I had to laugh at that comment given the thing I am writing first (had a great session this morning) is set in post-apocalyptic Australia. I would posit that humans with any form of power, can potentially be bastards when the rule of law vanishes. The Standford Prison experiment was an interesting look into power and the human psyche, regardless of possible flaws in the methodology or even the ethics of such an experiment being conducted.

For me Australia is:

-Home of three of great Youtubers/Reviewers/Critics (or whatever you wanna call them) I like: Yahtzee, Blunty and Gggmanlives;

- Home of awesome musicians that I like: F'ING NICK CAVE, Virgin Black, Midnight Odyssey, The Crevices Below, Abysmal Sorrow, Elysian Blaze, dISEMBOWELMENT... let's say, provided that is in the style that I like, you "aussies" never disappoint me;

-Great fauna/flora/climate;
-Conservative Government;
-Some things reminds me of Brazil, but better (still crappy internet though :P);

I had to come back to this one to mention Colin Hay - Overkill, the lead singer from Men At Work with his more recent solo stuff. People might have seen him in a certain Scrubs episode. I love his voice. It must be his Scottish origin (an ancestry I also share) :) Aussies will claim any 'import' as their own, the moment they achieve some form of success. Perhaps that is due to our small population or perhaps we just have egos to match the size of our landmass :P

Crappy internet is a defining characteristic of Australia, especially in rural areas such as where MunkiSiren and I live. This is our backyard :)

Your mention of Brazil has reminded me of an old friend who I lost contact with, James. He migrated to Australia and we shared a love of plants, in particular plant medicines. He introduced me to Santo Daime and União do Vegetal and taught me to prepare Ayahuasca through the traditional methods he was taught. It was a wonderful learning experience.

He was financially well off from his dedication to IT work. I will never forget the look on the faces of my friends when I turned up to a gathering with him, one that would be known to many as a "hippie gathering", and disembarked from his gold Mercedes long-haired, barefoot, bearded and wearing a poncho a friend gave me from Peru. Quite a juxtaposition :)

Edit: I had to look up dISEMBOWELMENT as the name sounded familiar. They sound very familiar and were active at the time when I was heavily into death metal music and had friends who played similar music :) Those were the days when a 16 year old could sneak into gigs at pubs and be noticed but not kicked out :P

You are clearly confusing Koalas with Drop Bears. It's all right, it's an easy mistake to make.

As per the title, I can't stop laughing at the popular misconceptions that countries have of Ozzy culture. Like for instance, the whole vegemite confusion that we apparently bought it from America and so on. A fellow student and I were having a good old chat about it... she's much wiser than I. We had it first, sold it to America, they took out an ingredient which was good for you, sold it back to us.

Oh and who thought that we eat vegemite on bread with nothing else?? Katy Perry said this lol! I've always used butter with it... doesn't anyone else?

One thing I hate is the poor internet. I live in Rocky with the spectacular Adsl. NBN won't come to me any time soon, and when it does I doubt it will be FTTP.

I love where my house is though. Whenever it floods it never reaches us, we just see the water down the road.

Another good'un would be commonwealth supported education, along with enabling programs which are completely free.

My biggest hate of all, fat arse blokes bursting with chauvinism along with the many stereotypes on men and women alike.

Thank you and goodnight.

Awesome! Wish I had this luck ;_;

Man, great stories you have!
Santo Daime, hahaha heard so many things about it, never had the opportunity to try it though, the Ayahuasca remains in a "grey area" for many years to the government (especially after the murder of a famous cartoonist, who used to be dedicated to the religion). But I'm not into the culture anyway so, "eh" xD

Everytime I "talk" to an Australian (or hear about Australia), makes me want to move there.

But we'll have to do something about the crappy internet though! :P

Cheers!

He was incredible! It was a magical experience that I was lucky to enjoy :D

STOP MAKING ME JEALOUS!


;_;

Back in the 90's I subscribed to a music video service. Each month they'd mail me a VHS tape with new music videos on it.

I really liked the issue that had this video on it, and still love the song; especially the thrashy drum solo :) I play it regularly from my MP3 collection:

Midnight Oil - Power And The Passion

I used to listen to Midnight Oil back in the late 80's -- one of my favourite tracks was "Beds are Burning" from the album "Diesel and Dust" -- totally forgot about mentioning them here! :-)

I misread the subject as "Throw another barbie on the shrimp mate!"

So, I pictured a barbie doll riding on top of a shrimp.

But, after that I thought about how they tend to ban and / or censor a lot of games as well as other things.

As far as the culture, I see stereotypical Australian things kind of like Cowboys in the U.S. There are some, but the vast majority are just regular people.

It is interesting that Australia is so widely known for its censorship!

But you know what, that way of thinking that is behind the censorship has been very very busy over the last 20 years or so and it is at the point now where the whole country is just a big screwed up basket case of ban an regulate everything to death because the term 'freedom' is something you wipe your ass on in this country.

Ever heard the term 'Nanny State'? Well our little nanny state down under is on STEROIDS. Recently little blow up kiddie pools by law, have to have a pool fence. Their thinking of banning kids motorbikes, even on private land. Fireworks are illegal, since a long time, BB guns are illegal.... the list goes on and on.

This is how it works, every time something bad happens, they cannot accept that sometimes things go wrong, they have to come up with more restrictions or ban it entirely..... if they keep going like this, eventually it will be illegal to go outside at all, because it's 'too dangerous'

Censorship in Australia has become censorship of life itself!

Edit: ever seen the movie Demolition Man? That ridiculous utopian society they poke so much fun at is exactly where we are heading here in Australia. And if ever disaster strikes, no one will have a clue how to survive because the government has so obsessively separated everyone from the dangers of real life.

Funny how they spend more time banning shit than surviving their own enviroment, as if dealing with 40 poisonous species on their grass isn't enough to deal with

In Australia there is the combination of 3 big elements to create a super nanny state;

1) There is really not all that much happening here, so we have a bored media scratching the bottom of the barrel for a story
2) Population full of dumb asses
3) spineless government

So here is how it all works.... little Johny stubs his toe riding a bike, Media pick up the story because there is nothing better to do. Parents go on TV crying and all the dumb asses feel sorry for them and worship any words they speak, ban bikes, sure thing! Then spineless government makes the law.

So basically our entire legal system is written by grieving parents/relatives, ,,, is that how you get a fair and balanced legal system? NO