If things weren’t serious enough for Julain Assange, the Guardian reports that the Wikileaks founder could be at “real risk of the death penalty or detention in Guantánamo Bay if he is extradited to Sweden on accusations of rape and sexual assault, his lawyers claim.” According to the report:

In a skeleton summary of their defence against attempts by the Swedish director of public prosecutions to extradite him, released today, Assange’s legal team argue that there is a similar likelihood that the US would subsequently seek his extradition “and/or illegal rendition”, “where there will be a real risk of him being detained at Guantánamo Bay or elsewhere”.

“Indeed, if Mr Assange were rendered to the USA, without assurances that the death penalty would not be carried out, there is a real risk that he could be made subject to the death penalty. It is well known that prominent figures have implied, if not stated outright, that Mr Assange should be executed.”

The 35-page skeleton argument was released by Mark Stephens, Assange’s lawyer, following a brief review hearing this morning at Belmarsh magistrates court.

The WikiLeaks founder, who is on conditional bail while his extradition case is being considered, appeared for no more than 15 minutes in the dock, while supporters including Jemima Khan and Bianca Jagger looked on and waved support from the public gallery.

He later emerged to give a brief statement to a large number of reporters, saying: “Our work with WikiLeaks continues unabated. We are stepping up our publications for matters relating to Cablegate and other materials.

“These will shortly be available through our newspaper partners around the world – big and small newspapers and human rights organisations.”

The skeleton argument outlines seven points on which Assange’s lawyers will contest his extradition, which was sought by the Swedish DPP, Marianne Ny, following accusations from two women that he had sexually assaulted them in separate incidents in August.

One accusation, that Assange had sex with one of the women while she was asleep, would amount to rape under Swedish law if proven. Both women had previously had consenting sex with Assange.

The other points of argument include:

• That the European arrest warrant (EAW) is not valid, because Ny is not the authorised issuing authority, and it has been sought for an improper purpose – ie “simply in order to question him and without having yet reached a decision on whether or not to prosecute him”. This, they argue, would be in contravention of a well-established principle “that mere suspicion should not found a request for extradition”.

• That there has been “abuse of process” as Assange has not had full disclosure of all documents relating to the case, in particular text messages sent by one of the women, in which she allegedly said she was “half asleep” (ie not fully asleep) at the time they had sex, and messages between the two women in which they allegedly spoke of “revenge”.

• That the “conduct” of the Swedish prosecutor amounts to abuse of process. Assange’s lawyers cite the fact that the rape allegations were initially dismissed and then reopened by a second prosecutor, that the prosecutor has refused Assange’s offers of interview, and that it has not made documents available to Assange in English. They also cite the leak of part of the prosecution case to the Guardian as “a breach of Mr Assange’s fair trial and privacy rights”.

• That the alleged offences would not be considered crimes in the UK, and therefore, they argue, an EAW between the two countries would not be valid.

• That the extradition attempt is politically motivated, and that his trial would be prejudiced because of his political opinions or because, they argue, of his gender.

Assange’s team will make their case on 7 and 8 February, when Assange will return to court for the full extradition hearing. The case for his extradition is being argued by the Crown Prosecution Service on behalf of the Swedish prosecutor; the full prosecution case is not expected to be released before that date.

District Judge Nicholas Evans agreed at this morning’s hearing to ease the terms of his bail conditions, which require Assange to wear an electronic tag and report daily to a police station close to the stately home on the Suffolk/Norfolk border where he is staying. For the nights of 6 and 7 February Assange will be permitted to stay in London.

 
Via The Guardian
 

 
Talk about timely. Within a day and a half of Sheriff Clarence Dupnik famously speaking truth to the far right’s moral abyss on the Tuscon massacre, Steve Stein—a.k.a. Steinski, probably the most influential producer in hip-hop cut & paste—posted up a tribute to the man.

Notes the great Stein:

My apologies in advance to Sheriff Dupnik. May you always speak your mind as clearly as you did on this occasion, sir.

No apologies needed. Here’s “Soul Searching (Sheriff Dupnik’s rmx).” Download it here.
 

 
Get: Steinski - What Does It All Mean? 1983-2006 [CD]

 
Jared Lee Loughner is identified as the man responsible for a shooting this morning, in Tuscon, Arizona, which left 10 people injured, 5 critically, and six confirmed dead, including a 9-year-old girl and Judge John Roll.

Amongst the injured is Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot at allegedly point blank range - the bullet going “through-and-through her head.”

Loughner is a 22-year-old native of Arizona, who allegedly has his own You Tube Channel “classitup10” that contains very strange and disturbing messages, including his Final Thoughts, in which he writes:

I’m a sleepwalker - who turns off the alarm clock.

Jared also writes about terrorism, grammar, the value of money and the Bible in a rather cryptic fashion, and attacks the US government for implying “mind control” and “brainwash”. In conclusion, Jared writes:

I can’t trust the current government because of the ratification: The government is implying mind control and brainwash on the people by controlling grammar.

No! I won’t pay debt with a currency that’s not backed by gold and silver!

No! I won’t trust in God!

What’s government if words don’t have meaning?

Under interests, Jared writes in past tense:

My favorite interest was reading, and I studied grammar. Conscience dreams were a great study in college!

He lists as his favorite books, again in the past tense:

I had favorite books: Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Wizard Of OZ, Aesop Fables, The Odyssey, Alice Adventures Into Wonderland, Fahrenheit 451, Peter Pan, To Kill A Mockingbird, We The Living, Phantom Toll Booth, One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest, Pulp,Through The Looking Glass, The Communist Manifesto, Siddhartha, The Old Man And The Sea, Gulliver’s Travels, Mein Kampf, The Republic, and Meno.

No doubt Mein Kampf and The Communist Manifesto will be highlighted for agenda-pushing. But there are also books by Ken Kesey, Charles Bukowski, Lewis Carroll, Harper Lee, Ernest Hemingway, Herman Hesse, Ray Bradbury, Plato, Homer, Norton Juster, Jonathan Swift, Aldous Huxley, George Orwell and J M Barrie. If anything is notable is the mix of children’s fantasy and parable.
 

 
With thanks to Aulde Holborne
 

This shit isn’t cute, never was. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D) and at least 15 others were shot at point blank range today. Is it a coincidence that she happens to be in Sarah Palin’s cross-hairs ?

Twenty House Dems from districts that McCain carried in 2008 voted for the health care bill, and Sarah Palin has a target on every single one.

The targets were released on the six month anniversary of Obamacare, and include a lot of familiar names such as John Boccieri (OH), Chris Carney (P N) Gabrielle Giffords (AZ) and Ann Kirpatrick (AZ). The site invites donations, social networking, and the unbeatable Sarah love that has led to a 26:11 win/loss record of candidates in GOP primaries. Granted, some of those were in safe districts, but she’s also pulled off massive upsets that probably outshadow her less successful picks.

Regardless, this site should go a long way towards knocking off the politicians who put their party affiliation ahead of their constituent’s demands. It was announced via a tweet from SarahPalinUSA: “Lies, Damned Lies – Obamacare 6 Months Later; It’s Time to Take Back the 20!”

tweet from Palin: “Commonsense Conservatives & lovers of America: “Don’t Retreat, Instead – RELOAD!” Pls see my Facebook page.”

Metaphor, no more…

 

 
via Tbogg@FDL

 
Icelandic singer Bjork is hosting a three-day karaoke marathon to draw attention to her country’s natural resources and a possible takeover by a Canadian energy company, the Toronto Sun reports.

The off-beat singer has launched a petition to call for a referendum to stop the takeover of HS Orka by Vancouver-based Magma Energy.

HS Oka produces geothermal and thermal power.

Concerns raised last summer after the sale was made public were put to rest in September, Magma Energy said, after a special committee appointed by the Icelandic government “concluded that Magma acted in full compliance with Icelandic law.”

Even though Magma Energy announced on its website in December is has completed obligations for the purchase of 98.53% of HS Orka, the wire service AFP reported Bjork said “the fight to keep it in the hands of the Icelandic people is not over,” during a press conference Thursday.

On her website, Bjork encouraged people to come to the event and sing their favourite songs.

“Elves, hidden people, sports people, hobby musicians and professionals ... everyone who cares for Iceland, come and join forces and perform a powerful ode to the nature of Iceland,” a press release for the event said, the Iceland Review reported. “Let’s bring our natural resources back to us with song.”

Bjork was set to perform along with other well-known Icelandic musicians.

For more information about the campaign, check here and click English version.  Now, here’s a video, via Icelandic Chronicles, of Bjork singing Joy Division’s “Love Will Tear Us Apart” at the karaoke, from 6 January 2011.
 

 
With thanks to Norn Cutson
 

 
A handful of images of the current goings-on in the airports of America. This is where we’re at, saw it for myself while traveling over the holidays. How do these pictures make you feel? It seems almost too obvious to state that I find this security theater horrifying and deeply depressing. We’re too stupid to take care of our sick and poor and we’re too stupid to be bothered by random public humiliation. What’s next?
 

 

 
More groping of the elderly, the infirm, children and nuns after the jump…

 
I must say how very, very sorry I am to see Alan Grayson leaving Congress. He’s a true progressive hero and I do hope we’ll still be seeing a lot of him in the future. Judging from the sentiments he offered The New York Times in this fiery “exit interview.” I don’t suspect Grayson’s planning to go quietly. Let’s hope not, this country needs more—many more—like him. It’s inspiring to read such clear-headed thoughts coming from a Democrat:

During the long conversation, Mr. Grayson, a 52-year-old father of five, faulted Democrats for failing to deliver for some of their most potent constituencies, among them labor unions and antiwar voters.

“What did the environmentalists see over the last two years?” he asked. “A proposed monumental increase in subsidies for nuclear power industry and offshore drilling.”

As for gay voters, he said: “What they got to see was a judge order that ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ no longer be enforced and a Democratic president appeal that decision. That is what that constituency saw before Nov. 2.” (The law was repealed in the final hours of the 111th Congress.)

By Election Day, Democratic voters in many districts felt that they had no real choice, Mr. Grayson said.

“If you want people to support you, then you have to support them,” he said. “You have to think long about what you did for people who voted for you, made phone calls for you, who went door to door for you.”

Mr. Grayson, of course, finds much to like within the Democratic Party. He offered a glowing assessment of the departing speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi of California, giving her an A “without reservation.”

And he considers the political right to be intolerable. He called the Republicans “a hopeless sellout party that will never do anything constructive for ordinary people in this country.”

“I don’t have to speculate about it anymore,” he said. “I worked with them for two years.”

If the execs at CNN have a brain cell amongst them, they will sign Grayson up for his own talk show before MSNBC does!
 

 
Brazil’s first female President, Dilma Rousseff has been sworn into office. At her swearing in, President Rousseff said:

“I know the historical significance of this decision. Today, all Brazilian women should feel proud and happy.”

Rousseff, a former Marxist guerilla who was imprisoned and tortured during Brazil’s long dictatorship for her involvement in a series of bank robberies in the 1970s, said at her 40-minute inauguration speech, “That at times this tough path made me value and love life much more. It gave me, more than anything else, courage to confront even bigger challenges. It’s with this courage that I’m going to govern Brazil.”

Rousseff has appointed nine women to her cabinet of 37 ministers - a record for Brazil, and traveled to the event in a Rolls Royce surrounded by female security guards - another first - she also said:

““The most determined struggle will be to eradicate extreme poverty. We can be a more developed and fairer country.
I will not rest while there are Brazilians without food on their table, homeless in the streets, and poor children abandoned to their luck.”

The new President gave support to “the ‘free press’ than the silence of the dictatorship.”

“I come to open doors for many other women can be presidents.

I come not to praise my biography. My commitment is to protect the weak, and govern for all.

We are experiencing the awakening of a new Brazil; innovation will be a key tool to be competitive in international markets”.

The destiny of a country depends not only on its government but of all people who live in it, I’ll be with everyone.

I extend my hand to the opposition parties. From now on I am the president of all Brazilians.”

 
With thanks to Danielle Delgado
 

 
I woke up this morning and as I was waiting for the coffee to brew, I dialed up the Huffington Post and read the following headline:

Number of Americans lacking medical coverage now exceeds the population of Spain.

Ouch! How fucked up is that? It’s just so depressing. Why? How was it allowed to get this bad?

Yep, there are currently 59 million of us without healthcare here in thee greatest country on earth, whereas the EU insures 100% of its population, cradle to grave, by law, including dentistry! Every major industrialized economy in the world has universal health care… except for us. We’re the exception. I don’t think this is exactly the brand of “American exceptionalism” Sarah Palin is talking about all the time, but it’s sure the way it looks from where my ass is sitting.

What we’re getting in 2014—if the Republicans can’t repeal it in the meantime—is a step in the right direction, but it’s not great. What would have been great is a single payer system, but that would have also been too easy!

In Europe for their tax dollars, they get universal health coverage. We here in America get a bunch of weapons and give tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires who don’t need ‘em. Why? Because Fox News said we should. Let’s face the cold and clammy facts: we’re a country of idiots, run by a class of amoral scoundrels and criminals.

Why there isn’t rioting in the streets over the turn for the (much) worse the quality of life has taken in America is a mystery. How is it possible that it’s gotten this bad without major social unrest? Beats me.

And then to make me even more depwessed, I read this article, “America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane: A look at our empire in decline through the eyes of the European media.”

Der Spiegel has run an interesting feature called “A Superpower in Decline,” which attempts to explain to a German audience such odd phenomena as the rise of the Tea Party, without the hedging or attempts at “balance” found in mainstream U.S. media. On the Tea Parties:

Full of Hatred: “The Tea Party, that group of white, older voters who claim that they want their country back, is angry. Fox News host Glenn Beck, a recovering alcoholic who likens Obama to Adolf Hitler, is angry. Beck doesn’t quite know what he wants to be—maybe a politician, maybe president, maybe a preacher—and he doesn’t know what he wants to do, either, or least he hasn’t come up with any specific ideas or plans. But he is full of hatred.”

The piece continues with the sobering assessment that America’s actual unemployment rate isn’t really 10 percent, but close to 20 percent when we factor in the number of people who have stopped looking for work.

Sound like a country you know? The thing I keep obsessing over is “How much longer can the “smarts” and the “dumbs” co-exist in America?” We really don’t want the same things, you know? Sooner or later something’s got to give and it ain’t gonna be pretty.

Read more of America in Decline: Why Germans Think We’re Insane (Alternet)
 

 
Thank you Steven Otero!

 
From a moving tribute to his old friend, mentor and tormentor by one of the finest drummers to ever walk the earth, John “Drumbo” French:

Van Vliet had a real love for a movie called Jeremiah Johnson, and I could see why.  It was a man’s film in the sense that it showed the bonding between Johnson and the character played by Will Geer.  As Geer’s character walks away, after telling “Pilgrim” that he had done well, his farewell line was “watch your topknot and keep your eye on the skyline.”  The brevity of their words made each hang in your ears and pulled you into the emotion and the bonding that had occurred between these two and you understood exactly what was going on between them in a way a billion words could have never described. 

After “Doc” sessions, in 1980, on which I played mostly guitar, I had to walk away from Captain Beefheart for the last time.  He had asked me to learn a ridiculous amount of music on the guitar in an impossible amount of time.  After hearing my decision, he slammed his hands angrily into the door of my vehicle, and it was scary and sad at the same time.

A few months later, I drove by his mobile home one night.  He looked out the curtain, as though he knew I was coming and came out to greet me.  “I thought I’d come by and break the ice.”  He said, “well, you picked a good night for it,” and gestured at the sky.  There were tiny ice crystals falling.  Not snow, not anything I’d ever seen – before or since—tiny crystals of ice slowly floating to the ground. 

One night while I was playing with a jazz group, he happened into the club with Jeff “Moris” Tepper.  After Tepper left, Don and I went to an old hangout from the early days of the band – before I was even a member – a coffee shop at The Antelope Valley Inn.  We sat for a time as he told me that he was going to paint. He was moving to Northern California and said “Jan finally got the house she wanted – the one with redwood shingles.”  I asked, “will you still do music?” and he said, “Of course!”   As we know, he never did. 

After observing a miniature drunken marine trying to pick a fight with one of the customers, I drove Don home.  He got out of his car, turned to me and said, “Watch your topknot – and keep your eye to the skyline.” 

I sensed then with sadness that it was the last time I would see him. He was gone, and though I spoke once with him later on the phone, requesting that he give me credit for drums on the CD release of Trout Mask Replica, I never saw him in person again, nor did I speak to him again after that phone call – which was quite entertaining and very expensive, as Don decided to play me a number of blues pieces I’d heard a thousand times before. 

The phone number was soon changed, and though I sent Christmas cards journaling my marriage and the growth of my daughter Jesse, there was no reply and I rationed out a bit of grieving here and there until it ran out with the dulling of time.  I heard the rumors of his physical decline, the last being that he was bedridden and could no longer speak.  It came to me that it may have been God’s way of silencing him long enough to whisper His own message to him, to prepare him for his next journey.  

I was gathering firewood in the rain when my cell phone rang and I received the news.  Scott Collins, the guitarist from my Drumbo group said to me, “I don’t know if you heard yet, but Don died today.”  I thanked him for relaying the information and became numb for a few days, then angry, then complacent. 

I went out tonight and found my Sherman cigarettes, lit one, and stood in the door of my garage, staring out through the cool rain and the cloudy sky.  “You would have liked this weather, Don,” I said to myself, and the words to a Richard Thompson song came to mind, so I sang them quietly into the night air:
“I am a bird, in God’s garden.
And I do not belong to this dusty world. 
For a day or two, they have locked me up, in this cage of my own body.
And He, who brought me here, will take me… back again.
To my own country.  To my own country.”
Goodbye Don. Watch your topknot, and keep your eye to the skyline.

- John French, 21 December 2010

 
Bonus clip : The classic Electricity from the Safe as Milk LP set to previously unseen photos of the infamous 1967 show where Don (probably on acid) tumbled off the stage after playing a song and a half, essentially putting an end to his commercial prospects…