A common feature of the people's revolutions that are occurring in the Middle East has been the use of Twitter and other social networking sites to organize resistance and keep people informed.
And an interesting variation on that method has been employed in Libya. Apparently revolutionaries in that country used a Muslim dating site called Mawada to rally their troops.

Amazing stuff.
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Comedians often use sex as inspiration for their material. This has a lot to do with people's anxiety about sex, which can be increased and then released by the humorist.

Sex and humor have something else in common: They are often among the first things that totalitarian regimes try to stamp out when they take power.

We're certainly not living in a totalitarian state in Australia. However, governments of all stripes do have a tendency to seek more power over people's lives than less. (And freedom of expression is certainly an issue that many people are concerned about now. The present Labor Government's plans to filter the internet have a lot of people really angry - and not just social libertarians.)

For these reasons it's not surprising that the famous comedian Sandy Gutman - aka "Austen Tayshus" - is running as a candidate for the determinedly anti-censorship Australian Sex Party.
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As we get closer to the federal election  in Australia things are getting very interesting. Not only are the main parties at each other's throats, but some intriguing stories are popping up relating to the minor players. One of these is the claim by the Australian Sex Party that a staffer from the conservative Family First party approached them to make a preference deal.

Family First vehemently denied the claims. However some e-mails were produced that seemed to back up the story.

If true it certainly gives weight to a widely held view about politics: when you go into it, sooner or later there'll be immense pressure on you to discard your principles.
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Not long ago there was a political sex scandal in NSW, with Labor luminary John Della Bosca admitting to an affair with a young woman called Kate Neill. While the scandal broke months ago now, it's still heavily invoked in reporting about the politician.

Now, in South Australia, there are allegations that the Premier Mike Rann was having an affair with a former employee of Parliament House. Like the Della Bosca scandal, this will go on for a while, I think.

It might have some impact on Rann's electoral chances, but I doubt it will be great. Australians are generally pretty tolerant of the private shenanigans of public figures.
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Not surprisingly, the scandal over NSW politician John Della Bosca's extra-marital affair has sparked a debate over whether it should have been reported at all. No law was broken after all, and many people would argue it had little impact on how he carried out his duties as a minister.

My own feeling is that the media should lay off these things. But that will never happen, of course. Even if the vast majority of media outlets decide not to expose politicians' sexual shenanigans, there'll always be at least one that will. Once the secret's out, it's news. They all have to report it then! Only politicians in rock solid marriages within which there has been no infidelity on either side have nothing to fear from the media.
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NSW sex scandal 09/01/2009
 
Political sex scandals seem to be as certain (and as old) as politics itself. The latest involves a NSW Labor politician called John Della Bosca. He has quit as a result.

There must be a lot more blokes like him in politics who are very nervous about being found out about their own sexual shenanigans. If every male politician who had an affair were to quit, then there'd be anarchy!
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The Australian Sex Party is now registered as a bona fide political party. It will be interesting to see whether it becomes a substantial force in Australian politics.
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At any given time there always seems to be at least one high profile politician embroiled in a sex scandal. The latest is Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. He doesn't seem to be too worried, though.

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Unscrupulous scammers have been using dating sites to trick people into sending them money for a while now. But here's an interesting - and morally justifiable - variation on that technique:

A 46 year old Cuban-born man living in Florida created a false online identity as a glamorous young woman from Colombia. He tricked Fidel Castro's son Antonio into having a cyber affair with this creation over several months. During this time Castro revealed many details of his lavish lifestyle and access to large sums of money, thereby exposing the hypocrisy of his father's regime.

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Dinkum political organization the Australian Sex Party is now campaigning over in Perth. Party convener Fiona Patten points out that while the people of WA have very relaxed attitudes to sex and related issues, the two main political parties (Labor and Liberal) have consistently ignored this.

Maybe this has something to do with the state's geographical isolation.

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