I find it hard to believe that anyone will actually "get" the "message" of that advertisement. It's too hammy! It looks too much like a skit from a bad comedy show -- I kept expecting Dave Chappelle to pop up!

Also, I have to respond to this:

American readers take note: Liberal is not the same as liberal. Liberal: Republican::Labor: Democrat.

I see what you did there, but that's frankly as misleading as it is informative. On the old "left-right" scale, the four parties would be:

Australian Labor Party -> Liberal Party -> Democrat -> Republican

America has two right-of-center major parties; Australia has a center party and a slightly left-of-center party. Or, more accurately, BOTH Australia's major parties are significantly left of the Democrats.

I know it hurts Democrat (and probably Republican!) ears to hear the Democrats described as right-of-center, but any objective look at the actual policies of the Australian Liberals and the Democrats will show it's not an inaccurate description.

It's dangerous to "review" research from what other people say the research is saying, even people as "clever" as the Freakonomics crowd.

The title of the paper was "White children's alignment to the perceived racial attitudes of the parents: Closer to the mother than the father" -- which is just about as far from "study concludes racism comes from mom" as you can get and still be talking about the same thing.

From the study:

...we found that children's attitudes were strongly correlated with the perceived expectations and attitudes of the mothers but not the fathers...

Again, specifically NOT "mom made me a hater", and the more about this paper I find, the less Lloyd's Broadsheet article seems like good coverage of the issues.

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My favorite "it comes from mum" research is the old famous "Benny & Penny" study. A baby is dressed in blue, called Benny, and given to random women to look after for half an hour in a children's play room. The same baby is dressed in pink, called Penny, and given to other random women to look after for half an hour in the same room.

With Benny, women played physical games, often involving toys.

With Penny, women played verbal games, often holding the child more.

But of course it's the same baby, who underneath the clothes, is "really" one sex or the other.

Mama made me a [insert traditional sex role here]? Only if you wanted a headline and didn't care about what the study was really suggesting.

There are lots of occasions in our crowded city lives where we give up a little personal liberty so that we can all get along.

On subways, buses, escalators; in lifts; walking on the sidewalk.

I cannot see how being on an 'plane is any different. A little personal freedom needs to go by the board so that we can all have as "pleasant" a flight as possible.

I recall a long flight I took recently. Soon after we had leveled out, my window-seat neighbor (I had the aisle) popped his laptop out and began working. It was a daytime flight, and so I gazed happily out the window for a while at the clouds.

I became aware that my neighbor was uncomfortable about something -- he was making those strange "Hmmff" noises of discontent. I glanced from the window to his face and saw that he was glaring at me.

"What's the problem?" I asked.

"These are private business files," he said, "mind your own fucking business and stop trying to read them."

"I was looking out the window, friend," I said as pleasantly as I could. After all, this was my neighbor for the next 9 hours.

"Yeah, right," he snorted, "whatever you say."

I stood to my full 6 feet 6 inches in the aisle. "If there is something about the seating arrangements you'd like to discuss with the flight attendants, I'd be happy to go find one," I said.

"Forget it," he replied.

"I think that's an excellent suggestion," I said, and sat back down. He re-stowed his laptop, and we spent the rest of the flight peacefully.

Now imagine a flight with people doing "internet" type activities on their laptops: looking at porn; surfing viral video sites full of people throwing up and other tasteful activities; having conversations "NO NO I'M ON A PLANE!"

Yes, what a wonderful thing it will be when airlines have wifi installed.

Farhad, you clearly don't fly much...