Julian Assange - hero of free speech or just probable rapist?

Julian Assange - expensive embarrassment for the UK

I am bewildered by the Julian Assange situation. At the moment, he is claiming political asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London.  The UK's Supreme Court has decided that the evidence presented by Sweden is strong enough that he should face extradition to Sweden to face trial for rape there.  This presumably means that the Supreme Court judges think that he's probably guilty.

Assange is claiming that if he is sent to Sweden, the Swedes will send him to the USA, where he could face the death penalty.  This assertion sits awkwardly with the fact that Sweden is a long-standing and vocal opponent of the death penalty and itself is legally prevented from extraditing anybody to a country where they might face the death penalty, both by domestic law and European law.  Sweden cannot extradite him to the USA - legal fact.

To be granted political asylum, a person needs to be able to demonstrate a well founded fear of persecution in their home country. Assange is Australian and it seems to me that Australians are uncritically on his side, preferring to think that the independent judiciaries of the UK and Sweden are complicit in a vast conspiracy to get him a lethal injection for publishing embarrassing information about governments.  He would not be persecuted in Australia.  He seems to be viewed as a modern day Ned Kelly there.  I also find this somewhat bewildering.

So it seems to me that we actually have a self-important loudmouth, bogusly claiming asylum from a non-existent risk and citing fears for his life under a scenario that would require Sweden (not entirely the most right wing, vengeful ally of the USA) to break international law.  On the whole, I am more persuaded that we have somebody who is cynically raising the spectre of a vast conspiracy to evade the deeply unpleasant risk of being called to account for a sexual offence.

While we're at it - Ecuador?  Since when did Ecuador become a bastion of human rights that puts Sweden's record to shame?  Were the North Koreans not answering their phone?

I wish that he were somewhere other than the UK, so that he would be somebody else's problem.  Sorry Julian, I have long been suspicious of your motives.  It's time for you to face the music and stop creating a huge problem for Britain and gargantuan legal bills that we British citizens will have to pay on your behalf.  Piss off.

Prince Andrew. Sigh.

I have just found out that Prince Andrew drives a car (or is driven in a car) with a personalised licence plate, including the letters DOY.  This, presumably, stands for Duke of York.

The car is a Bentley limo.

What a chav.

Concerned Citizen's letter to the Daily Mail

Dear Daily Mail,

It has come to my attention that there are a large number of young foreigners living in high density housing in East London. This housing was recently built at a great cost to us, the taxpayers. I am aware that they entered the UK on a sort of special purpose visa and that those visas must surely now have lapsed. I understand that they are expecting to be fed at our expense. None of them appear to be making any effort to get a job here or to fit into our culture.

It is time for Somebody to Do Something.

Yours,

A Concerned Citizen

Facebook's losing it

I am faintly surprised that this blog still exists, having done absolutely nothing with it for five years.  Hooray for google and google's evident patience!

I am going to start writing a blog here and cut down on my use of Facebook.  It has recently come to my attention that when I comment on a friend's postings on Facebook, other people can see this even if they're not a friend of the person concerned.   I don't like this, especially when said comment was about his liking for certain types of, ahem, minoritan sex act.

So this is an exploratory post to see if it works and uploads.  If it works, I am back.  Feel free to crack open the champagne.  Cava.  OK, Stella Artois.