He is also required to report to the police each day and he’s under curfew. As of this writing, he is also still in police custody pending an appeal by the prosecutor. A hearing on that is expected within 48 hours and Assange is to appear for another hearing on January 11, at which time, his extradition to Sweden to answer non-related sexual assault charges is expected to be decided.
Meanwhile, the US is seriously considering charges of their own against him and is exploring options, including the application of the 1917 Espionage Act, which was invoked unsuccessfully against the New York Times when it published the Pentagon Papers in the 1970s. Capitol Hill legislators are also drafting new legislation in these regards.
I also found it interesting that readers of Time magazine voted Assange man of the year. Over a million ballots were cast and the Wikileaker garnered almost as many of them as the dollars it’s going to take to pay his British bail. We also found it very reassuring that Time magazine itself did not accord this cyber anarchist that honor but instead polled its staff and editors and decided Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, deserved it more.
And his supporters have certainly made their impact felt, flooding the websites of his detractors with spam and otherwise causing some cybernetic havoc. We also noted ~ without surprise ~ that American film maker Michael Moore offered to pay $20,000 of Assange’s $.3-million bail.
So now, in addition to a dramatic international dialogue examining the true meaning of freedom of expression and the responsible use of it, we have a new arms race as cyber experts in the government and private sector seek better encryption and cyber anarchists, better code busters.
The thing I keep reminding myself of is that ultimately, this affects both sides and if it goes on too long, even the cyber anarchists are going to feel it close to home. I think this is a demonstration of power but it is not empowerment. It is not nearly as difficult to orchestrate such a global dog and pony show on the Internet as it is to live with the offline results.
The American Intelligence Community was caught totally by surprise just as they were on 9/11 and just as they were after the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor which has managed yet to “live in infamy,” despite the reconciliation of the two nations involved.
It was one thing, I suspect, when cyber anarchists hack into financial institutions and into the accounts of entertainment celebrities. It is another, I am certain, to the American Intelligence Community, when the invasion produces casualties on the battlefield.
My concern now then is for Assange and his actively engaged supporters, however well-intentioned and passionate their motives. In this exquisitely technological society, assassination, accidents and natural disasters are often difficult to distinguish from one another, especially if engineered by those protecting the lives of their family, friends, community and nation.
Historically, it has never proven a wise idea to push the Eagle too far.
IN OTHER NEWS
A recently released British study confirms that taking one aspirin a day can reduce by from one-half to one-third one’s risk of dying from most common cancers. This 100-year-old painkiller has long been considered a “miracle drug” for a variety of health problems, including headaches and cardiac conditions. Yep, for more on this one, please go here.
Torrential rains battered most of the Pacific Northwest this weekend, bringing with it widespread flooding, landslides and damage to roads and other infrastructures. I spent eight hours with my two new house mates bailing out a basement that filled with three inches of water, unclogging gutters, securing plastic drainage pipe, installing fans, heaters, water evacuation lines and drying out what property could be restored. About the only thing missing from this one was a big boat with an old man and animals.
One Seattle neighborhood, isolated for days during a blizzard two years ago, is organizing in anticipation of an even colder and wetter winter season, thanks to La Niña. Preparations include a snow brigade, with drivers and walkers to deliver groceries and prescriptions, shovel walks, drive homebound residents to warm shelters and even walk dogs. This is definitely an example which can be emulated, so for more, please go here.
Although popular in Europe for decades, a firm in Portland, Oregon is building the first power plant in America that will use food waste from commercial and industrial sources to make methane gas to power engines that will generate electricity. It will generate power per day to supply 5,000 homes and among its byproducts are a fiber soil additive and a liquid fertilizer.
We congratulate Kristianstad, Sweden for essentially weaning itself off fossil fuels. This community, perhaps best known for Absolut vodka, essentially uses no oil, natural gas or coal to heat homes and businesses, even during the long winter months. And they haven’t gone solar or wind power to do it. Yep, for more, go here.
Felina: Samuel, I am reading more about this misanthropic cyber anarchist. I have come across an expression with which I am not familiar.Sam: I’m going to take a shot at this and guess that the expression is “dog and pony show.”
Felina: Quite so. I have seen American television shows in which both dogs and horses were stars but I have never watched a programme in which they co-starred with one another.
Sam: Nope and me either, Felina. Dog and pony shows were real popular in the American Midwest in the latter half of the 1800s. They were essentially small traveling circuses which couldn’t afford exotic animals so they trained domestic dogs and ponies to act solo and with one another.
Felina: Ah, so this expression started out to describe something wholesome and good for human beings, before the advent of television, which some human beings wish had not been invented.
Sam: Yep, the same human beings who walked away from fire because it only had one channel and could burn them if used irresponsibly.
Felina: But the contemporary usage of the term is pejorative, then.
Sam: Extremely.
Felina: I suspected as much, love of my life. It now seems to apply to an elaborate presentation designed to use illusion, innuendo, deceit and other tools of propaganda to convince masses of human beings to act against whatever is in their own best interests and the health and welfare of their communities.
Sam: Yep, Lass, that about covers it.
Felina: I also found it quite interesting that the readers of one of their most popular news magazines voted this Assange creature male human of the year?
Sam: I’ve noticed that humans are real fickle that way. They exalt the peace maker and the war monger alike, depending on the mood sweeping the nation at the moment.
Felina: Quite so. I have read about the American Wild West where heroes were professional assassins and train robbers and yellow-maned megalomaniacs who slaughtered those who lived in skin caves and followed the big horned thunder beasts.
Sam: And their first Great Depression when humans with interesting names like Al Capone, Bonnie and Clyde, Frank Nitti, John Dillinger, Ma Barker, Machinegun Kelly and Mad Dog Coll were media darlings.
Felina: Hard times do seem to transform them a bit. It almost appears many of them turn into that which they would otherwise so despise.
Sam: It’s like those who are bitten by those humans who turn into bats.
Felina: Samuel, please. I know what vampires are. And if memory serves, vampires were allegorical for how evil spreads by close association with it.
Sam: Yep. You’re not just who you eat but who you hang out with.
Felina: Quite so. As I have come so well down our years together to know.
Sam: I love you too, Felina and thank you once again for reminding me mountain lions can blush.
Felina: Quite so, my love. And on that note, gentle readers, until next time, may the Creator bless and keep you.
SURVIVING HARD TIMES
Sometimes surviving hard times means people in the position to make difference thinking outside the box, big time. Like a certain governor in the American South who decided, based on what his advisors told him about another successful venture like it, to create a Biblical theme park with an actual scale Noah’s Ark, with animals and human cast, on this artificial lake. During the press conference which heralded the announcement, a reporter suggested that this was not, as required by the First Amendment, keeping church and state separated. Kentucky Gov. Steven L. Beshear dismissed the allegation as nonsense, pointing out that he was not elected “to debate religion” but to create jobs. Yep, I thoroughly loved this one.ON THE CANCER FRONT
Sometimes, surviving cancer ~ and some would say that is a miracle of its own ~ makes other wonderful things happening, like love once thought long last. Yep, this is one of those Frank Capra, Campbell Soup, feel good stories, and our thanks to Brigitta and Kenneth in Manchester, UK, for tipping us off to this one.
RESOURCES AND RELATED LINKS:
Cancer Research Journal
National Cancer Institute (American)
Fighting Breast Cancer: Breast Cancer Survivor Stories
Science Daily: Health & Medicine News
American Cancer Statistics 2009
Canadian Cancer Statistics 2009
HEALTH NEWS
Smartphones, laptops, wireless routers, wireless phones, Bluetooth headsets, remotes, printers, satellite TVs, Wii, Kindles, and at least 25 other electronic gadgets because they emit what are called electromagnetic fields are dangerous to our health, according to the authors of two recently released books. This kind of radiation is linked to a variety of diseases and conditions including sleep disturbances, memory problems, depression, poor sperm production, heart disease, miscarriage, birth defects, immune-system suppression, and even cancer and Lou Gehrig's disease. For more on this and to see what you can do to minimize your risk and those of you family, please go here.
GOOD EXAMPLES
If you need a reason to believe that human beings can be exceptionally compassionate and caring toward one another, this one might do it. There’s a man at Seattle Children’s Hospital called “The Moo Man.” He’s a nutritionist who delivers complex liquid formulas to kids, along with cookies, candy and impersonating a cow. And the kids love it. So does the staff, one of whom said that he’s the spirit of the place. And when that spirit needed a kidney transplant and had no relatives to whom to turn, one of his co-workers ~ after discussing it with her husband (also a staffer) and their seven children ~ came through. The surgery was successful. Both patients are doing fine and the Moo Man is due back on his rounds anytime now. Yep, for even more on this one, please go here.
In the midst of an ongoing recession, there are communities which are not only surviving but growing and prospering. They’re learning new ways to interact and to cooperate rather than compete. To watch a video and learn how one northwestern Washington community is going that, please go here
The latest participants to join the Pacific Northwest’s farm/garden to table movement are the region’s small forest owners and no, it’s not bark they’re bring to the feast but mushrooms, black berries, raspberries, blue berries, miner’s lettuce and a host of other staples that have been keeping the First Nation tribes alive and healthy for thousands of years. It’s one more step in regional self-determinism at the most fundamental level. Yep, for more, please go here.
NORTHSTAR FAVORITES
Sightline Daily is the best Pacific Northwest source of environmentally friendly news we’ve encountered yet. They draw from newspapers and National Public Radio sources in Alaska, Alberta, British Columbia, California, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington state.
Meade Fisher Observes Humanity From A Safe Distance is a blog authored by an outdoor writer, photographer, West Coast kayaker and environmentalist living in the San Francisco Bay area. These short, humorous, few holds barred observations on the machinations of the human species run from the whimsical to the arid and occasionally to the quietly outraged. I’ve been a fan of this particular writer for years and I’ve always found him worth the read.
The Northstar Gallery features photography of Seattle available as postcards, computer wallpaper and workspace art.
Yes magazine is the online Life and Look of the Internet combined and their present series “What Happy Families Know is both insightful and inspirational.
What’s Going On Here?
Whether you live here or plan to visit ~ and whatever it is you enjoy doing at home or as a tourist ~ you’ll find it, you’ll find it listed here at seattlepi.com.
SEATTLE FACTS AND FIGURES
Seattle Rainfall in Comparison To Other US Cities
Seattle Geography & Climate
For more information about Seattle
OTHER RELATED STUFF FROM THE SHORES OF THE SALISH SEA
For live cameras on Seattle, the Puget Sound and Washington State
Mount Rainier slide show
Eat healthy while you’re here – Seattle PCC Co-Op
Take some fresh produce back to your hotel – Seattle Farmers Markets
CRITTER STUFF
In an attempt to learn more about where they feed when they cruise a territory from Vancouver Island to the Northern California coast, federal officials are proposing tagging the Puget Sound’s three resident orca pods with transmitters delivered by dark gun to the creature’s dorsal fin. The technique has been successfully used before with other marine mammal populations to, among other things, find and protect where these species feed. The tags are transmitters about the size of a 9-volt battery which activate when the orca surfaces and sends its location to a satellite, which it turn sends it to scientists with the National Marine Fisheries Service.A Canadian federal court judge, in response to a suit brought by a coalition of nine environmental groups, including Greenpeace, the David Suzuki Foundation, Ecojustice, the Sierra Club and the International Fund for Animal Welfare, decided the 300 or so orcas living in Canadian waters have not received adequate protection from Ottawa and specifically from the Department of Fisheries and Oceans. Said agency is reviewing the Court’s decision and contemplating a response.
Recommended Related Links:
National Wildlife Magazine
Go Northwest: Northwest Wildlife Websites
BBC’s wildlife finder
National Geographic Daily News - Animals
Retrieverman’s Weblog: Engaging articles on domestic & wildlife in the American South
YOU GUYS THINK I MAKE THIS STUFF UP
Last week, the president of a private college in Oregon ended up going goat wrangling. What’s goat wrangling? In this case, it’s what you do after your two four-footed invasive plants control agents decide to eat through a natural fence and go browsing along
Well, that’s it for now. Thanks for the ear. Before you leave, if you’re in a shopping mood and into some interesting choices? We’ve got a “reader stocked” General Store that you might want to check out. If you’d like to sell something with us or know someone who does, email us at minstrel312@aol.com and we’ll see what we can do.
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