Across the Pacific: links comparing two economic stimulus packages

For all those political tragics out there this weekend.

From Open Congress last week the Obama Administration's $789.5 billion economic stimulus package in its final form:

H.R. 1 – American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009:

Text of the Conference Report-Division A

Text of the Conference Report-Division B

Joint Explanatory Statement – Division A

Joint Explanatory Statement – Division B

From Com Law the Rudd Government $42 billion economic stimulus package passed by the Australian Parliament last week:

Appropriation (Nation Building and Jobs) Bill (No. 1) 2008-2009

Appropriation (Nation Building and Jobs) Bill (No. 2) 2008-2009

Household Stimulus Package Bill 2009

Tax Bonus for Working Australians Bill 2009

Tax Bonus for Working Australians (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2009

Commonwealth Inscribed Stock Amendment Bill 2009

As the stimulus package amendments which the Rudd Government was forced to concede do not yet appear to have made it into publication, here is the Senate Hansard transcript for 12 February 2009.

Are hot days melting the Internetz?

Almost marching side by side with rising summer temperatures across Australia since late January - early February has been the strange behaviour of my Internet connection.

Now either (i) the heat is so severe that the Internetz are melting, (ii) I've suddenly developed the most wayward Internet connection, or (iii) some of the 6 ISPs identified as taking part in Conroy's ISP-level filtering trial (or a number of the other 10 small ISPs rumoured to be involved) are currently gearing up.

I telephoned Senator Conroy's Canberra office on Thursday 15 January and was told that the ISP applications of expression of interest were still being assessed and that the entire matter was behind a Chinese wall as it involved a commercial tender process and therefore was commercial-in-confidence.
I was further informed that the ISP-level filtering trial would not start for a couple of weeks at least.
This would of course take the staggered startup for the live trial right into the high volume of Net traffic as business entered its first full trading month for 2009.

Last Monday 9 February when I telephoned again I found the Senator's office was in a whimsical I don't THINK it's begun yet mood.

However, on Wednesday 11 February Senator Conroy finally announced that the trial was all go with six ISPs involved: Primus, Tech 2U, Webshield, OMNIconnect, Netforce and Highway 1.
Though he was careful not to give a start date for the trial. Here are Senator Conroy's weasel words in the media release.

So who do I believe here - the first staffer's very polite Sergeant Shultz defence, Conroy's sidestepping, or my suddenly erratic Internet connection?

Examples of the high number of Windows/Internet Explorer messages I have been seeing so far this past week:

The Requested Page Could Not Be Found

Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage

Proxy Error

The proxy server received an invalid response from an upstream server.
The proxy server could not handle the request *******************************.

Reason: Error reading from remote server

The webpage cannot be found

HTTP 404

Most likely causes:

There might be a typing error in the address.

If you clicked on a link, it may be out of date.

(Er, say again. It was the Google search engine I was trying to access)

403 Forbidden (WTF. It was an international news site)

403 Forbidden (For heaven's sake it was a picture of a beach, minus people!)

Server Error

The server encountered a temporary error and could not complete your request.
Please try again in 30 seconds.
Please see Google's Terms of Service posted at http://www.google.com/terms_of_service.html
(Oh dear, and all I was trying to do was read Still LIfe with Cat)

The web site you are accessing has experienced an unexpected error.
Please contact the website administrator.

Navigation to the webpage was canceled

Information Alert
Status : 504 Gateway Time-Out
Description : Unable to connect to origin web server. The web site you are attempting to access is currently unreachable. This may be due to a network outage, or the web site might be experiencing technical difficulties.

You are not permitted to browse this view (The Attorney-General's department has a hissy fit?)

And no, before anyone suggests it, my PCs don't appear to be infected with anything according to the checks I've run.

Sunday's LOL catting about

Clarencegirl has been out LOL catting again and sent me these.

Pollies taking advantage - quelle surprise!

Now I can understand the Federal Parliament taking one day away from ordinary business to offer condolences and show support for the Victorian bushfire victims.
I can almost understand Question Time being abandoned by both houses two days in a row.
But not for the entire week.
No real Question Time scrutiny of the Nation Building and Jobs Plan before it passed through Parliament and now I read that the Rudd Government is using the bushfires as an excuse for not handing down its "report card on the government's efforts to close the gap between black and white living standards this week as promised".
Kev, voters can feel the rough end of the pineapple when it's shoved towards them.
They recognise political skyving when they see it.
After all, most of them lived in Australia throughout the Howard years.

Valentine's Day cynic

Unless that's chocolate in your pocket don't bother..........

A word on climate change from a Crikey reader

In Crikey on 3 February:

Bruce Hore writes: I am no climate change scientist, but I do know:

• In Adelaide, we are having a week of temperatures over 40 degrees, peaking at 45.7 (hottest in 70 years). It's really f-cking hot!
• 20+ people a day are dying here due to heat related conditions. Why? Because it is really f-cking hot!
• We will have another 5-7 days over 35 degrees. It ain't 45, but it is still f-cking hot!
• Last year, we had 15 days in a row over 35 degrees (a record for an Oz metro centre). It was really f-cking hot then too.
• It is so f-cking hot that technology used by railways, tramlines and power companies all over the world, is failing here on a daily basis over a several week period.
• Adelaide had 100mm (15%+) less rainfall last year than on average.
• Adelaide had 1mm last month, 33+ mm less than usual. Its 2009 and, like financial redemption, there is no rain here either.
• The Murray and lower lakes are pretty much empty down this way (the Coorong is a mess), which I suspect doesn't get any coverage east of Bordertown. Old timers call it the worst it has ever been.

I am no climate change scientist, but I can tell you it is much hotter than it used to be with much less water around and the environment is suffering. We really need to change the way we use/treat the environment.

Bluescreen gives us the good oil on Conroy's internet censorship plans

From Alex Kidman and Bluescreen in a rollicking "It's a joke Joyce" mood yesterday:

"Bluescreen's Canberra correspondent got talking to some colleagues, who talked to somebody in the janitorial department, who then approached the department-of-leaking-stuff-to-the-opposition for the official word as to which filtering technology had been pre-approved to win the trials, in accordance with standard Government operating procedure.

Except that this time, there genuinely isn't just a single one.

Filtering technologies being assessed, so our janitorial spy tells us, include everything from the aforementioned whitelisting and image scanning all the way up to the mandatory introduction of Google Nothing. It's alleged that certain rural members of the Labour party were of the impression that Internet filtering involved Barramundi and lots of cheesecloth, but that couldn't be confirmed in writing, as apparently the individuals involved can't write yet, and had eaten their crayons again.

Bluescreen did stop to ponder over the chosen ISPs and consider contacting them, until he remembered that they'd probably be under a gag order anyway. In the case of Webshield, Bluescreen's email might not get through on the grounds that the company filters everything anyway, and one of Bluescreen's close relatives once fell foul of an Internet filter that viewed his blog as highly pornographic**.

There's always the one moderately large ISP in the list, Primus, and as Bluescreen was about to go ferreting around, the company pre-empted this by releasing a statement. Apparently the filtering technology will "be offered on an opt-in basis and customer participation will be totally voluntary. The ability for the customer to opt-in to the trial provides them ultimate freedom over their internet experience.***".

Bluescreen can't write comedy like that, but it wishes it could. If customers can opt out, will Primus gather any useful filtering information at all? What's the point in opting out if it's going to be a mandatory filter? Moreover, didn't the previous government offer exactly the same kind of Net filtering under an opt-in arrangement, only to have three families actually take them up on the offer. And didn't at least one of the teenagers affected just crack the filtering within five minutes anyway?

** Once again, utterly true. Apparently naked stick figures are hardcore filth. Who knew?
*** A genuine quote."

.....and Nick Broughall at Gizmodo says we're f##ked!

"Riiight... This whole ISP-level filter thing is becoming an even bigger joke than we'd previously thought. Not only did the government only select half a dozen tiny ISPs to trial the effectiveness of their filter technology (ignoring the fact that the country's second and third largest ISPs were prepared to play along to give some meaningful data), but the largest of the selected ISPs is going to trial the filter as an opt-in option for customers......

One can only hope that the farcical nature of this trial process is because the government is slowly pulling away from the whole idea. Because if this is the best the government can do, we all need to be really, really scared for the future of our freedoms online..."

Pic from Gizmodo on Friday 13th.