OT: WEB HOSTING!!! And imperative.

[Batz Goodfortune]

Y-ellow Paul 'n' y'all.

At 02:21 PM 10/26/99 +0100, Paul Maddox wrote:
>Doyle,
>
>  Erk, you said a banned word , or dozen.....
>
>  Like you say, someone in australian government obviously
>swallowed the medias "the internet is death and pervsion" pill!

Actually it's way more complex than that. If it were that simple we would
have fort the good fight and won.

You see we have this religious nutter called Brian Harradine. Senator Brian
Harradine. Until recently he held the balance of power in the Senate.
Someone showed him a rude picture on the net once and he became hell bent
to destroy it.

Now the unfortunately elected bastard government also had an agenda of
their own. They wanted to create a new tax which slugs poor people and sell
of most of our public assets. But Brian Harradine (or  Sardine boy as he's
known) stood in their way. He said. "Kill the internet or I won't pass your
new tax laws"...

That about sums it up.

The day the legislation passed we lost 240 million dollars worth of
internet investment  in this country. Senator Dicky Alston, the mongrel in
charge of communications in this country, said we (ISPs, content providers
and internet people in general) were all "Idiots" and we "Didn't know what
they are talking about." This, despite 100 submissions to the contrary and
2 reports commissioned  by his own department which said. "Don't do it
Dicky. You'll send this country back to the stone age." Ironically, the
following week, Dicky AlSton-ed flew out to the US to drum up IT business
for Australia. Silicon valley and others laughed him  out of the country.
He said  of Americans. "They're all idiots. They don't know what they're
talking about."

In the process of all this he managed to break 3 trade agreements with the
US and even a UN resolution on freedom of speech. And then our Beef
industry wonders why the US said. "Nar I think we can do without buying
your rotten meat." Basically in one bout of ultimate stupidity, this
mongrel government stuck it's fingers up and flipped off the entire world.
Then wonders why no-one wants to do business with us any more.

Now we're all geeks. We saw this as a bug in the system requiring a
work-around solution. Which I can cope with. But now! These evil bastards
are proposing a new law. One that basically makes it a criminal offence  to
provide web content which they deem to be "Offensive." There is no
definition of what is or isn't offensive. It is entirely  up to the opinion
of some arbitrary body of people on the day.  There is no provision in the
legislation for a warning. Like. "We  idiot bastard nutters  in power have
determined your site is offensive. you have 24 hours to destroy it."
Instead, the law says it's an instant criminal  offense and we're coming to
arrest you for it.

Now none of this is a problem if you run a site suitable for pre-schoolers
but if you run a site which tells it like it is in any fashion then you're
likely a target. Synth, or electronics information could be seen in the
same context as bomb making or drug manufacture. The fact that My site has
articles and stories from Geeks could be seen as subversive. It's too big a
risk  to take.

But they can't touch you if you host the site outside of Australia. So
whilst I can get a very good deal to host it here, I can't do it even if it
was free.

Now it has to be realized. This Australia we're talking about. Nice,
friendly, happy, laid back, sunny Australia.  The same government which,
after years of fighting for their rights, Cut funding for Education for
Aboriginals. The same government who are consistently trying to erode
Aboriginal Rights. The same government who are trying to kick Invalid
pensioners out into the gutter. The same Government who are trying to take
away everyone's rights in the work place. The same government who cut back
services to the point where if you get sick, you die... The same government
who are quite happy to take your tourist dollars and make sure you don't
see any of the real Australia while  you're here. So it's not surprising
that they'd try and suppress anyone from telling it like it really is on
the internet.

Oh yeah did I mention that this new draft legislation makes it an offence
for Australians to say anything offensive or subversive in a public on-line
forum. Such as Usenet or publicly accessible list servers and chat??? Same
deal. Go  to jail don't pass go.

Now I know this is way OT but that's what's happening down here. And why
I'm desperate for cheap off shore web hosting. I can't afford commercial
rates because I don't make any money out of the site. It is simply our
(AEK's) creative outlet.

There will be a lot more of us looking for hosting OS in the coming months...

What can I say? Australia was once a nice place. Perhaps when the
Aboriginals had it. But if you wanna see a bunch of scared middle class
Australians going. "I'm gonna loose my job if I don't smile for the
tourists." then come on down. 

Be absolutely Icebox.

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