Minister of Enlightenment turns off the lights

Its official, Australian Minister of National Enlightenment and Propaganda, Comrade Conroy announces the death of the internet as we know it in Australia.

ABC News, Dec 15 2009

The Federal Government will introduce compulsory internet filtering.

Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced the changes today following a controversial trial to filter the internet which was conducted earlier this year.

Senator Conroy says some internet content is simply not suitable in a civilised society.

"It is important that all Australians, particularly young children, are protected from this material," he said.

He says the Government will not determine what is blacklisted on the internet in Australia; rather an independent body will determine what sites are rated as RC for refused classification.

Legislation will be introduced into Parliament next year which will require all ISPs to block material which has been refused classification in other countries.

The filtering trial attracted criticism from some who said it would not work and would slow internet speeds.

But Senator Conroy says the trial has been successful.

"Our pilot, and the experience of ISPs in many western democracies, shows that ISP level-filtering of a defined list of URLs can be delivered with 100 per cent accuracy," he said.

"It also demonstrated that it can be done with negligible impact on internet speed."

Grants will also be offered to ISPs to voluntarily block other content.

After the legislation is passed the filter will take 12 months to implement.

Senator Conroy says the Government will take steps to ensure the filter is transparent and people know why material is being blocked.

In May 2008, the Government said it would spend $125.8 million over four years on several measures to strengthen cyber safety, including the filter.

Analyzing this lunacy:

1) "Some internet content is simply not suitable in a civilized society, it is important that all Australians are protected from this material".

I was under the mistaken impression that individuals in civilized society had the capacity and freedom to autonomously discern good from bad, and accordingly make a decision to consume or not consume, thank you Senator for correcting my misguided perception.

In all seriousness, protecting the children just doesn’t wash. There are currently around 110 million operational websites online with in excess of 25 billion indexable pages, plus a few more pages that haven’t been indexed by Google or Yahoo.

How in the f*ck do you review 25 billion pages and counting? Even if only 1% of those pages were “prohibited content”, no organization (government or otherwise) could hope to apply a meaningful filter solution, it would be like trying to arrest a locust plague with a butterfly net.

It is clear from the outset that this policy has nothing to do with “protecting citizens” and has everything to do with creating additional government authority for the purpose of censoring any internet content that they so choose, in a very targeted manner, as this is the only manner feasible.

2) "Government will not determine what is blacklisted; rather an independent body will determine what sites are rated as RC".

Independent in the way that the “Peoples Daily” is an independent newspaper in the People’s Republic of China. The “independent body” comrade refers to is otherwise known as the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA), a government organization.

3) "Legislation will be introduced into Parliament next year which will require all ISPs to block material which has been refused classification in other countries".

I assume that should read something like “Legislation will be introduced into Parliament next year which will require all ISPs to block material from other countries which has been refused classification in Australia.”

After all, (don’t quote me on this) but I would suspect that classification codes are not quite up to par in Uzbekistan or Uruguay. Conversely, any content outside the Chairman Mao fan club is RC in China.

My next thought was, are websites actually classified in Australia? I mean, I have never seen a website with classification info, like the logos that appear on DVD movies.

Upon investigation, as near as I can tell from available info, the Australian Classification Board provides classifications on internet content to the ACMA on request, if and only if, the ACMA receives a complaint about internet content. According to the ACMA website: “The ACMA can only take action about material that is prohibited, or potentially prohibited, under the Broadcasting Services Act 1992.”

As for legislation being introduced next year, it would appear that media law imposing “access prevention notices” on ISPs is already active, as gleaned from the Act, thanks ACMA for the tip.

In summary, the act (amended just weeks ago) bestows the ACMA government organisation with the power to enforce that all ISPs deny access to any internet content that is rated X 18+ or refused classification (RC).

If, in the course of an investigation, the ACMA is satisfied that Internet content is prohibited content or potential prohibited content, the ACMA must:

Give each Internet service provider known to the ACMA a written notice (a standard access-prevention notice) directing the provider to take all reasonable steps to prevent end-users from accessing the content.

See below at bottom of this post for important excerpts and a link to the Broadcasting Services Act.

Already RC is applied to an ever increasing number of films by the Australian office of censorship (Classification Board), making them illegal in Australia, and all video games (online or other wise) are RC by default if they cannot meet the MA15+ standard.

4) "Our pilot, and the experience of ISPs in many western democracies, shows that ISP level-filtering of a defined list of URLs can be delivered with 100 per cent accuracy."

Hugh, come again? Back in March it was revealed with much fan fair in the main stream media, that the web pages of a Queensland tour operator, boarding kennel and a dentist had all been included in this “defined URL list” being trialled.

In addition, online gambling sites, You Tube links, regular porn and fetish sites and Wikileaks pages were also found in the black list.

Wikileaks reported at the time:

"Apparently without irony, ACMA threatens fines of up to $11,000 a day for linking to sites on its secret, unreviewable, censorship blacklist. This week saw Australia joining China and the United Arab Emirates as the only countries censoring Wikileaks. We were not notified by ACMA."

Comrade Conroy guest starred on ABC TV and made rather bemusing claims about the Russian Mafia hacking the web-page of the dentist in a pathetic attempt to justify why the blacklist filter had been less than “100% accurate”.

Minister of National Enlightenment and Propaganda, Stephen Conroy.

See - Russian Mob Hacks Dentist

5) "Grants will also be offered to ISPs to voluntarily block other content."

Perhaps the most nefarious line in the ABC article, WTF does this mean, block other content?

Before closing comments on this article, the ABC was swamped with 350 of them. Scrolling through, I detected about 7 comments in favour of the filtering, but I suspect one of those was Minister Conroy, who under the handle Kex wrote:

I think it's a good compromise between protection and freedom of expression. The commitments to transparency are a pretty good inclusion as well.

And then there were the super delusional. -

Comment by Delta:

Hmmmm reading most of these posts seems a lot of people are into the hard core porn, sexual abuse and the like, well what ever turns you on....

Remember it’s designed to protect young children and people who have a clean and decent outlook on life.

Overwhelmingly though, about 343 from 350 comments expressed outrage and a desire to burn the government at the stake.

It would appear from the comments however, that the public is oblivious to just how sinister the filtering announcement really is.

It’s not merely a dumb filter programmed with a black list; our government has been less than forthcoming in disclosing the technologies which will be utilized under the legislation. Most ISPs in the trial were all using appliance based products with signature blocking capabilities able to filter P2P, IMs, anonymous proxies and online gaming.

See - ISPs reveal clean-filter technologies

Conroy may be less articulate than a baboon’s asshole and apparently arrogant enough to fly in the face of all considered and professional advice on this issue, but this is not about the Rudd government, this is a world wide attack on public freedom to access information.

In the UK, a new Digital Economy Bill is currently under review in the House of Lords. It contains a provision (clause 11), which begins:

The Secretary of State may at any time by order impose a technical obligation on internet service providers if the Secretary of State considers it appropriate….

The definition of a "technical obligation" and "technical measure" are inserted by clause 10:

A "technical obligation", in relation to an internet service provider, is an obligation for the provider to take a technical measure against particular subscribers to its service.

A "technical measure" is a measure that— (a) limits the speed or other capacity of the service provided to a subscriber; (b) prevents a subscriber from using the service to gain access to particular material, or limits such use; (c) suspends the service provided to a subscriber; or (d) limits the service provided to a subscriber in another way.

See - government-wants-new-powers

Authorities in the UK are claiming these measures are designed for combating copyright infringement, probably less insulting to the intelligence of the public than the story about protecting children, but my point is governments are not behind this attack on our freedoms, they are just facilitating it.

The Howard Gov (previous Aust Gov) was in the process of implementing this action and an Abbott Gov (new leader of opposition Gov) would not deviate from this course either.

Governments are not elected; they are selected, by the people who own them and whom the government is always answerable to, the few who really run this world from behind the curtain. These are the people we need to dethrone.

Protest action is already alive and well, in September; Prime Minister Kevin Dudd’s own official website was attacked and shut down, allegedly by the group “Anonymous” who had given prior warning that government websites would be targeted.

See - Rudd website attacked in filter protest

For more info on the trials, click here.

See also - EFA, Net censorship trial report brings more questions than answers




Broadcasting Services Act 1992
Amended Nov 20, 2009
Vol 2

Extracts:

Schedule 5 - Online services

This Schedule sets up a system for regulating certain aspects of the Internet industry.

• If the ACMA is satisfied that Internet content hosted outside Australia is prohibited content or potential prohibited content, the ACMA must:

(a) if the ACMA considers that the content is of a sufficiently serious nature to warrant referral to a law enforcement agency—notify the content to an Australian police force; and

(b) Notify the content to Internet service providers so that the providers can deal with the content in accordance with procedures specified in an industry code or industry standard (for example, procedures for the filtering, by technical means, of such content).

• The ACMA has a reserve power to make an industry standard if there are no industry codes or if an industry code is deficient.

• The ACMA may make online provider determinations regulating Internet service providers.

If, in the course of an investigation under Division 2 of Part 3 of Schedule 7, the ACMA is satisfied that Internet content hosted outside Australia is prohibited content or potential prohibited content, the ACMA must:

Give each Internet service provider known to the ACMA a written notice (a standard access-prevention notice) directing the provider to take all reasonable steps to prevent end-users from accessing the content.

The ACMA may, by written instrument, declare that a specified arrangement is a recognised alternative access-prevention arrangement for the purposes of the application of this Division to one or more specified end-users if the ACMA is satisfied that the arrangement is likely to provide a reasonably effective means of preventing access by those end-users to prohibited content and potential prohibited content.

Industry codes and industry standards

• Compliance with industry standards is mandatory.

Matters that must be dealt with by industry codes and industry Standards

General matters

(1) The Parliament intends that, for the Internet service provider section of the Internet industry, there should be:

(a) an industry code or an industry standard that deals with; or
(b) an industry code and an industry standard that together deal with;

(j) subject to subclause (8A), action to be taken to assist in the development and implementation of Internet content filtering technologies (including labelling technologies);

(m) procedures directed towards the achievement of the objective of ensuring that, in the event that a participant in the Internet service provider section of the Internet industry becomes aware that an Internet content host is hosting prohibited content in Australia, the host is told about the prohibited content.

Other matters

(d) subject to subclause (8A), procedures to be followed by Internet service providers in dealing with Internet content notified under paragraph 40(1)(b) of this Schedule or clause 46 (for example, procedures to be followed by a particular class of Internet service providers for the filtering, by technical means, of such content).

(8A) If the Minister is satisfied that Internet content filtering is not viable in relation to access to Internet content using a particular device (for example, a mobile telephone handset), the Minister may, by legislative instrument, determine that paragraphs (1)(j), (k) and (l) and (2)(d) do not apply in relation to access to Internet content using that device.


Schedule 7 - Online services

11. Eligible electronic publication

For the purposes of this Schedule, if:

(a) content consists of:

(i) an electronic edition of a book, magazine or newspaper; or

(ii) an audio recording of the text, or abridged text, of a book, magazine or newspaper; and

(b) a print edition of the book, magazine or newspaper is or was available to the public (whether by way of purchase or otherwise) in Australia; then:

(c) the content is an eligible electronic publication; and

(d) the print edition of the book, magazine or newspaper is the corresponding print publication in relation to the eligible electronic publication.

Division 1 - Prohibited content and potential prohibited content

20. Prohibited content

Content other than eligible electronic publications

(1) For the purposes of this Schedule, content (other than content that consists of an eligible electronic publication) is prohibited content if:

(a) the content has been classified RC or X 18+ by the Classification Board; or

(b) both:

(i) the content has been classified R 18+ by the Classification Board; and

(ii) access to the content is not subject to a restricted access system; or

(c) all of the following conditions are satisfied:

(i) the content has been classified MA 15+ by the Classification Board;

(ii) access to the content is not subject to a restricted access system;

(iii) the content does not consist of text and/or one or more still visual images;

(iv) access to the content is provided by means of a content service (other than a news service or a current affairs service) that is operated for profit or as part of a profit-making enterprise;

(v) the content service is provided on payment of a fee (whether periodical or otherwise);

(vi) the content service is not an ancillary subscription television content service; or

(d) all of the following conditions are satisfied:

(i) the content has been classified MA 15+ by the Classification Board;

(ii) access to the content is not subject to a restricted access system;

(iii) access to the content is provided by means of a mobile premium service.

Eligible electronic publications

(2) For the purposes of this Schedule, content that consists of an eligible electronic publication is prohibited content if the content has been classified RC, category 2 restricted or category 1 restricted by the Classification Board.

21 Potential prohibited content

(1) For the purposes of this Schedule, content is potential prohibited content if:

(a) the content has not been classified by the Classification Board; and

(b) if the content were to be classified by the Classification Board, there is a substantial likelihood that the content would be prohibited content.

Trafigura has BBC article deleted

The following courtesy of Wikileaks - BBC deletes important story on toxic waste dumping in the Ivory Coast after legal threats

Wikileaks has published a deleted BBC news article on the toxic-waste dumping of commodities giant Trafigura. According to a September 2009 UN report, the dumping drove 108,000 people in the Ivory Coast to seek medical attention.

Trafigura and their lawyers Carter Ruck had been pursuing an ongoing libel case against the BBC over a news story that aired in May 2009.

Until this week the story was still available on the BBC website. The link stopped working some time on December 10th or 11th.

Dirty tricks and toxic waste in Ivory Coast

By Meirion Jones and Liz MacKean BBC Newsnight

It is the biggest toxic dumping scandal of the 21st century, the type of environmental vandalism that international treaties are supposed to prevent. Now Newsnight can reveal the truth about the waste that was illegally tipped on Ivory Coast's biggest city, Abidjan. A giant multinational is being sued in London's High Court by thousands of Africans who claim they were injured as a result.

The truth behind Ivory Coast toxic waste dump

Our investigation took us to Amsterdam where the waste could have been safely disposed of. Instead the company, Trafigura, went for the cheaper option and offloaded it in Abidjan.

Trafigura has always denied that the chemical waste was dangerous, but we have seen an analysis by the Dutch authorities which reveal it to be lethal.

We consulted a leading toxicologist, John Hoskins from the Royal Society of Chemistry. He said it would bring a major city to its knees.

The waste includes tons of phenols which can cause death by contact, tons of hydrogen sulphide, lethal if inhaled in high concentrations, and vast quantities of corrosive caustic soda and mercaptans which John Hoskins describes as "the most odorous compounds ever produced".

A terrible smell

It happened on 19 August 2006 in the dead of night. A convoy of trucks from a newly-formed company in Abidjan arrived to take the waste away. They illegally dumped the first loads at the huge tip in Aquedo.

Watch Newsnight's 2007 investigation into claims toxic waste was dumped in Ivory Coast.

A powerful stench soon engulfed the area. The tip's operators were called out and the drivers sent packing. They looked elsewhere to drop the waste, tipping it in at least 18 places across the city and beyond.

The Aquedo tip stretches as far as the eye can see. As scores of waste trucks tip their loads, an army of Abidjanis cluster around, children amongst them, brandishing long metal spikes. They pick through the rubbish, looking for anything that can be sold.

Deaths

We were soon surrounded by people, only too willing to talk about the night the toxic waste was dumped and the terrible smell that made them gag and sicken.

There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful. But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl were killed by the toxic wastes. That was very hard Esaie Modto, head of Djibli village.

Just round the corner from the dump, we met Jean Francois Kouadio and his wife, Fidel.

She had been eight months pregnant with their first child when the fumes swamped their home. Fidel gave birth prematurely and the boy, Jean Claude, died within a day.

Their second child Ama Grace was born a year later. She too fell ill.

The doctors said that Ama Grace "was suffering from acute glycaemia caused by the toxic wastes".

They could do nothing for her and she died.

The medical reports state a "strong presumption" that the deaths of the two children were caused by exposure to the toxic waste and Jean Francois and Fidel now fear they will never become parents.

Polluted water

We also visited the village of Djibi, just outside Abidjan. The waste that was tipped here got into the water supply, killing the fish that fed the village.

A woman whose face is covered in lesions in Abidjan (September 2008) Thousands of people say they were victims of the waste

The head of Djibi, Esaie Modto, told us that every last person here fell ill, two thousand people:

"There were women who miscarried, and that was very painful. But still, the worst was that three people, two adults and a girl were killed by the toxic wastes. That was very hard."

So what was it that brought such ruin on a country that in 2006 was still struggling to recover from a civil war?

The waste was generated as the result of an oil deal spanning three continents. Trafigura bought a consignment of cheap and dirty heavy oil with a high sulphur content. Instead of putting it through a refinery, Trafigura tried to clean it up, using a do-it-yourself method, so they could sell it on at a massive profit.

They used a ship called the Probo Koala which they stationed off Gibraltar as a rough and ready refinery. Caustic soda and a catalyst were added to the oil which reacted with the sulphur and settled to the bottom of the tank. Trafigura were then able to sell the oil, but left with a toxic sludge at the bottom of the tank.

"Smelly but not dangerous"

The Probo Koala went to Amsterdam where they attempted to unload this sulphurous tar as if it were normal ships' waste, which would have cost a few thousand euros.

However the fumes were so bad, the emergency services were called and the Dutch authorities carried out tests. They discovered the waste was highly toxic and told Trafigura that it would cost half a million euros to dispose of safely.

The Probo Koala instead pumped the waste back on board and left port, ending up in West Africa.

Marietta Harjono of Greenpeace Nederland says this has led to a prosecution by the Dutch authorities for "falsification of papers - they deliberately were silent on the toxic nature of the waste", as well as for illegal import of toxic waste and "illegal export of toxic waste from Europe to Cote d'Ivoire".

When Newsnight first investigated the toxic dumping scandal in 2007 one of Trafigura's founders Eric de Turckheim told Jeremy Paxman "these materials were not dangerous for human beings. It was smelly, but not dangerous."

Newsnight's new investigation shows this was far from the case. Trafigura continues to deny any wrongdoing.

A new paradigm

I’ve been quietly observing with great restraint and disdain, the “climategate” circus and indeed for a much longer period, the climate change v skeptic debate. I’m not entrenched in either position, but the whole thing disturbs and unsettles me, something is not right. Here are a few of my thoughts.

Climategate = bullshit. Climate change v skeptic is just the new left/ right paradigm. It is exactly what was insidiously planned to be by our caring ruling elite, and it coincides very nicely with people waking up to the last paradigm.

Another division successfully crafted, two more tribes created to fight another war.

Whether you believe or not that climate change can be influenced by human activity, this little planet is disgustingly polluted. There is almost no place left on Earth where inhabitants may still find clean air to breathe.

I’ve seen so called “climate change skeptics” making conjecture such as “CO2 is good for the environment, it makes the trees grow”. This would be a fine argument if it were not for the fact that humans are deforesting the planet so fast that the trees which might utilize our lovely emissions don’t actually exist. That is, not in sufficient numbers relative to volume of emissions.

Something to do with A) : high demands for timber products, B) : high demand for farming produce which requires farming land and oddly enough, that requires the landscape to be free of trees, C) : never ending urban sprawl which equally oddly can not progress with all those f*cking trees in the way.

One might also note that human produced emissions are not purely carbon dioxide; they also comprise carbon monoxide (a poison) and other carcinogens.

I would like to see those who have proposed heavy emissions are an asset; seal themselves within a small garage with an idling car engine, and report back on how they felt afterward.

Millions of people around the globe currently die annually from respiratory illness but hey, it’s good for the trees, if there were trees.

And if there were trees, the “truther’s” would be barking up the wrong one here, fighting to preserve their own oppression. There have never been any other consumer products in history, more successful in enslaving the human race quite like oil and coal have. Every aspect of modern day society is depended upon these resources, which reside in the control of a handful of people, people who see fit to manipulate their value in what amounts to nothing less than extortion.

There are a few decent arguments here and there from both sides of this contrived battle, but overwhelmingly I find individuals from either persuasion unwilling to educate themselves or simply think for themselves beyond popular sound bites. Yes CO2 is life giving but so is water, and a funny thing happens if you are submerged in water, you stop breathing.

It’s entirely appropriate to oppose “cap and trade/emissions trading schemes (ETS)”, but in doing so I have not seen anyone call it out for the smoke screen that it is.

The impression I get from the “truth movement” concerning the revelations of “climategate”, is that it’s the ultimate smoking gun and anyone now still bold enough to voice environmental concerns on any level should be lynched immediately, because they are now and forever more exposed as just deceptive tools for the New World Order agenda.

I would suggest that the true NWO shills are those entities whom have disseminated the meme that sets up environmentalists and scientists as the patsies for blame, while completely ignoring the realities of a fossil fuel driven world.

Neglecting to make any mention of a need for transition away from the westernized world’s unsustainable consumerism of pollution producing resources, only serves to encourage the continuation of business as usual, which is exactly what our ruling elite want. They came up with “plan B”, a new global tax on the poor, encase “plan A” (business as usual) came under threat.

But “plan b” was always designed to fail. Is it not predictable that if; governments tell their people the planet is becoming uninhabitable but we can fix that by taxing you into poverty, the people are going to say SCREW YOU?

Essentially that is what the carbon trading scheme is all about, making the rich richer and the poor poorer in lieu of the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer as set out in “plan A”.

Under the schemes, the world’s most prolific polluters (corporate industries) will be granted concessions/carbon credits/offsets and therefore the scheme/scam will do absolutely nothing to curtail global emissions; it in fact allows those big polluters to continue increasing emissions for profit.

Even some of the climate scientists agree on this:

Top climate scientist hopes Copenhagen fails - ABC News

The scientist who convinced the world that global warming was a looming danger says the planet will be better off if Copenhagen climate change summit ends in collapse.

Professor James Hansen says any agreement to emerge from the meeting will be so flawed that it would be better to start again from scratch.

Hansen argues that the process is so flawed because it relies on cap and trade emissions trading schemes. Instead of allowing polluters to buy the right to continue polluting, he prefers a tax on the price of carbon at the mine or the port.

"The whole idea that you have goals that you're supposed to try to meet and that you have outs with offsets means that it's an attempt to continue business as usual," he said.

Scientist quits over ETS 'censorship'- ABC News

A senior CSIRO environmental economist has resigned after saying his criticism of the emissions trading scheme (ETS) was censored.

Earlier this year he had been expecting his paper, The Brave New World of Carbon Trading, to be published internationally after it was peer reviewed for the British Journal New Political Economy.

His paper questions the effectiveness of carbon trading schemes in industrialised countries and argues that a direct carbon tax might be more effective. He was told that it breached guidelines preventing scientists from commenting on policy issues.

The article ends with one of the best examples of political hypocrisy one might encounter;

The opposition says the Government's election promise to end gags on scientists, which was called Operation Sunlight is leaving Australians in the dark.

That would be the opposition (former Government) whom put Australians into the dark but now scorn the current Government for leaving them there.

I can not argue against the scientists criticizing carbon trading schemes. However I find the idea that; any tax whatsoever would be useful in achieving emission reductions, a contentious one.

The inbred family of hicks who call themselves the “elites”, who have engineered modern day society to be totally depended upon the resources they control, resources that produce toxic pollution on mass scale, not content with the measure of enslavement they already command, now want us to make even more tribute, by paying another tax, this time for pollution which they will continue to disperse, all made possible only because they suppressed over the last century, every viable sustainable alternative energy resource ever investigated.

As for “climategate”, is it really that important that from a pile of stolen emails, a couple of lines were found that revealed certain scientists operating below the threshold of professional conduct? Has no one ever previously heard of scientists being purchased, put on the payroll for various interests? This is an established practice of long standing, granted though it is far more common place to find compromised scientists in the climate change skeptic's camp, shilling for oil corporations who have never made any secret of aggressive opposition to alternative energy sources.

If governments were not owned by and completely subservient to the inbred scum f*ck overlords that rule this planet, and were serious about addressing environmental issues, they might in the first instance, implement policies for significant reductions in the demand for energy.

Within the continent I call home, Australia, temperature extremities can be quite harsh during the summer months. Accordingly, dwellings of the past were always constructed with high roofs and ceilings and the buildings would be encompassed by something known as a veranda. These designs kept the inside rooms nice and cool during periods of uncomfortable heat.

Those simple fore mentioned features, are now lost in time and as a result, no one can live in their little box house without the aid of air conditioning blasting away all day and night throughout the summer.

It is no inadvertent mishap that urban planning over the last fifty years has consistently and progressively become more and more incompatible with the environment.

The government congratulates and credits itself for pretending to do something, like regulating that white goods makers affix five pretty star images to our refrigerators, supposedly indicating how much energy my fridge will guzzle, but concurrently the government in reality does nothing but aid and abet their masters in generating ever increasing demands for energy supplies.

Clothes lines have been replaced with electric clothes dryers, every house has an electric dishwasher, wide-screen TV’s consuming infinitely more power than their predecessors occupy every living room, all city and urban development is designed specifically around the needs of automobiles, and the best plan my government can come up with is to stick f*cking stars on my fridge.

The primary preoccupation of all western governments regarding domestic policy is always with driving consumerism, CONSUME, CONSUME, CONSUME! Now governments are saying ok, turns out all that consuming is bad for us, so we will have to tax you more, to present the illusion of action, but please don’t stop, CONSUME, CONSUME, CONSUME!