Friday 18 May 2007

It’s only funny until someone gets hurt…

…and then it’s just hilarious.

The Australian government descends further into farce. If this wasn’t for real it would be hilarious.

You have to check it out . It is the most ridiculous thing I’ve read in a fair while…and I read blogs!


But it makes me happy for another reason.

It reminds me that Howard pays far too much attention to redneck opinion gathered through Today Tonight, A Current Affair, talkback radio, etc. He, or his marketing guru, has decided that this sort of shit is representative of broad Australian opinion.

Maybe, to an extent, but in their carry on about so-called “Aussie Values” they forgot an important one – Australians don’t like to be told to suck eggs, and, unlike Americans, they don’t like to look like idiots.

And this test makes us look like idiots to the rest of the world. This is the sort of story that makes it to those weird and wonderful pages on the news sites, like the dog who can drive and the man who sues because he chopped his penis off with a chainsaw.

In particular question 15 pisses me off. Maybe it’s true, but it’s pretty backward looking, and it really is a trick question. Everyone I know answered “secularism” and the ones that got the right answer only did so because they realised the mindset behind the test.

I’m happy.

To the tune of the Everly Brother’s classic,

Bye Bye John
Bye bye viciousness
Hello hopefulness
Don’t fuck it up, Rudd, or I’ll cry-y
I want to see the back of that guy-y.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I suppose if you do pass the test and get to live here, you'll then be allowed to forget most of it so you can be like a lot of the people who get out of the test because they were born here. Wonder if you get to have a second go if you get close (what's the pass mark?).

A lot like the theory test for your driver's licence.

Do you get some sort of bonus if you weren't born here but you live here and get all the questions right? Maybe you could be entrepreneurial and sell your pass mark to a hopeful - user pays.

Anonymous said...

What K said.