Australia Acquires High Technology, Considers Supervillainy, Elects To Become Mrs. Grundy Instead

Effluvia

Oh, Australia, you speech-censoring, net-nannying drunk. You’ve got some of the most attractive and pleasant people in the world. You produced Joan Sutherland, who remains the definitive Violetta in La Traviata, and Russel Crowe, who has made many excellent movies and who also knows that the only proper way to initiate a conversation with a New Yorker is to strike them sharply in the head with a rotary-dial telephone. And among all nations, you most reliably send your citizens to object when Popehat makes fun of you.

Now you’ve decided to use satelites to enforce pool safety — including rules that pool owners must clear trees if other people’s children might climb them to get to the pool.

Seriously, Australia. Do we need to put you in some sort of home, like your senile old ma?

Via Overlawyered.

Last 5 posts by Ken

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1 Comment

  1. Bruce  •  Sep 23, 2009 @3:05 pm

    I think all our local councils are in the pocket of ‘Big Safety’.

    Playground equipment can go from safe to unsafe in between 6 monthly inspections with no change to either playground or regulations. I had many a furious argument with inspectors when I was treasurer of our kindergarten.

    This is no longer surprising, it is the Australian way. If something ‘bad’ happens (and a child drowning is a definitively bad thing) then we we must do something so this never happens again, wrap a layer of bureaucracy around it and charge the users for cost of administering it.

    The current political climate will see this increasing. Nanny Bracks is my state Premier and Kevin Rudd hasn’t seen a problem too small for government intervention to fix.

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