JULIAN ASSANGE: A Letter to the Home Secretary

I've tried, and you can probably do much better - I hope you do. I see Assange as essentially a political prisoner and think that despite his faults he should be defended - for our sake as well as his.

You can also write to him direct to help his morale - I repeat the guidance for this at the end here.

___________________________________

Rt Hon Priti Patel MP, Home Secretary

2 Marsham Street

Westminster

London SW1P 4DF

Tuesday, 20 August 2019

Dear Ms Patel

Julian Assange

I write to you in your capacity as Home Secretary and congratulate you on your recent appointment.

As you know, Mr Julian Assange has spent seven years effectively in solitary confinement at the Ecuadorian Embassy and has recently been seized from there and confined in Belmarsh Prison.

You will be very familiar with the details of his case. As you know, there is widespread disquiet about the British Government’s treatment of this journalist whose work has been given the Serena Shim Award “for uncompromised integrity in journalism.” (https://serenashimaward.org/laureates/)

May I most respectfully request that your Department:

1. Ensures that Mr Assange’s medical problems are addressed promptly, appropriately and fully, seeing that the distinguished journalist John Pilger reports him to be in poor and worsening health (https://consortiumnews.com/2019/08/07/new-fears-for-julian-assange/)
2. Ensures that he has access to papers and sources of information relevant to his defence and that items illegally seized (as reported in The Guardian here https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/may/19/us-prosecutors-julian-assange-wikileaks-ecuadorian-embassy ) are returned to him as soon as possible
3. Notwithstanding our country’s desire to maintain the most amicable relations with our friends in the United States, carefully and sympathetically considers appeals against his extradition

My reason for contacting you about this is that I feel that our country’s moral standing in the international world is in danger of being compromised in this case.

Yours sincerely
_________________________________

Julian Assange is being held in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison and appears to be in ill and declining health. Some people are concerned that he is not receiving adequate medical treatment, is being harmed by continuing long periods of solitary confinement and is allowed insufficient time to meet with his legal advisers and others.

Aside from protests, demonstrations and fund-raising, one way to show support is by writing letters - to your political representative, to the current Home Secretary Priti Patel, and to Julian himself (which MUST be done IN THE RIGHT WAY, as shown below).

Some links:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/08/assange-must-not-also-die-in-jail/
https://steemit.com/wikileaks/@elizbethleavos/actions-for-assange-ideas-and-examples-of-how-to-help
https://writejulian.com/

Space: the superstore for energy and minerals?

Just connecting a few dots here, but there's an outside chance that doomsters could be confounded by technofixes involving space technologies.

A couple of years ago, The Sun newspaper reported on a planned NASA exploration of some of the asteroids sharing Jupiter's orbital path around the sun. One, "16 Psyche", appears to be the metallic core of a protoplanet and contains vast amounts of iron, nickel and precious metals:
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/2642475/nasa-to-explore-asteroid-16-psyche-which-is-so-valuable-it-could-crash-the-worlds-economy/

How could we extract these materials profitably and get them to where they are needed?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asteroid_mining

Could we bring an asteroid home?
http://kiss.caltech.edu/final_reports/Asteroid_final_report.pdf

And what about the potential out there for solar power generation?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-based_solar_power

If we are able to gather energy in space, how do we get it back to Earth? One suggestion is to beam it through the atmosphere down to ground-based receivers - but this involves energy loss on the way, and problems with ensuring that the beam is directed accurately and safely.

Here's a suggestion that occurs to me - probably kited already among the bright brains in those research units: space elevators (cables tied to the ground at one end, and to a geostationary satellite at the other.)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_elevator
People are already experimenting with the idea on a smaller scale:
https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/colossal-elevator-space-could-be-going-sooner-you-ever-imagined-ncna915421

- but instead of (or as well as) being a ladder for space vehicles to climb into orbit, couldn't they be high-tension power cables?

Brexit: Stay Out The Car

A scene haunts me, from the biopic "Pollock", and it keeps telling me about Brexit. The final moments are based on real events, with only minor changes (a strangers' house instead of a bar)...

By 1956 the abstract painter Jackson Pollock had passed the peak of his fame:

"The art critic Clement Greenberg—Pollock’s onetime champion—would later say that by this time “Jackson knew he’d lost the stuff” and was “never going to come back.” Pollock was drinking heavily and had fallen into an abyss of nonproductivity; he was in a “death trance,” according to another biographer friend, Jeffrey Potter." (1)

Pollock's lover Ruth Kligman returned to him from a stay in New York, bringing the receptionist (Edith Metzger) from the beauty parlour she frequented, because her friend Bette wouldn't come.

After dinner they drove out to a party.

"On his way to the car Jackson staggered and Edith asked Ruth if he was "all right? I mean, are you sure he can drive? He's been drinking all day." After reassuring words from Ruth they got in the car - all three in the front seat...

"We drove toward East Hampton. Jackson drove fine, then suddenly started driving very slowly, then slower and slower. Finally he came to a full stop in the fork of the road."

A policeman spoke to Pollock and let him continue.

Edith whispered to me, 'Ruth, he's drunk. Let's go home.'
'Take it easy. He knows what he's doing. Don't worry.'

... Again he started to fall asleep. He drove about twenty miles per hour, his great head falling, his eyes glassy, moaning incoherently. I wished to God I knew how to drive. 'Jackson, please let's go home'... We got him to stop. He turned around in front of [...] a roadhouse bar. [...]
Edith quickly got out of the car. 'I'm going to call for help or call a cab; I must do something.' She was panicked. She was right, but I called her back.

Jackson got furious. 'She can't go in there, get her back.' ...
'Edith, get back in the car. Come on! Don't go in there!'
'But Ruth, he's drunk. I don't want to drive with him. I'm afraid.'
'No, he's not, he's fine, I promise you, we're going home. Come on! Get in!'

[...] I finally coaxed Edith to get back in. We started on our way home. Jackson was fully awake, fully conscious. He was angry, annoyed at us, and began to speed.

Edith started screaming, 'Stop the car, let me out!' She was pleading with him. Again she screamed, 'Let me out, please stop the car! Ruth, do something. I'm scared!'

He put his foot all the way to the floor. He was speeding wildly.

'Jackson, slow down! Edith, stop making a fuss. He's fine. Take it easy. Please. Jackson, stop! Jackson don't do this.' I couldn't reach either of them.

Her arms were waving. She was trying to get out of the car.
He started to laugh hysterically.
One curve too fast. The second curve came too quickly. Her screaming. His insane laughter. His eyes lost. We swerved, skidded to the left out of control - the car lunged into the trees.
We crashed." 

The car had crashed into two small elm trees. All three were thrown from the car. Jackson and Edith were both dead. Ruth survived. (2)

- - - - - - -

Started so well... lost control... drunk, arrogant and overbearing... passenger's move to escape... stupid advice to stay in, from friend... going faster as the squeals get louder...

That's how it feels, to me.
_________________________________________________________________________________
(1) https://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2012/09/jackson-pollock-ruth-kligman-love-triangle
(2) https://nowheretostay.blogspot.com/2011/12/ruth-kligman.html

SUPPORT AND DEFEND JULIAN ASSANGE

Julian Assange is being held in the maximum security Belmarsh Prison and appears to be in ill and declining health. Some people are concerned that he is not receiving adequate medical treatment, is being harmed by continuing long periods of solitary confinement and is allowed insufficient time to meet with his legal advisers and others.

Aside from protests, demonstrations and fund-raising, one way to show support is by writing letters - to your political representative, to the current Home Secretary Priti Patel, and to Julian himself (which MUST be done IN THE RIGHT WAY, as shown below).

Some links:

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2019/08/assange-must-not-also-die-in-jail/
https://steemit.com/wikileaks/@elizbethleavos/actions-for-assange-ideas-and-examples-of-how-to-help
https://writejulian.com/

FRIDAY MUSIC: Wyrd, by JD

We are into that time of year which used to be known as the 'silly season' which coincides with school and Parliament holidays and the newspapers are filled with trivial or inconsequential stories. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silly_season Times have changed somewhat and it sometimes feels as though the silly season lasts all year round!

But to maintain the 'tradition' here is a potpourri of musical strangeness. (- in keeping with this year's strange weather.)









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Sackerson adds:

From the sublime to... here is a favourite of mine -



UPDATE

JD tells me some swine actually did this for real:

http://mentalfloss.com/article/50986/terrifying-katzenklavier-organ-made-cats

1978 - when TV political debate was more serious

Here is the Thames TV debate on the Common Market and its relevance to the minority Callaghan government. If only modern debate could be more like this.

Dennis Skinner is very good on the multiple impacts on British industry and labour.

I like the comment by John Pardoe (Liberal) towards the end of Part 2 when he talks about the disadvantages of government by a party that has secured an overwhelming majority in Parliament.

I think that EU membership and recent British government have highlighted the need to revisit:

• The increasing power of the Executive
• The use of prerogative powers
• The expansion of secondary legislation that is merely waved through both Houses

Epstein: a prediction

I have read that Jeffrey Epstein used to document everything about his activities and clients, presumably as a form of insurance. Now that he is dead - rather mysteriously - his properties can be searched without hindrance.

I predict that nothing will be found that would prove any of the allegations or rumours made against some of the rich, powerful and famous people with whom he had been associated. Not at his homes, offices or lodged with his lawyers past and present.

For I'm confident that America is just as good at losing information as we are.

You may remember that in 1984 Conservative MP for Huddersfield, Geoffrey Dickens passed a file about paedophiles and child pornography to the then Home Secretary Leon Brittan. Dickens had been campaigning on this issue for some years and had even used Parliamentary privilege to name a former British High Commissioner. He claimed there was a paedophile network involving "big, big names – people in positions of power, influence and responsibility" and threatened to name them in the Commons also.

Brittan had told Dickens that the file would be passed to the police; Scotland Yard later said that they had no record of any such investigation. And in the same week that the dossier was given to Brittan, both Dickens' London flat and consituency home were broken into and ransacked - without any ordinary valuables being taken.

Also in the 1980s, it is said that former Labour Cabinet Minister and then MEP Barbara Castle gave investigative journalist Don Hale a dossier alleging the involvement of MPs and peers in the Paedophile Information Exchange. Hale was then visited by police and Special Branch and ordered to hand it over.

That file seems to have been lost, too.

Here's a challenge for a brave and tech-savvy blogger to take up: install one of those programs that identifies your readers' computer addresses and geographical locations, then run a piece titled something like "British VIP paedophile network: notarised copy of Geoffrey Dickens' 1984 file found among deceased lawyer's papers" - and see who looks in.

Or - and I guess this is best - let sleeping dogs lie. As Stalin liked to say, "A man, a problem; no man, no problem."