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The pressure to do this is NOT coming from the federal government, it's coming from the companies that sell the cloud services!

  So instead of having the federal government just maintain an emergency backup infrastructure itself, these private companies (Amazon etc.) WANT the federal government to buy electronic services from them! And the feds come back and say, "well, in order to make that workable we'd need guaranteed access in an emergency and bleah-de-bleah." Privatization of emergency services is an unmitigated disaster and we just shouldn't do it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/aug/30/comment.hurricanekatrina

  The obvious solution is: How about No? But it's the federal government that needs to say that to the cloud-computing vendors, not the other way around!

You are probably making a mistake somewhere, but since there are no sources for your numbers, the Carbon Dioxide Information Analsysis Center (CDIAC) says that the world's fuel burning and cement use emitted 9,139 Tg of Carbon into the atmosphere in 2010, that's a little over 33.5 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide.

According to PBS, world carbon dioxide sources break down this way (The EPA has similar numbers):

1. 25.9% - energy supply
2. 19.4% - industry
3. 17.4% - forestry
4. 13.5% - agriculture
5. 13.1% - transportation
6. 7.9% - residential and commerical buildings
7. 2.8% - waste and waste water

So your back of the envelope calculation for human emissions looks like it's based on incorrect assumptions (under estimating because you only considered transportation and only in 2 countries).

If we try to fix the obvious errors and multiply your estimate by 7.7, to get from 13% to 100, that puts us at around 22 billion tons of CO2, which is still lower than the actual measured number. If we also account for only considering two countries (Wikipedia puts the combined emissions of China and the United States at around 41% of world emissions) by multiplying by 2.5, that gives us 55 billion tons of carbon dioxide from your estimate, which is almost double the measured amount. I'm guessing that your estimate of gas used for transportation is actually a little on the high side.

As for the amount of CO2 released by Mt. St. Helens, here's an article about the Eyjafjoell eruption. The estimate places it's emissions at around 150,000 tonnes of CO2 per day. Your calculation would mean the St. Helens eruption produced about 681,818 times the daily emissions of Eyjafjoell. According to wikipedia article on the Mt. St. Helens eruption only about 0.045 cubic miles of new lava was released, which means about the upper limit of CO2 emissions from lava would be about 153 million tonnes, that's for the initial eruption, the subsequent flows produced about an additional 0.05 cubic miles of new lava. That puts the estimate at a little over 300 million tonnes for the upper limit of the emissions using your conversion rates.

"Into Eternity" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/11/into-eternity-film-review), which documents the staggering engineering requirements of creating a nuclear bunker designed to last a million times longer than any man made object ever created.

Yes, lets build a bunker to store FUEL. Fuel that is not being used for political reasons. Fuel, that we will probably need in 100-200 years when oil disappears.

I think you might have America and North Korea confused: How one man escaped from a North Korean prison camp

America is not actually capitalist, but there are reasons why any and every communist country is sheer hell compared to the US (and why you don't see people dying in droves trying to get into Cuba or North Korea) .. do you really honestly think you have it that bad? The US has some very serious problems, yes, but I think you're being a bit hysterical.

"Into Eternity" (http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2010/nov/11/into-eternity-film-review), which documents the staggering engineering requirements of creating a nuclear bunker designed to last a million times longer than any man made object ever created.

The scale of the work involved is almost beyond comprehension. And a hard disk is just a fraction of that work.

It will blow your mind.

Lol, yeah. I like to simply view the British "losses" in the Icesave situation as a late payment for all the cod the British stole from Icelandic waters.

"Losses" is in quote because the banks actually are, in fact, paying off their minimum insured obligations, and are on track to finish paying them off within the next year or so (they're already half done). The Icelandic government took on huge amounts of debt, in no small part to help prop up the banks and get them back on their feet so they'd be worth enough to sell off enough asset value to do this. And the British and Dutch are still suing us in the EFTA. Gee, thanks. We appreciate the whole mackerel thing, too. How dare Iceland and the Faroes fish a non-negligable portion of a fish that does most of its growing in Icelandic and Faroese waters? Such insolence, I know. Best to pressure the EC to slap sanctions on us for "overfishing" (aka, taking a non-negligible portion of the catch) when you refuse to negotiate.

Remember all that electricity you're wanting to buy?...

The best of capitalism is forced sterilization? I didn't believe it when I heard it recently, but there does seem to be something to it:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/apr/15/uk-aid-forced-sterilisation-india
http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/11372-us-uk-taxpayers-funding-forced-sterilization-in-india
http://www.activistpost.com/2012/05/us-and-uk-foreign-aid-funds-mass.html

So, as they said in China just a short while back, when they fail to educate, they will have to take direct action?

She couldn't find a more worthy cause closer to home? Catastrophic issues facing local families in her own state?

Lederman wanted to call it "the goddamn particle" it was his editor we have to thank for the stupid name.

He could have told his editor he didn't like the name, couldn't he?

He did.

For those of us that have had to justify the discharge of large sums of money given to you by taxpayers to do research, the answer is obvious. It varies by country and agency, but getting awarded a grant is the first step in the constant cabaret show that is justifying your use of said grant money. And some agencies--like DARPA--will even go so far as to take the money back if your leg kicks aren't high enough at one of your ridiculously frequent reviews. Thus, given the price tag, basically everyone involved in the LHC project has been engaged in a constant media blitz from Day One, ranging from the possibility of creating tiny black holes to (everyone but the actual scientists) peeing themselves over faster-than-light neutrinos that probably weren't. They learned the lesson of the SSC well. So, when the first evidence of the Higgs Boson was revealed, the PR machine went into overdrive trying to justify spending billions of Euros on a giant, underground doughnut that was vulnerable to baguette. Combined with the laughable quality of "science journalism" and the toddler-level understanding of science of the media and general population, stories about transporters and spaceships were a humorous inevitability.

Also, something that was predicted in 1964 cannot be on the "fringe of common scientific knowledge," a phrase that is itself just as hyperbolic as the examples cited in the OP. Now, the discovery of bacteria that can use As in place of P, that would have been at the fringe had it turned out to be true.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2004/dec/04/jonhenley

A 76-year-old retired Dutch maths teacher described yesterday how for more than 25 years he was feted by communist leaders around the world as the inspired head of a radical Marxist-Leninist party that never, in fact, existed.
As Chris Petersen, head of the supposedly 600-member Marxist-Leninist party of the Netherlands, Pieter Boevé travelled to Beijing more than two dozen times and met Mao Zedong. He was also welcomed with open arms in Albania by Enver Hoxha, and in the eastern bloc capitals of Europe.

"In fact we had at most a dozen members, none of whom had the faintest idea of the truth," Mr Boevé said yesterday from his home in the seaside resort of Zandvoort. "The whole thing was a hoax, set up by the secret services to learn all they could about what was going on in Marxist Peking."

The Mao regime was so impressed by the revolutionary zeal of Mr Petersen/Boevé and his MLPN that it gave him regular briefings on the chairman's latest thinking at the Chinese mission in The Hague. Beijing even funded the non-existent party's newspaper, De Kommunist, which was written entirely by Dutch secret service (BVD) agents.

Since the Taliban are the most politically convenient thing to the US Neocons to appear on the global marketplace of \textit{casus belli}, it's more accurate to say, "Something was said about the Taliban.. and people believed them?"

This is an organization who shut down girls schools in the past, so it fits the pattern. Keep in mind that this is the same organization who are blocking polio vaccinations, so it's not at all surprising that they would pull something like poisoning water at girls schools. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/26/taliban-bans-polio-vaccinations

Horseshit.

You want a spoon or a fork to eat it with? The Taliban did offer to hand over Bin Laddin if proof was offered, but it's just easier for the jingoistic simpleton to ignore historical facts than deal with the reality that the U.S. engaged in not one but two wars of choice that it never fucking had to.

You are greatly distorting the accusations.

You know, half this debate would disappear from Slashdot if people would just take the time to read the actual accusations instead of parroting the echobox and Assange's lawyers.

They absolutely are not "ridiculous and obviously manufactured" unless you have some sort of psychic powers I'm unaware of. And *even if* a government is out to get someone, that's *still* not an excuse to be handing "get out of jail free" cards for rape.

A Nobel award is given to at most 3 people. But in modern times theoretical research is not something that a single person does in their basement .. so there are 6 people (actually one is deceased - so isn't eligible because of that) who could make a claim for the glory. See higgs-boson-nobel-prize-headache for a better run down on all of this.
 
Interestingly Higgs wasn't the first to publish on this subject. And I heard yesterday on NPR from a former student of Higgs who suggested he wanted to call it the "God Damned Particle" - but it seems that the name went all PC.

citation 1
citation 2
citation 3
citation 4
citation 5
citation 6
citation 7
citation 8
citation 9
citation 10
Okay, there's 10 citations for you. Begin your spin, denouncements, deflections, justifications, and outright lies.....

Sorry, but that is 100% false and pure victim smearing. And there is no such charge as "sex by surprise". The charge they want to try him for (well, one of the four) is "mindre grov våldtäkt" ("minor rape" - literally, "less than major rape"), but had it happened in the UK it would simply be prosecuted as "rape". Which isn't speculation; that's what the British lower court determined and what the high court upheld. The total maximum penalty is 4 years jail time.

The term "sex by surprise" comes from Assange's attorney pushing a literal translation of the term "överraskningssex", which is not a charge, just a description (and while "överraskning" means "surprise", "överraskningssex" still means "rape").

Since the Swedes have allowed the US to use extraordinary rendition against at least one individual in Sweden in the past

So have the British, and have even led joint extraordinary rendition efforts. The British are far more of a US lapdog than Sweden. Even Google recognizes this - start typing anything about "Britain" and "lapdog" and you get suggested searches about Britain being America's lapdog.

Beyond that, this is being done through the European Arrest Warrant system. To reextradite Assange would require both Swedish *and* British consent, in contrast to just British consent as it stands now. Unless you think one of the most high profile accused persons on Earth right now is just going to disappear.

I can understand someone deciding that having already been examined, and given permission to leave because no charges were going to be laid after answering all the questions put to him, he might decide he doesn't see why he should have to go through that whole process again.

First off, people suspected of crimes don't get to pick and choose what cooperation they want to have with the police without repercussions. Multiple questionings are not only not unusual, but they're pretty much standard. And there's nothing at all unusual about one investigator deciding that there's not enough evidence to push charges at a particular moment in time and a different investigator deciding, at that some different moment in time, that there is. The reports are that he had promised to come back, and even if he hadn't, Sweden had every reason in the world to suspect that he planned to come back because he had just applied for permanent residency there. To reiterate, he had applied for permanent residency somewhere, but as soon as there were criminal accusations against him, he hightailed it out of town to avoid them.

Then we have the various questions about why the 2 women raised the whole issue in the first place and their (to me at least) somewhat suspicious behavior

Ah, yes, the obligatory victim smearing. Please elaborate after reading the actual accusations,

plus the fact that one of them has had some connection to the CIA in the past (if that is true).

This one is the most absurd of them all. The source is a Counterpunch article, which begins with casting Assange as Neo, hero of The Matrix, that... now try to follow this...

1) She published anti-Castro articles...
2) In a magazine...
3) Run by a group in Sweden...
4) Which according to some professor in Oslo...
5) Is funded by another group in Sweden...
6) Which is connected with a Cuban organization...
7) Which is led by a guy...
8) Who a Wordpress blog post says is a CIA agent.

And then this:

1) She has "interacted"...
2) (No source)...
3) With a cuban feminist organization...
4) ... of women, repeatedly praised and defended by Amnesty International, who protest the jailing of their husbands by going to church dressed in white...
5a) Because it "gets money" from the US government...
5b) (No source)...
6b) And because someone who bombed a plane...
7) Walked next to Gloria Estefan when she supported the group in Miami.

I wish I was kidding - check out the article yourself, that's where this tripe started.

I am not defending him mind you,

Yes you are. That's precisely what you're doing, without hardly even looking into the situation. Take a look at your post. You even accused someone who is charging someone with raping them of being a CIA plant witho

Countries with the greatest capacity to do harm, and the likely propensity to exercise that power should be under the greatest scrutiny.

Deaths in Syrian uprising: nearly 18,000
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syrian_uprising_(2011%E2%80%93present)#Deaths

Deaths in US-Afghanistan War: nearly 18,000
http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2010/aug/10/afghanistan-civilian-casualties-statistics

Deaths in US-Iraq war: approximately 110,000
http://www.iraqbodycount.org/database/

So, while Syria certainly needs to be on the watch list, and it is very advantageous for the supporters of that regime to be unmasked and exposed, the Western governments do not get a free pass just because some people have concluded that they are not oppressive or dangerous to their own people.

Wrong, wrong, wrong. The UK lower court found, and the high court upheld, that all four counts would be illegal even under *British* law. And the accusations aren't at all like you present them.

The allegations centre on a 10-day period after Assange flew into Stockholm on Wednesday 11 August. One of the women, named in court as Miss A, told police that she had arranged Assange's trip to Sweden, and let him stay in her flat because she was due to be away. She returned early, on Friday 13 August, after which the pair went for a meal and then returned to her flat.

Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.

According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.

When he was later interviewed by police in Stockholm, Assange agreed that he had had sex with Miss A but said he did not tear the condom, and that he was not aware that it had been torn. He told police that he had continued to sleep in Miss A's bed for the following week and she had never mentioned a torn condom.

On the following morning, Saturday 14 August, Assange spoke at a seminar organised by Miss A. A second woman, Miss W, had contacted Miss A to ask if she could attend. Both women joined Assange, the co-ordinator of the Swedish WikiLeaks group, whom we will call "Harold", and a few others for lunch.

Assange left the lunch with Miss W. She told the police she and Assange had visited the place where she worked and had then gone to a cinema where they had moved to the back row. He had kissed her and put his hands inside her clothing, she said.

That evening, Miss A held a party at her flat. One of her friends, "Monica", later told police that during the party Miss A had told her about the ripped condom and unprotected sex. Another friend told police that during the evening Miss A told her she had had "the worst sex ever" with Assange: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."

Assange's supporters point out that, despite her complaints against him, Miss A held a party for him on that evening and continued to allow him to stay in her flat.

On Sunday 15 August, Monica told police, Miss A told her that she thought Assange had torn the condom on purpose. According to Monica, Miss A said Assange was still staying in her flat but they were not having sex because he had "exceeded the limits of what she felt she could accept" and she did not feel safe.

The following day, Miss W phoned Assange and arranged to meet him late in the evening, according to her statement. The pair went back to her flat in Enkoping, near Stockholm. Miss W told police that though they started to have sex, Assange had not wanted to wear a condom, and she had moved away because she had not wanted unprotected sex. Assange had then lost interest, she said, and fallen asleep. However, during the night, they had both woken up and had sex at least once when "he agreed unwillingly to use a condom".

Early the next morning, Miss W told police, she had gone to buy breakfast before getting back into bed and

If it's Texas.... should have said "God Particle" in the proposal.

Eleventy billion dollar grant.

Yeah, except that Nobel laureate Leon Lederman wanted to call it the Goddamn particle (because it was so elusive), but his editor wouldn't let him:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/2008/jun/30/higgs.boson.cern/print

What have they given us... Oh yes.. Anna Nicole Smith was working for the CIA!

The IRS is a perfect example of. A simple 10% flat tax would remove ALL the loop-holes.

It'd also remove all the definitions and clarity of the current system. [...]

I could make the comment that removing all the clarity of the current system would leave the current system mostly untouched :)

However, I mostly agree. As per Einstein's Razor "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but no simpler." (Which seems to actually be a paraphrase of

It can scarcely be denied that the supreme goal of all theory is to make the irreducible basic elements as simple and as few as possible without having to surrender the adequate representation of a single datum of experience.

WikiQuote Arguably the paraphrase is a nicely recursive demonstration of itself.)

Some sots of flat tax seem to work quite well. VAT/GST with no exceptions, rather than the U.K. nightmare.. Poll Tax is wonderfully simple too. But not such a good idea.

I doubt a flat 10% tax would work. That doesn't mean the US Tax regime couldn't be improved.

Let's see...

- Smartphone market share that's been dropping like a stone? Check
- Quarterly losses reported? Check
- Large layoffs? Check
- Other providers offering remote wipe, encryption of the devices that users love? Check
- IT departments begrudgingly allowing users to bring their own phones instead of buying a BB for each and every user? Check
- Messaging service, that was supposed to take like a wildfire on other devices "because everyone wants BB Messaging" failing to catch on? Check
- PlayBook, that was supposed to be mega-popular with everyone who had BB device failing to sell, costing company shitload of money? Check
- New Holy Grail Operating System Demo having just one "major sexy feature" which is a camera feature? Check (bonus - made by company that ended up being bought by Nokia)
- That very same Holy Grail Operating System being delayed, thus no phones in the biggest holiday shopping season? Check
- New release timeframe being after new iPhone 5 and way after Android Jelly Bean and thus playing catch-up? Check

Am I missing something? RIM seems to be super-widely off-mark, been off-mark ever since the situation in consumer smart-phones changed enough to require some sort of a response, and so far everything that they can say is "our next product is surely to be a hit" and coast on the current one. Um... oookay....

Bonus: remember what RIM said about switching platforms? "No other technology company other than Apple has successfully transitioned their platform. It's almost never done, and it's way harder than you realise. This transition is where tech companies go to die." Balsillie, April 2011. (see here). And now they're switching platforms. Do I believe RIM 2011 or RIM 2012?

Sure, it's not dead just yet. But they're not in a "death spiral", they are in a "death nosedive" and keep on firing thrusters to the max. Unless they provide a new super-phone now (and not in half a year with, I bet, yet another "but we really-really need to make sure everything is polished so we delay until Q2 2013" announcement coming in January) the only way is down. Less market share, less interesting products. They could probably survive by cutting staff as much as possible, dropping to 1% of market share and not even try to make phones for non-military use. But that would be a different company.

In Europe, they're being investigated as a privacy issue:

Hi-tech monitors that track households' energy consumption threaten to become a major privacy issue, according to the European watchdog in charge of protecting personal data.

The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) has warned that smart meters, which must be introduced into every home in the UK within the next seven years, will be used to track much more than energy consumption unless proper safeguards are introduced.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jul/01/household-energy-trackers-threat-privacy

Really? I didn't know that

Really? Have you never heard of Google? Just to pick one article for you about a few of the many cases the Brits have been involved in: Link . The British are among the world's biggest players in this game.

Swedens involvement is well-known, I googled it before my post.

Ah, here we get to the root of the problem! You are a victim of Morton's Demon. You might want to see to that.

My point was that the OP claimed that Assange would be kidnapped and tortured by the US if he goes to Sweden. I don't think so, but your reply was completely off topic (about extradition, which the OP didn't talk about)

Again, see to your demon. The OP wrote (emphasis mine):

If you're referring to Julian Assange, the US has brought no charges that are really crimes. It was Sweden, which the UK has an extradition treaty with. The UK would extradite if the US brought charges, but the US wants to secretly extradite him, torture him and hold him indefinitely without bringing any charges.

Hopefully you can see the boldfaced words.

Let me know when you're done with the exorcism.

Absolutely. The UK sent people to Libya while Gaddafi was still in power in exchange for lucrative business opportunities.

One of the main indignities of old age is that young people regard all old people as the same, we don't see them as protagonists in their own right. It's tragic, because not all grandmothers are created equal, and don't wish to be regarded as such.

If grandma can't use her computer the way she wants without my help then the designer of the software has failed.

Seriously, you're making the disciples of Roland Barthes look good, and that isn't easy. I suppose what grandma wants is a technological experience devoid of human interaction.

Grandma goes to the store to buy a lb of hamburger. Let's not tell her about genetic engineering or bovine growth hormone, or heaven forbid, pink slime at the drive through. She doesn't want to know.

Grandma logs onto Facebook to check out her grandchild. Let's not tell her about privacy settings, or phishing, or heaven forbid, sexting. She doesn't want to know.

This magically disappearing technological shim you're so fond of doesn't exist. There are many magic rings in this world, Grandma Baggins, and none of them should be used lightly.

Manning used a CD-RW, because USB Flash devices were already banned because of this.

Try the Guardian Weekly - 3 bucks a copy and about 95% news. Real News.

That's only because in Sweden charging is something that only happens after a final interrogation which takes place in a police station. Since he refused to go back for that the process is stalled.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/20/julian-assange-asylum-ecuador-embassy-live#block-20

It's a definitional point, coming down to how you translate the swedish word 'lagforing' into English. In Sweden, formal 'charging' is a process that happens after questioning. This came up in the Extradition Ruling. As part of the EAW application, the applicant has to commit that they intend to go to prosecution, and state the charges that may be brought. As the extradition ruling establishes:

In our jurisdiction prosecution will normally be started by the laying of an information, or a decision to charge. In many, perhaps most, other European countries the position is different. It is necessary to adopt a cosmopolitan approach to the question of whether as a matter of substance rather than form Mr Assange is wanted for prosecution. The fact that Sweden requires a person to be interrogated, before a formal decision to charge is made, is not determinative. Each country has its own procedures for prosecuting offences. The fact that the defendant would be interviewed upon his return is no clear indication that this is a criminal investigation rather than a criminal prosecution. This point was made recently in Asztaslov v Szekszard City Court, Hungary [2011] 1 WLR at para 46.

Assange's lawyers know full well that 'not being charged with anything' is misleading to people familiar with the UK or US systems. And yet his supporters are too stupid to actually look at what it means in Sweden.

They also misleadingly say he is 'only wanted for interview' and this could be done overseas. The Swedes point out that this is actually an interrogation done in a police station and usually results in charging and arrest afterwards. If it was done overseas, they wouldn't be able to do this.

An interrogation likely leading to arrest and charging unless you can provide an airtight alibi is not the same as an interview which you can walk away from (something Assange has a habit of) if you don't like the way it is going. Once again Assange's lawyers are being deliberately misleading. And his supporters are so keen to believe in him they wilfully ignore this.

Amazing how much the Assange Echo-Box distorts the actual claims. Educate yourself. Basically, nothing you wrote about the charges remotely resembles reality. And as for the tabloid claim, the texts in question were sent *after* they were contacted by the tabloid (not the other way around), *after* they went to the police, and were described as joking about the tabloid's offer. She did not write the revenge article and simply reposted it after her ex-fiance left her. And it was not about "with a fake rape claim"; the first bullet points were advising the person to reconsider taking revenge, and the only specific examples given are on ways to try to break up an ex and their lover, such as encouraging the lover to cheat on them in kind. And lastly, can any of you imagine what sort of stuff would come up if someone dug through *everything you've ever written on the internet regardless of context?*

...for instance here, I've come to the conclusion that Assange is not a nice person. But whether he is a rapist or just an ass is not yet known. So what on earth should society do in such cases?

Oh, I have this radical new idea; lets have a meeting where one side presents a case in favour of him being a rapist and the other side presents a case against it. We can call this a trial, and it should occur in the same area where the alleged incidence occurred. Assange has up until now tried all manner of ways to avoid this type of meeting, but several levels of English judges have ALL declared that he cannot avoid it any longer.

Sweden is not some banana republic with a dodgy legal system and mass corruption. It is a well-formed and reasonably well functioning system, comparing favourably to most. It is considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

Sweden does, however, tend to have quite strict women's rights and sexual abuse laws. In general the idea is that all parts of a sexual encounter should be consensual (not just whether to do it or not, but also how to do it, i.e. if a woman agreed to sex but not S&M, if you force her down and whip her while doing it, this is most likely rape), force isn't necessary to make an encounter illegal (just making it seem hard to get out of it, or simply ignoring pleas not to, is enough), and a woman's continued interaction with the man afterwards isn't seen as definite proof that the encounter was consensual. For instance, if you're in a position of power, and/or the woman's career or other ambitions depended on her continued interaction with you, or the woman may just feel threatened or blame herself afterwards. It is quite common for victims of abuse to assume it was their own fault, and it is very common for victims of abuse to keep seeing their abuser.

So far, Assange has resisted attempts at deciding his guilt or innocence, based on an argument that was very self-serving, and unlikely to be correct, and UK judges have called him on it. Now let him have his day in court in Sweden.

...for instance here, I've come to the conclusion that Assange is not a nice person. But whether he is a rapist or just an ass is not yet known. So what on earth should society do in such cases?

Oh, I have this radical new idea; lets have a meeting where one side presents a case in favour of him being a rapist and the other side presents a case against it. We can call this a trial, and it should occur in the same area where the alleged incidence occurred. Assange has up until now tried all manner of ways to avoid this type of meeting, but several levels of English judges have ALL declared that he cannot avoid it any longer.

Sweden is not some banana republic with a dodgy legal system and mass corruption. It is a well-formed and reasonably well functioning system, comparing favourably to most. It is considered one of the least corrupt countries in the world.

Sweden does, however, tend to have quite strict women's rights and sexual abuse laws. In general the idea is that all parts of a sexual encounter should be consensual (not just whether to do it or not, but also how to do it, i.e. if a woman agreed to sex but not S&M, if you force her down and whip her while doing it, this is most likely rape), force isn't necessary to make an encounter illegal (just making it seem hard to get out of it, or simply ignoring pleas not to, is enough), and a woman's continued interaction with the man afterwards isn't seen as definite proof that the encounter was consensual. For instance, if you're in a position of power, and/or the woman's career or other ambitions depended on her continued interaction with you, or the woman may just feel threatened or blame herself afterwards. It is quite common for victims of abuse to assume it was their own fault, and it is very common for victims of abuse to keep seeing their abuser.

So far, Assange has resisted attempts at deciding his guilt or innocence, based on an argument that was very self-serving, and unlikely to be correct, and UK judges have called him on it. Now let him have his day in court in Sweden.

Right. Because you know more about British law than UK judges.

Lets correct some errors here that are running amok on Slashdot every time this comes up.

1) The Swedish legal system cannot file charges in absentia. They *have* to bring him to Sweden, question him again in person (whether or not they think any more information will come of it), and only *then* can they legally file charges against him.

2) The Prime Minister of Sweden has stated explicitly that in accordinace with European extradition law the UK would have to approve any further extradition request, so yes, it's an extremely strained argument to suggest that the UK, who extradites people to the US at the drop of a hat, is a safer place to be than Sweden.

3) The lower British court found (and higher court upheld) that not only is there probable reason to suspect that Assange broke Swedish law, but that the same acts would be criminal in the UK as well. It's not "rape" (with sarcastic quotation marks), as in the Slashdot summary. It's rape, no quotation marks.

4) Assange is not being charged with "sex without a condom", and anyone who repeats that lie is deliberately trying to distort the situation. Here's the actual accusations:

The allegations centre on a 10-day period after Assange flew into Stockholm on Wednesday 11 August. One of the women, named in court as Miss A, told police that she had arranged Assange's trip to Sweden, and let him stay in her flat because she was due to be away. She returned early, on Friday 13 August, after which the pair went for a meal and then returned to her flat.

Her account to police, which Assange disputes, stated that he began stroking her leg as they drank tea, before he pulled off her clothes and snapped a necklace that she was wearing. According to her statement she "tried to put on some articles of clothing as it was going too quickly and uncomfortably but Assange ripped them off again". Miss A told police that she didn't want to go any further "but that it was too late to stop Assange as she had gone along with it so far", and so she allowed him to undress her.

According to the statement, Miss A then realised he was trying to have unprotected sex with her. She told police that she had tried a number of times to reach for a condom but Assange had stopped her by holding her arms and pinning her legs. The statement records Miss A describing how Assange then released her arms and agreed to use a condom, but she told the police that at some stage Assange had "done something" with the condom that resulted in it becoming ripped, and ejaculated without withdrawing.

When he was later interviewed by police in Stockholm, Assange agreed that he had had sex with Miss A but said he did not tear the condom, and that he was not aware that it had been torn. He told police that he had continued to sleep in Miss A's bed for the following week and she had never mentioned a torn condom.

On the following morning, Saturday 14 August, Assange spoke at a seminar organised by Miss A. A second woman, Miss W, had contacted Miss A to ask if she could attend. Both women joined Assange, the co-ordinator of the Swedish WikiLeaks group, whom we will call "Harold", and a few others for lunch.

Assange left the lunch with Miss W. She told the police she and Assange had visited the place where she worked and had then gone to a cinema where they had moved to the back row. He had kissed her and put his hands inside her clothing, she said.

That evening, Miss A held a party at her flat. One of her friends, "Monica", later told police that during the party Miss A had told her about the ripped condom and unprotected sex. Another friend told police that during the evening Miss A told her she had had "the worst sex ever" with Assange: "Not only had it been the world's worst screw, it had also been violent."

Assange's su

Did you forget the part of "Girl is out for money" (last paragraph of guardian/entire other article) among other things?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2010/dec/17/julian-assange-sweden
http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2010-12-09/us/28247531_1_wikileaks-founder-julian-assange-swedish-women-condom

OK, I read that and then I read its citation in turn, and what I see that resembles those claims is as follows:

10.46am: Ben Emmerson, Assange's barrister, says the case against his client rests on four sex charges, and goes on to describe them in graphic detail.

10.50am: The Assange team is promising not to attack his accusers and not to doubt their discomfort about his sexual conduct.

10.53am: The description of the circumstances of the alleged offences in the warrant is not fair and accurate, Assange's team says, and the offences cannot be fairly characterised as rape.

So yes, the defense described the charges in detail, and then said that the description of the circumstances is not accurate, and therefore it cannot be characterized as rape.

Is it possible to get the actual court transcript so that we can settle this issue?

You get a 4 points insightful for saying 100% wrong statement?

There is no charges of rape in Sweden, there is only allegations of rape. He is being extradited for questioning. Such an important case for Sweden but they never bother to charge him for a whole year.

Here, read the news:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2012/jun/28/julian-assange-london-police-station?newsfeed=true

They even have special bullet point at the end to help you.

But is ok you can just steal the quotes from rape to make 'charges' :)

Just out of curiosity, why would Assange think he's more at risk of being extradited from Sweden than from the UK? Apparently, the founder of surfchannel.com Richard O'Dwyer is facing extradition to the US for the "crime" of running a website offering links to copyrighted TV and video content.

IMHO, Assange would be better off in Sweden no matter what... Even though Sweden has a tradition of being US lapdog, the swedish justice system is relatively transparent and the procedure would have to go through several instances in addition of being under constant public scrutiny.

I like the bit about manafacturing fear, that's cute coming from a company that was politely asked to stop funding climate FUD by the Royal Society.

I'd rather spend a bit of time in Sweden than a lifetime in Ecuador. I don't think Ecuador is too much fun when your money runs out.

Gnasher... are you trying to be modded "flamebait"?

Assange is wanted for questioning in Sweden. The prosecution has it made abundantly clear that they are not interested in actually questioning Assange, they want him on Swedish soil so they can take him into custody. As soon as he is in custody, the US will -based on the extradition agreement that exists between Sweden and the US- ask for immediate "temporary surrender" to US custody. So within weeks Assange might find himself facing charges in the US.

Are you following the case of Richard O'Dwyer? Another one of those cases. Get a non-US citizen to stand trial for crimes-under-US-law-but-not-necessarily-local-laws and committed outside of the US.

"Team America: World Police" is now reality.

Is that rape, or the more serious rape-rape

Think the Government and the British state don't have a large measure of control? Think again

Officially they don't. There have been numerous governments that have criticised the reporting of the BBC but been unable to prevent it - the BBC dutifully reported NATO airstrike civilian victims during the Balkans wars, leading to government criticism that BBC in fact stood for "Belgrade Broadcasting Corporation":

"During the Nato bombing campaign the British government was sharply critical of BBC coverage. At one stage some government officials referred to us as the Belgrade Broadcasting Corporation."- The Guardian

Now, contrast this situation with an actual state controlled media - do you think such a media would even be allowed to report on civilians killed by the state military (a fact that goes against the military line that these are "no-collateral-damage precision airstrikes"?) And to continue to report on such victims of your military, even when it angers and displeases the government? And it was not just the Kosovo War, during the Falklands War government ministers accused the BBC of unpatriotic and neutral reporting - one minister angrily naming it the "Stateless Person's Broadcasting Corporation", another the "Bolshevik Broadcasting Corporation".

The notion that the TV license isn't a tax and the BBC isn't state-controlled is a delusion.

Compare the BBC and its successive spats with various governments to an actual state-controlled media and you will see a big difference. Do you think that real state-controlled media broadcasts any criticisms of the government? Would a real state-controlled media be allowed to report repeatedly on allegations that the government mis-represented the evidence for going to war? If so, why do we not see this kind of criticism coming out of, say, the Chinese state media?

There's plenty of maniacal shouting to audiences, but afaik only one taping of him talking in conversational tones (in case that makes a difference here). Guardian has some background on how it was taped; it was in Finland and the guy who did it was lucky to live after the Germans noticed what had happened.

Two different (but similar) cases: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/oct/11/morrisons-wine-ban-mother?CMP=AFCYAH http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/4933325/Mother-refused-permission-to-buy-wine-by-Tesco-in-case-she-gave-them-to-her-daughter.html

Since when has Paypal been concerned about quality of service to ANYONE?

Only for us little people...

They gave Joe Lieberman fantastic service.

I needed a birth certificate, proof of my national insurance number and all my bank details.

I had to sign a waiver about my bank account and agreed to have some of my wages docked for this and that reason.

Then the interview began.

After we had to sit through all the advertising bullshit for Morrisons, the company employing the agency running the scam... (I wish I could get hold of some of the presentation videos. If you remember the deer in the headlights clip of Tony Blair visiting the USA after realising he'd just got rogered into a phoney war, it was like that) they wanted to know just how desperate we were and how reliable we'd be.

I wonder just how many of these sorts of scams people like the large supermarkets pull. Their in house "agency" only running the personnel office of that one branch not the whole chain.

And only offering a few days here and there as needed and no sick pay if you fail to meet their stringent quarantine laws. It's back to the Victorian era in time for the Jubilee.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2012/jun/04/jubilee-pageant-unemployed?fb=native&CMP=FBCNETTXT9038

What a pity it is illegal to enquire back. Anyone here know anyone from Anonymous, know what I mean, wink, nudge?

Be wary of anything involving Louise Mensch.
She likes to dish out slanderous comments in a context where she can get away with it (basically, as an MP and in the House of Parliament, Parliamentary Privilege allows her to say anything at all without fear of legal action) but she won't utter anything when the law won't protect her.

And these people run our country. My God....

Who died because of his actions? Name a single person who died. Link to a single story in a reputable newspaper that details how someone lost their life as a result of leaks he published.

As you wish.

Julian Assange, monk of the online age who thrives on intellectual battle

When I try to question him about the morality of what he's done, if he worries about unleashing something that he can't control, that no one can control, he tells me the story of the Kenyan 2007 elections when a WikiLeak document "swung the election".

The leak exposed massive corruption by Daniel Arap Moi, and the Kenyan people sat up and took notice. In the ensuing elections, in which corruption became a major issue, violence swept the country. "1,300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak," says Assange.. . .

I seem to recall there being at least a few more incidents.

This is an inaccurate depiction of events, as was established in the 2011 extradition hearing. Specifically, Assange's lawyer lied: The Swedes asked him for questioning. On hearing this news, Assange then refused to report in as he should have, but instead fled the country.

http://assangewatch.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/bjorn-hurtig-has-some-explaining-to-do.html
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2011/feb/08/julian-assange-extradition-hearing-texts

As for the charges being picked up again, there's any number of reasons why this might be so. Perhaps new witness testimony emerged. Perhaps the note that on the day the charges were initially dropped, the two women issued a complaint to the Swedish public prosecutions is significant. Perhaps it was the fact that the charges were initially dropped after 24 hours of examination by the city's chief prosecutor and then picked up again by a sex crimes specialist?

We don't know at this point. But it shouldn't really make sense for the timeline of events that actually took place to be consistent with the conspiracy theories. Why, we should ask, if this was all an American plot, was the charges dropped from Assange ahead of the cables leak (when everyone suspected he had the cables), and then only reinstated after the cables were already passed on and so capturing Assange pointless?