Fucking hell. I HATE that Australia’s becoming a whole new police state now - seriously, for non observers - don’t be surprised if in 10 years we end up looking like China - the poster child for big brother-like policing and communism. My gawd there’s been so much shitty laws happening in the past few months I’m surprised more people aren’t aware of it!!

One of the most significant one is the fact that Australia may well be getting a mandatory internet filter probably sometime soon:

AUSTRALIA’S mandatory internet filter is being primed to block 10,000 websites as part of a blacklist of unspecified “unwanted content”, Communications Minister Stephen Conroy revealed in Federal Parliament.

The 10,000 blocked websites would include 1300 websites already blacklisted by the Australian Communications and Media Authority.

Senator Conroy revealed details of the Rudd Government’s proposed web filter as he called for expressions of interest from internet service providers for a live trial of the technology.

As part of the trial, ISPs will test different methods of filtering the web with subscribers who volunteer. The trial is expected to last six weeks and will start before Christmas.

“The pilot will specifically test filtering against the ACMA blacklist of prohibited content, which is mostly child pornography, as well as filtering of other unwanted content,” Senator Conroy told Parliament.

[Read More]

Yes. This is happening in AUSTRALIA - a place which is fast turning into some kind of big brother nanny state. Okay so its targeted at porn - more specifically child porn (why people would willingly volunteer to be part of the study mentioned above which looks at how effective the filter is with child porn… is completely beyond me). And its targeted at ‘illegal content’ The problem is - what exactly is defined as ‘illegal’? Digital music? Movies? BOOKS!!??!?! They haven’t really made themselves clear. And that’s the no. 1 problem right there.

This filter is mandatory too, so there really isn’t much choice for aussies at all:

Australians may not be able to opt out of the government’s Internet filtering initiative like they were originally led to believe. Details have begun to come out about Australia’s Cyber-Safety Plan, which aims to block “illegal” content from being accessed within the country, as well as pornographic material inappropriate for children. Right now, the system is in the testing stages, but network engineers are now saying that there’s no way to opt out entirely from content filtering.

[Read More]

I am not in any way supporting porn - but seriously does this not sound alarm bells for anyone else that the government can now legislate entire control over what sites are filtered and what aren’t? Could it not set a precedent in the future for the government to just keep adding to the blacklist - in effect turning Australia into a country like China which filters just about every single goddamned internet site?

And just today, my ISP - iiNet got sued by  for apparently allowing ‘illegal downloading’. WTF!?!??! So ISP’s are now supposed to filter content to its customers???? What a load of bull. What I don’t understand is why they didn’t go after Bigpond - a far larger ISP in Australia which serves a LOT more people. Is it because Bigpond sells music and movies legally? There is NO EFFIN WAY you can stamp out file sharing unless you get rid of the internet altogether. From the actions of these frickin useless corporations, I’ll bet taking down the entire internet is EXACTLY what they plan to do. Yeah. Let’s just all partay like its 1900 when there was no such thing as computers!!!!

Australia is also kinda lacking when it comes to the internet too. Americans? They have their uber 60mb connections of whatever the hell they have over there. Over here the max you can get is basically around ~1.5 MB(apparently you can get up to 20MB but thats if youve got money to burn) which is frickin nothing compared to other countries. The Rudd government made some sort of election promise last year to improve broadband in Australia. Has it happened?? Not that I know of. iiNet provides some of the fastest internet speeds in the country - which is maybe why they’ve been targeted by AFACT. I mean let’s face it now. Apple makes 120 GB ipods. It doesnt take a moron to figure out why anyone would need that much space - unless they were downloading shit off the internet. And ISP’s provide tens of gigabytes of bandwidth a month - why?? Is that considered ‘encouraging’ piracy? If making ipods 120GB in capacity isn’t encouraging file sharing I don’t know what is.

Back on topic though, iiNet HAS been outspoken against the mandatory internet filter I was talking about earlier - its no wonder they are the ones being targeted in all this!

Mr Malone said that the $44 million the Government is purporting to spend on ISP filtering would not be nearly enough to cover Australia’s more than 700 ISPs.
“I can tell you that if all the ISPs were to be involved it will cost a lot more than that.” he said.

According to Mr Malone, the only way to effectively filter the Internet is in the home.

“What’s good for a six year old boy is not going to work for a 15 year old girl who needs to do research for high school assignments. A one-size fits all approach to filtering will never work,” Mr Malone said.

Mr Malone said that Senator Conroy should listen to SAGE-AU (the System Administrators Guild of Australia) which has stated that the proposed filtering system is not technicallly sound.

“Senator Conroy knows all this. His own figures show that the proposed system will slow the Internet down between 2% and 86%. Yet he won’t listen to anyone. He’s the worst Minister in the Rudd Government.”

To date no major ISP other than iiNet has committed to participating in the trial.[Read More]

Fuck Conroy. Fuck the Rudd Government. Im actually regretting voting for them now - though I dont know if Howard wouldve been a better government. Australia really is stuck for choice here.

Far out. Reading these stories make me really mad >_> Its not just all tech though. There’s now calls to ban energy drinks to teenagers and kids because apparently they have too much caffeine and red bull in them. Just ask Tracey Robertson - a mum whos found out her son has been drinking up to 13 a day -_- Are people really this stupid or do they just have a death wish? OBVIOUSLY drinking that many energy drinks in a week is unhealthy - any sane person would realize this - even a 14 year old. How dumb do they think the general public is - to have to impose restrictions on an ENERGY DRINK when you could just educate kids and teenagers how unhealthy it is!?? Its like those people who are addicted to coke or mcdonalds - they blame EVERYONE but themselves.

But I digress. These articles just further proves how much Australia is becoming a police state - controlling every little thing we do. Yeah, the UK has their CCTV. America has their body scanners and fingerprint catalogue of every person in the country. Australia? Well we have LAWS.

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As one guy says on the FOX news website…:

All of you who have stated “If there is a God, McCain/Palin will win” get ready to become Atheist!

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Does Today Tonight count as a tv show? xD

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Seriously, tell me again why these people even are allowed to vote!??!!?! It’s frickin 2008 people - not the 18th century. These types of people need to get their heads outta the sand and look at the world around them - black people and white people are part of the same HUMAN RACE. The fact that they use GOD AND CHRISTIANITY alongside hate, racism and terrorism further highlights the amount of IGNORANCE so many Americans have. Fuck this video just makes me angry. They all just looks like a bunch of redneck hicks who’ve never seen the world outside their incredibly sheltered lives.

For those Americans who still don’t know - THE NAME ‘OBAMA’ DOES NOT AUTOMATICALLY EQUAL TERRORISM.

Goddamn its sad to think these people will actually get to vote in a few weeks. No wonder everyone outside America thinks America’s full of dumbasses.

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You can now buy your VERY OWN TSHIRT starting from 13th October:

[from here]

Now I am in no way advertising for this lame cheap ass brand, but honest to god why on earth would ANYONE wear this tshirt which just screams BLASPHEMY!? Goddamn they are lucky the first names of chris and che can form a perfect cross acrostic logo. Do they really think the public is this STUPID? Okay, well maybe the majority are. But seriously. I just can’t believe they would try cash in this much on an otherwise tragic albeit random event.

Anyway there’s this poster I found on some MySpace:

I sincerely hope the deceased families aren’t involved with this, because I think this just tarnishes their deaths and makes them all seem like money grabbing publicity whores.

I also looovvve how the media and the organizers just completely IGNORE the other two people who died on the plane with them(the pilot/steward?). I’m just sick of celebs being treated better than anyone else…I mean fair enough, it was a tragic event. But you know - these things just happen. I’m sure if it was anyone else on that plane, the story would be dead and buried in the news. The fact that there is this whole attention on travis and dj am plus the two other people who I had never even HEARD of before the crash just reinforces our obsession with celebrity worship and our extremely capitalist society.

It’s money grabbing stunts like this which makes me lose all respect for humanity.

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As DJ AM continues to recover from the tragic South Carolina plane crash which killed four others and seriously injured Travis Barker, his pals are preparing to welcome him home with a special benefit concert.

The 35-year-old DJ (whose real name is Adam Goldstein) has been “a close friend … for many years,” organizers said in a statement. “We owe him a debt of gratitude that we can never repay, but we hope this helps just a bit.”

The bash – to be held Oct. 14 at Avalon Hollywood – will include performances from celebrity DJs, including Mark Ronson, Steve Aoki, Danny Masterson and Mixmaster Mike.

Tickets (available at Wantickets.com) cost $20 – with proceeds going to the memorial funds established crash victims.

[Read More]

So we all know about that plane crash which involved Travis Barker and DJ AM(if you don’t…you don’t need to know. but google it anyway xD).And you know what happens when a major event occurs with celebrities….FUNDRAISING TIME.

But seriously, why the fuck do they need a ‘benefit’ concert!?!?! More importantly, would you actually pay 20 bucks to go to that concert!?! What a load of BS. As if they dont have enough money already to pay for the funeral and whatnot. As far as I’m seeing it, they’re just milking this cash cow for all its worth. No offence to the deceased intended. It’s just that money grabbing exercises like this really make me angry.

Oh and, there’s also been a MySpace set up. In case you have money to throw around, there’s also been “memorial funds” set up for the people that died on the plane crash:

Wow. How low can you go? I wonder all that money’s REALLY going..-_-

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[Source]

Well here’s the updated version:

[Source]

The pic of the guy on the kangaroo..still cracks me up. xD

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Seriously, lawl.

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This is going to be the best festival ever. EVER. EVER.

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And the making of the ad…:

Hmmm still dont know if the tennis ball and end frames are real though!!!

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Smart Dog - The best home videos are here

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