Wow, if paulcraigroberts.org says it, then clearly it must be true!
It's a reprint of a Pilger article, Pilger being one of Assange's main misinformation spreaders. First off, there's not even rape charges (yes, they're on the EAW as charges, in the charges section, enumerated as charges, and ruled by the British court system to be equivalent to charges) concerning the "women" plural. There's a rape charge (singular) concerning one woman (SW) and three lesser charges concerning the other woman (AA). AA has said she was not raped, but there are no rape charges concerning her. She has however said that she was a victim of a sexual assault, and reaffirmed that on her blog earlier this year (after being silent since the incident). SW told several people she'd been raped, according to the testimony collected by the police, before she went to the police. The fact that her goal of going to the police was not to press charges doesn't translate to "she says she wasn't raped"; the testimony is quite clear to just the opposite, she had been telling close friends and confidants that she had been raped, right after the incident. Also frequently distorted is the end of her interview, which Assange fans often misstate as her "refusing to go on". It actually very clearly states that the interviewer thought she looked shaken and decided to terminate the interview (it was nearing the end of the shift anyway). SW is then asked if she wants a legal representative (not exactly an attorney, it's a state employee who pushes the case forward for you), and she said yes (her representative, Clæs Borgstrom, was very aggressive about pushing the case forward, although AA, who he initially also represented, felt that he was more in it for attention for himself later fired him and chose another). SW was also asked if she would do a rape kit and she also said yes.
There've been subsequent interviews since then, but they haven't leaked, so we don't know what they say.
Every level of the UK court system up to and including the Supreme Court has affirmed the Swedish legal system's actions concerning Assange. So try again.
By the way, you apparently don't even know that what's being discussed here is surrender, not extradition. And if you think there's no difference, you're quite wrong, the two terms are absolutely not interchangeable.
From the sworn statement of the Swedish prosecutor to the British courts: "Subject to any matters said by him, which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be launched with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."
The questioning is indeed a legal requirement to move the case forward, don't get me wrong. But it's not the point. The point is to åtala him.
Neither Assange nor anyone else will ever be "charged" with rape in Sweden because, it should go without saying, "charge" is an English term and the Swedish judicial system uses Swedish. This may sound like pedantics but it's a key point. The two terms in question here in Swedish law are "anklagad" and "åtalad". Look them up in a Swedish dictionary - there's about a dozen different ones online. Each word can mean "accused", "charged", or "indicted" - but there is a difference in a legal sense.
Being formally anklagad is the first stage. The prosecutor brings said charge to a court of law, where a judge issues warrants for the accused's arrest. The accused can appeal being anklagad to have the warrant overturned and have a court hear their case. They can even appeal that ruling, all the way up to the Swedish Supreme Court. What it doesn't lead directly to is a trial. That is what being åtalad is for. In fact, once åtalad, the accused *must* be tried within a matter of weeks, by Swedish law. Being anklagad is to attempt to get the person in custody so that they can be åtalad. Being åtalad is to attempt to convict the person.
Assange *has* been formally anklagad. The prosecutor took the case and evidence to a judge, who reviewed it and issued warrants for his arrest. A EAW was issued because being anklagad is legally considered equivalent to being charged for the purposes of a warrant. Assange appealed to the Svea Court of Appeals, where a full court hearing was held, including testimony from his lawyers and a full review of all of the evidence. [i]He lost[/i]. The court found probable cause that he commited 1 count of unlawful sexual coersion, 2 counts of molestation, and 1 count of rape. He appealed to the Supreme Court. They refused his appeal, having found nothing wrong with the lower court trial.
Assange, is of course, pretending that only being åtalad means being charged. But he *can't* be åtalad until he hands himself over to Swedish custody. In short, he's using his very run from the law to justify his run from the law.
If allegedly lying about wearing a condom counts as rape
It doesn't, and that's not why he's anklagad for rape. The charges section in the EAW is filled out thusly:
1. On 13th – 14th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange, by using violence, forced the injured party to endure his restricting her freedom of movement. The violence consisted in a firm hold of the injured party’s arms and a forceful spreading of her legs whilst lying on top of her and with his body weight preventing her from moving or shifting.
2. On 13th – 14th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity. Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her without her knowledge.
3. On 18th August 2010 or on any of the days before or after that date, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Stockholm, Assange deliberately molested the injured party by acting in a manner designed to violate her sexual integrity i.e. lying next to her and pressing his naked, erect penis to her body.
4. On 17th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Enkoping, Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state. It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party’s sexual integrity.
#4 has the checkbox for raped ticked, and #4 alone. #1 is unlawful sexual coersion and concerns AA. #2 is molestation and concerns AA. #3 is molestation and concerns AA. #4 is rape and concerns SW.
Given that you're so ignorant of the case that you don't even know the basic facts of what he's actually charged with (really, how much less about the case could you possibly know than that?), mistaking a minor molestation accusation (#2) for the rape accusation (#4), perhaps you should think before spouting off publicly about how the guy's clearly innocent and the accusers are just lying sluts?
Why thank you, Amazing Kreskin, for your profound legal insights.
After reviewing the evidence, of the three investigating officers, two (Wassgren and Gehlin) wanted him investigated for what would eventually be five charges (2x rape, 1x unlawful sexual coersion, 2x molestation), and one (Krans) wanted him for four (1x, 1x, 2x). The first prosecutor (Finne) first wanted him investigated for five (1x, 1x, 2x), then reduced it to what would become three (0x, 1x, 2x). An appeal from one of the victims was reviewed and found with merit (not unusual in Sweden, there's a strong victims' rights process), and a new prosecutor (Ny) was brought in, and the investigation resumed for all five (2x, 1x, 2x). A judge charged / anklagad him on all five counts (2x, 1x, 2x). Assange appeled the warrant and the Svea Court of Appeals held a full court hearing, with a jury, a review of all the evidence, and testimony from Assange's lawyers; they upheld four (1x,1x, 2x). He appealed to the Swedish Supreme court; they refused his appeal. The British lower court heard Assange's appeal (arguing malicious prosecution, flaws in the Swedish process, and an invalid EAW). The British lower court ruled against him on all counts. The case was heard by the British high court, which also ruled against him on all counts. And again, the British Supreme Court heard the case, and ruled against him on all counts.
But no no, who needs a pesky legal system when we have Amazing Kreskin here to tell us about how it's all a setup! Screw those lying b****s, right?
Heck, Assange's attorneys have all but admitted that he did it. Check out Emmerson's court statements, where he bloody admits that Assange started F*ing SW unprotected while she was asleep. Let it not be forgotten that the courts have SW's SMS records from that night where she's bitterly complaining about about how Assange keeps trying t F* her unprotected despite her telling him again and again and how annoyed she's getting about that), testimony from a friend and a family member she chatted with right before the event while she was out buying breakfast, and on and on, making it pretty unambiguous that she'd been refusing unprotected sex - something that neither Assange nor his attorneys have contested. Emmerson tries to argue that consent is implied because she didn't immediately push Assange out when she woke up to him F*ing her. But that's of course a nonsense legal claim. One, you can't get "retroactive consent", it has to be present from the beginning. Two, F*ing a sleeping person is explicitly illegal in both Swedish and British law; the fact that it was done in a manner she had been explicitly refusing is merely listed as an aggravating factor. Three, the reason she'd been refusing unprotected sex was paranoia about STDs, and it was already too late, she'd have to go to the hospital either way (just ignoring the "shock" aspect, which I can tell you is *very* real; it was already too late. As her ex boyfriend of 2 1/2 years testified, she was so paranoid about unprotected sex that she not once allowed it in their entire relationship, and *still* made him get an STD test.
His freaking *defense* attorneys are admitting that he did it, so why should anyone be surprised that court after court keeps condemning him? And it's not like this is anything new for Assange. He had allegations of stalking against a 17-year-old before he got famous. Even whistleblowers he's worked with for Wikileaks have accused him of sexual aggression. This is a guy who wrote on his own blog about how womens' brains can't do math and how he's a god to women, and how his ghostwriter who spent months with him documented (with recorded transcripts) an unending litany of creepy sexual behavior,
There is precisely one case you're referring to. A decade and a half ago. And they weren't surrendered to the US, they were surrendered to Egypt via the US. After receiving bogus information from Egypt that the two illegal immigrants weren't legitimate asylum seekers but were rather convicted terrorist fugitives and a signed pledge that they wouldn't be tortured (Egypt promptly broke the pledge after they arrived). Here's the aftermath of that:
1) It turned into one of the biggest judicial scandals in Swedish history, receiving widespread protest and condemnation. 2) It led to a reform of not just Swedish but EU-wide extradition law, making it so that a mere promise of not torturing isn't enough, the country has to have a track record of not torturing. 3) The victims were offered by Sweden a large financial compensation package and Swedish residence. 4) Swedish attitudes against the US rendition program (which had worked in conjunction with Egypt on that case) that in 2006 outright had their special forces disguise themselves as airport workers to break into a CIA plane to get the proof they needed to shut down the extradition program through Swedish airspace, creating a major diplomatic incident between the two countries. And how do we know about this incident? Why, Wikileaks of course!
There's a reason why Assange was applying for a Swedish residence permit and moving Wikileaks' base of operations to Sweden when the incidents he's anklagad for occurred. No country has a spotless record, but Sweden has among the highest ranked judicial systems on Earth. Sweden has the world's best whistleblower protections and one of the most restrictive extradition treaties in Europe, flatly forbidding extradition for intelligence or military crimes (which is why, for example, the US couldn't get Edward Lee Howard, the most damaging CIA defector of the Cold War). Assange repeatedly referred to Sweden as his "shield". Funny how Sweden suddenly turned from "shield" to "evil US lackey" when he faced accusations of rape, isn't it? Just ignoring the fact that, if surrendered to Sweden, both the UK *and* Sweden would be able to block an extradition to the US (under EU law on surrender of fugitives), while he had no problem being in the UK with only the UK between him and the US.
And a lot better than Huygens, who they weren't even trying to keep alive at all and whose mission wasn't even designed suchly that Cassini could stay in touch with it until its batteries died.
The results of this mission have been invaluable in learning more about the challenges of landing on a low-gravity body. I look forward to whatever mission turns out to be the next followup that learns from all of the lessons of this mission.:) Maybe some sort of "hopper" probe that can sample all over an asteroid or comet by deliberately bouncing around?
Though to be honest, what I look forward to more than anything is the next dedicated Titan mission.. whether it's a hydrogen blimp, hot air balloon, helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft, tilt-wing aircraft, or whatnot, it's going to be bloody amazing. My favorite approach is that of a tilt-wing aircraft, which gains the high-speed / long range capability of an airplane, but can easily land and do surfacescience while its batteries are RTG-charged for the next flight. Even a sample return stage is a possibility, although difficult... an aerial vehicle can get extremely high in the atmosphere and the gravity's not very intense, so the escape stage requirements should be manageable, and then the escape capsule can use reverse gravitational slingshots and aerocapture to get samples back to earth with minimal additional delta-V. Can you imagine that - samples of the shoreline of an organic sea or cryovolcano from Titan, back on earth? Regardless of what sort of mission profile it has, though, the next Titan mission will have to be nuclear powered.
The entire system is designed to operate in peak loads much of the time with long idle periods between, you can't downsize the battery that much.
And RTGs are heavy compared to their output in the inner solar system. A SNAP-19 fits the generation bill (30 watts at beginning of life) but that's 12 kilograms, which is almost certainly heavier than the solar panels.
But the real reasion is, what others have mentioned, cost. And no, it's not a case of "the cost part itself is largely due to politics", it's that plutonium-238 is simply expensive, period. You're talking a product only produced in a few parts of the world from a raw material (neptunium-237) that's only extracted in a few parts of the world in very small quantities from a raw material (nuclear fuel rods) that's already very expensive and difficult to transport. The neptunium takes years to accumulate in its reactor and must be handled with extreme safety protocols during the extraction, and properly secured against misuse. It then must be irradiated for long periods of time, converting it one atomic collision at a time to plutonium 238 using a tremendous amount of energy. Only then can the plutonium be extracted - and once again, you're talking the need for extreme safety protocols during the process, and proper security. None of that is "politics", it's simply the way it is plus very rational handling procedures.
I too missed the transcript link. It's not exactly that noticeable. And I too find the current trend of "putting everything in a needlessly long, unskimmable video" highly annoying.
I personally feel the solution to the "exporting pollution to other countries" problem is PAT - Pollution-Added Tax, implemented in exactly the same manner as VAT except for taxing the pollution emitted during that stage of manufacturing (based on a standardized set of rates) rather than value added at that stage. "Pollution" being everything from arsenic dumped into rivers to carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere. Just like VAT, goods produced outside the PAT zone would get PAT levied upon import, and goods inside the PAT zone would get rebate upon export - hence, there's no "I can make goods cheaper by producing them somewhere with little environmental controls" advantage. And because we know that VAT is legal and functional in today's global environment, we can be comfortable that PAT would be as well.
Metal prices can fluctuate by several orders of magnitude in the short term. They can fluctuate to a moderate degree in the mid-term. But the long-term trend of metals as a whole is almost always downward (excepting "investment metals", which are inherently distorted by investors). There's no shortage of anything in the crust. The crust is unimaginably massive. It's always a question of what you've found, what extraction processes you've gotten mature enough to compete, and what infrastructure you've actually built. As a general rule, most resource "reserves" rise over time, not drop, because each tech advancement tends to put exponentially more resource into play.
Until you can "STORE" the power the fucking windmills and solar shit are just subsidy milking machines.
You mean by, say, drawing more from Ontario's 8.5 GW of hydro capacity during low-renewables times times and less during high times? Something along those lines?
(and not to mention, those plants were designed for relatively constant use... you can upgrade the powerhouses without having to rebuild the dams (aka, at a very low cost per MW) to be able to give significantly higher peak outputs if you ever decide you need them)
Actually, FYI, nuclear only makes up 41% of Ontario's generation mix. And you have more than enough hydro to keep the lights on during still overcast days.
Think 24/7 heavy truck traffic, seemingly random road closures to move turbines/blades that were never communicated to the locals
Oh, you poor baby, you had to live near a construction zone! Nobody else on earth has ever had to deal with that hardship, clearly!
huge amounts of deforestation (nine thousand acres worth)
First off, this is a lie. The whole wind farm is 9000 acres, but the turbines and surface roads only take up a tiny fraction of that land. If you zoom out your linked map a couple clicks, you can't even make out a difference from the surrounding landscape.
But hey, let's just ignore reality and pretend that they marched in and bulldozed flat 9000 acres, ripped up all the ground and dumped it into the streams for 141 megawatts that will be maintained for, oh let's say 50 years with a 35% capacity factor. So about 2 GWh of electricty per acre of bulldozed land, which is less than that for mined coal. Except that coal fully bulldozes (nay, outright excavates to great depth) its land in reality, not fiction, and what they excavate either goes into overburden heaps, is purposefully dumped into streams, or is coal that is burned, creating massive amounts of fly ash and clinker to be retained (at great environmental cost) and massive amounts of emitted pollution into the air (at even greater environmental cost).
In reality, that wind farm and its access roads is taking up, what, perhaps 4% of that area? So something like 50 GWh of electricity per acre.
But oh hey, it's not in your backyard, so you couldn't care less! And hey, it has a few slowly blinking red lights at night, clearly that's so much more of an eyesore than a damn coal mine!
Let's contrast that to nuclear power, the cutting edge of 1950s technology: Nine Mile Point [wikipedia.org] occupies 10% of that footprint (900 acres), hosts a second power station [wikipedia.org] on the property and between the two can generate 2,599 megawatts 24/7/365 regardless of the weather.
First off, false. Nuclear power plants have higher capacity factors but they do not have 100% capacity factor.
Secondly, you forgot to account for mining. Uranium mining has a significantly smaller footprint than coal mining per unit generation, but it's still a significant area due to the fact that they're mining for a fuel found in ppm quantities - and of the uranium they mine, U235 is only 0,7%, even of that they don't get all of it, and of that that goes into the fuel rods, only part of it gets consumed. Wind still wins on a real-world footprint comparison.
Third, uranium mines, being mines targetted at heavy metal extraction, generally have a far more profound impact on their local environments than coal mines on an acre-per-acre basis (coal mines only win on destruction due to their sheer size).
Fourth, you didn't account for reprocessing / long term storage.
Fifth, you didn't account for the consequences on rivers for dumping nearly two gigawatts of waste heat into them.
Sixth, most studies pin nuclear at significantly more expensive than wind per kWh. And wind prices are falling while nuclear has been rising.
Lastly, most people's opposition to nuclear has nothing to do with any of the above, so you're not even started getting into the reason why many people don't like it.
I guarantee your share the distribution infrastructure and other capital/maintenance costs you're relying on to keep the lights on at night costs a *lot* more than $400 per year. If you live in town, your neighbors are probably subsidizing your decision to the tune of about $600 a year. If you're in the countryside, the subsidy is probably more like $1600.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think solar deserves subsidy, to encourage the transition, and that the subsidy pays for itself with better air quality for all. But I think you should see it for what it is.
Second. I've twice visited a wind farms on a windy day out of curiosity. My findings were:
1) The whoosh is surprisingly little. In a video I took, the wind noise on the camera drowned out the whoosh of the turbine, you can't even hear it.
2) The things are rather awe-inspiring up close, like watching a jumbo jet rotate over your head
3) I can see why most farmers love the things, their footprint is tiny and they can keep farming around them (the access roads take up a lot more space than the turbines), so it's little financial lost but big rental fees.
Solar's not plug-and-play either. No matter how you set things up, when you're dealing with power to your home, you need a licensed electrician to make your connections. The only plug-and-play I can envision that wouldn't require an electrician would be a literal plug-in battery backup, which you plug into the wall and then plug a power strip into. But it'd only power the devices on that power strip, of course.
Or are you talking about a drop-in home solution that's plug-and-play except for the need to have an electrician make the final connections? There are some fairly simple home backup systems out there. But no matter how you slice it, home backup power is rather expensive.
How much is the connection fee compared to a typical electricity bill? I'm betting it's just some trivial bookkeeping thing, not a full infrastructure cost accounting. As a general rule, the distribution infrastructure is nearly as expensive as the marginal per-kilowatt generation cost - less in cities, more in the countryside. A person with a net-metering of zero should have an electricity bill in the ballpark of half that of a typical household (less in-town, more in the countryside).
Everything you wrote is irrelevant. If they're running your meter forward when you buy and backward when you sell, then you're getting the same price for purchase and sale. If you use X kilowatts and sell X kilowatts, in most places with net metering, your bill is free, or nearly so. THis should not be, because you're still moving a lot of power back and forth over a lot of expensive hardware, and relying on very expensive infrastructure to ensure that you stay powered at night. All of this hardware costs about as much in terms of amortized capital costs and ongoing maintenance costs as the actual generation of electricity at a power plant. You should be responsible for bearing your share of this cost.
People should agree to accept responsibility for their share of the infrastructure costs, infrastructure that they're clearly using just as much if not more than other customers, and instead argue on other issues that could benefit them, such as time-of-use valuation of electricity.
if something happens to the connection on my line I typically have to pay for it
I am, of course, obviously not talking about the couple dozen meters of wire from your house to the grid. I'm talking about the grid itself. If you want to disconnect your home's grid connection from the grid, by all means, you should then be under no obligation to pay for grid construction and maintenance. But as long as you want to use it, you should be paying for it.
Where are you getting wholesale vs. retail? I said "actual market price". Same price figure whether you're buying or selling. Or if you're talking about existing net metering implementations, perhaps there are some out there that charge different rates for buying and selling, but I've never run into such companies. The typical use case is simply a "run the meter backwards when they sell, forwards when they buy" calculation.
So since it's clearly no big deal, no different from working at MacDonalds, who's the last guy who bought your a** and what'd you think of the f***?
Prostitution is something by and large that people turn to when they're starving and they can't get that job at MacDonalds or in a coal mine. If they even had a choice in the matter, versus people who are trafficked (and yes, trafficking is a very big thing - especially in Europe, where I am).
See above. I live in Iceland. There is no relevant "conservative puritanical" element here. Our previous prime minister was a lesbian and it didn't even factor into the campaign. Gay pride is one of our country's largest annual festivals, attended by nearly a third of the population (big family event). There's pretty much no such thing as dating without sleeping with someone, it's an alien concept. The typical way people get together here is to meet (usually while drunk), sleep together, get to know each other while sleeping together more in subsequent days / weeks, and then they may actually start going out on "dates" and sleeping with others becomes frowned upon. When a couple has been together for a long time, people don't start asking "when are you going to get married", it's "when are you going to have kids". 80-90% of first children are born out of wedlock, 60-70% of children all together. Sex is a complete non-issue here - it's pretty much just expected that if you're an adult, you're sleeping with someone, and people really don't give a rat's arse.
And it's still a big f*ing issue for someone to decide to sell themselves. Yeah, come on over here and lecture my friend about how it's no big deal, no different from going to work. You think he hasn't been trying really f'ing hard to get regular work and doesn't really f'ing want a regular job instead? But oh no, going and whoring yourself to strangers is totally the same thing! Why, I'm sure you do it for spending money after work, right? Because it's totally no big deal, right? Who's the last guy who bought you? What'd you think of the f***?
Slashdot Mirror
Wow, if paulcraigroberts.org says it, then clearly it must be true!
It's a reprint of a Pilger article, Pilger being one of Assange's main misinformation spreaders. First off, there's not even rape charges (yes, they're on the EAW as charges, in the charges section, enumerated as charges, and ruled by the British court system to be equivalent to charges) concerning the "women" plural. There's a rape charge (singular) concerning one woman (SW) and three lesser charges concerning the other woman (AA). AA has said she was not raped, but there are no rape charges concerning her. She has however said that she was a victim of a sexual assault, and reaffirmed that on her blog earlier this year (after being silent since the incident). SW told several people she'd been raped, according to the testimony collected by the police, before she went to the police. The fact that her goal of going to the police was not to press charges doesn't translate to "she says she wasn't raped"; the testimony is quite clear to just the opposite, she had been telling close friends and confidants that she had been raped, right after the incident. Also frequently distorted is the end of her interview, which Assange fans often misstate as her "refusing to go on". It actually very clearly states that the interviewer thought she looked shaken and decided to terminate the interview (it was nearing the end of the shift anyway). SW is then asked if she wants a legal representative (not exactly an attorney, it's a state employee who pushes the case forward for you), and she said yes (her representative, Clæs Borgstrom, was very aggressive about pushing the case forward, although AA, who he initially also represented, felt that he was more in it for attention for himself later fired him and chose another). SW was also asked if she would do a rape kit and she also said yes.
There've been subsequent interviews since then, but they haven't leaked, so we don't know what they say.
Every level of the UK court system up to and including the Supreme Court has affirmed the Swedish legal system's actions concerning Assange. So try again.
By the way, you apparently don't even know that what's being discussed here is surrender, not extradition. And if you think there's no difference, you're quite wrong, the two terms are absolutely not interchangeable.
From the sworn statement of the Swedish prosecutor to the British courts: "Subject to any matters said by him, which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be launched with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."
The questioning is indeed a legal requirement to move the case forward, don't get me wrong. But it's not the point. The point is to åtala him.
Neither Assange nor anyone else will ever be "charged" with rape in Sweden because, it should go without saying, "charge" is an English term and the Swedish judicial system uses Swedish. This may sound like pedantics but it's a key point. The two terms in question here in Swedish law are "anklagad" and "åtalad". Look them up in a Swedish dictionary - there's about a dozen different ones online. Each word can mean "accused", "charged", or "indicted" - but there is a difference in a legal sense.
Being formally anklagad is the first stage. The prosecutor brings said charge to a court of law, where a judge issues warrants for the accused's arrest. The accused can appeal being anklagad to have the warrant overturned and have a court hear their case. They can even appeal that ruling, all the way up to the Swedish Supreme Court. What it doesn't lead directly to is a trial. That is what being åtalad is for. In fact, once åtalad, the accused *must* be tried within a matter of weeks, by Swedish law. Being anklagad is to attempt to get the person in custody so that they can be åtalad. Being åtalad is to attempt to convict the person.
Assange *has* been formally anklagad. The prosecutor took the case and evidence to a judge, who reviewed it and issued warrants for his arrest. A EAW was issued because being anklagad is legally considered equivalent to being charged for the purposes of a warrant. Assange appealed to the Svea Court of Appeals, where a full court hearing was held, including testimony from his lawyers and a full review of all of the evidence. [i]He lost[/i]. The court found probable cause that he commited 1 count of unlawful sexual coersion, 2 counts of molestation, and 1 count of rape. He appealed to the Supreme Court. They refused his appeal, having found nothing wrong with the lower court trial.
Assange, is of course, pretending that only being åtalad means being charged. But he *can't* be åtalad until he hands himself over to Swedish custody. In short, he's using his very run from the law to justify his run from the law.
If allegedly lying about wearing a condom counts as rape
It doesn't, and that's not why he's anklagad for rape. The charges section in the EAW is filled out thusly:
#4 has the checkbox for raped ticked, and #4 alone. #1 is unlawful sexual coersion and concerns AA. #2 is molestation and concerns AA. #3 is molestation and concerns AA. #4 is rape and concerns SW.
Given that you're so ignorant of the case that you don't even know the basic facts of what he's actually charged with (really, how much less about the case could you possibly know than that?), mistaking a minor molestation accusation (#2) for the rape accusation (#4), perhaps you should think before spouting off publicly about how the guy's clearly innocent and the accusers are just lying sluts?
Why thank you, Amazing Kreskin, for your profound legal insights.
After reviewing the evidence, of the three investigating officers, two (Wassgren and Gehlin) wanted him investigated for what would eventually be five charges (2x rape, 1x unlawful sexual coersion, 2x molestation), and one (Krans) wanted him for four (1x, 1x, 2x). The first prosecutor (Finne) first wanted him investigated for five (1x, 1x, 2x), then reduced it to what would become three (0x, 1x, 2x). An appeal from one of the victims was reviewed and found with merit (not unusual in Sweden, there's a strong victims' rights process), and a new prosecutor (Ny) was brought in, and the investigation resumed for all five (2x, 1x, 2x). A judge charged / anklagad him on all five counts (2x, 1x, 2x). Assange appeled the warrant and the Svea Court of Appeals held a full court hearing, with a jury, a review of all the evidence, and testimony from Assange's lawyers; they upheld four (1x,1x, 2x). He appealed to the Swedish Supreme court; they refused his appeal. The British lower court heard Assange's appeal (arguing malicious prosecution, flaws in the Swedish process, and an invalid EAW). The British lower court ruled against him on all counts. The case was heard by the British high court, which also ruled against him on all counts. And again, the British Supreme Court heard the case, and ruled against him on all counts.
But no no, who needs a pesky legal system when we have Amazing Kreskin here to tell us about how it's all a setup! Screw those lying b****s, right?
Heck, Assange's attorneys have all but admitted that he did it. Check out Emmerson's court statements, where he bloody admits that Assange started F*ing SW unprotected while she was asleep. Let it not be forgotten that the courts have SW's SMS records from that night where she's bitterly complaining about about how Assange keeps trying t F* her unprotected despite her telling him again and again and how annoyed she's getting about that), testimony from a friend and a family member she chatted with right before the event while she was out buying breakfast, and on and on, making it pretty unambiguous that she'd been refusing unprotected sex - something that neither Assange nor his attorneys have contested. Emmerson tries to argue that consent is implied because she didn't immediately push Assange out when she woke up to him F*ing her. But that's of course a nonsense legal claim. One, you can't get "retroactive consent", it has to be present from the beginning. Two, F*ing a sleeping person is explicitly illegal in both Swedish and British law; the fact that it was done in a manner she had been explicitly refusing is merely listed as an aggravating factor. Three, the reason she'd been refusing unprotected sex was paranoia about STDs, and it was already too late, she'd have to go to the hospital either way (just ignoring the "shock" aspect, which I can tell you is *very* real; it was already too late. As her ex boyfriend of 2 1/2 years testified, she was so paranoid about unprotected sex that she not once allowed it in their entire relationship, and *still* made him get an STD test.
His freaking *defense* attorneys are admitting that he did it, so why should anyone be surprised that court after court keeps condemning him? And it's not like this is anything new for Assange. He had allegations of stalking against a 17-year-old before he got famous. Even whistleblowers he's worked with for Wikileaks have accused him of sexual aggression. This is a guy who wrote on his own blog about how womens' brains can't do math and how he's a god to women, and how his ghostwriter who spent months with him documented (with recorded transcripts) an unending litany of creepy sexual behavior,
There is precisely one case you're referring to. A decade and a half ago. And they weren't surrendered to the US, they were surrendered to Egypt via the US. After receiving bogus information from Egypt that the two illegal immigrants weren't legitimate asylum seekers but were rather convicted terrorist fugitives and a signed pledge that they wouldn't be tortured (Egypt promptly broke the pledge after they arrived). Here's the aftermath of that:
1) It turned into one of the biggest judicial scandals in Swedish history, receiving widespread protest and condemnation.
2) It led to a reform of not just Swedish but EU-wide extradition law, making it so that a mere promise of not torturing isn't enough, the country has to have a track record of not torturing.
3) The victims were offered by Sweden a large financial compensation package and Swedish residence.
4) Swedish attitudes against the US rendition program (which had worked in conjunction with Egypt on that case) that in 2006 outright had their special forces disguise themselves as airport workers to break into a CIA plane to get the proof they needed to shut down the extradition program through Swedish airspace, creating a major diplomatic incident between the two countries. And how do we know about this incident? Why, Wikileaks of course!
There's a reason why Assange was applying for a Swedish residence permit and moving Wikileaks' base of operations to Sweden when the incidents he's anklagad for occurred. No country has a spotless record, but Sweden has among the highest ranked judicial systems on Earth. Sweden has the world's best whistleblower protections and one of the most restrictive extradition treaties in Europe, flatly forbidding extradition for intelligence or military crimes (which is why, for example, the US couldn't get Edward Lee Howard, the most damaging CIA defector of the Cold War). Assange repeatedly referred to Sweden as his "shield". Funny how Sweden suddenly turned from "shield" to "evil US lackey" when he faced accusations of rape, isn't it? Just ignoring the fact that, if surrendered to Sweden, both the UK *and* Sweden would be able to block an extradition to the US (under EU law on surrender of fugitives), while he had no problem being in the UK with only the UK between him and the US.
Again, funny how that all works.
And a lot better than Huygens, who they weren't even trying to keep alive at all and whose mission wasn't even designed suchly that Cassini could stay in touch with it until its batteries died.
The results of this mission have been invaluable in learning more about the challenges of landing on a low-gravity body. I look forward to whatever mission turns out to be the next followup that learns from all of the lessons of this mission. :) Maybe some sort of "hopper" probe that can sample all over an asteroid or comet by deliberately bouncing around?
Though to be honest, what I look forward to more than anything is the next dedicated Titan mission.. whether it's a hydrogen blimp, hot air balloon, helicopter, fixed-wing aircraft, tilt-wing aircraft, or whatnot, it's going to be bloody amazing. My favorite approach is that of a tilt-wing aircraft, which gains the high-speed / long range capability of an airplane, but can easily land and do surfacescience while its batteries are RTG-charged for the next flight. Even a sample return stage is a possibility, although difficult... an aerial vehicle can get extremely high in the atmosphere and the gravity's not very intense, so the escape stage requirements should be manageable, and then the escape capsule can use reverse gravitational slingshots and aerocapture to get samples back to earth with minimal additional delta-V. Can you imagine that - samples of the shoreline of an organic sea or cryovolcano from Titan, back on earth? Regardless of what sort of mission profile it has, though, the next Titan mission will have to be nuclear powered.
Which is a nuclear reaction.
No, it's the solar wind turbines that are killing them. We should be burning good old-fashioned Space Coal instead.
The entire system is designed to operate in peak loads much of the time with long idle periods between, you can't downsize the battery that much.
And RTGs are heavy compared to their output in the inner solar system. A SNAP-19 fits the generation bill (30 watts at beginning of life) but that's 12 kilograms, which is almost certainly heavier than the solar panels.
But the real reasion is, what others have mentioned, cost. And no, it's not a case of "the cost part itself is largely due to politics", it's that plutonium-238 is simply expensive, period. You're talking a product only produced in a few parts of the world from a raw material (neptunium-237) that's only extracted in a few parts of the world in very small quantities from a raw material (nuclear fuel rods) that's already very expensive and difficult to transport. The neptunium takes years to accumulate in its reactor and must be handled with extreme safety protocols during the extraction, and properly secured against misuse. It then must be irradiated for long periods of time, converting it one atomic collision at a time to plutonium 238 using a tremendous amount of energy. Only then can the plutonium be extracted - and once again, you're talking the need for extreme safety protocols during the process, and proper security. None of that is "politics", it's simply the way it is plus very rational handling procedures.
I too missed the transcript link. It's not exactly that noticeable. And I too find the current trend of "putting everything in a needlessly long, unskimmable video" highly annoying.
I personally feel the solution to the "exporting pollution to other countries" problem is PAT - Pollution-Added Tax, implemented in exactly the same manner as VAT except for taxing the pollution emitted during that stage of manufacturing (based on a standardized set of rates) rather than value added at that stage. "Pollution" being everything from arsenic dumped into rivers to carbon dioxide dumped into the atmosphere. Just like VAT, goods produced outside the PAT zone would get PAT levied upon import, and goods inside the PAT zone would get rebate upon export - hence, there's no "I can make goods cheaper by producing them somewhere with little environmental controls" advantage. And because we know that VAT is legal and functional in today's global environment, we can be comfortable that PAT would be as well.
That would be because the problem was by and large resolved.
Metal prices can fluctuate by several orders of magnitude in the short term. They can fluctuate to a moderate degree in the mid-term. But the long-term trend of metals as a whole is almost always downward (excepting "investment metals", which are inherently distorted by investors). There's no shortage of anything in the crust. The crust is unimaginably massive. It's always a question of what you've found, what extraction processes you've gotten mature enough to compete, and what infrastructure you've actually built. As a general rule, most resource "reserves" rise over time, not drop, because each tech advancement tends to put exponentially more resource into play.
Corr: That should read "more than that for mined coal", not less.
You mean by, say, drawing more from Ontario's 8.5 GW of hydro capacity during low-renewables times times and less during high times? Something along those lines?
(and not to mention, those plants were designed for relatively constant use... you can upgrade the powerhouses without having to rebuild the dams (aka, at a very low cost per MW) to be able to give significantly higher peak outputs if you ever decide you need them)
Actually, FYI, nuclear only makes up 41% of Ontario's generation mix. And you have more than enough hydro to keep the lights on during still overcast days.
Oh, you poor baby, you had to live near a construction zone! Nobody else on earth has ever had to deal with that hardship, clearly!
First off, this is a lie. The whole wind farm is 9000 acres, but the turbines and surface roads only take up a tiny fraction of that land. If you zoom out your linked map a couple clicks, you can't even make out a difference from the surrounding landscape.
But hey, let's just ignore reality and pretend that they marched in and bulldozed flat 9000 acres, ripped up all the ground and dumped it into the streams for 141 megawatts that will be maintained for, oh let's say 50 years with a 35% capacity factor. So about 2 GWh of electricty per acre of bulldozed land, which is less than that for mined coal. Except that coal fully bulldozes (nay, outright excavates to great depth) its land in reality, not fiction, and what they excavate either goes into overburden heaps, is purposefully dumped into streams, or is coal that is burned, creating massive amounts of fly ash and clinker to be retained (at great environmental cost) and massive amounts of emitted pollution into the air (at even greater environmental cost).
In reality, that wind farm and its access roads is taking up, what, perhaps 4% of that area? So something like 50 GWh of electricity per acre.
But oh hey, it's not in your backyard, so you couldn't care less! And hey, it has a few slowly blinking red lights at night, clearly that's so much more of an eyesore than a damn coal mine!
First off, false. Nuclear power plants have higher capacity factors but they do not have 100% capacity factor.
Secondly, you forgot to account for mining. Uranium mining has a significantly smaller footprint than coal mining per unit generation, but it's still a significant area due to the fact that they're mining for a fuel found in ppm quantities - and of the uranium they mine, U235 is only 0,7%, even of that they don't get all of it, and of that that goes into the fuel rods, only part of it gets consumed. Wind still wins on a real-world footprint comparison.
Third, uranium mines, being mines targetted at heavy metal extraction, generally have a far more profound impact on their local environments than coal mines on an acre-per-acre basis (coal mines only win on destruction due to their sheer size).
Fourth, you didn't account for reprocessing / long term storage.
Fifth, you didn't account for the consequences on rivers for dumping nearly two gigawatts of waste heat into them.
Sixth, most studies pin nuclear at significantly more expensive than wind per kWh. And wind prices are falling while nuclear has been rising.
Lastly, most people's opposition to nuclear has nothing to do with any of the above, so you're not even started getting into the reason why many people don't like it.
I guarantee your share the distribution infrastructure and other capital/maintenance costs you're relying on to keep the lights on at night costs a *lot* more than $400 per year. If you live in town, your neighbors are probably subsidizing your decision to the tune of about $600 a year. If you're in the countryside, the subsidy is probably more like $1600.
I'm not saying that's a bad thing. I think solar deserves subsidy, to encourage the transition, and that the subsidy pays for itself with better air quality for all. But I think you should see it for what it is.
Second. I've twice visited a wind farms on a windy day out of curiosity. My findings were:
1) The whoosh is surprisingly little. In a video I took, the wind noise on the camera drowned out the whoosh of the turbine, you can't even hear it.
2) The things are rather awe-inspiring up close, like watching a jumbo jet rotate over your head
3) I can see why most farmers love the things, their footprint is tiny and they can keep farming around them (the access roads take up a lot more space than the turbines), so it's little financial lost but big rental fees.
Solar's not plug-and-play either. No matter how you set things up, when you're dealing with power to your home, you need a licensed electrician to make your connections. The only plug-and-play I can envision that wouldn't require an electrician would be a literal plug-in battery backup, which you plug into the wall and then plug a power strip into. But it'd only power the devices on that power strip, of course.
Or are you talking about a drop-in home solution that's plug-and-play except for the need to have an electrician make the final connections? There are some fairly simple home backup systems out there. But no matter how you slice it, home backup power is rather expensive.
How much is the connection fee compared to a typical electricity bill? I'm betting it's just some trivial bookkeeping thing, not a full infrastructure cost accounting. As a general rule, the distribution infrastructure is nearly as expensive as the marginal per-kilowatt generation cost - less in cities, more in the countryside. A person with a net-metering of zero should have an electricity bill in the ballpark of half that of a typical household (less in-town, more in the countryside).
Everything you wrote is irrelevant. If they're running your meter forward when you buy and backward when you sell, then you're getting the same price for purchase and sale. If you use X kilowatts and sell X kilowatts, in most places with net metering, your bill is free, or nearly so. THis should not be, because you're still moving a lot of power back and forth over a lot of expensive hardware, and relying on very expensive infrastructure to ensure that you stay powered at night. All of this hardware costs about as much in terms of amortized capital costs and ongoing maintenance costs as the actual generation of electricity at a power plant. You should be responsible for bearing your share of this cost.
People should agree to accept responsibility for their share of the infrastructure costs, infrastructure that they're clearly using just as much if not more than other customers, and instead argue on other issues that could benefit them, such as time-of-use valuation of electricity.
I am, of course, obviously not talking about the couple dozen meters of wire from your house to the grid. I'm talking about the grid itself. If you want to disconnect your home's grid connection from the grid, by all means, you should then be under no obligation to pay for grid construction and maintenance. But as long as you want to use it, you should be paying for it.
Where are you getting wholesale vs. retail? I said "actual market price". Same price figure whether you're buying or selling. Or if you're talking about existing net metering implementations, perhaps there are some out there that charge different rates for buying and selling, but I've never run into such companies. The typical use case is simply a "run the meter backwards when they sell, forwards when they buy" calculation.
So since it's clearly no big deal, no different from working at MacDonalds, who's the last guy who bought your a** and what'd you think of the f***?
Prostitution is something by and large that people turn to when they're starving and they can't get that job at MacDonalds or in a coal mine. If they even had a choice in the matter, versus people who are trafficked (and yes, trafficking is a very big thing - especially in Europe, where I am).
See above. I live in Iceland. There is no relevant "conservative puritanical" element here. Our previous prime minister was a lesbian and it didn't even factor into the campaign. Gay pride is one of our country's largest annual festivals, attended by nearly a third of the population (big family event). There's pretty much no such thing as dating without sleeping with someone, it's an alien concept. The typical way people get together here is to meet (usually while drunk), sleep together, get to know each other while sleeping together more in subsequent days / weeks, and then they may actually start going out on "dates" and sleeping with others becomes frowned upon. When a couple has been together for a long time, people don't start asking "when are you going to get married", it's "when are you going to have kids". 80-90% of first children are born out of wedlock, 60-70% of children all together. Sex is a complete non-issue here - it's pretty much just expected that if you're an adult, you're sleeping with someone, and people really don't give a rat's arse.
And it's still a big f*ing issue for someone to decide to sell themselves. Yeah, come on over here and lecture my friend about how it's no big deal, no different from going to work. You think he hasn't been trying really f'ing hard to get regular work and doesn't really f'ing want a regular job instead? But oh no, going and whoring yourself to strangers is totally the same thing! Why, I'm sure you do it for spending money after work, right? Because it's totally no big deal, right? Who's the last guy who bought you? What'd you think of the f***?