18 December 2009

On Australia.

How odd that I came across this story about the Australians' new idea for highways. We're doing a brief overview of "seaport cities" in our fourth-grade LIFEPACs, and right now, we're in Sydney.

So what do you think? Should the Australian government build speed bumps every 100 metres on the highways? It sure would cut down on high-speed accidents. I thought this story was for real at first because I had just been reading of another hare-brained idea in Veronica's blog that would entail zie government reviewing every website and see if it is safe for children. We want to keep the kiddies safe... so... the government will make sure that no bad ideas - I mean- porno websites enter the country. And anyone who doesn't agree with that must hate children.

I have to say that I didn't make any connections between the Clean Feed and that highway story until I read everything through and saw the web link. That's good satire, but I had just *assumed* the entire government had gone bonkers. :) But I have to tell you that this government censorship, on such a LARGE SCALE, is absolutely chilling. Though I do have to wonder if that sort of thing happens here, too, and we are just not told about it. No, I don't have any conspiracy theories. Just wondering aloud.

Back to our homeschool. One of our LIFEPAC review questions was along the lines of, "Name three ways you can tell Australia was founded by British people." Emperor said that you can NOT tell by their accents, because they do an "awful" imitation of a British accent. Umm... kid... it's a different accent. They're not trying to be British.

"But the question said..." Sigh. Nevermind. Elf?

So Elf comes up with ideas such as, "People speak English in Australia" and "Just look at the FLAG! It's obvious!" and "Because all Australians are white."

Thanks to the Wiggles, I thought, I'd be able to disprove this easily. But Elf and Emperor do not see the difference between Jeff and the other Wiggles. See, because they are all Australians, so he must be white. Actually, he is the PURPLE Wiggle.

I tell you, I deal with this logic EVERY DAY.

8 comments:

  1. ...wait... which logic? Your children's or that of another group? [smile]

    ~Luke

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  2. LOL At least I can excuse my kids for being children... but the government censorship thing? Scary.

    That being said, the description of some of these "forbidden" websites leads me to believe that purchasing filtering systems for ourselves might be a good idea. I just don't want the government doing it...

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  3. lol You've *lived* here! What do you think? The govt., makes all these noises it thinks will keep the gullible public happy then subsides again into inertia. Meanwhile the lot holding up the bar chew the cud with the idea till the next shout then forget all about it! Round & round we go &when anything happens is anyone's guess.

    Um, perhaps a lesson on indigeneous culture is in order. Aboriginals aren't *white* [though 4 generations of mixed marriage & you'd never know it just by looking]& last time I checked they weren't purple either. Actually they're not even indigeneous but they were here before us so have a prior claim.

    What *is* is with the Wiggles & Americans? They're a little kiddies group.

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  4. LOL I thought Jeff was of Asian descent! Well... I guess you never *can* tell. I had no idea he was an Aborigine! I'd have SWORN he looked Asian.

    Man, I'm confuuused.

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  5. Oops. Who's Jeff? I was speaking generally. lol

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  6. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Fatt

    LOL I wikipedia'd him and he is "the son of Chinese parents," so I wasn't as loopy as I'd feared.

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  7. Ugh yes, the 'Clean Feed'. It scares me spitless to be honest. It would be run on a public complaints process, so all you'd have to do to bring down your competitors would be infect their coding with malware (P*rn and the such) and then complain about them. BANG, site gone.

    Scary scary. The previous government, as much as I didn't like them, they offered free internet filter packages to any family who wanted one. Now surely, that is the better idea?

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  8. I live in Australia. If the boys want to email me some questions I would be eager o repnd?

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Non-troll comments always welcome! :)

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