watched it again about three or four times since thus far). There may have been better documentaries over the years, but rarely has one been so relevant to the public conscience.

The CEO of White House Halliburton has finally left our shores. Richard Bruce Cheney, 66, wild game hunter of Casper, Wyoming, flew out of Mascot Airport this morning after two and a half days of what could be best described as a blatant violation of Australian sovereignty.

Laws bent so that his Secret Servicemen could carry loaded guns, large slabs of the Sydney CBD closed down whenever he was driven anywhere - even the Sydney Harbour Bridge was closed down at short notice when he took a totally unnecessary trip to John Howard's party house at Kirribilli. Not to mention some of the most bewildering doublespeak over that masterpiece of public-private partnership, the US war "effort" in Iraq.

Ever since Illinois' abortive attempt to change the value of Pi, US state legislatures have had a long tradition of creative and innovative bill-making. Currently before the Montana State Legislature is the "Montana Sovereignty Protection Act". If passed, it will reject the "authority of the United Nations over the territory or people of Montana, and applying penalties".

"More to do but heading in the right direction."

- Morris Iemma, NSW ALP election campaign slogan

"Obviously, there's great work to be done. And we're doing a lot of it."

- Dick Cheney, Australian-American Leadership Dialogue breakfast, 23.2.07

The transcripts of Dick Cheney's public speeches in Sydney yesterday are available on the vice-presidential website:

• A brief, but enormously insightful comment at a breakfast for the Australian-American Leadership Dialogue at his private fortress called the Shangri-La Hotel, 7.59am Friday 23.2.07 (transcript)