Metal Reviews

Some of you chaps might think that Australia is like America and is a happy democratic place.

Well on the surface it is.

But in reality....

1. Current Prime Minister was not voted in by a majority and only got in via dodgy deals with independents.

2. At least two state governments (Tasmania and South Australia) have also been voted in due to dodgy deals with independents.

3. The system of preferences means that you can win by not having a majority of votes. This is because minor parties give you their preferences votes. So if Party A wins 49% of the votes and Party B wins 20%, Party B can still get in by getting preferences from the other Minor Parties that have 31%.

4. The only news channels where you get any actual news are the government owned ones (ABC and SBS). The commercial news channels never show any real news, instead focusing on things such as celebrity weddings and drug addicted footballers.

5. The government is actually run by bureaucrats such as myself. The elected officials are merely puppets controlled by bureaucrats such as departmental secretaries and divisional CEOs.

6. YOU HAVE TO VOTE IN ELECTIONS OR YOU ARE FINED. Even if you are overseas you have to vote or get fined. I've been fined as have other relatives and friends. My brother was recently fined for not voting because he was overseas and wasn't even aware an election was called.

7. You need government approval for everything and rules apply to everything. This includes:
a. Approval to put up/remove a fence. The fence needs to meet local council appearance requirements.
b. Approval to put up/remove a shed with a concrete base in your own yard
c. A swimming pool is required to be fully enclosed.
d. You require approval to remove trees in your own yard.
e. Require public liability insurance for shared drive ways
f. Require your pet dog/cat to be registered, microchipped and colared.
g. Require a bank account so they can monitor your financial inflow and outflows.
h. Require even prepaid mobile to be registered to a name and an address.
i. In some instances need 3-4 permits to run something as simple as a church fair (we needed 3-4 permits to run a garage sale that was disposing of surplus government rubbish).
j. Cannot take a rock or plant out of a forest (you get fined if you do it).
k. Cannot do anything to buildings that are on a historical register. In my cityof 70,000 people that's literally 50% of all buildings as there hasn't been much comnstruction post 1920.
ETC ETC

Literally you can barely scratch your arse without a permit or some government agency imposing a fine.

My parents come from an ex-Communist country (Yugoslavia) and they had less rules there and you could do more without getting in trouble or fined.

Yay government!

Dude, I could give you 50 pages of stuff that is legitimately more monstrous than anything the Nazi's could even conceive regarding nearly every UN country in the world. Australia is probably part of the problem, but in the big picture, it's chickenshit.

I like how your voting system is still pretty good compared to ours, and I have to go out and campaign for it to be adopted over the next six months. Probably a good thing here that people can withhold their vote, we'd get plenty of mad bastards elected otherwise. And I'm preeetty sure you need council planning permission for a shed, to remove trees, etc, but knowing people on the council as I do, that's not such a hardship.

Call me a tyrannical autocrat, but I think that



is generally a good thing. If we're going to start talking monstrous stuff, as Adveser says, the fact that a certain politician is walking the face of the earth earning himself a fortune after being complicit in the deaths of over a million innocent Iraqis is a good place to start.

Dude its fucking Australia, i'd be more worried about those deadly spiders and snakes than fuckin politics.

and sharks man, don't forget sharks. and jellyfish.

god hates australia.

The way the preference system works is ridiculous.

Many people voted for one party only to have it give its votes to another as part of the preference system.

The two major parties tend to give each other their own preferences.

Also as stated the elected reps are puppets and the real power is the massive Australian bureaucracy.

Unlike the USA, the Australian bureaucracy is an ever present factor in every element of our lives.






That's irrelevant.

In Australia people have even been forced to knock down fences because the council changed their guidelines for aesthetic features of a fence.

The other dodgy thing they do is to allow projects to proceed before they gain proper approval or under go a consultation process.

For example the Tasmanian people have been opposed to a pulp mill development. The pulp mill developer has the government in their pockets. It has been a very high profile case.

The interesting thing was they started preparation work on the pulp mill site before the government approval was granted.

Another example is a telecommunications tower they're building near my parents house. The residents had a right to apply for the proposal to be knocked back before approval's been given.

But the telco has already paid the money to the council and have already acquired the land and begun building works before the consultation and approval processes have been completed.




I'm a history buff and approve of old buildings being preserved.

However we have a number of buildings that are complete derelict ruins in our city and due to historical restrictions nothing can be done to them.

These buildings are missing walls, the roof and are in some cases completely gutted.

E.G
http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/201 ... 811465.htm

http://pics.livejournal.com/monissaw/pic/005eadp5/g54

There are numerous abandoned and derelict buildings in my city that the owners cannot touch due to historical issues.

In the two pictures above, all buildings have been derelict for at least 20 years and every single redevelopment gets knocked back.













Bill Clinton or George Bush?

American endorsed sanctions on Iraq killed half a million Iraqis.

Here's an interesting tid bit:

Apparently an unamed Clinton government official approached Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Gen. Hugh Shelton to organise for a U-2 spyplane to be shot down over Iraq so as trigger US action against Iraq.


http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i= ... =AME&s=TOP

I think the truth of the matter is that the US was always going to invade Iraq one way or another.

Several factors were pushing for this:

1. Unfinished business left after 1991. Many US policy and military officials believed that they needed to finish what they started in Iraq.

2. It would solve problems in Saudi Arabia. Relationships with Saudi Arabia soured due to continued presence of US troops in SA involved in policing air space over Iraq. Get rid of Iraqi threat and that allows the troops to be pulled out.

3. Need for a base with strategic depth to act against Iran and ensure US control in area. As stated Saudi Arabia no longer wanted US troops based there and Qatar and Bahrain lacked strategic depth (i.e. ability to withstand hostile actions). Iraq is perfectly positioned for this.

Oh and we'll add Obama to the list for continuing the pointless war in Afghanistan. They should've learned the lesson the Soviets got in 1980-88.

Regarding the deadly snakes, spiders, jelly fish and sharks.

I live in Tasmania which is kinda like a chunk of England in extreme South.

We have jelly fish but they're not the deadly ones you get way up North.

We have deadly snakes but they generally avoid people like the plague. Ironically if you see one, you can't legally shoot it - though this doesn't stop people. But get caught and you'll lose your firearm licence, your firearms and get fined to add injury to insult.

Spiders - we have tons of them and most are harmless even though they're the size of a tarantula (Huntsman: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Huntsman_spider )

We also have Red Backs which are vicious but stay outdoors and White Tails which you might find in the house.

In any case athe bigger threat here is a slipper/shoe or can of bug spray.


As for sharks, people that swim outside shark nets are playing with their lives. The sea around Tasmania is really cold so you rarely go swimming anyway.


So in Tasmania and the big cities on the mainland (Sydney, Melbourne) where the bluk of people live the biggest threats are not the wildlife but rather can summarised as follow:

1. Cars, especially in Sydney where they drive like utter nutters. In Tasmania you get a lot of drunk. stoned people without licences speeding along in unregistered cars.

2. Hoodlums - like everywhere in the West, petty thuggery is on the rise due to pathetic sentencing. The standard sentence even for sex offenders or for aggravated assault is usually a suspended sentence.

3. Decaying hospital system - I work in health and our hospitals are pathetic. In Sydney at least two women have miscarried in hospital toilets.
Average waiting time in the local emergency department is 4 hours. The local hospital is dirty and unresponsive - one of my friends was in a car accident and had to ask for a bucket of water and some gauze to clean her own wounds. The toilets are often covered in blood and piss with rubbish strewn everywhere.

I was nearly passing out with a head injury before they decided to look at me.

Or one of our friends who had a ceasarian and the hospital found an infection in her uterus and then sent her home without telling her about it. They only told her partner after she was resubmitted after she had passed out.

The wound turned septic and she was very close to dying.



So the wildlife is not really an issue.

the huntsman spider! just look at that motherfucker! and you're worried about the fucking government?!

And it's generally harmless even though women are scared shitless of it for some reason.

One of the coolest things I've seen was at a friend's house where a huntsmen the size of my fist was on a window eating a moth the size of my fist. My friend did live out in the bush.

But I've squishged hundreds of them and have never had them in my bed or in the toilet or whatever.

Or he likes dangerous animals?

A black metal festival was shut down this week by a christian group spearheaded by 3 people.

3 christians being offended by "Satanic imagery" beats out the thousands who have bought tickets not to mention interstate bands who are going to lose money on flights etc? Ridiculous.

I heard an interview with the main christian guy on the radio, his argument was that they had signs that offended him. then he said churches don't have signs

Fucking stupid.

Way to go, religion.

What gives whoever shut it down the power to do this? Was it the venue or the government? The venue should've had some contract with the bands that they should get compensated something right?

The venue shut it down after they received shitloads of pressure from christian groups after 3 christians started a campaign against it.

Your country is still more "free" than mine, so I look at your bitching and just smile wistfully.

As an Aussie, I dont want Australia to be a clone of America (no offence), I want Australia to be like AUSTRALIA. We have too many American influences in our culture already. Some are great but some are not and most of it is rubbing off in a negative way on our teenagers and pre-teens. The majority of Australia's youth are completely lost right now, but that is another discussion altogether. Australia is a unique country, different to anywhere else in the world. We want it to stay that way.



If we didn't have government approval and rules which apply to things, we would have uncontrollable chaos. Rules are in place for a reason and the local council ones are hardly worth having a hissyfit over. We also need councils permission to "burn off". Why? Cos otherwise some idiot will do it during a day of total fire ban and end up with another "Black Saturday". See my point?

These rules are so things are done correctly. The fences, sheds, pools, removal of trees and pet registration are all things that shouldn't be a problem when getting authority and permission from the council. Some of those you mentioned are just plain obvious. Of course you need to get your pet registered and wear a collar. What if it got lost? Being microchipped and registered means we can track down our beloved pet. I dont see the problem and neither would anyone else.

Voting is mandatory. Its been that way for decades in Australia. It's how it should be. We live here so we all have a right to have our say, but provided we vote. Here's what I hate. People who don't vote, yet have the nerve to complain about whatever the government is doing wrong. That person can piss off, because they didn't vote, they have no say at all.

Now, i'm guessing that this rant is coming from a labor supporter, otherwise point #1 would never have been mentioned, and dodgy deals with independants is utter crap.

As a proud Aussie, I'm baffled and annoyed with most of what you've written, particularly points 6 and 7.

In the end Australia is a great place to live and we have more rights and freedoms than other countries in this world. Maybe you'd like to be living in the Democratic Republic of Congo, or even Zimbabwe or Somalia? North Korea perhaps? You'd be crying to come back to Oz within 5 minutes.

Not all governments laws and rules are good, no government's are across the globe. You can't please everyone, that's obvious. But the ones you mentioned are simply bread and butter and they actually work for us. Its for our benefit.

Enjoy Australia, dont bag it

Isn't pornography with girls who have A-sized breasts illegal in Oz because they say it's too close to child pornography?

If so, that is an excellent rule. I have no idea why some men have a thing for small chests anyway...

That's more of an example of a paranoid and overly restrictive rule, there. Far from excellent.