I've been dormant for a few months, working interstate, kitchen renovation, raising a toddler... Boring.  Anyway of course I have to make a brief comment about Wikileaks and Julian Assange - anyone who's read this blog will know what my opinion on this issue will be, and I'll be as concise as possible.

Point 1: The legal farce

Suffice to say he's being held in solitary confinement, with CCTV monitoring, in a jail, in a country where he has committed no crime, based on an allegation of a crime in another country, that even if he was found guilty of it would attract nothing but a 700 Kroner fine.  His bail release has been opposed by Swedish lawyers.  The allegation of the crime stems from him not wearing a condom the 2nd time he had sex with a girl who's house he'd spent the night at.  The woman involved was only concerned about STD testing, not about pressing charges.  Does Sweden extradite, detain, or arrest and commit to solitary confinement everyone that has sex without a condom or who needs an STD test in every other country of the world? I doubt it.

Point 2: The threats

How can it be tolerated that in America (everyone's favourite country), politicians can be allowed to exercise their right to free speech by demanding that Mr Assange be executed?  EXECUTED. They are free to call for the death of a man who has not actually broken any law, who has committed no crime, who has done nothing illegal AT ALL, and this is quietly tolerated.  Let us remind everyone that Mr Assange did not break into government computers and steal these documents.  He has simply published them.  As has EVERY MAJOR MEDIA OUTLET IN THE WORLD.  Are they calling for the execution of Rupert Murdoch and every other journalist in the world who's reproduced, copied, forwarded and published these documents? Obviously not. The term "scapegoat" comes to mind.

Point 3: The "risk"

Sources at the highest levels of governments have declared that despite all the bullshit hype not a single life has been threatened or lost as a result of these documents being published. NOT ONE. Compare that to the approximately 100,000 innocent women, children and men, innocent CIVILIANS that the US has killed in Iraq since 2003. The US government, and George Bush in particular has committed the worst war crime since the Holocaust, they are on par with Pol Pot, Idi Amin and Slobodan Milosevic.  They are murderers, having committed these crimes in a war that everyone knows was illegal and unfounded.  The hypocrisy of this situation kills me.

Point 4: He's Australian

While Julia Gillard is fucking around with Oprah Winfrey, which embarrasingly highlights our pathetic parochialism and reputation as the poor little cousin of America, and she's stated that his actions were "illegal" without beng able to state which law he'd actually broken, an Australian citizen has been forcibly detained in a foreign country for doing nothing more than embarrassing an ally.  This isn't David Hicks who was found in Afghanistan in questionable circumstances relating to fighting in a foreign army (and I by no means condone the abhorrent treatment he received, it was just as bad), but this is a journalist. Who types for a living.  If our government is so subverient to America to the point that they would deny consular assistance to an Australian citizen imprisoned abroad and wash their hands of him, label him a criminal before any charges had been laid and threated to invalidate his passport, then I for one am embarrassed to be associated with this country.  I can't express this passionately enough.  Fundamental processes of justice have been denied to this man, for what?

'Nuff said.  The Ironic Fist salutes you Julian, even if you mysteriously "disappear" at the hands of the US government, you have started a revolution that they can't stop.  And if any assholes from the US government are reading this and you'd like to see what happens when you fuck with computer hackers, then I strongly suggest you go and purchase these 2 books by Daniel Suarez.  God help us all if anything like that happens.  For those that aren't CIA operatives, I still highly recommend that you immediately buy and read these books, they will blow your hippie noodle off your shoulders (and scare the crap out of you) and give you a glimpse of the power of the net and the stupidity of the human race.