As the coconut dessicates, possibly terminally, John Winston Howard has uttered the D-word for, as far as I can tell, only the second time. (Here's my report of the first.)

It came in his virulent response to criticism of Australia's human rights record contained in the latest Amnesty International Annual Report (as I noted last week), where his use of fear for political purposes was compared to, among others, that of Omar al-Bashir.