Totally unrelated, but there is a reference to guns & it is Friday here so a good time for some humor.
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The "Real" Australian Constitution Preamble
What state are you from?
We, the people of the broad brown land of Oz, wish to be recognised
as a free nation of blokes, sheilas, and the occasional boong. We
come from many lands (although a few too many of us come from New
Zealand) and, although we live in the best country in the world, we
reserve the right to bitch and moan about it whenever we bloody
like.
We are One Nation, but we're divided into many States. First,
there's Victoria, named after a Queen who didn't believe in
lesbians. Victoria is the realm of Mossimo turtlenecks, cafe latte,
grand final day, and big horse races. It's capital is Melbourne,
whose chief marketing pitch is that it's "liveable". At least
that's what they think. The rest of us think it's too bloody cold
and wet.
Next, there is New South Wales, the realm of pastel shorts,
macchiato with sugar, thin books read quickly, and millions of
dancing queens. It's capital, Sydney, has more queens than any city
in the world, and is proud of it. It's mascots are Bondi lifesavers
who pull their Speedos up their cracks to keep the left and right
sides of their brains
separate.
Down south we have Tasmania, a State based on the notion that the
family that bonks together stays together. In Tassie, everyone gets
an extra chromosome at conception. Maps of the State bring smiles
to the sternest faces. It holds the world record for a single mass
shooting, which the Yanks can't seem to beat no matter how often
they try.
South Australia is the province of half-decent reds, a festival of
foreigners, and bizarre axe-murders. South Australia is the State
of innovation, where else can you so effectively re-use country bank
vaults and barrels as in Snowton, just out of Adelaide (also named
after a Queen). They had the Grand Prix, but lost it when the views
of Adelaide sent the Formula One drivers to sleep at the wheel.
Western Australia is too far from anywhere to be relevant in this
document. It's main claim to fame is that it doesn't have daylight
saving because if it did, all the men would get *happy* on the bus
on the way to work. Western Australia was the last state to stop
importing convicts, and many of them still work there in the
Government
and business.
The Northern Territory is the red heart of the land. Outback
plains, sheep stations the size of Europe, kangaroos, jackaroos,
emus, Ulurus, and dusty kids with big smiles. It also has the
highest beer consumption of anywhere on the planet, and it's creek
beds have the highest aluminium content of anywhere too. Although
the Territory is the centre piece of our national culture, few of us
live there and the rest prefer to fly over it on our way to Bali.
And there's Queensland. Sugarcane, Big Pineapples, Cows, fish and
more.
Golden beaches and finer women that anywhere else in the world and
usually smaller bikinis too, it takes 2nd Place to Sydney in everything
except Virgin Blue Airlines. While any mention of God seems silly in
a document defining a nation of half-arsed agnostics, it is worth
noting that God probably made Queensland. Why he filled it with
dickheads remains a mystery.
Oh yes, and there's Canberra. The least said, the better.
We, the citizens of Oz, are united by the Pacific Highway, whose
treacherous twists and turns kill more of us each year than die by
murder. We are united in our lust for international recognition, so
desperate for praise, we leap in joy when a ragtag gaggle of corrupt
IOC officials tells us Sydney is better than Beijing. We are united
by a democracy so flawed that a political party, albeit a redneck
gun-toting one, can get a million votes and still not win one seat
in Federal Parliament while bloody Brian Harradine can get 24,000
votes and run the whole country. Not that we're whingeing, we leave
that to our Pommy immigrants.
We want to make "No worries, mate!" our national phrase, "She'll be
right, mate!" our national attitude, and "Waltzing Matilda" our
national anthem (so what if it's about a sheep-stealing crim who
commits suicide).
We love sport so much our newsreaders can read the death toll from a
sailing race and still tell us who's winning in the same breath.
And we're the best in the world at all the sports that count, like
cricket, netball, rugby, AFL, roo-shooting, two-up, and horse
racing.
We also have the biggest rock, the tastiest pies, the blackest
aborigines, and the worst-dressed Olympians in the known universe.
We don't know much about art, but we hate the poofs who make it. We
shoot, we vote. We are girt by sea and pissed by lunchtime. And
even though we might seem a racist, closed-minded, sports-obsessed
little people, at least we're better than the Kiwis.