Sunday, December 12, 2010

Blame the messenger

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I certainly don't claim to have any clue about what sort of business WikiLeaks's Julian Assange has or hasn't gotten up to with his penis of intrigue and/or balls of espionage, and neither should you, unless you've got first hand experience with said penis and balls, in which case, that's kind of weird.

I'm not really going to be able to cast judgment on the sexual assault allegations he's facing in Sweden until I see all the details, like what the women were wearing, and whether or not it looked liked they were asking for it. Until then we're going to see people throwing a lot of shit up against the wall of this guy's face to see what sticks. For example, this scurrilous gossip from Valley Wag about an old OK Cupid profile of his in which he says internationally illegal spy shit like he has "Asian teengirl stalkers?" Sounds guilty (and hot) to me. Case closed. Lock him up.

Long story short: Al Gore lives in a mansion, therefor global climate change doesn't exist. 

More political shit you probably want to skip below.





The Atlantic Wire has a break down of the ins, outs and what have yous of the rape case against Assange. 

...how legitimate are the charges? What do we really know? And just how plausible are the conspiracy theories that the warrant and planned extradition are not about rape at all but about Assange's highly controversial work with WikiLeaks?

Glenn Greenwald at Salon, one of the only members of the media that I have any respect for anymore (except all of the editors that assign me work) is predictably spot on in his indignation over the penalties already being applied to WikiLeaks and Assange. 
WikiLeaks has never been charged with a crime, let alone indicted for one or convicted of one.  A consensus of legal experts agree that prosecuting the organization or Julian Assange for any of its leaks would be difficult in the extreme.  Despite those facts, look at just some of the punishment that has been doled out to them and what has been threatened... [read them here]
Just look at what the U.S. Government and its friends are willing to do and capable of doing to someone who challenges or defies them -- all without any charges being filed or a shred of legal authority.  They've blocked access to their assets, tried to remove them from the Internet, bullied most everyone out of doing any business with them, froze the funds marked for Assange's legal defense at exactly the time that they prepare a strange international arrest warrant to be executed, repeatedly threatened him with murder, had their Australian vassals openly threaten to revoke his passport, and declared them "Terrorists" even though -- unlike the authorities who are doing all of these things -- neither Assange nor WikiLeaks ever engaged in violence, advocated violence, or caused the slaughter of civilians.
Yeah, but some dude might have been involved in sexual misconduct, so... never mind all that. Nothing to see here. Plus, he's kind of arrogant, and has a messiah complex, so let's focus on that instead of the actual issue at hand, which is whether or not governments should be keeping so many secrets from their citizens, and whether or not we actually believe in that first amendment shit we've been pretending to go along with all this time. 

Reasonable people can have a debate over the substance of the controversy, but if you find yourself making a judgment about WikiLeaks based on what sort of gossip you've heard about the person behind it, then you might be better off clicking back on over to a website that seems better suited for you, like this one: TMZ , or this one: Put That Shit On the List.

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5 comments:

Anonymous said...

How is this any different than liberals hatred of everything Sarah Palin does?

said...

Because with her the awful personality IS the substance of the product, not a means of obfuscating the issues she represents.

said...

LOG IN PUSSY

said...

GET IN THE VAN JEALOUS?

guy who reads Salon said...

Pretty good update on the story here:

http://www.salon.com/technology/dan_gillmor/2010/12/13/australian_journos_stand_up_for_wikileaks/index.html

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