Reasons to be cheerful

What a rubbish week this is proving to be. Trying to cheer myself up, I found the following:

1. The European alliance of far right parties collapsed in a row about, erm, racism. The Romanian MEPs, who had been elected by stirring up hatred against the Roma, were angered by remarks by Mussolini's grand daughter that Romanians were 'habitual law-breakers'. The conversation went something like this: 'How dare you say that we are criminals like the gypsies?' 'Well, you all look the same to me'.

2. John Howard's Liberal government, trailing in the polls, borrowed a trick from their American friends in the 'Conservative movement', and distributed leaflets pretending to be from a Muslim group calling for a vote for Labor because of their sympathy for the Bali bombers and support for building new mosques. Not only were the leaflets really rubbish, but they got caught. Perhaps they were rogue individuals, unconnected to the Liberal Party? No, one of them was married to the Liberal candidate for the area.