UKMT February 2016 - UKMT is a forum of self-harm

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TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

The UN working group on arbitrary detention is apparently likely to say that the Rat Haired Rapist from Reykjavik is being arbitrarily detained.

It's depressingly ironic that so many people complain about non-existent "bogus asylum seekers" in Calais while supporting the actual bogus asylum seeker in Knightsbridge. :smith:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 12:06

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 14:45

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Guavanaut posted:

He should be sent to trial as charged, and reprimanded to the letter of the law if found guilty, however any attempt to move him to the US should be tackled with extreme prejudice. I don't trust him, but I trust them less.

Quite.

One should point out that, as a point of law, the extradition judgment stated that the alleged offence is sexual assault.

Assange's only defence is that he didn't do it. And he has pretty much admitted he did.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 12:16

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Fans posted:

UN ruled in favor of Assange.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-35490910

Cameron says he doesn't give a gently caress and is still going to try arrest him anyway. Not a direct quote that.

Even a broken pig-loving clock is right twice a day.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 14:16

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Guavanaut posted:

He needs to go to court in Sweden, but the US needs to be kept at arms length from this.

He's in the same situation as someone who has been accused of a crime in the immediate aftermath of pissing off a large and powerful organized crime family. He needs to go to trial but it's not unreasonable for the judge to demand special measures, and not unreasonable for the accused to be wary about an appearance until those are in place.

Assange's demands are designed to Stonewall the British and Swedish authorities until the statute of limitations expires. Sweden can't legally guarantee absolutely no extradition to the US because it would be prejudging any proceedings in the future. Besides, he would be safer in Sweden as their extradition treaty with the US isn't as lopsided (and prohibits extradition for political purposes).

It should be once pointed out again that, on a point of law, the extradition judgment found that consent to sexual activity can be vitiated by deception with regards to condom use. It's actually a key part of rape case law now.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 15:53

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

This is despite the fact that any extradition to the US while he's in Swedish custody would require a trilateral agreement.

Chomskyan posted:

So what was the UN's reasoning for siding with Assange? Obviously they believe there's been some misconduct on the part of the U.K. or Swedish governments.

UNHRC has always been a bit weird, because the seats are distributed by countries in each reason. There are a lot of African and Middle Eastern countries on the council with a completely understandable grudge against America.

The size of its membership means that it's not particularly hard to get on the council; hell, Libya was in while they were suspended from the Arab League and the UNSC authorised military intervention in the Civil War. Ecuador are also a current member of UNHRC, for what it's worth.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 16:22

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

V. Illych L. posted:

i mean, the man's a massive prick, but i think his paranoia at getting thrown into some american black site is almost entirely understandable

Assange has actually made such a name for himself that if he mysteriously disappeared, everybody would instantly figure out what happened. He's bizarrely safer than many of his whistleblowers.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 16:30

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

V. Illych L. posted:

litvinenko, too, was pretty famous when he was assassinated. it's not a shield i'd be comfortable with relying on, and i'm nowhere near as egotistical as assange evidently is

Russia doesn't have a flaky reputation to attempt to uphold with its allies.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 16:36

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

V. Illych L. posted:

putting the (in my opinion rather dubious) merits of this argument aside, do you really not see how a man like assange might be reasonably terrified of something like this playing out, as separate from the rape charges? relying on american respect for international law as a figure heavily involved in exposing the absence of such respect seems like a tough sell

which is not to say he shouldn't absolutely be going through the legal process in sweden up to and including any legal detainment, of course, simply that his stated reasoning is probably sincerely held, and that this is eminently understandable

If America offs him, he dies a martyr. If he stays in Knightsbridge, he dies a rapist.

Knowing Assange is a classical narcissist, one must wonder why he's going with the latter option.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 17:08

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

V. Illych L. posted:

one imagines that "not wanting to die" plays a part

He's going to end up dying sooner rather than later cooped up in the embassy; he's incredibly ill these days.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 17:24

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Renaissance Robot posted:

The notion that the US would be too diplomatically embarrassed by disappearing Assange to actually attempt it appears somewhat specious given that gitmo still hasn't shut down.

Nobody in Gitmo was white.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 17:42

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Halman posted:

And maybe I'm super naive and don't know all that much about Sweden's internal politics but surely the Swedes wouldn't just hand him over to us?

They told them to gently caress off about extraditing Edward Lee Howard.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 17:50

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

bicycle posted:

The justice4assange site also has some interesting claims (although obviously there is a very strong bias): https://justice4assange.com/Assange-Case-Fact-Checker.html

J4A's twitter avatar was Rat-Hair crucified on the Nordic Cross of the Swedish flag. So there's that.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 19:44

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

OTOH, UAF are probably the most successful socialist front group in history. I mean, Christ, they got Call-Me-Pig-Fucker to support them.

Speaking of which, I was looking through my Twitter to reminisce about all the fun Assange arguments that happened, and I found some posts from late 2012 when the SWP tried to kill off No Platform for rape apologists, at the time ostensibly because "America bad therefore Assange good". Oh, how that looks in retrospect.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 19:50

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

New UKIP PPB has a lot more shades of the BNP since the explicit racists got deregistered.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yno5lHA-LY8

And :ukipvotersay:

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 22:28

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

big scary monsters posted:

Apropos of nothing much, is it just me who reads the "organic" label on products and has to remind myself it doesn't necessarily mean they're made of organs?

Organic table salt is an actual thing.

# ¿ Feb 4, 2016 23:14

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Chemistrychat is better than Assangechat. :allears:

Trickjaw posted:

Another byelection, then. Is that safe for Labour?

Used to be the seat of everyone's favourite fascist, David Blunkett.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 00:17

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

So two scientists walk into a pub, and the first one says to the barman, "I'll have some H2O", and the barman obligingly gives him a glass of water. The second one says "I'll have some H2O too", and the barman serves him a glass of water as well, as he has the ability to discern homophones from context and seriously, who keeps hydrogen peroxide behind the bar in any case?

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 01:00

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

The Assange ruling is even more ridiculous than previously thought:

quote:

On 4 December 2015, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) adopted Opinion No. 54/2015, in which it considered that Mr. Julian Assange was arbitrarily detained by the Governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. In that opinion, the Working Group recognized that Mr. Assange is entitled to his freedom of movement and to compensation. The application was filed with the Working Group in September 2014. The Opinion 54/2015 was sent to the Governments of Sweden and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland on 22 January 2016 in accordance with the Working Group�s Methods of Work.

Given that Mr. Assange is an Australian citizen, one of the members of the Working Group who shares his nationality recused herself from participating in the deliberations. Another member of the Working Group disagreed with the position of the majority and considered that the situation of Mr. Assange is not one of detention and therefore falls outside the mandate of the Working Group.

In mid-2010, a Swedish Prosecutor commenced an investigation against Mr. Assange based on allegations of sexual misconduct. On 7 December 2010, pursuant to an international arrest warrant issued at the request of the Swedish Prosecutor, Mr. Assange was detained in Wandsworth Prison for 10 days in isolation. Thereafter, he was subjected to house arrest for 550 days. While under house arrest in the United Kingdom, Mr. Assange requested the Republic of Ecuador to grant him refugee status at its Embassy in London. The Republic of Ecuador granted asylum because of Mr. Assange�s fear that if he was extradited to Sweden, he would be further extradited to the United States where he would face serious criminal charges for the peaceful exercise of his freedoms. Since August 2012, Mr. Assange has not been able to leave the Ecuadorian Embassy and is subject to extensive surveillance by the British police.

The Working Group considered that Mr. Assange has been subjected to different forms of deprivation of liberty: initial detention in Wandsworth prison which was followed by house arrest and his confinement at the Ecuadorian Embassy. Having concluded that there was a continuous deprivation of liberty, the Working Group also found that the detention was arbitrary because he was held in isolation during the first stage of detention and because of the lack of diligence by the Swedish Prosecutor in its investigations, which resulted in the lengthy detention of Mr. Assange. The Working Group found that this detention is in violation of Articles 9 and 10 of the UDHR and Articles 7, 9(1), 9(3), 9(4), 10 and 14 of the ICCPR, and falls within category III as defined in its Methods of Work.

The Working Group therefore requested Sweden and the United Kingdom to assess the situation of Mr. Assange to ensure his safety and physical integrity, to facilitate the exercise of his right to freedom of movement in an expedient manner, and to ensure the full enjoyment of his rights guaranteed by the international norms on detention. The Working Group also considered that the detention should be brought to an end and that Mr. Assange should be afforded the right to compensation.

- See more at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=17012&LangID=E#sthash.YmyOc9vP.dpuf

Summary: because he was under house arrest while the extradition proceedings were ongoing all the way up to the Supreme Court for being an obvious flight risk, and then unsurprisingly skipped bail when his appeals were exhausted, somehow Assange has been unlawfully detained.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 16:10

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Prince John posted:

I think the summary (that you're quoting) is quite misleading and doesn't really touch on the key issues - hence why it's easy to regard it as ridiculous. Check out the Advance Unedited Version which can be found at this link (docx file).

The key points are here I think:

Now there is a lot of info in the ruling, including the UK government point of view (which is not quoted above for avoidance of doubt) and I don't really have time to read it all in detail. But the gist I've got from skimming it is that the Working Group have taken a really dim view on (i) Sweden for not seeking to gather evidence in alternative ways, for using a European Arrest Warrant inappropriately and not granting Mr. Assange access to any of the material he's entitled to and (ii) the UK for forgoing all of the customary conventions relating to political asylum.

The judgement starts at 84 if you wanted to skip. It's also important to point out that the Working Group are (correctly) approaching Mr. Assange as someone who has not even been indicted, never mind been found guilty. Their points about reasonableness, proportionality and necessity of his 6 year detention need to be read in that context (i.e. we would be more sympathetic to the hypothetical innocent person being persecuted by national governments if we didn't know the backstory and hadn't formed opinions about his sleazy conduct already).

AFAIK, the concept of asylum in an third party's embassy is only customarily recognised between South American countries, hence why Snowden had to get on a plane to Moscow to claim asylum.

Tochilovsky's dissenting opinion is also telling.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 17:35

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Panama Red posted:

TBF there is no more insidious group of Machiavellian Francis Underwoods than the soapy Lib Dems

Portsmouth politics is incredibly hosed. The Lib Dems are a cult of personality around Gerald Vernon-Jackson and Mike Hancock (who held onto his council seat for seventeen years after being elected to Parliament) and the Labour Party are right-wing shitheels who spend most of their time attacking Corbyn while voting for the Tory minority council's budgets. Which gives the Tories and UKIP a free run at loving up the place.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 21:05

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Niric posted:

Sadly that's nowhere near the shittiest thing he's done (see also Private Eye passim.

Yeah, GVJ is incredibly disliked everywhere except Portsmouth because of how he dealt with Hancock.

# ¿ Feb 5, 2016 21:55

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Guavanaut posted:

Maybe the xenophobes will split into the ones that think that Britain should leave because the EU is foreign and the ones that think that Britain should remain because the EU is white and pretty xenophobic itself.

There's a repeat of Foyle's War that gets shown on ITV a lot, where a neo-Nazi proposes a fash EU.

# ¿ Feb 6, 2016 17:31

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

big scary monsters posted:

Given that Labour are to blame for all our domestic ills even though they've been out of power for six years, I expect we can go on blaming the EU for our woes for some time to come.

Except for the parts that the Tories and the Tory press don't blame Labour for, because the problem was Labour not spending enough money (e.g. rail electrification). Then it's all the fault of middle managers and red tape.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2016 19:28

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

There's roughly three options for any European country these days: EU membership (or candidateship), EEA membership, or membership of neither. Norway have said that EEA membership wouldn't be good for Britain (and a lot of European law has to be implemented by Norway to remain in the EEA). And membership of neither requires a lot of negotiating with an EU that probably would not be as willing to deal with our poo poo.

# ¿ Feb 7, 2016 23:15

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

NO gently caress YOU DAD posted:

Speaking the language doesn't necessarily mean you're culturally compatible. Plenty of sub-Saharan Africa is English-speaking and has an atrocious record on LGBT rights, etc.

Laws which, by and large, we gave them.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 15:39

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 16:14

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Taear posted:

My housemate is going to be running to be a councillor in Worsley. It's a tory safe seat in Salford where last election 1500 voted Tory, 900 voted Labour and around 400 voted for UKIP with 200 for the greens.

I'm having a hard time finding local issues online to campaign on since we'll be there knocking on doors. Can anyone help with things that might appeal to the people of this area? The wiki shows it's posh as hell. He's from the constituency next door so he's really local but Worsley are very much seperate from the rest of Salford.

Would floods be a good issue? Not sure how near the Irwell Worsley is.

# ¿ Feb 8, 2016 20:09

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Tesseraction posted:

I had actual body horrors from reading about Farage's smoking/drinking rate. The fact the man isn't dead already is testament to the longevity-extending powers of being loving evil.

Have you ever actually seen him drink the stuff? Most of the time he just holds it there.

# ¿ Feb 9, 2016 21:51

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Rapechat is the absolute worst.

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 14:06

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Now we know why David Cameron's been in China opening new pork markets. ( :nws:

)

# ¿ Feb 10, 2016 14:15

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Jeremy Hunt is literally only Health Secretary because any other position he was given led to unfortunate and totally unintentional spoonerisms.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2016 19:53

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/697417803159224321
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/697416670432854016

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 00:12

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Bedshaped posted:

What do you say to someone who thinks taxes are "legalised theft"?

Tell him to stop stealing the concrete/tarmac his shoes/car tyres pick up from the publicly funded roads.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 01:54

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Limmy

https://twitter.com/DaftLimmy/status/698130255773638657

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 14:27

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Fans posted:

Nah they've always been "Open-minded" or "Considering" so they could step back if it's unpopular and been for decriminalizing possession. They've never actually gone "Yes, we should have it sold in stores"

The 1994 Lib Dem Conference is one of legend because the membership spent most of the weekend embarrassing the party leadership by voting for policies the leadership opposed. By all accounts, when Paddy was defeated on the cannabis motion, he was stood backstage fuming. He managed to save face by announcing to the press that the party would call for a Royal Commission.

It was probably a relief for him, then, when the motion calling for the monarchy to be abolished was very narrowly defeated.

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 18:40

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

Guavanaut posted:

Is there a list of all the 'former' or 'candidate for' MPs, party leaders, police chiefs, prison governors, etc. who have gone on record against the war on drugs but have never said a peep against it while in office?

In all seriousness, it is pretty difficult to criticise a government you're a member of, which is why Norman Baker had to resign to call May out on burying the drugs report.

Baker being in the Home Office was a stroke of genius, btw; after all, he was one of the biggest names in Parliament supporting the theory that David Kelly was murdered. All the Tory tears were brilliant.

TinTower fucked around with this message at 18:55 on Feb 12, 2016

# ¿ Feb 12, 2016 18:52

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

OwlFancier posted:

Why on earth does the Labour party not support strikes?

Because they're wrong at a time when negotiations are still going on. Both sides should put aside the rhetoric, get around the negotiating table, and stop this happening again.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 02:49

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

feedmegin posted:

Interesting how the Ukip loss is v cloae to the Labour gain in the first two.

UKIP, and the BNP before them, mastered the art of appealing to white working class Old Labour voters, by sheer force of saturating the local (and national) media putting the blame on immigrants rather than the rich.

# ¿ Feb 13, 2016 16:13

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

So because Fran declined an invitation to be on a panel with Tatchell, he decided to throw a wobbly and complain he's been censored by writing an opinion piece in a newspaper read by hundreds of thousands of people.

God forbid he ever open a Facebook account.

(Seriously though, Fran is lovely, and doesn't take poo poo from anyone)

MrL_JaKiri posted:

The argument Tatchell makes - that by sharing a platform she can argue with him - would hold more water if it was a debate or more free form and not a talk with a stated topic. If she appeared and used her speech to criticise Tatchell then that would be the news story, and she'd be vilified for using an unrelated event to criticise Tatchell.

So what should she do? Just shut up and not do anything?

Pretty much; remember that Germaine Greer will not attend a panel if a trans woman is in attendance. Not on the panel. In attendance in the audience.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 15:13

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# ¿ May 22, 2024 14:45

TinTower: Apr 21, 2010; You don't have to 8e a good person to 8e a hero.

https://twitter.com/sarahlicity/status/642479945416114176

No, seriously, she can tell if someone's trans or not by smelling their vaginas.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2016 15:26

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