Posts by Sam Vilain
-
Hard News: Taking a very big gamble, in reply to Kumara Republic,
-
Tories... same the world over
-
Hard News: London's Burning, in reply to giovanni tiso,
Thank you for the clarification.
There are others that would put other clarifications as to why the poor can’t possibly climb out of their class recession: I’ve certainly been inspired by reading this book: http://hot-topic.co.nz/the-great-disruption/
And also this essay: http://thinkprogress.org/romm/2009/03/08/203784/ponzi-scheme-madoff-friedman-natural-capital-renewable-resources/
I'm being a bit of a sandwich board for this stuff, but every shock we've been having - the food crisis, the credit crunch, the oil crunch, CO2 crunch, all point to this happening soon. Gilding makes the case very well (and even he is just repeating the well-reasoned words of others)
-
Sorry if someone already brought this up, but how cognitively dissonant are these two Farrar posts:
Opposition Leader Phil-Kim Goff said that no one briefed him that the election was being held that day.
vs
│...Hitler Youth...
That really is an incredibly offensive and stupid thing to say.
-
Hard News: Christchurch: Square Two, in reply to Martin Lindberg,
...Ken Ring when he predicted yesterday’s events!
Wait-what? He didn’t?
No! You know, if you gamble all the time, you're bound to win that jackpot once in a while. But in time, the house always wins.
-
Up Front: Respectably-Dressed Sensible…, in reply to bmk,
Perhaps the ideal would be a two-tiered consent age. A lower consent age but a limit on age separation ie. a 16 year old and a 14 year old is ok but a 14 year old and a 25 year old is not ok
The standard formula is half your age, plus 7.
-
The interview between Assange and Al Jazeera in August seems to be where the “smear campaign” quote comes from. If you listen to the interview, first the interviewer uses the term, then Assange uses it, then later apparently unaware he used it he said it wasn’t necessarily a smear campaign, only to use the term again in the next sentence. Listen from about 1:25 and from about 3:07
I guess there is an obvious, natural explanation to what the "new information" might be, especially given even the lawyer's statement about what did occur. I've got no idea what the precedent would be in such situations but it wouldn't surprise me if that alone would be enough to force a jury trial.
-
In the interests of full disclosure, I did read The Millennium trilogy recently ...
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
An Interpol arrest warrant “on suspicion of rape, sexual molestation and unlawful coercion” – issued this month by Sweden’s Director of Prosecution, Marianne Ny, after she re-opened the investigation in September on the basis of “new information”, and was subsequently unable to persuade him to come and be interviewed.
Ok, perhaps that statement from the lawyer was before that warrant was arrested. So alright, Assange is now being formally accused of something. And the appeal seems to have lost.
But why did the prosecution turn down all earlier offers for discussion? It just smells of skullduggery...
-
Hard News: Wikileaks: The Cable Guys, in reply to Russell Brown,
┃ Assuming his lawyer’s claims are true then
┃ I think “smear tactic” is spot on.
On whose part? The two complainants? The women’s lawyer, Claes Borgström, is certainly no right-winger: he’s he’s the Social Democratic party spokesman on gender equity issues.What? Who mentioned right-wing? Nobody is accusing anyone in particular of anything. Assange has said that someone has smearing him; as he said, when someone makes an accusation which is false, that is a smear. It doesn’t mean anyone is or is not behind it.
The international arrest warrant was only issued because the prosecutor who re-opened the case had been unable to speak with him for weeks since doing so. And Sweden isn’t just any other place to him: he’d applied for residency and a work permit (which were denied late last month after his failure to present himself to the prosecutor).
According to his lawyer:
“Despite his right to silence, my client has repeatedly offered to be interviewed, first in Sweden, and then in the UK (including at the Swedish Embassy), either in person or by telephone, videoconferencing or email and he has also offered to make a sworn statement on affidavit. All of these offers have been flatly refused by [the] prosecutor …”
Basically, the first set of charges were dropped within 24 hours by the the Chief Prosecutor. He has already consented to the questioning they demand. He is currently not being charged with anything – what, exactly, is there in Sweden for him to “sort out”?
It’s hardly surprising that he doesn’t want to live there any more..
