I think that's a pretty inaccurate view. IIRC, what actually happened was that this bill was drafted back when ACTA appeared to be succeeding, and so ACTA was used as a template for it. Now that ACTA has failed though, expect to see some serious revisions, or else this bill will never make it through parliament.
Commissioners aren't life positions. The previous commissioners lasted respectively 5 years, 1 year, 4 years, 1 year, 1 year. Gucht came in during 2010. Presumeably when everyone runs out of patience with him, he might be persuaded to go spend some time with his family.
Yeah. The only connection to China is that the email accounts are on 163.com and qq.com, popular Chinese free email providers. But anyone can set up an account on these websites, in any country. Just go to e.g. http://reg.email.163.com/mailregAll/reg0.jsp?from=163mail , type in the email address and password you want, and viola. The toughest part would probably be the chinese language captcha, but that's not impossible to get through with a handwriting IME, even if you don't know Chinese.
No, my account *contradicts* the BBC and CNN. The revelations about the Assange defense's deceit came in 2011, after the initial, misleading reports in 2010.
Don't forget too the position of leadership this guy had. It's not going to be easy for the victims to speak out in such a situation, and risk being immediately ostracised from all their friends. It makes perfect sense that the women only decided to come forward when they met and realised that they weren't alone in their situation.
It really doesn't matter if there's a trial or not. Even having Assange in the news divides the democrat vote, and risks losing in an election that looks to be quite close. Having anything happen to Assange would be bad for Obama.
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.
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?
You think assessments of widespread corruption backed up by a wide range of independent organisations, and secret encrypted communications regarding an ally the US was trying to build a relationship with constitute mere peddled rumours?
European Arrest Warrant specifies that secondary extraditions require both the consent of the country extraditing and the original country. Assange is, if anything, safer in Sweden.
Assange's leaks revealed US investigations of Ecuadorian presidential involvement in police corruption, including extortion and embezzlement. Correa owes Assange one.
Quick, downmod me to oblivion! Clearly the past assistance Assange has rendered to the Ecuadorian government (2.7/10 on international corruption index, number 104 on press freedom index, 5.7/10 on democratic freedoms) has no relevance to this situation. Truly it is mysterious why Assange went to them for protection from horrible Swedish tyranny.
He is not *in trouble for not using a condom*. He is in trouble for obtaining a sex act that the other partner did not consent to, and initiating a sex act whilst the partner is asleep. He's in trouble for RAPE. RAPE. RAPE. Stop spreading ridiculous lies.
"In April 2011, Ecuador expelled the U.S. ambassador after a leaked diplomatic cable was shown accusing president Correa of knowingly ignoring police corruption. In retaliation, the Ecuadorian ambassador Luis Gallegos was expelled from the United States.[1]"
Assange should find a good audience amongst Correa's corrupt and human rights abusing buddies. Assange continues to discard his principles - if he still has any remaining.
Yes. The main reason the Swedes are in this is to clear *their* name. If they were to give up on Assange now, that's tantamont to admitting the criticism of the pro-Assange camp of them is correct, and that anyone can escape the process of justice by merely being famous enough or making enough trouble.
Numerous studies have shown a sizeable minority to potentially a majority of the US Right is categorically racist. It's completely mainstream to hold that the US is superior to the arab, and to the african. Notice the prevalence of the 'they are outbreeding us' argument, which outlines clearly the racial eugenics tinge to that whole belief.
Moreover, race isn't the only thing that creates aggressive jingoistic nationalism. Religion is pretty good too.
2. A belief that their finally taking their rightful place as a world power.
Okay, the US does not have this problem, because they *already are the pre-eminent world power*. But move forward and if this becomes at threat, what's going to be case?
3. A resentful belief that the race had been held down due to malevolent forces (Jews, Colonialism).
4. A stated aim to "unify" with others of the same race (whether those others want to unify or not).
That's the Eurabia belief in a nutshell. The US has this obssessive self image of itself as the 'leader of the west', and more broadly the leader of democracy as a whole, and the consistent tone in US foreign policy is the appeal to the western world to unite - by which is meant, submit to US leadership against often their own better judgement. Look at things like the Polish missile defense system, which the US sells as 'for Polish defense' despite the fact that the Polish population doesn't want it, and the continual arm twisting behind making European countries 'cooperate' with their counter-terror intel gathering.
Countries across Europe, and generally across the world consistently consider the US to be the greatest threat to world peace, and see the US presumption to represent them and act in their supposed interest as both patronising and dishonest.
In contrast to the Chinese, the US possesses a bloated, and battle tested military that has a history of overthrowing foreign governments with little provocation. Imagine if China employed the rationale behind the Iraq invasion to Taiwan? Would it be truly acceptable to anyone? Compare the soft power moves China has employed with Taiwan, with the push to war with Iran. In the mind of the world, it's fairly likely that the US will invade at least one country (Iran? Syria? North Korea?) in next ten years, and that there's a substantial likelihood that a more militarist president might take power and favour a more aggressive application of US military superiority to acquire resource security. China, by most assessments, has at least stabilised its relationship with Taiwan for the time being (Taiwanese internal assessments generally hold there is little likelihood of an invasion), and any future conflict is probably likely limited, unless the US escalates.
Slashdot Mirror
It can't be *that* extreme if the last few guys to hold this position lasted an average of 2 years.
I think that's a pretty inaccurate view. IIRC, what actually happened was that this bill was drafted back when ACTA appeared to be succeeding, and so ACTA was used as a template for it. Now that ACTA has failed though, expect to see some serious revisions, or else this bill will never make it through parliament.
Commissioners aren't life positions. The previous commissioners lasted respectively 5 years, 1 year, 4 years, 1 year, 1 year. Gucht came in during 2010. Presumeably when everyone runs out of patience with him, he might be persuaded to go spend some time with his family.
Can you fight corruption *with* freedom of speech and democracy?
Well, I for one have never lied on the internet!
Here you go, after five minutes of fiddling:
slashdot1234@163.com
password: qwerty
There, go log in at http://mail.163.com/ . Now you too can be (allegedly) a Chinese super hacker!
The evidence here that points to China seems about as strong as claiming a scam using Gmail means it's by the US. I.e. not at all.
Yeah. The only connection to China is that the email accounts are on 163.com and qq.com, popular Chinese free email providers. But anyone can set up an account on these websites, in any country. Just go to e.g. http://reg.email.163.com/mailregAll/reg0.jsp?from=163mail , type in the email address and password you want, and viola. The toughest part would probably be the chinese language captcha, but that's not impossible to get through with a handwriting IME, even if you don't know Chinese.
"Based on what? Carbon dating is severely flawed. You can run the same artifact through the process and get results that vary by billions of years"
Citation needed.
No, my account *contradicts* the BBC and CNN. The revelations about the Assange defense's deceit came in 2011, after the initial, misleading reports in 2010.
And pointing out what the substance of the allegation is is now 'trolling'.
Don't forget too the position of leadership this guy had. It's not going to be easy for the victims to speak out in such a situation, and risk being immediately ostracised from all their friends. It makes perfect sense that the women only decided to come forward when they met and realised that they weren't alone in their situation.
It really doesn't matter if there's a trial or not. Even having Assange in the news divides the democrat vote, and risks losing in an election that looks to be quite close. Having anything happen to Assange would be bad for Obama.
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?
You think assessments of widespread corruption backed up by a wide range of independent organisations, and secret encrypted communications regarding an ally the US was trying to build a relationship with constitute mere peddled rumours?
And seriously? Do people really think Obama wants the massive shitstorm an Assange trial would cause, in an election year?
European Arrest Warrant specifies that secondary extraditions require both the consent of the country extraditing and the original country. Assange is, if anything, safer in Sweden.
Assange's leaks revealed US investigations of Ecuadorian presidential involvement in police corruption, including extortion and embezzlement. Correa owes Assange one.
http://www.voanews.com/content/us-expels-ecuadorian-envoy-in-wikileaks--affair--119435409/164366.html
Quick, downmod me to oblivion! Clearly the past assistance Assange has rendered to the Ecuadorian government (2.7/10 on international corruption index, number 104 on press freedom index, 5.7/10 on democratic freedoms) has no relevance to this situation. Truly it is mysterious why Assange went to them for protection from horrible Swedish tyranny.
He is not *in trouble for not using a condom*. He is in trouble for obtaining a sex act that the other partner did not consent to, and initiating a sex act whilst the partner is asleep. He's in trouble for RAPE. RAPE. RAPE. Stop spreading ridiculous lies.
Reminder:
"In April 2011, Ecuador expelled the U.S. ambassador after a leaked diplomatic cable was shown accusing president Correa of knowingly ignoring police corruption. In retaliation, the Ecuadorian ambassador Luis Gallegos was expelled from the United States.[1]"
Assange should find a good audience amongst Correa's corrupt and human rights abusing buddies. Assange continues to discard his principles - if he still has any remaining.
Yes. The main reason the Swedes are in this is to clear *their* name. If they were to give up on Assange now, that's tantamont to admitting the criticism of the pro-Assange camp of them is correct, and that anyone can escape the process of justice by merely being famous enough or making enough trouble.
1. A belief in racial superiority.
Numerous studies have shown a sizeable minority to potentially a majority of the US Right is categorically racist. It's completely mainstream to hold that the US is superior to the arab, and to the african. Notice the prevalence of the 'they are outbreeding us' argument, which outlines clearly the racial eugenics tinge to that whole belief.
Moreover, race isn't the only thing that creates aggressive jingoistic nationalism. Religion is pretty good too.
2. A belief that their finally taking their rightful place as a world power.
Okay, the US does not have this problem, because they *already are the pre-eminent world power*. But move forward and if this becomes at threat, what's going to be case?
3. A resentful belief that the race had been held down due to malevolent forces (Jews, Colonialism).
Insert socialism/Chinese/Islam/Russia/secularism here.
4. A stated aim to "unify" with others of the same race (whether those others want to unify or not).
That's the Eurabia belief in a nutshell. The US has this obssessive self image of itself as the 'leader of the west', and more broadly the leader of democracy as a whole, and the consistent tone in US foreign policy is the appeal to the western world to unite - by which is meant, submit to US leadership against often their own better judgement. Look at things like the Polish missile defense system, which the US sells as 'for Polish defense' despite the fact that the Polish population doesn't want it, and the continual arm twisting behind making European countries 'cooperate' with their counter-terror intel gathering.
Countries across Europe, and generally across the world consistently consider the US to be the greatest threat to world peace, and see the US presumption to represent them and act in their supposed interest as both patronising and dishonest.
In contrast to the Chinese, the US possesses a bloated, and battle tested military that has a history of overthrowing foreign governments with little provocation. Imagine if China employed the rationale behind the Iraq invasion to Taiwan? Would it be truly acceptable to anyone? Compare the soft power moves China has employed with Taiwan, with the push to war with Iran. In the mind of the world, it's fairly likely that the US will invade at least one country (Iran? Syria? North Korea?) in next ten years, and that there's a substantial likelihood that a more militarist president might take power and favour a more aggressive application of US military superiority to acquire resource security. China, by most assessments, has at least stabilised its relationship with Taiwan for the time being (Taiwanese internal assessments generally hold there is little likelihood of an invasion), and any future conflict is probably likely limited, unless the US escalates.
The western right wing has the exact same beliefs.
If you paid attention to the news, the doctor was charged with treason for providing medical assistance to radical islamists.