The truth is the exact opposite of what you said. It is impossible to have free and independent press if it receives even one penny from the government.
Your implication that they are therefore free and independent if they never receive money from the government is unsupported.
I agree that mandating a physical switch would have little effect on consumer habits. I've also measured most of my appliances and computers with my Kill-A-Watt and while many are close to zero or a watt or two some of the older stuff is around 10W. Energy efficiency is a large factor in my purchasing decisions -- bought a Wii instead of a PS3 or XBox, for instance -- and I tend to unplug (when not in use) devices I know have more than 1W power draw. Only a few essential things, like TiVo and refrigerators, are regularly left on. Now that we live in the US, I do miss the Australian power outlets with their built-in switches http://placelessness.org/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/powerpoint.jpg
Insulation is a huge factor. Our new house of ~2000 sq ft. with double-paned windows and floor, wall and ceiling insulation means a peak electricity usage in late southern California summer of around 20kW per day, 12kW per day last month (
Of course, if you really want to influence consumer behaviour have the price of the energy reflect its true cost, including clean-up and investment in new technologies. Fairly good chance the lazy people will make it off the couch when it has a large enough impact on their wallets.
He is saying that we have more capacity and usage then even Japan, which wouldn't surprise me as we have about 100X the weight of people.
There, fixed that for you.
"Conversion, fastidious Goddess, loves blood better than brick, and feasts most subtly on the human will." -- Virginia Woolf, "Mrs. Dalloway"