Democratic censorship is called "political correctness", also known as : "What the government wishes you to believe in or you're evil/communist/fascist etc..." and I don't have the feeling the US escaped this at any time since 100 years, like most countries on this earth.
Anyway these bans of video games are worrying, we've also several conservative politicians in Switzerland wishing to replicate what have been done in Germany about "Killer games".

"Holly Smoke" made me think of a Cheech and Chong Christmas special.

They'd probably end up trying to smoke the whole tree

I hate censorship it gets all over the carpet.

Australia really scares me... the places government will go in the futrure all over the world is truly terrifying.
The nanny state will grow, mark my words.

New Natztralia anyone? Very disturbing indeed. I guess Denmark and Netherlands are till good places to live.

OK I'll give you that one. I could see how it could be a problem if current tech still has problems with that. However they where banned even from handluggage. If they where that worried then surely flicking through each book would prove it is not in fact a secret explosive device? Anyway I shall say no more on the matter seeing as it is decidedly off topic.

I think it is, yeah. Lack of consistency as I said, its been the bane of the OFLC since it started
We're not the only people embarassed by the situation with the OFLC
http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/08/11/aussie-game-rating-system-joke-says-head-developers-group

They're not banning the internet, but all ISP's here will soon introduce mandatory internet filtering... But they're not telling us what they're filtering out. Guess I'll need to start looking elsewhere for my murder and drug info!!! LOL

Its not a legal requirement, internode have already said that they'll not be implementing it. If they maintain that standpoint, that plus the unmetered xbox live and lack of split download caps will probably be enough to make me leave netspace

I was under the impression the filtering was mandatory. All the better if it's not... BTW, iPrimus is no better - with their capped limits and peak/off peak terms I get screwed!!!
Australia isn't rampant with this kind of censorship, it's just horribly inconsistent when it comes to games.

its still in trials and they might try to make it compulsory but frankly if they don't get internode to agree then they're fucked. Internode are in the top 3 ISPs in the country and one of the primary resellers of lines to minor ISPs so they're a major power. Given the resistance that Optus also have (they're willing to trial the blocked websites but not the p2p filtering), its pretty safe to assume they'll be a tough nut to crack
I mean the list of ISPs that agreed to do the trial earlier this year is not only short but a distinct B & C list, I've only heard of the first
Primus Telecommunications, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1
No Netspace, no Internode, no iinet, no tpg, no exetel, no aapt, only lip service from Optus... They can clearly see how this will impact their businesses for NO APPRECIABLE EFFECT and won't be in on it

It should be noted that those small ISPs are pretty much micro sized ISPs (aside from Primus). And a couple provide filtering as part of their existing service, another is (apparently alleged IIRC, but we do need to see how it affects a business) not aimed at residential customers. From the trials we learned that one of them has 1500 members, and only 15 people opted into the filtering.
I have the AU version of 'The Witcher' I can go chop up some bad guys, hear profanity, drink some alchemy (!drugs!), hire a prostitute and collect the cards ... Consistency??
There is two levels of filtering.
The trials were opt-in at both levels for both ISP and subscriber.
Level 1 is a Mandatory filter. If you are an ISP, you will be required to implement.
Level 2 is an optional Kids filter, that adds who knows what number of sites onto the mandatory list.

Are Primus big enough to lease lines? Maybe the micro and nano ISPs on the list were all leasing stuff from Primus