Not saying Assange shouldn’t be extradited or charged.  Just saying something about the whole thing is really fishy.

But you know, never let facts stand in the way of a conspiracy theory and all that. 

Smearing Assange is the smartest course of action at this point. (Sadly) It doesn’t matter if the allegations are true or not when it comes to reputation – and I’m sure that plenty of interests would love to be able to tack ‘convicted rapist’ as a title before every mention of Assange’s name.

am i the only one???

Brilliant job on the Madeleine Brand Show. It was my six minutes of daily enlightenment. Strike that…. Six Minutes of Xen-i! 

Off the beaten track, I spotted this comment by ex-UK Ambassodor Craig Murray.  Seems to be pretty good analysis of the abuse of international law and treaties by the UK High Court: 

http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2012/05/back-in-business/

Assange was interviewed bu Swedish police for an hour on Aug. 31, 2010
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-11949341

Whether or not he has been charged with a crime is sort of a pointless discussion because of different meanings of that concept between swedish and english or american legal system.
In alla essence the swedish prosecutor believes that there are reasonable grounds to suspect Assange of being guilty of the crimes he is accused of. If I understand the UK or US system then in such a situation the prosecutor will charge the suspect with the crime, in Sweden this isn’t the case.

Hence, you know, the extradition proceedings.

Which, even without inside knowledge of the Swedish justice system, would seem to be a fair indication that the matter is being taken quite seriously by the authorities, and that things have proceeded a formal legal step or two beyond simply “accusations by the victim.”

And if and when Assange arrives in Sweden, I’m going to go out on a limb to guess that, even if he is not technically “under arrest”, that his status will also be a step or two below “free to go”.

Besides, anrs did not actually say that Assange was already under arrest. He or she said that someone accused of a crime should face justice. Which certainly seems reasonable.

Strange enough, now in France there is an official Pirates-party that represent themselves for ellections. They say: “they call us ‘pirates’, well if you call normal free people that, then we make our own party that  cares for freedom of speech and expression and free internet…”.

1. Call me when there are actually trumped up espionage or terrorism charges in play, and maybe I’ll object to those. 

Because at the moment, there aren’t. There are rape accusations, which should be taken seriously. (And while we’re being serious, the theory of how the one leads to the other involves underpants gnomes somehow, right?)

2. If the ultimate concern is extradition to the US on trumped up charges, why would anyone think the UK is a better place to be than Sweden?

At Salon, Wikileaks supporter Glenn Greenwald writes that “Whatever one’s discomfort with Assange’s supposed personal flaws, that must not deter anyone from standing against what would truly be an odious indictment for the publication by WikiLeaks of critical information in the public interest.” 

Yeah but Assange wasn’t accused of having “personal flaws”, he was accused of sexual assault and rape. It’s in the public interest that the secret activities of governments are made public and it’s also in the public interest that accusations of sexual assault are treated seriously and not hand-waved away. You don’t have to pick one or the other, you can want transparency AND think that people who are accused of sexual assault should be arrested and sent to court.