Has Australia gone to InsanityLand? Man barred from flights over "offensive" t-shirt.

How silly. You think the guy could have just turned the shirt inside out and gotten on the flight or something. Or gone bare-chested.

But then Qantas seems a little silly with it, too. After all, it's a t-shirt.

What does classify as offensive under their policy? I had a lookie around their site, because I couldn't find any tickets conveniently in my overly large bag.

Although it's not something that will get you barred from the flight, they have quite a bit to say about making sure you take along a doctor's note saying you're all good to fly if you're having a complicated pregnancy (or a normal one if you're heading overseas rather than just within Australia). This makes sense - who really would want to be squeezing something from their loins on a long-haul flight? And apparently Qantas people can do body searches. Although that's more of an aside than something connected to the childbearing info.

But what will make them bar you from a flight? Scroll down to No. 10 and you'll find what'll get you barred from a Qantas flight.

But a t-shirt as a security risk? What? How's that more of a security risk than something, like, say a belt, which you could conceivably strangle someone with? Or a mastery of kung-fu, if I'm correctly recalling my love of dodgy 1970s/80s martial arts movies with one with Sonny Chiba in it that involves people hijacking a plane using said mastery?

If Qantas classifies this as offensive, what about skanky Supre tops that people of some faiths or the elderly or whatever might find offensive? Or the ones for guys from Jay Jays or whatever that totally have the double innuendo happening (Nuts! Nudge nudge, wink wink! Original, ain't it!)? Are they expecting someone to be so outraged by this guy's anti-Bush shirt that they'd stand up, declare whatever the pro-Bush version of jihad is on the plane and attempt to stab him to death with a packet of Pringles?

Or if he himself is the terrorist risk, what difference does wearing a shirt make? Is he less likely to be a risk if he wears a loud Hawaiian print? A coconut bra? A t-shirt that says "Hold my drink while I snog your boyfriend"? Does Osama bin Laden actually secretly wear a t-shirt like the one this guy has?

Some people might agree that George W Bush is the world's greatest terrorist (is there a competition for that like Miss Universe? Am I glad I missed the bikini section?), others won't. But surely we are mostly able to agree to disagree over points such as the message on a t-shirt without it becoming a security risk? Or are they worried that people who support George Bush will go into a murderous rage upon sighting of such t-shirts, rudely interrupting the in-flight movie?

Odd.