81–90 of 154 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Maybe with less rape? I'd settle for that at this point.
KDC or Glenn Greenwald raped anybody? Has Assange been convicted of rape? Has a charge even been brought?
He cannot be charged until they question him. Since he is avoiding Sweden and Swedish authorities, they cannot charge him.
Not that that makes him any more or less guilty of the accusations, but still.
It doesn't seem like New Zealanders are taking this very seriously, even mocking: http://tvnz.co.nz/seven-sharp/kim-dotcom-s-bombshell-revelat...
I've found that the New Zealander response to many things is one of apparent mocking, and this is sometimes a good thing. The NZ public don't treat much as sacred, and this sometimes looks like dismissal. I'd take comfort in the fact that the current political leaders in NZ are commonly treated to as much, or more, derision than is being shown here towards Dotcom, Assange, Snowden, Greenwald etc.
The NZ populous are generally pretty smart. Let's hope that they take these revelations and act intelligently on them.
This feels like the typical Kimble self-advertising event. Disgusting.
I wouldn't entrust him my shoe size.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
KDC or Glenn Greenwald raped anybody? Has Assange been convicted of rape? Has a charge even been brought?
>Has a charge even been brought? He cannot be charged until they question him. Since he is avoiding Sweden and Swedish authorities, they cannot charge him. Not that that makes him any more or less guilty of the accusations, but still.
What you can accuse Assange rightly of at this point in time is being a douchebag and phenomenally stupid. But fame has done similar things to lots of other people and he doesn't have the monopoly on either in this particular case.
The Swedes had him on their soil, declared that there was no case, told him he was free to go, then changed their minds and then a whole circus ensued. In the UK he was at some point in custody.
There is enough fodder for a whole slew of in-depth investigations but so far there is no movement on that and the standing invitation of the Equadorians to interview Assange 'on site' has been steadfastly refused, which is curious indeed.
Other notable points in this case are that Sweden doesn't normally make such a hoopla over much more serious cases (including rape cases) and the too convenient timing.
Lots of food for thought on this one.
Snowden is a controlled pawn, though even he might not know it. This is all too....Hollywood. Edit: Feel free to downvote as much as you like, the points don't mean anything. If it's determined later on I was right, I hope you remember this post and consider it for future events.
If Snowden is a "controlled pawn", then isn't everyone in the entire debate a pawn? If so, where would you suggest we look to for updates on this situation?
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OK. You can refuse to take back anything you said -- which I didn't ask for, btw -- but it will still have nothing to do with what I said.
Apologies for being unclear, I was mostly responding to the bit that states that I'm being 'a bit unfair' to KDC. I think it is very fair and that he's simply a bad puppy. If he accidentally does something useful while he's pursuing his selfish goals then great, but that's not his first and foremost interest, most probably merely a convenient vehicle for his ambitions.
I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm genuinely puzzled. You're having a similar argument with idlewords, but in defense of Assange; your comment upthread acknowledges that Assange has "flaws" and "something to answer for in his personal life", but when it comes to Dotcom, it sounds like you've got a much stronger negative impression of him.
This isn't really that important I guess. I should probably just drop it. It just seems weird.
(FWIW, I've defended Assange too in other conversations, but with full knowledge that he probably is guilty of a sex crime under his country's laws; likewise with Dotcom, after his release. It's good that the battle against mass surveillance doesn't require saints, since we don't get to pick allies for their winning personalities.)
Did anyone else have the issue of the flash plugin reloading once?
Me too, a few seconds after playing, it reloaded itself.
This is uncomfortably close to the way I imagine a glitch from something like a FOXACID exploit might look, and youtube is a known exploitable service. Maybe I need to get someone more skilled than myself have a close look at this machine.
Knowledgeable people here, would you please comment if there's reason to rule out concerns about this.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Apologies for being unclear, I was mostly responding to the bit that states that I'm being 'a bit unfair' to KDC. I think it is very fair and that he's simply a bad puppy. If he accidentally does something useful while he's pursuing his selfish goals then great, but that's not his first and foremost interest, most probably merely a convenient vehicle for his ambitions.
I'm having trouble understanding how you're able to give Assange and Dotcom different treatments. I'm not trying to pick a fight here, I'm genuinely puzzled. You're having a similar argument with idlewords, but in defense of Assange; your comment upthread acknowledges that Assange has "flaws" and "something to answer for in his personal life", but when it comes to Dotcom, it sounds like you've got a much stronger neg…
KDC has shown a structural disregard for the law and his victims to line his own pockets, this is not a one-time affair or something that you could claim is a mistake, an accident or something done half drunk, and he's been convicted of those crimes. It is to me beyond any doubt that he's a common criminal, he's merely found a nice little gray area in which he can operate using the proceeds of previous criminal activities to launch a new operation. He's basically doing what every criminal that is whitewashing his money and reputation has done.
Julian Assange has done a whole pile of things that seemed to have been for the common good (no profit motive as far as I can discern, you can of course debate whether or not they really were for the common good but that's out-of-scope), he's been too hungry for the spotlight in my opinion and has made WikiLeaks eventually more about him than about the data, this was definitely a mistake. I don't think WikiLeaks ever needed a figurehead. By making himself a figurehead he's become an Achilles heel to WikiLeaks and that in turn coupled with his flaws has led to his public downfall and a ton of damage to Wikileaks.
Where I draw the line is that (1) his motives for running WikiLeaks for the most part seem pure and that (2) Everything KDC does is to enrich himself at the expense of others and that he's been convicted of crimes that are directly related to such activities.
This makes them very different kinds of characters in my opinion.
Does that clear it up sufficiently?
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But he is currently hiding out in the embassy to avoid being charged, so your innocent query of "has he been convicted/charged" is spurious.
I'm not going to speculate on what Assange's real motivations are for hiding out in that embassy, he's said enough on the subject and whether you agree with him or not that those are his true motivations is between you and him. So no, he hasn't been convicted and/or charged and as such calling him a rapist is getting ahead of the timeline. What he does in the meantime doesn't change that one bit.
Of course, I still think that the whole charade around having him extradited to Sweden for questioning is just a tiny little bit too convenient for the powers-that-be to think it's only about the rape.