Today Tonight = Twats

Look it's probably skimming the definition of tautology to say TT are twats but still needs to be said again.

Today's effort was on that hit and run driver whose lawyer got him off the more serious charge of culpable driving and instead he was done for dangerous driving which carries a lesser penalty. As usual Peter 'Australian's ID should have their religion on it' Faris, was available to give his rights retarding views by bleating on about how juries should be told of prior convictions of a defendant during the trial. Despite the fact the reason priors aren't known is so juries are not predisposed to find someone guilty on a fucking vibe.

Anyway TT sniffily told the viewers that the defendant had legal aid. Understandable - the dude is jobless. However they prefaced it with 'tax payer funded'.

And? Of course Legal Aid is tax payer funded. It's there so poor people can receive legal representation. You know, so the system is fair on people without money. You see taxes pay for things like roads, hospitals, police, judicial systems etc. When you are charged with a crime and if you can't afford legal representation then you get some from the government so your trial is as fair to you as possible.

That's how the law works. The defendant in this case was lucky and scored himself a good lawyer.

I feel sad for the families of those that died. I do. It sucks to lose a loved one - especially to a fuckwit that had prior convictions. Though of course priors are taken into account at sentencing - just not during the trial. Again to make it fair for those going through the proceedings. It's likely this dude will cop the maximum penalty - possibly served one after the other (if that's how it can be done in Oz; ie 6 x5 year terms).

But for Today Tonight to attack a basic principle of western law - that if you cannot afford legal representation it will be provided to you - is nothing less than Laura Norder hairy chest thumping wankery. All the more powered along by rent-a-comment types like Faris who see nothing wrong with retarding the rights of the many for those few occasions when the few may slip the net as a result of having those broad rights. Such as juries not knowing previous convictions lest it colour their deliberations.

On a side note Faris recently had a "glowing" 'this is Peter Faris, he's awesome' bio snapshot in the Good Weekend. It mentioned how he likes to rip DVDs to his hard disk to watch them in bed or somesuch. Isn't that technically illegal?