Australian Visa Process

I applied for a tourist visa to Australia today, but the whole process was completed in less than a minute. This is a realistic way, given the technology of the world, and I wish more countries would issue tourist visas on-line as an ETA (the electronic tourist visa). I remember having to surrender my passport and waiting more than 2 months for a visa to China when I visited in 2002. And the cost of the Chinese Visa was about 4 times that of the Australian ETV.
Here's how the ETA works. The applicant must be from an approved country (most industrial nations are approved ones) to apply, have a valid passport, be outside of Australia when applying, and the usual other qualifications all countries have. The ETA is valid for 3 months in a 12 month period and is issued immediately on line and the information is stored in a database for immigration, customs and the airlines and other tourist related agencies.
Out of curiosity I searched in line to see how many other countries use this simple one click electronic visas. What I found was a hodgepodge of electronic visa application systems in a several countries, none of which was as simple and instantaneous as the Australian. All involved waiting periods and much higher fees.
Australia is wise to offer this type of visa short stay tourist/business visa, to utilize modern technology to speed what is often a painfully slow and expensive process. Uh.....of course the Mexican visa to enter the U.S is probably even easier. You know, the one where 40 million Mexicans swarm across their border into the U.S. without any visa documents and then publicly protest for their right to be U.S. citizens after arriving.
One fellow I know can't get a visa to Australia is Dennis Cogburn, 51, of Bowie, Texas. How do I know this? Well, Dennis is an ice cream truck driver who was arrested the other day after police noticed his swerving truck and found an empty pint bottle of vodka between the seats of Dennis's ice cream truck.
Dennis had been selling ice cream to kids along the street between sips on his vodka bottle. He has been charged with driving under the influence of alcohol, not helping his own case when Dennis told arresting officers he was suffering chest pains. After taking Dennis to a local hospital for examination, a blood alcohol test showed his rate was three times the state limit for drivers. I wonder if Dennis will be sent to a prison with vodka flavored ice cream?