Rann will do a Clinton. Provided he now acts like a gentleman and comments no more on the allegations of a lady, SA Premier Mike Rann will suffer no significant electoral damage from the revelations that he is a normal, sometimes randy, fellow. When the guffawing gossip is over, people will conclude that the Premier is human after all and that any failings of his flesh have nothing to do with the way he runs the state.

He should now practice looking a little sheepish in public, refuse to answer any more questions about his private life and be seen getting on with continuing to provide South Australia with the good government that has marked his time in office so far.

That’s a formula that worked for Bill Clinton and it will work for him too.

Voting rights for others. The Indian Election Commission has reformed its procedures to add a new category on its electoral roll. Along with male and female, eunuchs can now classify themselves as being “other.” Further reforms are now being planned as this Times of India report this morning discloses:

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Unfortunately we cannot trust them. If, like me, you sometimes waiver about giving governments extra powers to deal with terrorism at the expense of our traditional legal safeguards, be sure to read The Guardian story of British prosecutors failing to disclose crucial evidence to the courts in the aftermath of the September 11 terrorist attacks in a case that resulted in an innocent pilot being jailed for five months.

Lotfi Raissi, an Algerian living in the UK, was the first person in the world to be arrested after the 2001 attacks in New York and Washington DC. Accused of being the “lead” instructor of the 9/11 hijackers, Raissi, 27, was held in Belmarsh high security prison awaiting extradition to the United States. Months before the British courts were told, the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) was aware that allegations against Raissi were wrong and there was insufficient evidence to charge him.

That initially did not deter law enforcement officials in the UK. They colluded with the FBI to obtain a warrant for his extradition and as there was no evidence to justify a warrant for terrorism, Raissi was requested on charges relating to an allegation that he failed to disclose his knee surgery in a pilot application.

The Guardian now has obtained documents produced by the FBI and anti-terrorist officials in the UK after the 9/11 attacks which shed new light on how the courts were misled before a ruling by the UK court of appeal last year that found there was evidence that Scotland Yard and the CPS had circumvented “the rule of English law” in what judges believed would amount to a serious abuse of process.

The UK government is now considering whether it will accept responsibility for the miscarriage of justice and pay Raissi compensation.

First write the review then taste the wine. Perhaps it’s really no more than a storm in a wine glass but prominent wine book publisher Mitchell Beazley is getting some off flavours in reviews of the latest edition of The Juice 2010 written by Matt Skinner, an influential wine writer who oversees wine operations for Jamie Oliver’s Fifteen restaurant group around the world.

The cause of the criticism is the admission that Mr Skinner has put in tasting notes for wines he had not tasted, because they were not even bottled, when he finished writing.

Apparently the publisher put the author under bit of pressure to take this unusual course because, as Hilary Lumsden, Mitchell Beazley commissioning editor, told Decanter.com: “For our first edition, in 2006, the feedback we got was that by the time people went out and bought the book, the wines were already off the shelves, so the book was effectively out of date.”

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And as for Mr Skinner, in a statement to London’s Daily Telegraph, he defended not tasting some of the vintages, arguing that he had tasted previous vintages of the same wine.

“It is imperative that I taste all the wines that I recommend,” he said.

“However there are some releases that are consistent from year to year, and as popular, good value and accessible wines I want to include them because I know that my readers will appreciate them.

“In order to do so I include non-specific tasting notes based on the current and previous year’s vintage, focusing more on basic flavours and compatibility with food.”

The Telegraph gave an example of one of these “non-specific tasting notes” — that for the Vasse Felix Sémillon Sauvignon Blanc from Margaret River, priced at £11.99.

It reads: “The palate is fresh as a daisy and punctuated by the kind of lip-smacking acidity that makes this wine almost impossible to put down.”

Not a bad wrap for an untasted wine.