is she getting it?

fnarr fnarr etc etc.  @pennyred, who is a posh girl called Laura I believe, is to be congratulated for trying to get it right on Assange.  Unlike the middle-aged and elderly males of the "international left" (and George Galloway), who have come out in their droves to say that Assange is a hero and that he should therefore not stand to account for the rape he has been accused of, she has tried to say that no-one should have to choose between freedom of speech and respect for women.  Good for her.  It's only shocking that so many appear to believe, without evidence or due process, that Assange must not stand trial in Sweden.  What message does that send, especially to men on the left?  Laura quotes teenage boys in her piece who say that they do not think what Assange is reported to have done was rape.  What is going to happen in teenage bedrooms, cars and the car parks of night clubs as a result of this?  Does anyone care?  Well, Laura seems to, and I am pleased about that.  Read on in her piece in the Independent (link higher up) and you will see that she says "I believe women".  Well, I don't.  We tell lies.  We shouldn't, but we do.  All humans do from time to time, although we try not to.  Always believing women who accuse men of rape ruins the lives of innocent men, and those of their families and people who love them.  Never  believing them, which is what the elderly male left are telling us to do, creates a world in which women become pieces of property.  Which is obscene.  Laura is tying herself in knots here, but she doesn't need to.  Believing in freedom of speech, and believing that women have the right to the integrity of their own bodies, are not mutually contradictory beliefs.  And Laura is straying on to territory in which that is how they are seen.  And then she spoils herself by saying this:

The answer is, of course, that Julian Assange should be held to account, of course he should, and he should be held to account in a system where due process means something and women are respected, and currently that system does not exist. Come back to me when the 19,000 annual sex attacks committed by members of the US Army and private contractors against their fellow soldiers are prosecuted. Come back to me when Private Bradley Manning is free.

he should be held to account in a system where due process means something and women are respected, and currently that system does not exist  Er, yes it does, Laura, in quite a number of places in the world, and one of them is Sweden.
Come back to me when the 19,000 annual sex attacks committed by members of the US Army and private contractors against their fellow soldiers are prosecuted. Why?  Rape and sexual assault happen all over the world, all the time.  They're not worse when committed by the US military.  I would argue that they are worse when committed, say, against girls in Afghanistan who then have the "choice" of marrying their rapist or being killed by their family.
Come back to me when Private Bradley Manning is free. Why?  He shouldn't be released, not now.  He is to be charged with very serious offences against national security.  What he should have is due process, and the US government, and President Obama, should hang their heads in shame that he has not had it.  They have other things to hang their heads in shame about too, not least failing to intervene in Syria, but that is for another post.

So, Laura, a good try, and your heart seems to be in the right place, but don't spoil it with meaningless anti-Americanism.  Intellectual honesty is not that hard to achieve, if you only try.

imprisoned for information

Hossein Roneghi Maleki

this man is serving a 16-year prison sentence for creating proxies to help those opposed to the regime in Iran have access to information on the internet.  As Harry's Place reminds us, the "green" protests died down rather after his arrest, because the opposition was fuelled by information and contact with the outside world.  Those outside Iran who have contact with Iran, who go there, who take its money (George Galloway) are better placed than most to call for the release of this man.  Anyone?  Anyone? (sound of tumbleweed).
When will the illiberal-minded, in the West as well as in totalitarian regimes like that in Iran, learn that you can't shut down knowledge, or information.  Even in the darkest days of Soviet terror, even in the gulags, well before there was the internet, there were clandestine leaflets and newsletters.  There may even be such things in North Korea today.  In Cuba people find ways to speak, and to read, and to be heard (step forward, Yoani Sanchez).  The mullahs can lock up one man, but they can't stop it.  Their days are numbered.

There have been disgracefully illiberal attempts in the West too, to close down the internet.  Laughable, I know,but such eminent figures as Jack Straw (whom I admire) have lent their name to such things, including the Dangerous Pictures act (remember that?), promoted by Martin Salter, which criminalises the depiction on line of acts which would be perfectly legal if actually depicted on film in a cinema.  Because we must Shut Down Teh Internetz.  It's easy to be flippant about such things when you live in a country where there is, more or less, free speech and freedom of information.  Nobody is going to put me in prison and threaten my family, whatever I say.

Galloway is pretty fly for a white guy, he says

One J. Howarth (prop. Public Impact Limited, responsible for the racist campaign literature in Church ward, Reading) has had this to say about the Bradford West by-election victory for George Galloway. A little light fisking.

George Galloway won Bradford West because he was the best candidate by a country mile. Does that always happen John? If not why not? That doesn’t mean he will make the best MP, of course. The two things are very different. No shit, Sherlock And for the terminally warped trolls in Web World who think that means I agree with Mr G on lots of things – it doesn’t. A little thinking and all the ingredients for an upset were present. In brief here’s why:

• Where do you disagree with him John?  On Jews?  Gaza?  What?
• ...Some communities from the 50s-60s wave of immigration engage or otherwise with UK politics on a UK level, but in many Pakistani populations the politics of ‘the old country’ and the Muslim world still matter a lot. Bollocks.  That's not the problem. Councils handing responsibility over to the mosque committees instead of working for jobs and training for ethnic minority youth has caused this....
• Bradford West’s community politics is by no means unfamiliar. Having represented an area with a substantial Pakistani population myself, and run away from constituents as soon as anything got difficult I would question whether a candidate being Pakistani embroiled in the internal politics of the ‘community’ is necessarily an advantage? So candidates should be selected on the basis of ethnicity not suitability should they?  Oh. Imran Hussain lost in Bradford West because he was Pakistani?  Not because Galloway was the best candidate, as you've just said?  No.  It's about race.  We see. Not always.
• It is also a sad fact that there remains, though some don’t like to admit it, a section of the white population who prefer not to vote for a Muslim. Ethnicity again.  This really matters to  you, doesn't it John?. The former MP, Marsha Singh, was a Sikh. He still is a Sikh.  A secular, non-turban-wearing one.  And thousands of Muslims and white people voted for him...

• Though frequently dismissed as “loony”, “egotist”, “not very nice”, etc., Mr G is, in many respects, a class act. He can manipulate the media extraordinarily well, he is a seriously good TV performer who always gives as good as he gets, he knows he will be attacked and he is superb at dealing with it.
• Mr G is an opportunist in the sense that he spots opportunities. Many politicians try to. Mr G is good at it.
• Mr G is a former election organiser and he knows his stuff.
• Mr G is a minor celebrity in a country mildly obsesses with celebrity.
• Mr G is not without charm ‘on the doorstep’.
• Mr G is also famously litigious, dismissive of journalists who notoriously ‘don’t like it up ‘em’ and seen is by some as rude and aggressive – others would see it as honest and passionate...

his real opposition was Labour and the contrast (on the regional Sunday politics programme) couldn’t have been worse for Mister Ed’s party. Mr Hussain may be a decent man, I don’t know, but on this programme he was incoherent and inarticulate, nervous and shifty. Ah yes, the shifty, sly Asian.  We can't have THAT now can we...So Mr G was perfectly placed. A ‘friend of Muslims’ playing to the ‘Brothers’ but not involved in ‘community’ in-fighting, a White guy who other White guys can vote for instead of voting for a Muslim Ah, here we go again, you don't see White upper-cased usually, why, John?..., 

• when under attack from a viable fringe candidate there has to be an effective counter attack. Ignore them and they prosper. Labour needs to firmly dispense with the lunatic idea that the best way to fight election campaigns is merely by “knocking on a lot of doors” definitely never do that.  Eh John?  I remember you watching the football while others went out and knocked doors for you in Park ward.  Including me. as a substitute for having something coherent to say. Where is that policy written down?  This is just treating your readers as stupid.

Elsewhere in the piece Mr Howarth uses American English, without giving reasons.  Apparently there has been panic buying of something called "gasoline".  I know Mr Howarth has an ongoing difficult relationship with the English language, but this is pitiful stuff.  Still, at least the mask has slipped so we can see what is underneath.  Nothing about Galloway's policy views (which found a lot of favour in some sections of the Bradford West electorate)  why not? No, GG is a "White guy".  So that's all right then.  "One of us".  "born and bred" in the UK, hey John?

the pro-Hamas deputy

is what Le Monde calls George Galloway, the newly elected MP for Blackburn Bradford West.  You can read the piece here if you are francophone.  Well, they're not wrong.  Back in his Gorgeous George Groucho Club days, Private Eye used to hint strongly that GG was at least bisexual.  Well, who knows, but Le Monde goes into some detail about GG's "conversion" to the Palestinian cause.  It describes the scene, in the Labour Party offices or headquarters in Dundee, where a young Palestinian student had come in for advice or discussions.  GG professed himself "hypnotised" by the young man, according to Le Monde.  Well, just saying.

couldn't resist

I know everyone else has done this, but wtf - easy mistake to make, northern place, lots of brown people