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Australian Govt Holding Secretive Anti-Piracy Talks
daria42 writes "Looks like Australia's Government prefers to keep its ongoing anti-piracy discussions behind closed doors. It held an initial meeting in September last year to try to get the content and ISP industries to thrash out an agreement on how to handle Internet piracy. Consumer representative groups were explicitly blocked from attending the meeting, and attendees are not allowed to reveal what was discussed behind closed doors. Now a second meeting has been held, and again, no information has been revealed about what's being discussed. Quelle conspiracy?"
the excuse was child pornography. Now it's piracy. The effect is to gain control over speech.
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
They never have and never will care about the Consumer til the day they are looking at bankruptcy.
Until content producers provide a quick, easy and legal means to download content as soon as soon as it becomes available consumers will keep getting their media from "alternative" sources.
We shoot them and they grow back.. And I know these will be hard to believe, but we can't use the reasoning "The fella/shelia was causing a kerfuffle" and shoot them dead. This is Australia. Not Texas.
It's inevitable that the media giants are going to get their way, or most of it, eventually. The reason is simple: They have the will and resources to keep flinging bills at the figurative wall until one sticks - and it only takes once - whereas the public has to continually be on their guard trying to stop these things. It's like being followed by a hyena... No matter how long you keep your guard up or how many opportunities the hyena misses, you're going to lose eventually.
the excuse was child pornography. Now it's piracy. The effect is to gain control over speech.
I would argue that gaining control over speech is actually the very goal of all these secret talks, not just some ancillary effect.
The powers that be are justifiably scared by all these plebes being able to say whatever they want, and becoming more aware of just how short their end of the stick actually is. The Arab Spring, Occupy, Anonymous... these are but the tip of the potential iceberg, and the rich and powerful are putting some serious effort into chilling these movements right back into frozen immobility.
Knowledge is power, cliche though it may be. And the ability to control what knowledge people have access to, that's power yet again. And that's what makes the internet quite so disruptive.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
It's not a threat of terrorism if you threaten to kill a bad ideal is it?
The Aussie government, like the British Government, is in the pocket of the US Government.
They're perfecting these nanny/police state surveillance technologies in Australia and Britain for the day they *will* deploy them in the US, just like the great firewall of China - you think it's coincidental so many US IT companies are involved in that?
It's easier to present your people with a 'fait accompli' of a finished working system of mass surveillance than to have to put up with the protests, inquiries and possible revolt during the implementation/debugging stages of the various tools required - especially when they're being carried out in different countries nominally not under your jurisdiction...
look up the port arthur massacre.
none of us have guns anymore because of that.
we'd vote for the other guy, but he's worse. go figure. it's like a scaled back version of the USA, but with a functional health/education/welfare system. one wonders what the US govt actually spends its money on if it can't even get those right.
In place of leaders, we have the children that are more interested in calling each other names than actually sitting down and working through issues. As both sides just stand there screaming about how the other is going to ruin the economy, any discussion on "minor" issues such as civil liberties gets drowned out. (By minor, I mean that the vast majority of Australians seem to follow whatever Parliament is screaming about, be it gambling reforms, the carbon tax, etc and remains ignorant/indifferent towards everything else). Unfortunately, the laid-back attitude that typifies our culture also extends to our view on politics... Many Australians at the last election chose to donkey vote rather than choose between either of the major parties, instead of looking at the variety of independents that were on offer and picking one of them.
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
Military spending.
By donkey vote, I actually mean just leaving the ballot slips blank, not ordering in preference. I can't find a citation saying the numbers rose, but I remember it being discussed in the news on account of this twit
Our culture doesn't get smarter, it just finds new ways of being retarded.
Those people can GET FUCKED.
They don't represent me. They represent Hollywood, a part of America, which despite appearances is not Australia just yet.
The talks do nothing to further my interests (I don't give a shit about piracy, in fact it helps me a lot), and in fact are actively working against me.
Check out my sci-fi book "Lacuna" at http://goo.gl/MVxX8
... until they get what they want.
Just like the EU referendum in Ireland. The government made it clear that they would keep holding referenda until they got the "correct" result. Spending taxpayers' money to fight the will of the people, that's the way governments work. Was it different in the past?
The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
Has there been any government been able to produce a proper and believable reason why these talks should be held in secrecy? Obviously isn't not about national security.
Central to the Democratic process is that Government should be the least interventionist it can be, with all its activities open to public scrutiny - it keeps them from misbehaving, keeps them from behaviour not conducive to the PUBLIC INTEREST. When they hold meetings behind closed doors, you BET YOUR ARSE THEY'RE CONSPIRING TO BREAK THE LAW!
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Where do you live Mr AC?
Because I can guarantee you that it's not as bad as you think. The police state mentality here is a long, long, long way behind the US and there are far fewer speed cameras than you'd think.
here in Perth we just got our first one. Somebody shot it.
Here's the thing - here on /. you hear an awful lot about genuinely crappy proposals that various parts of the Australian government make. 99.99% of these never see the light of day.
Used to be that way until Mr. Howard sneakily disarmed Australians. Remember Martin Bryant? Shot up a stack of people in Port Arthur with a semi-automatic rifle? They were meant to be banned, but the rest of the gun laws went with it. It was the turning point of Australia.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
Geez, it's not like other western countries don't have speed cameras.
worldmobilenet.com -- World Prepaid Wireless Internet plans
one wonders what the US govt actually spends its money on if it can't even get those right.
Guns. Big ones, little ones. Ones carried by men, ones carried by trucks. Gun on ships and guns on planes.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Just relax, Its not specific to piracy, it's just whatever the current government says is shit and dribble, which makes them look bad in the press. They solved that problem by having ALL discussions behind closed doors; they still talk dribble, but no one can see - problem solved.
Infact, (the soon to be exiled leader, Julia) has told the party they're no longer to talk to the press without prior consent - seriously
look up the port arthur massacre. none of us have guns anymore because of that.
Actually gun ownership numbers are higher now than before Port Arthur. A bit under 5 million registered firearms, and god knows how many unregistered.
You just can't legally own auto or semi-auto rifles, or some large calibre handguns and high capacity shotguns. Manual-action rifles and small-calibre handguns are fine, and we import about 80,000 each year, 40,000 rifles, 10,000 shotguns, 20,000 handguns (Yes I know there's a missing 10,000, no I don't know what it is.)
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Tons of crap to kill even more civilians on the other side of the globe.
Well, to be fair, the stuff you read about Australia on here is often exaggerated, missing crucial pieces of information that add context or background, or are just plain wrong. Not to say they are completely made up - no, they do relate to things that are actually happening. But they are reported on in a particular way that makes things sound worse than they are (usually).
To take one of your examples: speed cameras. What makes Australia unique in this regard? Virtually every developed country has speed cameras. I've travelled extensively and I don't think there are any more or less on average than other places. Certainly less than in the UK and much of Europe. Probably more fixed speed cameras than in the US (though, on the flip side, you do see a lot more cops parked in the median trying to catch speeders 'manually' in the US than in Australia). You'd have to be kinda dumb to get caught by a fixed speed camera in Australia anyway as in most states they are marked with multiple giant signs saying "speed camera ahead!" (Victoria is a notable exception to this). Irritating if you get caught? Yes ... but hardly something that warrants discussion of shooting people...
Same with this article. They can discuss things behind closed doors all they want, but eventually if they want to actually DO something it will have to come out in the open and be passed through Parliament like any other law. Until that happens (or looks likely to happen), no point in overreacting. Think back to the internet filter stuff a year or two ago - it never actually happened because there was widespread opposition to it. But Slashdot didn't really mention that. It phrased articles about the filter proposal to make it sound like it was a done deal, when really, it never had any serious chance of getting through Parliament in its current state. But the damage to our 'reputation' is already done. I commonly see people on here still making the assumption that Australia has a net filter (when it doesn't and isn't likely to for the foreseeable future since the first one was never even introduced into Parliament, let alone passed).
I suppose what I'm saying is that Australians aren't really any different than Americans in this regard. Only some are politically interested in the first place. A smaller proportion of those still care about IT/media/communications issues enough to raise a fuss. And when things start to look bad enough, people do react - the defeat of the net filter is evidence of that. So at this point some closed-door discussions are taking place about piracy, sure, but until something concrete is revealed, there's no point in overreacting. As someone that works with Australian Government departments every day of the week as a contractor, I can tell you that 90% of discussion, proposals, ideas etc. never get off the ground.
The other factor is that life here is very good. We're a forgotten little corner of the world in some ways, so the world doesn't think about us much. But the economy is booming, the financial crisis that crippled so many others barely touched us (we were the only OECD nation that didn't go into recession), we have very low sovereign debt, a pretty good universal health care system, very low violent crime, unemployment is low, we have generous working conditions, guaranteed 4 weeks vacation + 10 public holidays, a $16 USD/hr minimum wage etc. and a culture that values work-life balance. People simply don't have much to complain about. Things like speed cameras and anti-piracy discussions simply don't rank that high on the care factor for most people. (And frankly, big media's product these days mostly sucks - they will kill themselves with their antiquated business practices before they die due to piracy anyway)
So do pay us a visit, you might be surprised to find that things aren't as bad as what you think (remember: things on Slashdot and the wider internet generally are designed to attract eyeballs and hits, so are phrased in the most provocative way)
Guns. Big ones, little ones. Ones carried by men, ones carried by trucks. Gun on ships and guns on planes.
"In his later years, Dr. Seuss became increasingly... unstable."
Science is all about firing a drunk pig out of a cannon just to see what happens.
Where they (temporarely, one hopes) have succeeded in actually filtering the Internet by commercial interest groep Brein, with effect of thepiratebay.org being unreachable for many users, the Piratenpartij of the Netherlands have mirrored the seach engine as part of there political partys website. tbp.piratenpartij.nl
Yeah... I like to see them try block a political party...
Yarr, I know how you should vote matey!
Seeing as the One True and Only Network in Australia is set to become the NBN owned by the government they are of course going to crack down on all things deemed unsavoury, illegal and probably anti-government. The NBN will be a terrific bitorrent network and the government wants to be seen being proactive about making sure as little copyright infringement as possible occurs on it. For any non-Australians, the NBN is a fibre to the home/premises network owned by the government set to replace every single copper line in the country upon which access is sold at wholesale rates to actual service providers. It's wonderful we're set to get a high speed and low latency network, but the baggage that comes along with it is getting pretty ugly.
The current government is suffering from deep popularity problems and will be very nervous about further antagonising an already angry and disillusioned public. They will be aware of what happened with SOPA and what is happening with ACTA right now in Europe.
So make some noise, damn you. Stop telling us these people don't represent you, and start telling your government.
Write letters, emails, tweets, Facebook updates:
- tell everyone you know about this - if they are even slightly interested (or skeptical of your claims) be prepared to explain the situation and issues to them politely and without frothing at the mouth
- write to newspapers, comments on on-line news articles, generally increase the amount of negative feedback in places where strangers will see this
- for god's sake, write to your local MP and state senators. You may think it doesn't change anything, but if they get enough letters they get nervous, and when they get nervous they apply pressure on those in control of their party's agenda. I suggest telling them: that you voted for them last time and might vote for them but won't if they keep this up; that you are prepared to protest about this and will do everything you can to spread the word about it; that you will be agitating for a change of policy in every forum you can think of.
- write/email/tweet to the Liberal Party telling them this issue is important and you feel betrayed by the Labor government, and ask them what their policy is and what they are going to do about this
- write to the minor parties and tell them you are concerned and want them to raise this issue in parliament
- see if there is an organised campaign via GetUp, EFA etc and get involved - give them money, at minimum, actively help if you can in other ways
Our system isn't properly representative, but our politicians are driven by self-interest. You will notice that the net filter went on the back burner and never came back - the same can be achieved with this issue.
What doesn't achieve anything is complaining about it to a bunch of people who agree with you!
Read Pynchon.
Currently for all practical purposes the one and only true network in Australia is owned by Telstra - a bastard child of some of the worst aspects of government and private enterprise which is still recovering by being run into the ground by a Mexican bandit and a nuclear scientist out of his depth who tried hard to prove that Carter was a genius by comparison.
The copper is corroding in the ground so is expensive to maintain, and it's not all copper in some districts that were wired early. It's lead with paper insulation where I live and every time it rains the signal drops off significantly. At work it's good but 6M/6M comes at a price of around $1000 per month, which is just insane for somewhere 15km from the centre of a city of a couple of million in a developed nation. Something had to be done and the government is the only thing big enough to challenge Telstra.
The current (minority) Australian government is ruled by the Labour Party, which is left-wing. As a rule, right-wing parties are more favourable to participatory democracy, while our left wing parties prefer a "nanny" state, controlled by an oligarchy. Their secrecy is a natural outcome of this, as they believe they know what is good for us.
What absolute crap.
For starters, Labor is centrist or perhaps slightly right of centre on most social issues.
Secondly, the previous (right wing) government favoured authoritarianism and money-as-power and introduced things like: indefinite detention of refugees; harsh anti-terror laws, including detention without trial; scrapping cross-media ownership to reduce diversity and allow corporations to control the media; stacking the independent public broadcaster with right wing loonies to shut down objective news reporting; vilifying minorities; supporting the torture and detention of foreigners and Australian citizens via the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan; etc etc etc.
Labor isn't much better. But the Liberal Party is about as anti-participatory democracy as it gets.
Read Pynchon.
It took them years to even acknowledge the existence of the rest of the world let alone cater for non-credit card users and when they finally did, they used one of the most maligned payment providers in existence.
Also, a dollar per song, how does that translate to a euro per song? Where are all the cost savings going? And am I buying a license (argued by the content industry so I can't sell the tracks 2nd hand) or a copy (argued by the content industry since this means they have to pay artists less? And what about breakage fees? Why are artists selling through iTunes still charged breakage fees (not brokage fees, breakage as in broken LP/CD's).
If you think iTunes is a good reasonable offering, you have been taken it up the ass as a good little consumer a bit to long. Give your sphincter a rest and grow a backbone.
iTunes is a ripoff, it is basically saying, we pass the gigantic cost savings on to the credit card companies, the content industry and Apple and the customer and the artist can go screw themselves, after all, they are used to getting screwed.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Brilliant dude.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
In Holland we had the referendum, the voters (across all parties) rejected it and it got passed regardless. The D66 which claims to want more referundum couldn't ditch the results of the first referendum ever in Hollland fast enough. Democracy sucks for politicians because those silly voters just don't know how to vote correctly.
It must be a highly annoying job. You as a politician clearly know what is right but can the plebs see it? No!
It isn't just copyright, see the whole EU debate, the Greek debt crisis, immigration. Democracy by a lot of politicians is seen as some holy grail that will make everything alright. Pity it allows grubby mean spirited selfish people to vote who are tired of paying through the nose for content, tired of constantly paying for more EU nations who are corrupt as hell and whose only contribution is a new load of ciminals, tired of paying for Greece a country that hasn't contributed a single penny to the EU in its entire history, tired of boat loads of immigrants who don't want to live among their own culture anymore for whatever reason and then try to establish the same culture in their new country.
Not nice? Not PC? Well, that is how the common voter thinks, don't like any of those things? Then you don't like democracy. Democracy ain't good, democracy is the dictatorship of the common man and the common man ain't all that nice.
Either you have full democractic rule and risk the majority voting to re-open the gas chambers OR you have ACTA and the EU constitution. Choose wisely... oops there is that democracy thing again, better hope everyone chooses wisely, or at least a majority. And sucks to be you if the majority thinks different.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Oh no not another secretive meeting where everyone can not comment on every word said by every participant; It must be a conspiracy!!! Get out you pitchforks and storm the castle!!!
Get real. Maybe the industry wants to talk about things without airing their dirty laundry. Maybe they want to convince the nutbars in their group not to go too far. Maybe they want to iron out wording so It is not too far reaching. They may come out with something like SOPA but until then you have no right to listen to the conversation. At that point start the protest; before that wait.
And then they're surprised that we distrust them. Seriously?
The common theme I see behind all the recent political issues is transparency - and not of the "we need more surveilance" kind, but of the "you are supposed to be our representatives, not our masters, so start treating us as the real boss" kind.
I personally think that we need something like an amendment to the western constitutions that makes it clear that the phrase "we, the people" or "the people are the souvereign", etc. that appear in one form or another in all of them includes the fact that the souvereign has the right to know what his representatives are up to at any time.
As with all things, exceptions are invitations for abuse. There are a few cases (immediate danger) where a delay seems useful. Terorrist attack? Well, think again. If it were all over the evening news that terrorists plan to hijack four airplanes tomorrow and fly them into buildings - what do you think their chances of success have just become?
There are very few cases where secrecy is actually warranted in politics, and we need a strict full-disclosure afterwards policy for those. And by "afterwards", I don't mean 20 years, I mean "before the next election".
It's time these jokers are told again that they govern us, not rule us. Because in a democracy (or republic, for the nitpickers), the people rule.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
I feel no obligation to obey laws written for the benefit of special interest groups rather than the general public, whether those laws are written in secret or not.
The question I have is, if the process of lawmaking is corrupted, at what point does it become a form of corruption to merely follow those laws, even if you had no part in making them.
http://marriedmansexlife.com/
http://tpb.piratenpartij.nl/
Just another protectionist move by the government. It's not a conspiracy, just normal procedure nowadays as the citizens of that fine country have little say and are sheep that have no idea that they have already lost their freedom.
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
You're absolutely right that much of what happens is blown out or proportion. It's also true that this isn't a case of government acting secretly (secret courts etc) which limits just how terrible it is. However, when the government asks two groups to get together to discuss how to control citizens, without anyone speaking for them, and to do so in secret it is still dissapointing. Obviously we don't know what is said in there, but for all we know this could be a government sanctioned exercise in controlling use of the internet and how to manipulate people into accepting it.
The funniest part is that Dr Seuss (or rather, the artist pen name) actually did a number of propaganda posters in WW2.
Comics are a great educator. For instance SMBC encapsulates just how desperate are the efforts to stop piracy, see http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2508#comic
Or consider how corporations control government regulatory processes, http://www.smbc-comics.com/index.php?db=comics&id=2497#comic (btw I had to look up "regulatory Capture" to fully appreciate the science behind that strip.)
So Mr. Crutchy, are you saying that "Australians are idiots that sit there and drool"?
It's very nice to be hysterical, but let me point out to you that countries like Switzerland don't have such issues. Not only do they have guns, but military grade guns, since most join the militia. Not many people get killed with those guns over there. When every civilian is armed to the teeth, thugs think twice before they break in.
And just to point out to you, I am a university educated Australian, who has travelled most parts of the world. I can assure you that I am quite learned, both in academia, and in the use of firearms.
More to the point, your anti-Americanistic racism is pointing to the "right for Americans to bear arms." It is my very point that it used to be the "right for Australians to bear arms", that is, until the "think of the children" crowd was used as an excuse to disarm the populace.
Should we maybe move to a more British model, like in the London riots, which I might point out, I had the unfortunate pleasure of living there when it happened. People still get knifed quite regularly, and yet England is completely disarmed, both in weapons and in spirit. In fact, during the riots, our local neighbourhood antique dealers got knifed because he wouldn't hand over his phone to a pack of thugs. He was airlifted and barely survived, and these blokes are now on the street again. So since idiots with guns don't kill people, idiots with knives kill people. Before you laugh at a cliche, actually think about it for 30 seconds.
Let me give you one last piece of of wisdom, my strawman flinging friend. The true strength in a firearm, is not firing the weapon. It is the threat of discharging the weapon in a particular and controlled manner, in an appropriate situation that begets it's true power. If you have a truly educated populace, both in mind, and in firearm, it prevents any threat to the country and its culture as a whole from being enveloped, both from a threat from the outside, or a threat from within.
But you know, keep on drinking the kool aid pal. They need more of you to roll over.
Science advances one funeral at a time- Max Planck
The financial crisis is hitting us right now. Our housing bubble has started its decline, and almost nothing will prevent it. Another first home owners scheme? Not going to work this time.
Mark my words, the worst of this crisis is still to come.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
It's kind of like saying that there *could* be a pie out there to be split with the artist and draconian laws are needed to protect that, while the entire time *actual* pies exist that are not being split with the artists anyways. Which is worse?
"Mmmm, floor pie." - Homer Simpson
one wonders what the US govt actually spends its money on if it can't even get those right.
What the governments of most modern "democracies" do, those who contribute a lot of money to Democratic Party campaings. Why did the Obama Administration loan money to Solyndra when all of their estimates said that company would go bankrupt exactly when it did? Because one of Solyndra's major investors was an Obama campaing funds bundler. Why did Obama shoot down the Keystone XL pipeline? Because Warren Buffet owns the trains that currently transport the oil that would have flowed through that pipeline.
The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
On the other hand, your country is the only one with its own entry in TVTropes' Everything Trying To Kill You page. :P
Clearly big media companies are bribing politicians. This is criminal behaviour in most civilised countries. There is certainly no demand for new pro fascist-business laws in any democracy that I know of. We need new laws on bribery, corruption, and lobbying to prevent these criminals from hijacking our democracy, and turning our countries into corporate totalitarian states (unless you live in America, where this has clearly already happened, and you are already screwed)
The funniest part is that Dr Seuss (or rather, the artist pen name) actually did a number of propaganda posters in WW2.
I Googled for those, thats some interesting posters to look at for WW2. I wish I had mod points right now.
~~ Behold the flying cow with a rail gun! ~~
Yeah, great idea. So the only people who have drugs and guns are the criminals? And they know that we are unarmed, because we are the law abiding people?
If this is meant to protect society, people's rights, etc, it would never have been secret or behind closed doors. In Australia, or anywhere.
Of course, we all know the intention of these talks is not in society's best interests.
Should we maybe move to a more British model, like in the London riots, which I might point out, I had the unfortunate pleasure of living there when it happened. People still get knifed quite regularly, and yet England is completely disarmed, both in weapons and in spirit. In fact, during the riots, our local neighbourhood antique dealers got knifed because he wouldn't hand over his phone to a pack of thugs. He was airlifted and barely survived, and these blokes are now on the street again. So since idiots with guns don't kill people, idiots with knives kill people. Before you laugh at a cliche, actually think about it for 30 seconds.
Yes, but idiots with knives kill less. Take for example the assassination attempt on Giffords, unless she's high enough in the system that she has an iron ring around her all the time like the POTUS you probably could have walked right up to her and stabbed her, it's certainly true for 99.999% of the population. But it's a helluva lot less likely that he'd kill six others and injure thirteen, including accidentally stabbing a 9yo in the head. Someone waving a knife around isn't a fraction of the threat of someone waving a gun around, I perfectly understand police officers who'll shoot anyone doing that. This isn't Lucky Luke where you wait to see if he wants to point it at you and fire or not, unless the knife is at somebody's throat it's not the same.
Take any cases where you'd like to disengage, like surprising a thief during a break-in or such. It's pretty easy to flee a knife fight if not pursued - and a fair chance if pursued, it's pretty hard to escape a bullet. And while I'd rather not meet someone having a psychotic episode and a knife, I'd much rather not meet someone with a gun. Nor the crazy ex-employee who wants to shoot me because I happen to work in the same company, even though I had no part in his firing. In short, if you want to murder you can murder. But guns turn what didn't have to be murder into a situation where people feel forced to shoot and they turn murders into massacres.
Of course you can say that if you ban guns, only one side will have guns. But any gunman that gives you the chance to pull your own gun is an idiot, and any person that comes in guns blazing will have emptied at least one clip before anyone else gets to react. People aren't going to go around like they're soldiers on patrol duty in Afghanistan, and even if they did I couldn't stop the guy behind me in line at the grocery store from killing me ten different ways before I'd notice. All I can hope for is that I'm nobody's intended victim and don't end up being someone's random or accidental victim or even die from "friendly fire". And on the last three counts I'd take knifes over guns, in the first one I'm probably dead either way.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Already here.
A couple stories over Rick Santorum is upset at Google and the site that dissents with his views. (Grammar is a little shaky, I know.)
A few stories below that is the journalist who found Death in 140 Characters.
The news is rapidly overtaking the Tinfoil Hat crowd's theories.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
That sounds like sedition to me. Please report to your local authorities for the appropriate punishment.
that the impetus for these talks came the the United States film industries and affiliated government bodies and their actions. they're likely being held in secret b/c the US doesn't want it to be clear how much they're involved in the affairs of another nation.
The news is rapidly overtaking the Tinfoil Hat crowd's theories.
Nobody seems to notice, nobody seems to care. — G. Carlin
Upward mobility is a slippery slope - the higher you climb the more you show your ass.
It hasn't been a functioning democracy for years. For Social issues, let them eat cake but for anything economic the system has been hijacked.
No matter the system you devise the problem is that of concentration of power; government systems try to divide and limit powers to avoid too much concentration of power which undermines equality and democracy. Today's problem is the same as it always has been, too much power given to a minority but this time it is large external powers who can subvert governments worldwide. Government does not have the level of "soft" power or the defenses to match the multinationals. Yes, obviously, I'm advocating an extension of the same separation of powers to that of the private world for the exact same reasons. The power crazed control freaks go for government but the wiser ones realize they have far less restraint on the outside, that is, when your weapon of choice is "soft" power.
Our public servants are simply serving their masters, which are NOT us. It just has gone far enough that it is more apparent to more of the public but not enough for anything to change. It'll have to get worse; more likely, something that can get the masses active enough to do something besides watch TV.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Bread-n-butter tactics of totalitarian police-state governments like Aussie.
We eat Vegemite with our bread, you insensitive clod!
The true strength in a firearm, is not firing the weapon. It is the threat of discharging the weapon in a particular and controlled manner
Your "wisdom" is ridiculous. Your statement is an oxymoron. People who are capable of exercising control don't go out and buy guns in the first place, and any perceived "need" for a gun for self-defense is based on irrational fear of everyone else having a gun, and irrational people shouldn't be allowed to have guns. The "MAD" principle may work for nukes, but not for guns (though even nuke MAD is based on fear). Irrational fear is only a threat to those you don't intend to be threatened (such as elderly neighbors), and macho morons with guns can be easily taken advantage of by those that any so called "threat" is intended for.
Oh and I'm not racist against Americans; I hate all races equally. Americans just publicize their fuck-ups enough that its easy to make an example of them (and by "them" I mean politicians and business). If anything I'm "racist" against multinational corporates, many of which come from or are supported by American politics.
You are the drooling idiot.
newsflash: owning a gun is very unlikely to "save" you from anything
The Arab Spring, Occupy, Anonymous... these are but the tip of the potential iceberg, and the rich and powerful are putting some serious effort into chilling these movements right back into frozen immobility.
Their efforts are in vain
The Arab Spring, Occupy, Anonymous... these are but the tip of the potential iceberg, and the rich and powerful are putting some serious effort into chilling these movements right back into frozen immobility.
Their efforts are in vain
That's certainly my hope (that the fat cats are pissing into the wind), but I'm cynical enough that I won't get too happy about things until some real substantive changes come to pass. The Arab Spring has certainly changed some of the major players in that part of the world, but the worry now is how much backroom dealing is going on to ensure that whoever comes to power next in Libya, Egypt, Tunisia, etc. plays by the same kowtow-to-the-corporations rules as the fellows who got kicked out. And I'm not sure if you could claim that either Occupy or Anonymous has done more yet than just putting flies in the ointment.
I'm hopeful, but cautiously so.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
Good luck with all that, complete loony.
Australia has not got the recipe for a major real estate drop. Unemployment is not high, the economy is good, there is no oversupply of housing on the market due to forced sales. Housing has dropped in price, sure, but it has been in the order of 3 - 5%. I'm guessing that it's because of a self-fulfilling prophecy: people are expecting house prices to drop, so therefore they don't buy at higher prices.
You forgot to mention that Sydney prices have generally risen, not declined. You also forgot to mention that the housing declines have been skewed to the high end market, and the mid to low end has stagnated or increased in price.
I'm always amused when people try to conclude what will happen in Australia, based on what is happening in another part of the world. Get your fundamentals right, and then I'll consider the argument.
It's very nice to be hysterical, but let me point out to you that countries like Switzerland don't have such issues. Not only do they have guns, but military grade guns, since most join the militia. Not many people get killed with those guns over there. When every civilian is armed to the teeth, thugs think twice before they break in.
The Swiss also have compulsary millitary service, so people are trained how to handle guns safely and effectively. They are also culturally less anti-authority than Australians. Some of the most cynical anti-government people I know are ex-Australian millitary, most have sharpshooter qualifications.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
I lived my teenage years in the bush, I could identify a number of poinsous snakes and spiders by sight, from our back yard or the school yard. One of my class mates brought a (dead) 3m tiger snake into to primary school one day for show and tell. Her mother found it stretched across their driveway the night before and hit it with a shovel.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Personally, I prefer the platform of the Australian Sex Party. This is a real polictical party and they came very close to winning a seat in the Senate at the last Federal Election (Fiona Pattern actually got more votes than the Family first candidate, but lost out on preferences - yes we have wacky voting practices, get over it.
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
Hrm, for some reason my html of the Offical Party website got eaten: http://www.sexparty.org.au/
Sara
Designer, Gamer, Macgrrl in an XP World
You have that backwards. A drop in the rate that new mortgages are created *will cause* a drop in consumer spending power and therefore employment. Our economy has been fueled by rising house prices and rising debt levels. A drop in house prices *will cause* an over supply of unsold inventory as a fear of dropping prices will trigger some "investors" to try to exit the market.
Let me explain that in another way. Take the situation of a single individual. In any given period you can spend your income, plus the value of any new loans you take out. If in the next period you don't take any more credit, your spending power is reduced when compared to the previous period even if your level of income remains constant. Now extrapolate the same idea to the entire economy. The amount of economic activity in a year is the amount of our income (GDP) plus the value of new loans we take out, or the velocity of the total level of debt. Therefore the change in economic activity between years, is the change in GDP plus the acceleration in the level of debt.
Now after the crisis hit in 2008, and we suddenly hit the brakes on new loans, what did we do? We gave a lump sum of cash to first home owners, which they all dutifully took to their bank manager and levered up to 95% on a new mortgage. This massive amount of additional loans drove the acceleration of debt positive again, gave us a huge boost in economic activity as the vendors received all of this additional spending power. The new money from loans flowed around the economy, and rescued us from a recession.
But for the last 12 months or so, we've been applying the brakes in our level of debt. We've been creating less loans, and we've been paying of the ones we already have (or going bankrupt). We have less additional spending power. The economy is slowing, house prices are falling, and unemployment will again start to rise.
Now I admit that most people don't think that the level of debt has any impact on the economy. So I'll let history be my judge. By 2017, baring any other government rescue, I expect house prices in Australia to drop at least 40% in real terms across the board.
09F91102 no, 455FE104 nope, F190A1E8 uh-uh, 7A5F8A09 that's not it, C87294CE no. Ah! 452F6E403CDF10714E41DFAA257D313F.
OK, that is a much more reasonable argument than your first post. You've adopted a similar argument to Steve Keen.
I believe your argument is flawed though, because I don't think house mortgages necessarily increase retail consumer spending. In fact, I believe it may actually depress consumer spending, as mortgagees will pare back regular spending to concentrate on loan repayments. Also, a fall in house prices won't necessarily translate to an oversupply on the market. People are loathe to sell their property at a lower price than they bought it. If they can, the majority will hold onto their houses and wait for the market to increase.
Anyway, we'll see what happens by 2017. I'm certainly holding onto my house.
Candidates that stand for election are chosen by the members of the electorate
Not in my electorate at least.
My Transformation Website
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So when John Howard banned guns what happened? A lot less people got killed by guns, but all of the people saved were suicides. What happened was the suicides just found another way to do it. On the other hand, lots of criminals now have guns, and are shooting them off in weekly "drive by" incidents.
A few years ago a home invader was shot dead by a pensioner in Queensland and got off scott free. Over the next few years home invasions in Australia increased in all states but (you guessed it) Queensland, I wonder why?
A bloke called John Lott wrote a research paper called "more guns less crime (see " http://www.barvennon.com/lott.pdf2 ) which proved that guns reduce most crimes. The best efforts of "liberals" in the last fifteen years have not disproved his evidence.
So when John Howard banned guns what happened? A lot less people got killed by guns
thankyou for making my point
which proved that guns reduce most crimes
that is the most ridiculous thing I've read on /. this week. congratulations!
The best efforts of "liberals" in the last fifteen years have not disproved his evidence.
with a hypothesis like "guns reduce most crimes" I would say that most liberals would have a good laugh at this "John Lott" and use his paper to wipe their arse. go live in America you fucking redneck; you'll have a ball trying to protect yourself with your gun there