Assange Stands 'Real Chance' of Election In Australia 204
Okian Warrior writes "Various new sources are reporting the results of a recent Labor Party poll, indicating that Julian Assange would be elected to the Australian senate, should he choose to run. From the Sun Daily article: 'Controversial WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stands a real chance of winning an upper house seat in his native Australia if he presses ahead with plans to stand for election, a poll showed Saturday. A survey conducted by the ruling Labor party's internal pollsters UMR Research and published in the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper showed 25 percent of those polled would vote for the whistleblowing website chief.'"
If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:4, Interesting)
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It also has a much hotter head honcho than the U.S., so if you're nursing fantasies about being a national leader's plaything you could do worse.
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I hear Bill Clinton wants to move there and run for office.
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Funny)
I hear Bill Clinton wants to move there and run for office.
It wouldn't work, I'm afraid. He would have to be an Australian citizen to stand for office, and I have heard that Bill Clinton was actually born in Kenya.
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just concerned an "Australian" kangaroo will "spontaneously" explode in some American city, and then before the ink on the infrastructure rebuilding contracts is dry we'll be flying upside-down C-130s and invading down under to "liberate" them from a "terrorist atheist criminal dictator".
Man, the fucked up thing is that the Australians aren't even the most dangerous thing on the continent. We'll probably lose a couple hundred guys just to the local wildlife.
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I LOL'd. A friend from up here in the wild west of USA that now lives in Brisbane constantly reminds me of this: we have Grizzly bears (Yey us, we win on large omnivores), a couple kinds of biting flies, mosquitoes (but no malaria), hobo spiders and rattlesnakes (who rattle to warn you away; some call them the gentlemen of the desert). You have god knows how many distinct species of dangerous snakes, spiders, flies, lizards, sting rays, crocodiles, various invertebrate seaborne killers, bugs, spiders, and
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Funny)
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The crocs only eat the bears once they've run out of tourists.
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We have Drop Bears Sir, nothing comes close to the terror. Not even the most poisonous snake or spider in the world nor the largest white pointer can come close to that. Even the military run screaming should one of their own be taken in some desert exercise, shredded in a few vicious slashes to be eaten and regurgitated to it's young. Drop Bears strike fear into our very community and on a daily basis. http://australianmuseum.net.au/Drop-Bear
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:4, Informative)
Man, the fucked up thing is that the Australians aren't even the most dangerous thing on the continent. We'll probably lose a couple hundred guys just to the local wildlife.
Well yeah, even the kangaroos have stinger missiles. [snopes.com]
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:4, Funny)
Actually, Australian kangaroos are pretty nasty ...
There's a story around about how a Australian helicopter simulator was being demonstrated to some US colleagues. After doing a few passes over some nice rural landscape they were very surprised when some of the kangaroos below pulled out a few shoulder-mounted SAMs and started shooting. They were even more surprised when they were "hit", and crashed and burned.
It turns out that when the software engineers created the kangaroo objects they did so by cloning some soldier objects, and then just changing the uniforms. They forgot to change some of the more aggressive behaviours.
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"terrorist atheist criminal dictator"
Julia Gillard [wikipedia.org] is actually an atheist - and a woman, although that may be less scary. (I suspect the US will have a female president well before it has an atheist one.)
Well, I'm an Atheiest. I'm not like super-vocal about it, but I don't shy away from it either. In a lot of places in the States, "atheist" is tantamount to a slur, like if you called someone a commie in 1950s America.
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Yeah, but it sounds funny because the folks who say atheist as a slur here in the U.S. frequently do so through missing front teeth.
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:4, Interesting)
Well, Germany now has the Pirate party represented in it's fourth state parliament (Berlin: 15 seats, Saarland 4 seats, North_Rhine-Westphaliav 20 seats, Schleswig-Holstein 6 seats). They are polling at 11% for the federal elections.
One senate seat doesn't seem like all that much...
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It's actually not that easy to get in the Australian Federal Senate.
1. It's a first past the post style count.
2. There are 2 ways of voting, above the line or below the line
3. People like Assange will never be endorsed by a political party and thus you need to vote below the line to vote for them, only parties have boxes above the line
4. The number of boxes below the line and the fact you have to mark all of them if you vote below means almost no one does
The only exception to this rule is if they are so ext
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Don't forget dropbears.
You're making that up, I hope. [urbandictionary.com]
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Its the Navy Seals that will really suffer, but only for a little while... Box Jellies... Eeeeeeeewwwwwww!
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They are also in salt water crocodile country, a protected species, not so much the marines should they decide to urinate in the wrong creek at the wrong time http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Vr7LaHEIcQ [youtube.com].
Not to mention South Australia was convict free http://www.atlas.sa.gov.au/go/resources/atlas-of-south-australia-1986/the-course-of-settlement [sa.gov.au]. Convict settlement was the east and west coast of Australia. Don't forget Australia is much the same size as continuous mainland US, plenty of room for every thing
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You "'Strailians" have no idea how sexy (attractive) that place looks from here. Given the chance, I'd just camp out forever a bit East of Perth and wait for rain. Sydney sounds nice too, but deserts appeal (imagine a Canuck winter).
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it is the last western nation with a little redemption left in it
Unfortunately the LITTLE in the original post is all too true, many of us would characterise it more like "Some is better than none, but only just barely".
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I wouldn't rush into it. Most of the people and politicians here seem determined to turn Australia into a clone of America. If the Liberals (Australian equivalent of the Republicans) take power in the next Federal election I, for one, will be aiming to leave the country.
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Uh, here your supposed to wait until after getting elected to start your misdemeanor spree. I guess you guys live in upsidedown land.
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The joke was that Australia is upside down because it lies south of the equator.
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Informative)
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Total non sequitur.
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Interesting)
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Watch it and then shut up. [pbs.org]
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I'm not the previous poster but I did watch the documentary.
It says that forest (i.e. bushland - forest was probably redubed for the American market) is being cleared at a rate close to the Amazon in Queensland. Not rainforest. Most rainforest in Australia is protected.
It should have said was though. Those rates of land clearing have since decreased. Although they still are too high. Australia needs to keep better care of its bushlands. Rainforests though I think you'll find are well cared for.
It says nothi
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Myxomatosis... I give up. It's late here in Australia, I vainly hope for some forgiveness.
Why are we talking about rabbit viral diseases again? And why hope for forgiveness when we can forget? :-)
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And why hope for forgiveness when we can forget?
Now you sound like a Russian expatriate.
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And why hope for forgiveness when we can forget?
Now you sound like a Russian expatriate.
How do you spell "spacibe"? Speciba? Specibeh? :-| Some Russian I'd make.
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I was hinting at the legendary Vodka addiction, BTW, in case that didn't come through in translation to Cyrillic. :-)
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Now you sound like a Russian expatriate.
I was hinting at the legendary Vodka addiction, BTW, in case that didn't come through in translation to Cyrillic. :-)
Ah. You're saying I sound like I'm drunk. Well, you may be right, dependant upon the time of day or day of week, and !@#$ you too.
I think I'm supposed to finish this off with something witty and self-effacing, but I'm at a loss ATM. Okay, I'll try anyway.
Cheers. Cheap Scotch! Your Mom's fat and fugly! Sigh.
Vodka is a vile spirit, suited only to Russians, or to be used heavily mixed with Clamato. Ptui! :-P
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I don't have to drink to forget... I come by the ability naturally. Maybe drinking will instead help me remember and I've been missing out?
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I don't have to drink to forget... I come by the ability naturally.
That may be age (or senility) talking. BUT WHO CARES?!? Cheers bud. Coffee with no Scotch in it is a waste of space.
Maybe drinking will instead help me remember and I've been missing out?
Stop prevaricating! Just enjoy the ride. :-)
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... appromiximately ...
approximately... dammit. Unless we're talking about an insult to rabbits and mixamitosis... or ximatoWTF if I'm dyslexic.
Slydexic? I find you strangely entertaining, but perhaps I should report for inspection. Carry on.
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The population figure I pulled out of my own out-of-date mental atlas. The Nature program probably made no mention of it.
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Hehe, if the US treats its citizens the way it treats pigs, I wouldn't want to live there either :-p.
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It does. Actually, the pigs get it better: they get the release of death, while the human livestock are kept alive and bled dry slowly. Where do ya think they got the idea for Guantanamo?
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Some states in the USA have laws requiring that pigs be housed in an enclosure they can at least turn around in... that's bigger than most apartments in America and the pigs can't be charged rent !
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Speaking of offal, it was an unpleasant discovery that koala young for a period eat their mother's poop to acquire the digestive flora to handle those awful gum leaves. What a nice visual that was....
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koala young for a period eat their mother's poop to acquire the digestive flora
Something to tell children who wish they were a Koala bear (I'm sure there are examples for many other cute/popular animals)
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Informative)
OTOH, if it treats its citizens like it treats the koalas (q.v. recent PBS Nature episode) and aborigines and rainforest, maybe it's not that great. Only 15 million people and all that real estate, and still they manage to screw up the best parts.
There's 22 million people in Australia.
As for the rest of your quote I think you might be talking about historical treatment of these things. Yeah Koalas were hunted till about 1920. Now days they are a protected species, with large wildlife sanctuaries and facilities dedicated to nursing injured Koalas and rearing orphaned Koalas to release them back into the wild.
Aboriginal people were treated terribly historically. They were denied the vote and treated as second class citizens until the 1960s (remind you of some other places?) Now days traditional land rights are acknowledged. Aboriginals are given special treatment under the welfare system. And there have been public apologies by several Prime Ministers for the various ways they were mistreated.
I'm not sure of the history of rainforests in Australia but before you go running your mouth you could have at least done some precursory research on conservation efforts in Australia. Firstly the Green party is the 3rd largest political party in Australia and you'll find vast areas of national parks and state parks across Australia. Over 10% of Australia's land mass is national parks. That's an area bigger than Texas.
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Just like the other Aussies who started smacking me around here and mindlessly modding me down, you don't really seem to know what your government and industries are actually doing (or not doing). The program however was demonstrating a different story, and keep in mind that the people in the program were also Aussies. The most shocking fact, mentioned out of hand and not the point of the program:
the Queensland rainforest is being destroyed at the same rate as the Amazon rainforest.
Does that sound like sustainable natural resource management to you?
Here's the portal for the episode, if they [pbs.org]
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So you ran your mouth of about Australian treatment of Aborigines, Koalas and rainforest. Of those you contest that rates of rainforest clearing are high and link to a documentary that we can't see about scientists in Australia and America studying Koala mating calls and you're surprised that you got modded down?
Rates of overall land clearing in Australia have been high. They were very high in the 1990's apparently. Possibly as high as those of the Amazon. Rates have decreased since then (that is how Aust
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>There's 22 million people in Australia.
Yeah but the other 7 million don't count because they are expat white wimps from South Africa who couldn't stick it out in a continent that's not for sissies. :P
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Indeed. They've unfortunately aped quite a few of our mistakes instead of learning from them. We had Bush, they had John Howard....
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Informative)
Um, the aboriginal people of Australia, to the best of my knowledge, have never had a treaty with the crown. So there are no such things as "aboriginal treaty rights". Sure, successive governments, their bureaucracies, farmers/squatters, rednecks, and others have trampled all over aboriginal people and their traditions, beliefs, and moral rights - but there's never been a treaty to break. The maori people of New Zealand have a treaty, but not the aboriginals of Australia.
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Would you, Quintus?
Re:If Julian Assange gets elected (Score:5, Informative)
While most television aired in the US undoubtedly manages to portray foreign events deeply, fairly and truthfully, there may have been one or two liberties taken in the report referred to.
No Aboriginal treaty/treaties exist in Australia therefore crapping over them becomes ridiculously hard. There is a song about "Treaties" that was very popular though. It proclaims the need for a treaty such as that exists between the Maori and Pakeha of New Zealand. View here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7cbkxn4G8U [youtube.com]
Rainforest around suburban Sydney hasn't existed in general since the local glaciers melted 20k years ago.
One State Government comparatively recently spent 30 million dollars gently de-sexing koalas to reduce their numbers as local over-population was severely degrading the natural environment. Others have spent far greater amounts constructing tunnels and overpasses for them for them to use in post-arboreal nocturnal perambulation (walkabouts).
Perhaps there is a point here in that if the Aboriginals were to be encouraged to go back to eating koalas (lack of predators leaves only disease and habitat as population controllers) there'd be more chance of cultivating rainforests around the suburbs. Note for Man vs Food fans: Koalas are rumoured to have a strong eucalyptus flavour that disagrees.
Disclaimer: I currently live in a suburb that has many koalas happily harvesting the local sclerophyll forest. They are common in this locality. We have internal plumbing to crap upon and this makes up for a lack of treaties to disrespectfully soil.
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You really don't have a clue to offer, apparently. I don't care how long your penis is.
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You are obviously American as the significance of the parent comment has completely escaped you.
1: Being "crushed" is completely immaterial. If the US got into a war with Russia or China or France then it too would cease to exist within 30 minutes, except as a radioactive hole in the ground. The only Asian power that could militarily threaten Australia is China..the rest would have their asses handed to them on a plate if they tried anything. If the US attacked Australia then it would win, but at heinous co
"Internal Poll" (Score:3, Insightful)
Because they'd never lie about his chances in an attempt to drum up support. Oh no, that would never happen.
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Because they'd never lie about his chances
I'd love to see internal memos revealing that leaked to the press.
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Which electorate is that fond of him?.
Senators represent a State or Territory. He'd pick the State that gave him the best odds of winning (6 seats per State per election vs. 2 seats per Territory per election). IIRC it only takes the signatures of fifty individuals eligible to vote in that State or Territory to nominate as an independent senate candidate. As long as he is not disqualified by section 44 of our Constitution (dual or foreign citizen, subject to a custodial sentence of more than one year, undischarged bankrupt, on public payro
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Shut the fuck up you stinking mile high pile of shit.
Guffaw! Really. :-)
Immunity (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Immunity (Score:4, Interesting)
Sad really when you think about it. Citizen Assange can be set up, framed and generally gone after with impunity. Politician Assange, dearie me no, he's important! Might cause an international incident!
The system is so broken.
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The system is so broken.
Agreed.
So, if that's the way it works these days, let's break it again! Get into the spirit of things. Welcome to the 21st Century. Nihilists on every street corner and poisonous critters infesting our dreams.
What a world this is. :-| You people (not you personally) just keep on astonishing me. "Don't. Stop! No. Don't stop!!!"
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he should have gone for a us government seat. he already has the womanizing ways. he would fit right in as a state governor.
No (Score:4, Informative)
There's no such thing. You are thinking diplomatic immunity. Diplomatic immunity is granted to any accredited diplomat working in the host country. It also can be, and is, granted to politicians visiting on official state trips. However it isn't something that happens by magic. It is granted by the host nation, meaning the nation the person is in.
What's more, it can be waived. If a diplomat commits a crime the host nation can ask the parent nation to waive immunity. Depending on the relationship between the nations, this can happen. An immunity waiver isn't up to the diplomat, it is up to their government.
So even if immunity applied (it wouldn't since he was never granted it) Sweden could ask the Australian government to waive immunity on the rape charges. Australia probably would.
It is not this magic shield that protects any politician people seem to think.
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Don't misunderstand me, I think he's guilty ...
I don't. I think it's all BS. The original prosecutor dropped it. Then another (more political) one picked it up again, and there you are.
Was it consensual sex? Yes. Were they forced into bed with him? No. Are condoms unbreakable? No. Is he a pariah in the eyes of some powerful nations' governments? Yes. Were he just some ordinary, run of the mill guy, would this be happening to him? Crucify him!
It's BS.
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Here is a fact, the two women reported the rape MONTH before the controversy was even started. Then the serial rapist used the controversy as an excuse no to stand trial.
Your so-called "facts" leave much to be desired. "Serial rapist"?!? For consensual sex? After it all blew up in his face, he asked the prosecutor if he was free to go, and they said yes. He left. Then the second prosecutor started the current situation. Now, he's just trying to avoid being crucified by a stupid Swedish definition of rape. Yo girls, IT'S ALRIGHT TO SAY NO. Really. Honest! Say no if you want to! REALLY, damnit!
You are an imbecile.
But since idiots around the world believe whatever piece of human trash there is as long as they say something bad about the US
Poor baby. Do you feel the same way about Daniel El
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Consensual sex according to the rapist ..... with a woman who said NO. Only a complete imbecile thinks that is consensual sex.
You must be Swedish. "So, here we are, in bed, and we're both naked. We've already (earlier) fucked each other ragged. Do you want to have sex?"
RAPE!
I mean, come on. No one but the Swedish legal system thinks that's plausible.
BTW, I will NOT be vacationing in Sweden in the forseeable future, despite the respect I have for that country otherwise.
Government allegiance & perception of independ (Score:3)
If he becomes part of the Australia gov, then future Wikileaks exposés on governments that are Australia's economic/geopolitical competitors would be more easily called into question. Releases on China, Japan, NZ, Indonesia, even the US, would at the outset be accused of having pro-Australian political motivations behind them.
Re:Government allegiance & perception of indep (Score:5, Informative)
Because WikiLeaks can only publish material it gets. If they don't get material about Russia and China, they can't publish it. WikiLeaks doesn't actively go for material, they just offer a platform to publish it.
If you want something about Russia and China published on WikiLeaks, go, get the stuff and publish it!
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Perhaps because no one from Russia or China is sending him leaked documents?
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Release the data and let the general public draw their own conclusions.
Like to the New York Times, The Guardian, and der Spiegel? Oh, he did! Huh.
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Or just setup a site that contains the raw information for public consumption. And he did not release all the data he received at one time. Was he just spell checking the documents? Organizations such as this should serve only as a conduit for releasing the raw information as widely as possibly while protecting the identity of the person who provided the information to them. And pray tell why he demanded money from other news sources for access to the data? Why does it take millions of dollars to provide th
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Or just setup a site that contains the raw information for public consumption.
No, raw data needs to be sanitized to protect the innocent.
Organizations such as this should serve only as a conduit ...
... which is why people like you are not in charge. It's not as simple a thing to do as you wish it to be.
And pray tell why he demanded money from other news sources for access to the data?
I assume he was trying to figure out how to do it. He was inventing. I've been there.
I don't think he's our saviour. I do think he's just another guy. I think he had a bright idea and he's doing his best to run with it. I haven't seen him do much that I'd consider "evil" (and I'm fairly picky in that area). To my mind, so far, so good.
I t
Oh really? (Score:2, Funny)
So how long before OpenLeaks posts the real poll results?
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What's so special about poll results? They are just an attempt do understand the current opinion. They don't have any legal implications. If there was a real election, and the real results were hidden and the election faked, then there would be something to publish. But a poll? Seriously? If you don't believe the results, ask the next polling institute and get your own.
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I was a cover for microsoft funded mole to leave and shred documents under some cover of credibility. Don't believe me?
http://openleaks.org/ [openleaks.org] - hasn't been touched since 2010 and their security certificate has expiried.
I Hope they would make him... (Score:2)
I Hope they would make him Minister of Foreign Affairs.
Fuck you U.S.A.; Diplomatic immunity.
I know it would never happen, not even sure if that position has Immunity. Leave me with my dreams....
Good. Just what he's cut out for. (Score:2)
And more importantly, he'll have a first-hand chance to see - behind the scenes - exactly why some government communication has to be kept out of public view. Everyone who gets elected to such positions gets a big fat wake-up call about security matters they used to blow off as irrelevent.
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unctuous, hyper-vain, womanizing publicity whore who's always looking for other people to fund what he wants to do
And aside from the womanizing you've just described Mark Zuckerberg (and pretty much any other high-profile massive-IPO CEO of a company which is insanely over-hyped)
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And aside from the womanizing you've just described Mark Zuckerberg (and pretty much any other high-profile massive-IPO CEO of a company which is insanely over-hyped)
The difference is that Zuckerberg creates things, but Assange just wants to control and/or destroy them in order to be visible and famous. You may not like Zuckerburg, but Assange is leech with delusions of grandeur. There is a difference between them - and not just Assange's condescending treatment of women.
A Real Chance (Score:3)
Assange vs Conroy (Score:2)
Assange and Controy would likely be in the same state (Victoria) and competing against each other.
Conroy is from the Australian Labor Party has tried very hard to impose stricter censorship on us, last election there was a campaign encouraging people from all parties to put conroy last on the ballot (preferential voting). He is not well liked by the people, well, excpet for when hes doing NBN stuff.
With Conroy and Assange on the same ballot, it would be difficult to not think about censorship when voting.
Good move! (Score:2)
Aside from having a person who's willing to "chap a few (or a lot of) hides" in order to do what he thinks is right, in government, it would certainly make it a LOT harder to extradite him if he were to become a senator. Just how many world leades get extradited? Not many, I recon.
As an American, I won't claim to know the intracacies of Australian government/politics, but at least on the surface, running/getting elected sounds like a smart thing for Assange to do...assuming nobody assassinates him for it.
Not so sure about this (Score:2)
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He can't. He'd certaly need to put another person doing Wikileaks PR, and get completely away from it.
But that is way too much speculative. Had anybody already asked him what he'll do?
Re:Ouch (Score:4, Insightful)
Residents of the U.S.A. elected George W. Bush; how could he be worse than that....
And you call us 'batshit insane'?
Re:I dont think so.. (Score:4, Funny)
from memory he has a criminal record for hacking in Australia yeah?
you cant be in parlment with a criminal record...
Nope, only a handful of convictions [aph.gov.au] (treason, bribery, etc.) are disqualifiers from Oz parliament. His main problem would be he'd have to renounce any dual citizenship.
If they do vote him in, the beauty of democracy is that it thoroughly rewards masochistic voters.
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No, it highlights how Australians will vote for a name they know. We'd probably vote in Hitler if he stood for election, simply because that's the only name on the ballot we recognise.
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We'd probably vote in Hitler if he stood for election, simply because that's the only name on the ballot we recognise.
Also called: "The Evil You Know....."
Re:Here comes the begging for campaign donations (Score:4, Interesting)
Having seen the bombardment of political ads in the US I was stunned as to how nasty they get. At least the politicians here put some effort into their bullshit and attempt to make a reasonably civil and coherent argument in their advertising. I look at some of the attack ads in the US and think to myself; "the attacker must think I'm an idiot", I thought the same thing when they put Palin up for VP. Republican's treated their suppoerters as morons by selecting a village idiot as a VP candidate, they deserved to lose.