'Tell it the wrong way and you won't be back'

Even if you don't read anything else today, read this.

Then remember that David Hicks, wherever he has been, whatever he was doing there, no matter how repugnant his beliefs, if he has any left, may be, is doing time for a crime that wasn't a crime at the time.

A futuristic dystopia based on this fact might begin with a scene in which an ordinary character -- you, say -- is walking down an ordinary street in [insert name of Australian city here], chatting on her mobile phone. A year later we are mid-world-war and chatting on your phone in public has been criminalised, along security-breach and bomb-detonating lines.

And there's footage of it. There you are in the Channel 9 archives, tootling along the footpath in the background, phone to ear, as Kylie gets out of her limo.

You're stuffed.