We all do it when we have a spare moment. Bang our names into Google’s search engine and see what comes up.
Julian Assange, who has a bit of time on his hands these days, did this yesterday and is miffed that I referred to him as Wikileaks’ Cupboard Boy in an article I penned last year.
Assange shunned the primary rule of Twitter — never tweet angry — and took to it with fingers twitching maniacally, complaining he was not only not Cupboard Boy but at 188 cm (6’2”), he is a hulking Gargantua.
Why, in another life, he could have got a game for the Washington Generals against their bêtes noires, the Harlem Globetrotters. “Quick, turn around Julian. They’re using a ladder.”
The Cupboard Boy moniker was a joke. In reality Assange lives in a single room; part office, part bathroom which had been used previously by the embassy’s female employees. Neither is he pale to the point of albinism from his years out of the sun as I also suggested. He uses a sun lamp.
Full column here.
Our MP, at times, graces our mailbox with a pamphlet showing him turning water into wine, etc. I walk past the recycle bin on the way in, so if he has included a message “Look at my Facebook video, pleeeeease! After all, it cost taxpayers $20K” I’ve missed it. Like you, Jack, I rely on a complex set of filters to attract me to social media guff. Even if the balloon goes up “It’s gone viral!” no click from me unless it gets the seal of approval from a renowned journo. Saves time.
So, Jack, there’s an opening for your boy Julian. Social media manager extraordinaire, complete discretion guaranteed.
He can’t even get a blue tick in Twitter.
As fascinating as all this talk of Assange’s personal characteristics is, IMO it is something of a sideshow distracting from the real issue. Any anti-authoritarian worthy of the name believes that government must serve the people and and must therefore govern transparently, and that the category of information that can legitimately be kept secret must be as narrow as possible. Where that line is drawn is obviously contested, but there is no doubt that much of the information Wikileaks released did not fit in to that category, and as such revealed failures of government that people had a right to know about. Unless you believe, for example, that a government can legitimately conceal the murder of innocent civilians.
In so far as legitimately secret information was revealed, certainly that was a failure by Wikileaks. But that is a separate issue. And does anyone seriously believe that that is the only reason Assange is a marked man, that they would have thanked him for revealing their dirty secrets if only he hadn’t gone too far?
I find it extraordinary that so many who profess opposition to tyranny could take the side of a vengeful state against an individual whistleblower, whatever his personal foibles.
On Assange’s current predicament: the rape allegations have gone away but he is still in there. That should tell you that he was always afraid of something else. As for the idea that he should bravely face a jury of his peers: I doubt that he would find many peers among the secret US military tribunal he would be “renditioned” to face, and where he would have about as much of a shot at a fair trial as Kim Jong-nam would have had in a North Korean Court.
And if you thought “Good!” when you read that, well, you and Kimmie obviously have a lot in common!
Interesting that in your world JOH the leaking of classified information which identifies informants and leads to their deaths is merely a failure and a seperate issue. It must be lovely to live in the bazzaro world of the left where it’s all about theory and ideology and nothing about practicality. How does it feel to sleep safely at night despising those who risk their lives to allow you that privilege?
I didn’t say they weren’t serious failures, but they pale into insignificance next to the monstrous failures of government that were revealed, which don’t seem to cost any sleep in your world.
“Anti-authoritarian”? – hardly, the chap has ensconced himself in the authority of the Ecuadorian embassy; using that authority as a shield to avoid the justice systems of other countries. His views on transparency in govt seem highly selective, pc and self serving. What would be a fitting punishment for an unelected individual from another country who released information that paved the way for the murder of any number of US citizens?
Assange is a moral and intellectual coward with the temperament and maturity of a child, unwilling to face the consequence of their actions. Arguably his actions have done little to advance transparency and most likely increased secrecy. The turd will eventually be flushed out.
Christ the paranoia. Assange cannot be tried at a “secret military tribunal”. He would be tried, if indicted and extradited, in open Federal court, under the Espionage Act of 1917. If we wanted him rendered, you don’t think we would have done it by now?
You may be right, but the US has changed its story a few times on its intentions towards Assange, so let’s just wait and see.
Hear,hear, JOH hear,hear.
Will the former Minister for the resources companies Canavan and empirical Roberts apologise for misleading the people of Australia after going to the high court with different stories to which they stood in front of the people with.? don’t hold your breath.
Both no loss to any of us Dismayed imho. Roberts with the pixies big time as is his leader Hanson imho. Cheers.
this is a beauty. Dwight will have conniptions.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=36631
I am glad there are people willing to hold the “official” line to account even if they do end up in the dunny. Lou OTod needs more friends anyway to broaden his view.
http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=36345
Loo boy is now complaining he can’t get Twitter recognition https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/julian-assange-mocked-for-desperate-attempt-to-join-twitter-establishment-39qkstxfg
I suspect he’s been stuck down the WC mentally for yonks, it’s just getting worse now he’s holed up so he doesn’t have to take responsibility for his actions (the Swedish ones, not the leaks necessarily).
Essentially, his egotism has ruined what could otherwise have been potentially a worthy cause.
Chelsea Manning and others have taken the fall for his other actions, too.
Lastly, what I’ve always found odd is that Ron Paul Libertarian types like Assange and Edward Snowden are so fond of Putin’s Russia, when a police state run by cabals of gangsters, oligarchs, and/or ex-spies (often interchangeable or more than one at once) becomes paradise for them, and not a post-modern dystopia like for the rest of us. Or a confidence trickster like Donald Trump.
I have often pondered the same idea Rhys. Is it a hang up from the good old days of the Soviet Union when, to the left, the workers paradise was the promised land? If it is then one can deduce the old, if its American its bad, thought process also then applies. The ANZUS alliance and our close ties with the US have served us well over the years, don’t get me wrong I’m the first to have a go at a septic, but I’m damned glad they’re there. Anti-Americanism is the new black across the world. A leftist bent in our academic institutions has promoted this and it is now dogma amongst many of the latte sippers. As a result, those who like to virtue signal, jump on every opportunity to bag the yanks. Mind you I am enjoying the shrieks of indignation from the lovies every time the Donald pulls their tails. Wouldn’t have missed this for the world.
As for the leaks that went in Trumps favour my theory is they never thought in a million years he would win. They hated the fact Sanders, their man, wasn’t going to beat Clinton so they thought it OK to give her a bit of grief on the way to the top job safe in the knowledge The Donald wouldn’t win.
OMG Mr Insider, I nearly fainted when I read this tell me its not true, dear Milton will be beside himself!
“Crossbench MP Bob Katter says he would be willing to switch his allegiance to Tony Abbott and support a government led by the former prime minister.A week after telling Malcolm Turnbull he could no longer rely on his support, Mr Katter said he wanted to meet with Mr Abbott in the next parliamentary sitting week and would consider backing a hypothetical Abbott government.Mr Katter said he expected Mr Abbott to be back in the running for the top job, with the Prime Minister behind in the polls and being held back by the citizenship scandal and division in the Coalition on same-sex marriage.“If I had to place a bet at the moment, as unlikely as it sounded initially, I would place that bet on Abbott (being the next prime minister),” he told Sky News last night.”
hehehe Katter doesn’t rate Dutton.
I had to have a quick lie down after reading that, Henry. He’s no mug ol’ Katter. Mad as a cat in a sack for sure, but no dummy.
Tony is the tonic for our times!
the tidying up after the Typhoon is under way, though it is a bit of a puzzle finding roads that have already been cleared of fallen trees and building materials blown off buildings.
it was quite a cyclone.
woke to screaming and howling yesterday, it was like being next to a labor ward.
lots of trees down on roads, plate glass windows falling out of skyscrapers, bamboo scaffold and balcony furniture flying about but i think no deaths and about 150 odd injured, remarkable really.
the streets were as deserted as i have ever seen them so perhaps that it explains it.
five dead in Macau, but then they are not as advice abiding or as organised.
Jack, my nifty little weather tracker told me that the typhoon was on its way, but then didn’t hear much more about it. Maybe it wasn’t newsworthy enough. Still glad you came out of it OK……let me tell you Penangites aren’t advice abiding either
Ahh. Kroger just laid out the coalition plan leading up to the next elections which should be bi-election which is to continue to attack Shorten personally. He has just said the coalition will continue to mislead the Nation on renewable energy and power prices and to ramp up subsidies to coal. The coalition are desperate in panic stations and not acting in the National interest. No Surprises.