You won’t see anything like that with the naked eye, period. We can’t build up a composite of all photons our eye gathers over 1060 hours! There are places where you can get minimal light pollution and see amazing things though.
You can't argue that being holed up in an embassy is that much better than prison.
I’ve seen footage of where he was in the embassy, it’s a lot better than prison. He also didn’t have to be counted five times a day, no one was trying to rape him or stab him, he woke up and went to sleep when he wanted, ate an array of foods, and until the end had access to people who wanted to visit in person. No guards abused him, and if he wanted to he could leave. Plus, he made a choice to enter the embassy and stay there.
What's more none of that ~7 years counts towards actual jail time he'll like serve in the UK (for absconding) and the US (the publicized charges are only the beginning). The one (?) remaining charge in Sweden will quickly fall apart no doubt.
On what planet would time spent after jumping bail and seeking asylum in an embassy count toward time served? That’s... insane. As far as the charges falling apart we’ll have to wait and see, if they’re even filed. Of course if the charges were nonsense then 7 years in an embassy was a really stupid choice.
Arguments that Assange deserve protection as a journalist are (IMHO) a stretch at best. Getting a hold of classified information is one thing. Aiding in defeating security measures to obtain it is quite another story.
But to me at least, the big problem is that Assange lost all credibility as a journalist over the Wikileaks handling of the 2016 election and related hackings (eg the DCC emails). You'll have a hard time arguing that Assange (and Wikileaks by extension) wasn't picking a side here and doing what they can to influence the outcome of the election.
A traditional media outlet with an op-ed section is one thing. Playing an active part in illegally obtaining emails and other materials as well as arguably passing on that information to a presidential campaign is quite something else.
Even Snowden filtered his classified material through reputable media outlets.
Yes, that all sounds about right. He’s also not being charged with what he carelessly published, but rather how he attempted to obtain it. Journalism isn’t even in the room.
So now we have embassy (~7 years), fighting extradition to either the US or Sweden (2+ years probably), whatever prison time he has to serve in the UK (which will run concurrently to fighting extradition no doubt as it's typical to serve that time first) and then years, perhaps many years, in US prisons. He may not see the light of day until 2030, maybe 2040.
The common factor here is his series of bad decisions.
I think our definition of imprisonment is different. To me being confined within the limits of a single house suffices. No need for that... other stuff.
I'm don't think the court will count the times his body should have been violated as a factor.
> no one was trying to rape him or stab him ... no guards abused him
Raping, stabbing and abusing people is still illegal in prison, you know. It isn't supposed to be part of the process. Assange isn't a violent offender either, so it'd be a little unfortunate if he was imprisoned with people who are.
Nobody is saying that the time he spent in the embassy should or could count towards his eventual prison sentences, but the 7 years he has spent there looks a lot like a self-imposed prison sentence.
> He also didn’t have to be counted five times a day, ... he woke up and went to sleep when he wanted, ate an array of foods
Those are clearly luxuries vs being imprisoned, but if that is the margin between being imprisoned or not the distinction is really irrelevant.
> Plus, he made a choice to enter the embassy and stay there.
So instead of accepting a state-controlled imprisonment he chose a voluntary period of conditions quite similar to being imprisoned. That is compelling evidence that he was serious about fearing extradition to the US to face whatever horrors they have in store for him.
I mean, objectively, if he believed he was just going to face rape charges in Sweden none of his choices make much sense. I doubt he was going to face more than 7 years for an offense that caused no injuries and that the victims didn't think was outrageously terrible at the time it happened. If he ever claimed his accusers weren't being truthful, the only compelling evidence is that there are two of them.
>So instead of accepting a state-controlled imprisonment he chose a voluntary period of conditions quite similar to being imprisoned.
Yes, that's what anyone who has ever fled an arrest warrant has done. It also apparently worked, as he was able to outlast the Swedish warrant (though I understand that the charges are technically suspended, not dropped).
>That is compelling evidence that he was serious about fearing extradition to the US to face whatever horrors they have in store for him.
If he was serious about that then he probably should have been very careful about not irritating his hosts, which he seems to have done flagrantly and repeatedly.
The allegation in the indictment claims otherwise, hence the indictment and extradition request. Then there’s the rape issue in Sweden, although I really have no idea how that will stand up if it’s reopened. Still, answering those questions f fact are why courts exist.
However, these allegations have come up before in Manning's trial, and they do not amount to much more than him trying (not succeeding) to help Manning cover her tracks, i.e., protecting his source as a journalist. He did NOT help Manning access more data. This article by Glenn Greenwald is a good read on the subject:
No, and why would they? What they could do is tune their radars and missile guidance systems to combat it, and that is a much greater concern. They could also use aspects of the F-35 such as fiber-mat RAM without having to go whole hog on building a clone.
I did find the notions of potentially building "a copy" of it in the article pretty funny. Why would anyone want to do that, when they have their own, quite capable, planes that can get an additional edge from pickings of F-35 tech...Mind you, I think most of the useful tech is how the plane integrates into the digital battlefield, which cannot be replicated even if you get an intact plane. Stealth coating etc. is a physical, hard-to-iterate-on thing that is becoming obsolete as we speak, while radar / AA systems are being improved (likes of S400 and S500)...I.e. its advantage will wear off at some point in time. I think (not an expert, though) the engine and radar elements are probably one of the most valuable components to salvage.
They also created the KKK to accomplish with terrorism what the legal system and social norms couldn’t rig for them. That really persisted unabated into the late 50’s, and to an extent still exists. The violence has been reduced, but the economic devastation remains. There’s a reason that you can use zip code as a proxy for race in America.
But it's really not a one-off. This has become modern day marketing tactics. Guarantee someone gave a presentation today to a bunch of execs about how to manipulate a percentage of your users to achieve [x] goal by lightly "nudging" them.
War is messy, imprecise, and inevitably involves unintended (or possibly intended) civilian casualties. It’s a great argument for avoiding wars that aren’t absolutely necessary.
Of course Bayer is still insisting that everything is kosher. Well, not kosher, their response to that was creating Zyclon B when they were still part of IG Farben. It would seem that their commitment to morality remains broadly unchanged.
The article makes the point that despite human trials originally, and later one-cell zebrafish embryo tests, no sign of carcinogenesis was detected. They further explain that given its limited range within the body, it only impacting damaged tissue and the short period of time it would be used, it’s unlikely to be carcinogenic.
Oh sure, this agrees with the "tightly regulated" constraint. Short time, localized application/expression qualify. I'm not sure that long term exposure would be good, and in reference to BPC-157 let's not forget that intestinal cancers do occur (though I'm not at all sure if there's ever been a link between BPC-157 and intestinal cancer).
It's great that the compound looks safe given the limited amount of information we have, but it sounds like there's not a whole lot of trials out there with the power to test the possibility that this could be cancerous long term. Happy to be proven wrong though!
Remember the initial human trials were using it systemically to control blood sugar, and specifically looked for carcinogenesis. Obviously there’s room for something to have been overlooked, but in the narrow case of this particular molecule I’d be hopeful. As for BPC-157 we’re very much on the same page, and I’d be very concerned about cancer.
I agree with most of what you’ve said, but I’m curious about whether or not YouTube actually makes money. I was under the impression that on a good day it just about breaks even, but has that changed?
Speaking as a Jew, while this is accurate, it’s not that common in the US among non-orthodox families. There was a poll of American Jews a while ago that found less than a quarter keep kosher.
https://darksitefinder.com/map/
That site will help.