No, there’s loads and loads of evidence of the criminal activities of the United States government, today and into the past. Just read Glenn Greenwald regularly to get an idea of what criminal behavior the US government is up to today, that we know about. What I’m saying is that none of the Wikileaked documents has a shred of evidence (that I’ve been made aware of, in any case) that exacerbates what we already know the government is up to and has been up to. Where are the documents showing culpability for Abu Ghraib up the chain of command, for example? How about the minutes from one of the executive meetings authorizing waterboarding and other forms of torture? How about some documents taht show the war in Iraq was a foregone conclusion? And so on and so forth.
Instead, we have “leaked” documents that “expose” that China was hacking Google. Big frickin’ whoopdy-doo.
Billy Graham had to have a designated person to enter his hotel room ahead of him to ensure there wasn’t a prostitute+paparazzo duo waiting to ambush him and get “the dirt” on him.
I just have to not think about this kind of stuff in order to preserve my liberal optimism.
Apparently, the “rape” charges are being dropped. He’s now being charged under “surprise sex” for not wearing a condom (supposedly).
“Apparently having consensual sex in Sweden without a condom is punishable by a term of imprisonment of a minimum of two years for rape. That is the basis for a reinstitution of rape charges against WikiLeaks figurehead Julian Assange that is destined to make Sweden and its justice system the laughing stock of the world and dramatically damage its reputation as a model of modernity.”
Come on Sieben… you MUST be pulling our collective leg here!
I have read my share of idiotic laws but IF this is real it goes right next to that Japanese law which in the XIX century prohibited peasants (and peasants only) to walk naked on the country’s main roads.
"Den som, i annat fall än som avses förut i detta kapitel, sexuellt berör ett barn under femton år eller förmår barnet att företa eller medverka i någon handling med sexuell innebörd, döms för sexuellt ofredande till böter eller fängelse i högst två år.
Detsamma gäller den som blottar sig för någon annan på ett sätt som är ägnat att väcka obehag eller annars genom ord eller handlande ofredar en person på ett sätt som är ägnat att kränka personens sexuella integritet."
Now I only speak Danish, so even though they are mutually intelligible to a degree, and I’ve studied some, I’m no expert and I’m not familiar with Swedish law. So you’ve had fair warning. This is how I would translate this.
Sexual assault, crime under Swedish law.
The Criminal Code Chapter 6, § 10 provides:
"Whoever, other than as provided in this chapter, concerns a child under fifteen years in a sexual manner, or induces a child to undertake or participate in an act with sexual implications, will be convicted of sexual molestation and be fined or imprisoned for a period not exceeding two years.
The same applies to anyone who exposes himself to another in a manner that is likely to cause discomfort or otherwise by words or by molesting a person in a manner that is likely to violate the person’s sexual integrity.‘’
Edit: It would not a large stretch of the imagination to see a lawyer arguing that not wearing a condom, or a condom breaking, or anal sex, or some move out of the karma sutra, or slapping someones rear ad infinitum would be an act that "...violate the person's sexual integrity."
I predict that his “popularity with women” will skyrocket whether these allegations are true or not. The man is smater than I thought, he was able to get all his girlsfriends to pay for everything by telling them he couldn’t buy anything or the CIA would be able to track him. What a badass.
I work with government workers occupying both the lowest and highest positions in the one field in which the state is supposed to be efficient. It is all a gigantic waste of taxpayer money and of my time. The problem with inserting a conspiracy into the equasion is that in order to do the job, you need people to do the grunt work. Then you need to bring in some more people to either silence the grunts, or make sure they don’t know what they’re doing. Then you need still more people for the coverup once the deed is done, while making sure everyone who made it happen is silenced by either murder or payoff, but then that creates even more leaks, which have to be covered up again, by even more people. Before you know it, just about everyone is part of the conspiracy, which makes it really, really hard to keep secret.
Your point is correct, FleetCenturion, but they still managed to do Watergate.
Worse, in Italy, their government recently declassified documents where they admitted that agents aided and abetted Greek terrorists who pretended to be communists. What matters is that when the government has a police officers, judges, magistrates, district attorneys, and other such people of force, they just have to kick around a few butts to ensure that a secret remains a secret. Even a harsh word from a police officer can scare people. And a single day in a detainment center before leaving someone off does wonders to silence people. That’s why an inefficient Indian government manages not a few conspiracies.
My point exactly. Watergate didn’t remain secret, did it? When government officials do such things, it never remains secret for long. All supervillains, real and fictional, have the same two flaws that will bring them down: ego, and incompetent help.
We are still waiting for the truth about the “Years of Lead”, the terrorism season which covered the '70s and the early '80s. It’s general knowledge both the Soviet Union, NATO and their local branches were heavily involved but we are still waiting, for example, to learn who shot down the Itavia DC9 near Ustica or how deep military police and intelligence were involved in various bombings.
The leaks themselves were not very remarkable, most of the information was not a secret for anyone other than some stupid government official. The real story for me is how the US government is using its power to bully countries to shutdown web sites, and companies to stop doing business with wikileaks.
Actually…the answers to those questions aren’t that difficult to realize.
a) He had a son with his girlfriend in about 89, she left him in 91. He was never married. He is a single man. Furthermore, even if he were married he would most likely still screw around. That hows men are designed. If your wealthy, famous…essentially if you wield a certain amount of power…that is attractive. Let me give you an example.
You see that man in the picture above? He slept with a bunch of women. Any other man would have done the same. If a guy says he wouldn’t he is either
Lying
is not attracted to women or men and has a non-existent sex drive
would and never get caught
is the extremely small percentage of men that have the willpower to refuse easy sex and not succumb to their primal instincts.
Now as for question b) Assange lives like a nomad for several reasons:
He is an Australian citiizen. This only allows him to stay in certain countries for certain periods of time. E.g he can be in the u.k for 6 months I believe
He applied for residence in Sweden. This was denied.
He is being followed and monitored by various covert agencies and claims to have been threatened numerous times.
According to Victor Ovtrosky, a former Mossad Katsa, Mossad believes it was the mafia that killed JFK. I think it had something to do with not being compensated for Kennedy’s election or Bobby Kennedy’s anti organized crime campaign (or both).
Except, Gulf of Tonkin issue is that the 2nd battle was not corrected by the NSA, and instead reported as an actual attack. Not quite a cover up…they just utilized the false perception of the ship and crew and did not bother to correct it.
During an evening and early morning of rough weather and heavy seas, the destroyers received radar, sonar, and radio signals that they believed signaled another attack by the North Vietnamese navy. For some two hours the ships fired on radar targets and maneuvered vigorously amid electronic and visual reports of enemies. Despite the Navy’s claim that two attacking torpedo boats had been sunk, there was no wreckage, bodies of dead North Vietnamese sailors, or other physical evidence present at the scene of the alleged engagement
Prados, John. The White House Tapes: Eavesdropping on the President A Book-and-CD Set. New York: New, 2003. George Washington University. Web. 25 October 2009.
