Just when you start to think that bureaucrats in this country couldn't get any sillier, a report on the continuing dry weather suggests we avoid one "d" word and substitute another to make farmers feel better about themselves– yes that is our Government's latest brilliant innovation to build up agricultural production in this country.

From the ABC:

Federal Government-selected experts want people to start using the word "dryness" to describe Australia's worst drought in a century.

The word "drought" makes farmers feel bad, says the Government's hand-picked Drought Policy Review Expert Social Panel.

The politically-correct push also aims to make farmers accept that drier weather is here to stay, and is not a temporary crisis, the panel's newly released report said.

"Words like drought … have negative connotations for farm families," the report said."There needs to be a new national approach to living with dryness, as we prefer to call it, rather than dealing with drought."

Full article is here

For some reason the phrase "dead parrot" springs to mind.