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Hi, all! YouTube suggested this family to me this morning and I promptly fell down a huge rabbit hole. Help! Paul and Taina (pronounced with a long I sound) Licciardo-Toivola live in remote Finland with their 10 kids, named Leonardo, Cleopatra Taina Bride, Jerusalem, Shakespeare, Romeo, D’Artagnan, KingJames Ocean, Aphrodite, Nefertiti Butterfly Bambi and Omega Royal Fox. Though they seem to dress modern, allow tongue rings on their 18 year old (Cleo), and maybe don't homeschool (?), Paul seems pretty into the doomsday cult his mom started. The kids only wear white because the family is "minimalist", their house is huge, and they haven't explained why they left Australia for rural Finland. They seem to allow the older ones to have social media but they also seem incredibly isolated. Paul doesn't appear in the videos often and how he pays for this all is my newest favourite mystery! Based on Taina's morning routine vids (posted below), she MUST blanket train her kids because the four youngest in diapers sit on a blanket waiting to be changed. Paul's Mom (started a culty thing in Australia): http://www.jesuslightsministries.com/ Taina's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC-PepfX4nM19zhdgEn3o5kg Morning routine with what I think are blanket-trained babies, around the 8 minute mark: Paul's weird religious videos, which all seem very short. All I can gather is he really likes the King James bible; they named a kid after it!: https://www.youtube.com/user/elohimisjesus Some of the older kids, Leonardo (who I think the is the married one at age 20?) and Cleopatra have vlog channels, just look up their full names on YouTube if you are interested. I feel a bit bad dragging them into this mess (but of course their channels are public). Of course YTMD has beaten me to this - I'm not the only one who gets blanket training vibes! Props to them for finding out some middle names (there's no family intro video but Taina mentions that the two youngest girls both have Bambi as a middle name) and for finding Paul's mom. https://ytmommadrama.com/viewtopic.php?f=197&t=13817 The kids don't seem especially programmed but do seem quite isolated (I hope I'm wrong). I'll give the parents props for at least letting them have social media accounts. Do any of them go to uni or anything post-secondary? Google tells me homeschooling has only been legal in Finland since 2015 so where do they kids go to school? So many questions.

These people check a lot of the boxes: living off the land, courtship, telegram, having kids as fast as possible, building a church. They are Australians who moved to Siberia.

Facebook has apparently decided to ban all Australian media as a result of proposed government legislation that would force them to pay for news content that is shared. Facebook claims they provide free clicks; the news companies say they are acting as a publisher. Either way the response is ridiculously over the top as sites including the Royal Children's Hospital (not a news organisation), The Chaser and The Betoota Advocate (both satirical), the Bureau of Meterology and Department of Health and Human Services (also not news organisations), political bloggers, Overland (literary journal) and more are blocked. It is an.. interesting insight into how much power they actually have - and the response I'm seeing is fascinating - if Facebook doesn't want us on there, well we can live with that. Pretty sure their revenue would cover the costs being proposed. As an attempt to get us to pressure the government I think they may have underestimated how much support this move has cost them.

48 Hours has an interesting new episode about an Australian cult run by a women who said she was Christ reincarnated. They were very child centered and she even stole other people's children. Very interesting commentary by a cult expert about how photographs show how children's personalities are being suppressed. http://www.cbsnews.com/news/inside-the-family-cult-australia-anne-hamilton-byrne/

A three-man US evangelism team hit up a train in Sydney, and to be honest, the reaction is surprisingly polite. It's the smug preacher's caption that this is "fierce", but my favourite part is the obviously planted guy "spontaneously" giving his testimony at the end, and the fact they put this video up think it makes them look *good*! If you don't want to give them clicks, US dude starts preaching, older Aussie dude with book basically tells him to stop pushing his opinions on other people, and that no one cares. The rest of the commuters are definitely on older man's side. I love that man! I also appreciate how he starts saying it'll only take 3 minutes, and angrily says he's not angry. "I'm not angry" "You sound angry" "I'm not, I'm angry that you're so..." "so you are angry?" Wondering what would happen on a commuter train in London. Either people very deliberately obeying London etiquette and studiously pretending he didn't exist, or getting loudly mocked!

Some good news out of Australia Awaiting the various displays of reich wing butt hurt over this.

"In the past three years, alarm bells have begun to ring about the role religion may play in fostering, or concealing abuse. There have been two substantial inquiries into domestic violence in Australia in recent years. Both have identified religion as a significant, under-reported problem." http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-07-18/domestic-violence-church-submit-to-husbands/8652028?WT IMO very interesting article about how churches fail abused women and how toxic and dangerous the doctrine of "male headship" is.

Part 1 of the discussion is here: viewtopic.php?f=81&t=12399&hilit=meet+hellena Hellena is an Aussie hippie. Her man is Currawong. Their many children have unique names (Spiral-Moon anyone?). She is friends with Sparkly Lauren, but seems to actually care for her children. Her blog went dark for a while, but she's back now and as odd as ever. Be prepared for giant walls o' text and nudie pix of a heavily pregnant (and laboring) woman. Also, much talk of sex. Even during labor. Like, after the first twin was born, but before the second. Hellena's blog: spunoutpost.blogspot.com

Yikes; theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/oct/24/australia-giant-spider-mouse-carry-horrifying-impressive?CMP=fb_gu I thought it was a spider Bart Simpson took down to Australia, but remembered just now it was a frog.

I just saw this while reading news articles online, and found it rather interesting. It's not very often that the Brethren are in the media, however, it is not at all surprising that they're willing to make use of funds they are not entitled to. http://www.smh.com.au/national/education/exclusive-brethren-federal-labor-calls-for-investigation-into-funding-of-extremist-cult-schools-20160707-gq0jq5

I came across this story which was last updated 22 June 2016. According to the article, military cadets were subjected to institutionalized rape and sexual violence by staff and peers. http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/21/asia/australia-military-abuse/index.html

This show is a reimagining of Prisoner, an Australian soap opera that ran from 1979 to 1986. It is soooooo good! Seasons 1-3 are on Netflix. Season 4 starts on Tuesday! That probably won't reach Netflix USA until Christmas.

It's self explanatory, mate!

http://media.smh.com.au/selections/juli ... 01787.html I haven't seen this posted already. For a bit of background, this is our first female Prime Minister and she came to power somewhat controversially before winning an election on her own (well, with a minority government). There have been a lot of nasty comments directed to her purely for being a woman (as well as a childless, unmarried one) and while having a female in charge was a great achievement, it was sad I think how many people were secretly upset by it and vocal about it. She has been the victim of a lot of nasty sexist cartoons etc. and things which really focus on her being a woman, rather than her policies or anything else like with a male politician. It's very subtle and a lot of people probably don't even realise they're doing it. The leader of the Opposition is a rather nasty religious misogynist, amongst other gems he's said that women should save their virginity because it's a "precious gift" (actually, he might have been talking about men as well, but it was weird). He's also made various disparaging comments about housewives etc. A recent scandal was when a misogynist radio broadcaster said the Prime Minister's father who recently died "died of shame". It's great to see him finally told off and I think she makes a lot of important points about the modern face of misogyny.

I saw an ad for a current affairs program that included a story about a family with 15 kids and wanting more. There weren't many details, but I'll watch tomorrow and see. Heads up to other Aussie FJers, watch A Current Affair on 9 tomorrow (monday)! (I promise that is the only time I will ever advertise for that program or Today Tonight.) Besides for that, does anyone know of any other Quiverfull Australians? Any blog links?