Well done Dick Smith and Bob Brown, you lead by good example.

Well done Dick Smith and Bob Brown! You have just contributed one million bucks to the abductors arms budget! A second-hand Kalashnikov can be had for around $US200! And you get your massive egos massaged before an international audience!
The media fell for a cheap line, and lapped it up. Why do you think governments have a policy of not negotiating with hostage takers, let alone paying ransomes? Because it rewards diabolical behaviour! They will be thinking, “this is OK, we must do this again!” Sure, the family went through hell, and would have tried anything, but is this really the way to respond? How many freelancers, risk-takers, and mere innocents are going to be at greater risk because of this? Perhaps more effort should be made to protect some people from themselves, but some at least should be more prepared to accept the level of risk they are exposing themselves to, and they should accept that their actions are contributing to exposing others to risk and harm.
However, I reserve my greatest criticism for those adulation-farming jerks like Smith and Brown, who are cultivating their own advantage out of this.

Woodworker, do you go to mass on Sundays and pray for your sins? Like a good Labor right-wing voter, I am sure that you do! I hope so! If I was Nigel Brennan and his family, I would be very grateful to Dick Smith and Bob Brown. Far nicer to get released than the knife slitting your neck open! Tasmania deserves better then you, Destroyer of Forests!

Hey John, (#3), no, I don’t go to mass on Sundays and indicate support for a two thousand year old myth, and no, I am not a right-winger, but yes, Nigel Brennan and his family would be feeling grateful, and yes, it is far nicer than having a knife slitting your neck open, but my point still stands. A million bucks for their arms budget, and positive reinforcement that they are on a winner, and sure, they will do it again, and those jerks I referred to are contributing to it, while having their egos gratified on the backs of other people’s misery and fool-hardiness! ...and sucked in by fools like you.

Woodboy what would you have done if Brennan had been one of your kids? I’ll tell you. By now, you would be throwing your arms around Senator Brown and dry rooting Dick Smiths leg thanking them for bringing your kid home.
Stick to woodchip apologetics Woodboy. You only embarrass yourself when you stray onto other issues.

That piece the other day about ignoring professional baiter’s like “woodworker”, i think is well in order.

  Obviously (he) has no kid’s or grandkids, if so !  pity help them ! should they ever find themselves in similar circumstances, because they obviously wouldn’t be able to rely upon him for help.

  The man’s (and i use the term “man” loosely)is an embarrassment.
                  d.d.