...Kevin Rudd, the guest of honour at the launch of ABC 3 was the victim of a security scare from an unnamed contracted cleaner.

The story gets stranger as the AFP, the cleaning company and the ABC itself all refused to comment on what had happened.

It might not be a fair comparison but this 'incident' did make me think of the media world's reaction to Tareq and Michaele Sahali's White House invasion last week.

The couple got scorned and ridiculed from all corners and the Secret Service was forced to make an embarrasing apology for this uncharacteristic slip up.

Here though, Rudd's 'dance with death' has only been run on the 7pm ABC news (it didn't even make it to ABC online) and it looks like that will be it from here on in.

There hasn't been any mention of what risk Rudd had been placed in or what will be done differently to avoid similar breaches.

Why the difference if both breaches were equally harmless?

In my mind it shows that the media knows that Rudd's security isn't exactly going set the water-cooler ablaze, and that Rudd himself probably realises that to talk about it or investigate it further would look weak to a country that still prides itself on its stiff upper lip.

Kind of comforting that in Australia, the politicians ain't too precious.

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Obviously, there are parallels here: the piracy located in another country, the cheap music deals, the stupid reaction of music's governing bodies, and the consumer caught in the middle. The takeaway here is this: Et tu, Canada? Just because you hadn't invented Triumph, Loverboy, and Rush yet doesn't mean you had the right to steal our music! For shame.

It should also be noted that on the same page as this article is another story about a park policeman named Dooladdy watching a snake fight a bird. The Newspaper of Record, indeed.

Music Pirates In Canada [NYT; HT: Lizzyville] Via Idolator