As if waiting for a tram isn't bad enough

You just can't make this stuff up. Rob Stary, defence lawyer for terror suspect Joseph Thomas, has complained that a poster being pasted up at Melbourne's tramstops is potentially prejudicing his client's chances of a fair trial. The poster apparently shows a photo of Thomas, with the words:
"Attention passengers - Muslim commuters may be subject to suspicion"

(As Thomas, or 'Jihad Jack' as he is known, is an Anglo, and not identifiable as a muslim at first sight, the posters are singularly pointless, even by the undemanding standards of modern political art).

I'm happy to concede that Stary might have a valid legal point. The real problem is the source of these posters. They are not some (yawn) guerilla action, but a "public art" work put up in agreement with AdShel, the company which controls advertising space at tram stops and other transport structures, and which donated the poster space. Now that attention has been drawn to the content of the posters, they have been withdrawn. Memo to AdShel: maybe it would be a good idea to check the content of material you authorize for a commercial display space before it goes up.

What only makes it funnier is that the heroic poster-warriors presumably thought they were helping Joseph Thomas. With friends like 'political artists', who needs idiots?

Melbournians can probably guess which asshat was behind the posters. Step forward Azlan McLennan, whose asinine 2004 window-display about Israeli 'terrorism' - funded by the unwilling ratepayers of Melbourne - was similarly hastily obliterated once the Councillors and bureaucrats who signed off on it actually bothered to learn what was in it. (And I'm only guessing, but were Azlan's parents big 'Narnia' fans?)