Maximillion says, elsewhere, "... I don't often need to re-read the entire thread, ...". See: http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=2637#59386 . Maximillion must be blessed with total recall. For those of us who are not, this summary.

Just a tad acerbic there FG, in my version of the English language not often does not mean never.
And you "assume" I wouldn't do just that in a thread I started?. When I was at school a standard mnemonic was that "to assume makes an ASS of U and ME", and I feel that applies here.
You're summary is selective, but not unfair, it would be difficult to be otherwise without repeating it all. Interesting concept though, are you going to be doing this to other threads, or is it a conspiracy against me? I have seen the vans, ya can't fool me, but you'll never take me, I've got my alfoil cap on, hah hah, and the taps are running too!
In truth, I've found the discussion quite interesting, and informative, and have appreciated the input from all posters, including yourself.

What? Me, Forrest Gumpp, acerbic? I've been called pompous, but acerbity is something to which I had never thought to attain. Thank you, Maximillion, for the compliment! Thank you for the even greater compliment that my summary is "... selective, but not unfair ...". I apologize to those I left out, but the word limit, you know.

You ask: "Are you going to be doing this [summarizing] to other threads?". I have done it occasionally in the past, just to try to be helpful to viewers who may not have followed the discussion from the outset, in threads that particularly interested me. I feel that it builds, rather than kills, interest among viewers of any topic. Nobody is obliged to accept any such summary as accurate or fair on face value: they can check for themselves; perhaps summarizing acts as a challenge to some, who may not have followed it from the start, to read the whole thread, or the full context of quotes.

As to my having assumed you would not be re-reading the thread, perish the thought. To the contrary, I was depending upon your doing exactly that! And you were. I will admit to having used your statement "... I don't often need to re-read the entire thread, ..." in your post to the topic 'Forum defaults - page display' for an ulterior purpose. I wanted an excuse for viewers to see some of the technical background that may have provoked the conspiracy paranoia referred to above in CJMorgan's brief post. Your statement provided the perfect excuse.

I also admit to having been a bit provocative. I was running low on posts available at the time, and I wanted to keep the topic up within the default OLO index display for 'last post'. The provocation worked. You posted. Your topic remained up in the default display for the rest of the day, and until this morning. I'm in full agreement with you that this is a most interesting and informative discussion. Does that go for our little 'test conspiracy' - the alleged box cartel? Very strange, that.

Sorry, you lost me there. Care to elucidate? The box cartel was a standard group price-fixing scam, it happens regularly, take a look at the airlines pricing structures, or truck- haulage, or fishing quotas, the trick is proving it in court. The "Boxing Ring" came unstuck when one of them was investigated by the ATO, I seem to recall, he went belly-up, and gave up the rest for a level of immunity, not total though.
I look forward to your reply.
Oh, and I like provocative posts, as long as they're sane and not Ideological, it keeps it fun. Yours was certainly THAT!

It may be that we are getting somewhere in the search for self-interest as having been an important factor in the 'box cartel' having come to light. Maximillion's suggestion, based upon his recollection, that an ATO investigation had been the trigger in causing a participant in the 'box conspiracy' to have 'gone belly-up' and denounced the other participants in exchange for some form of limited immunity against prosecution, is news to me. It would be good to have a reference.

What we do have a reference for is that Amcor conceivably stood to gain immunity if it was the first entity to confess to the regulator, the ACCC, that it had been party to cartel activity. That reference is here: http://business.smh.com.au/business/examcor-boss-tells-of-blackmail-bid-20080912-4fgl.html . An excerpt from it says:

"The Herald has obtained documents from the Federal Court, ....

The court documents also reveal how on November 22, straight after Amcor told the commission about the cartel, the government regulator strongly urged Amcor not to tell the stock exchange. A company must warn the ASX of any material developments that could affect its share price, but the commission argued that it did not believe it was an issue that needed to be revealed to shareholders. It threatened to deny Amcor immunity from prosecution if it went public."

There you have immunity mentioned, in the last sentence of the excerpt. I commend the reading of the whole article. I also commend the re-reading of my post of Saturday, 28 March 2009 at 5:44:05 PM.

As a footnote to the previous matter of acerbity, I should remark that if viewers want acerbity, Divorce Doctor's post of Thursday, 26 March 2009 at 7:12:02 PM contains a link to a page from which you can download the 'Centrelink' chapter of his book 'A Bloke's Guide to Family Law and Child Support': in that PDF (file title: centre.pdf), in 21 pages of large easy to read text, you will find plenty of acerbity.

OK, I stand corrected, my recall was faulty, you have my abject apologies. But, please explain the "very strange, that"?
I can see that "pomposity" whereof you speak, you certainly come across that way, don't you? I try to type exactly as if I was standing in front of others in a conversation, perhaps you do too, but we just have different conversational styles. Whatever, I still enjoy the discourse.

Arjay, you go for the 9/11 conspiracy AND the Kennedy conspiracy?

No comment.

Anyhow, I think spindoc's summed it up well, but there's a little more to the situation.

Someone I know very well who has an interest in the accountability of those involved in our legal system, has been following the Einfeld case for quite some time.

He's not prone to conspiracy theories, but a few years ago (maybe 18 months, I'm not entirely sure) it seemed to him that the case was dead in the water. He made enquiries, though the DPP didn't seem to be pursuing it vigorously. I'm glad to say that they did pursue the case.

I know a few who dismissed his certainty that the Einfeld case needed to see the light of day, claiming it was a conspiracy theory.

Sure, some matters demand further investigation.

I view conspiracy theories as a matter of 'how many people are involved and how far-fetched is it?'

Take the 9/11 conspiracies... the bombers were really acting on behalf of the US? How many people would need to know? How would such a thing be carried out?

These theories tend to come from people with little or no practical experience of politics or even corporate manoeuvring. They're fanciful, because they imagine people meeting in dark rooms discussing grand plans that are incredibly intricate in their scope.

It's bull.

It all comes back to the intricacy of the conspiracy, how many people needed to keep it secret, and the scale of the plan.

Any one of these things can scuttle such an operation before it happens, and they're damn certain to be found out afterward and yes - displayed on the media.

Of course, making the media a co-conspirator (even News Ltd, everyone's favourite bogeyman isn't some monolithic entity, people talk, it's that simple) allows people to circumvent this reality.