Al B. Fuct

Read this story a couple of days ago and it simply didn't pass the sniff test, not least of all had to do with the NCPIC as a story source. NCPIC is a govt funded anti-cannabis propaganda spin factory, co-located with UNSW. First, the quantity. If you're smoking cones, you'll go through about a gram a day (3-5 cones). I could only see an oz a week if you're rolling several fat spliffs a day. Second, the '$150 for 1-1.5oz/week' tale- my opinion meets consensus in this thread- we'd all like to meet that dealer selling 1.5oz for $150. Not in Sydney, that's for sure. Let's give this joker the benefit of the doubt and say he was misquoted- and was smoking 1.5GRAMSper week. If he was buying off the street in KX, he might pay $50 for a .5g bud, enough to roll a joint or have a few cones. A frugal smoker could make that last a couple of days. If he wants to get high every day, he might indeed spend $150 by buying three $50 buds at the worst price possible each week. However, if he's going through 1.5g/week, he's a pretty light smoker. Third, as cybergenesis notes, any withdrawal symptoms (certainly those described in the news item) would be easily attributable to tobacco. Cannabis use cessation doesn't produce a physiological withdrawal. It can certainly produce a psychological withdrawal, though. Mind, a person who is accustomed to having a newspaper delivered each morning may experience symptoms of psychological withdrawal when the paperboy is in bed with the flu. Any way you look at it, NCPIC have found a worst case and blown it way out of proportion. Rather shocked Jan Copeland didn't manage to work 'cannabis induced psychosis' into this tawdry sad-sack tale. Copeland is a straight 'Reefer Madness' type zero-tolerance conspiracy theorist and should be dismissed with contempt and laughter.

His chickenshit employer, QUT, has essentially asked him to STFU or get the sack. When a govt silences you, it's censorship. When your employer does it, it's corporate fascism. When a university does it, it's academic cowardice.

Yeah, Indy, I'm also disappointed in his scientific methodology... but his typically Australian fearlessness in the face of religious wowsery from all sides, combined with some cannabis, somehow makes up for it. Yes indeed Mr B- 'Holy Smokes!'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=reeXbovWb7c As Australian as you can get.

Abbott wanted to keep approval of RU486 as a ministerial power instead of handing the approval authority to the TGA. Abbott as Health Minister had no intention whatsoever of approving RU486 for use in Australia, thus, da Monk was taking freedoms away from women. Well, lots of illegal things would trash the filtering system... but could simultaneously take down internet access for millions of people. Bit of an own goal. Don't think that the gubmint wouldn't use the draconian terra-ism laws to prosecute the attacker/s, either. Gotta be a better way.

Yep, thanks for that, Pure. While we all would have expected you to have a 'plan B,' it's comforting to see you confirm as much. It's important for OSA users to know that it will never actually be possible for the proposed filter to successfully block any content- you will always be functionally able to get to any site you choose, via a variety of methods. Opposing the filter is really more of a principle issue. If legislation passes which enacts mandatory filtering (which is by no means a sure thing), as Pure notes, the system will be exploited by moralist campaigners and future conservative govts to drive their political agendae. However, it will also be exploitable by anti-censorship activists. ACMA are going to be VERY busy sorting the wheat from the chaff. If a filter is ever actually enacted, I fully expect that easy workarounds will become commonplace, perhaps even as browser plugins.

Mods, could we please shift off this basicfraud nonsense to the Conspiracy Theories subforum and/or dev/null? It's off topic for this thread.

Yeah, agreed- there's simply no political benefit in this for Labor. On the face of it, it would appear to appeal to the Mad Monk(ey). He had no qualms about telling women what to do with their reproductive bits r/ RU486, he'd theoretically have no philosophical problem with mandatory internet filtering. You better believe Labor voters have a problem with this. Go have a look at the comments thread on Sen Kate Lundy's blog site. You're quite right. The Howard Junta rejected ISP level filtering, instead offering the 'NetAlert' application for installation on PCs. Almost no-one downloaded it, giving you some idea of the public interest in filtering the internet, even for homes with chilluns. That's the worst case scenario. Warm up your VPN, you just might need it. 'Course, that's all quite true- but taking the dough off of Conjob and handing it to the cops means taking power away from a politician... and they all think that getting elected made them gods. Yeah, it's trivial to bypass the filter. Unfortunately, it's a pain in the ass to have to fuck with it. Tor in particular slows things WAAAY down.

Basicfraud isnt incomprehensible- it's just fully nuts. Tinfoil hat stuff. The silence was probably just simply kindness.

I tend to disagree with not writing Conjob. May seem like an exercise in futility, but he's required to respond. When writing this knobsock, it pays to reference several issues, per Bernard Keane. You may not change Conjob's mind but you'll at least keep a few staffwonks in gainful employ... Pays also to write to those who appear to be on the fence re/ this bad policy, Liberals in particular. It's not a sure thing that the Libs will oppose. Conjob only needs 5 of them to cross the floor to pass amendments to the BSA. State MPs won't have any say in the passage of this tripe, but you can keep them in the loop so they know what the mood of their constituents may be. Agreed on VPN vs proxies. Many proxies are not encrypted. Also, the filter is URL based, so it's likely that many well-known public proxies may get banned by the censorware. Also, free proxies are often used as password harvesting honeypots and may not in fact hide your tracks very well.

Nice one, B50. However, let's not hang all of this on Senator Conjob. Make no mistake, it's his boss, Kevin Rudd, who is driving this bad policy. We have to make Rudd own this debacle- and if you haven't noticed, Kevvo studiously avoids public comment on the issue. He wants all public ire directed at his hatchet man, Conjob. Rudd will be made to take ownership of this rubbish, either now... or at the ballot box.

Damn straight, Oz. The 'won't somebody think of the children' argument fell over when the ACMA blacklist was leaked. It's obviously designed to restrict adults from finding certain information, doesn't have a damn thing to do with stopping kids from finding anything, never did.

If you're writing letters, read this: Bernard Keane’s guide to writing to Ministers Keane doesn't speak highly of the effect of pressure group emails i.e. GetUp.

Don't miss Mark Newton's analysis in New Matilda: Conroy's Clean Feed Won't Block Child P*rn