The Keller Files 1:2 Julian Assange is a Stateless Person

Occasionally people try assert that Julian Assange is not only homeless, but stateless, like one of those people who lives in an airport because he can't enter the country in which the airport is located, and can't go back to where he came from .

Bill Keller's spy thriller stops short of actually calling Assange a stateless person (because Keller is big on facts, and that is obviously not a fact), instead referring to him as "an eccentric former computer hacker of Australian birth and no fixed residence", and describing him as a "bag lady" and a "derelict". The end result is the same - leaving the reader with the impression that Assange is a person with no home and no country.

But what could the point of this characterization be? Why spend so much time and sacrifice so many adjectives for the purpose of making certain that everyone understands that Julian Assange is a passport orphan??? 

hmmm... well... a great deal of Keller's piece of shit is about how not-Assangian Keller and his colleagues are, so maybe calling Assange "stateless" is intended to set up a contrast between a drifter who is unburdened by fealty to any state, and people who have a home that they love and are completely devoted to.

Keller, as it turns out, is Captain America as evidenced by the following:

• He spews the right rhetoric (" in Europe ...there is often a certain pleasure in seeing the last superpower taken down a peg"; "We live and work in a city that has been tragically marked as a favorite terrorist target, and in the wake of 9/11 our journalists plunged into the ruins to tell the story of what happened here" ),
• He parties with the right people (he gleefully relates story about a party given by Richard Holbrooke, the Obama administration’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan),
• He admires the approach taken by the Obama administration with respect to redacting the leaked documents, carefully detailing the cooperation between the NYT and the Obama administration in deciding what to release, and how best to ensure no one gets killed as a result of the leaks, all the while using language that evokes thoughts of a placid lake in the sunshine, the scent of baby powder, and music by John Tesh.  
• He outs Assange as anti-American, and makes it clear that he does not approve of such things.  

All this leaves me wondering if Keller may have leadership aspirations beyond the NYT, having , as men like to say "shot his load" at that job. Maybe he'd like a nice diplomatic post somewhere pretty. He does, after all, know how diplomacy "works" now. Or maybe his aspirations are higher, and more OVAL!!

In any case, Keller, just remember that while you're wrapping yourself in the flag, I can see right through it, and I see that your balls are shrinking, while my man Julian's grow ever larger.

The Keller Files 1:1 : Julian Assange is a Smelly Bag Lady!

By now, everyone is aware of Bill Keller's piece in NYT Magazine, and a few people have been able to stay awake all the way through it. It's long, and peppered with annoying rhetoric, all of which I will point out in the days to come, after I've had my teeth sharpened and I can get my hands on a new  supply of Red Bull.

For now, I just want to touch on the description of Julian Assange as a malodorous street person.

Let's take a moment to look at Julian Assange

Now let's imagine touching that lapel. It's the finest, lightest Italian wool - I can just feel it. I bet he smells of delicately scented moss with a hint of alderwood smoke. That is one fine, fine boy.

Later in the article, BK does discuss Assange's made-over look, saying that he now favors "fashionably skinny suits and ties". Kudos to Bill for being on top of trends in men's fashion,  but how does he do this with the pressures of his job, and having to spend countless days and sleepless nights dealing with the tempestuous and petulant Assange? Let's look at a picture of Bill for some clues.

My Assessment: Pret-a-porter, Bill? Really???  The article in question paints Assange as a difficult man-child who is riding the tide of his new-found fame onto a pedestal of Euro-cult worship, into the consciousness of the celebrity mind, and up women's vaginas. All of this may very well be true, but if and when he starts going to fashion shows, they WILL be couture.

Julian Assange is Heath Ledger's Joker

The question "What is motivating Julian Assange?" has been posted on Quora.  There are a few useful responses, and then there is this..

Julian Assange's motivations remind me of "The Joker" in The Dark Knight, the classic Oscar-winning performance by the late Heath Ledger. Director Chris Nolan's interpretation of the Joker was to paint a portrait of a modern-day terrorist and agitator, someone who was nomadic, with no known relatives or residences. Nolan and Ledger's Joker was motivated by "sending a message" to authorities. It was not about money or fame. The Joker believed that everyone had "plans" and that when things went according to plan, even if they were horrific, nobody would care. However, if something when against the plan, such as the attempted assassination of the Gotham mayor in the movie, the public freaks out. It's chaos. It's dogs chasing cars. These leaks go way, way against the plans of authorities, and it provides very intense sunshine, and that freaks many people out. Nolan's and Ledger's Joker is an outlaw and is willing to break any law, no matter the cost, to introduce any bit of anarchy into the mix. The more and more I read about Assange, such as the New Yorker article from earlier this year, or this recent leak, or the upcoming corporate hit he's going to lay on Wall Street, the more it becomes apparent to me that what's motivating Assange is the same thing that motivated the Joker: they are both squarely focused on sending a strong message and disrupting the authorities' plans.

My comments:

Hmm... usually when someone does a "Julian Assange as an archetype" sort of analysis, they call on references that go a little farther back than 2008. Like, normally one would expect to see some connections made to figures from mythology, some of the classics in literature, or even the work of Carl Jung. But okay, maybe you can be as insightful by referencing Dilbert as you can by exploring links between what is happening in the world now and the writings of Neitzche.

Still, the analogy is pretty much a thinly disguised piece of bullshit. Julian Assange is no anarchist. Anarchists don't sit still for interviews, they don't drink coffee from huge ceramic mugs while lounging on comfy sofas, they don't speak in calm voices, and they certainly never wear white, because anarchists are always dirty, and wearing white would just not be practical. In addition, someone as fine as Julian wold never and should never wear a balaclava as all anarchist must at some point do.

Further, the author claims to be talking about motivations, when he/she only ever addresses the behaviours of both the Joker and Assange. This is problematic because, although all non-reflexive, goal-directed behaviour can be said to have underlying motivations, behaviours and motivations are separate concepts. The one can not be inferred from the other - certainly not without some much more intimate knowledge of the person. It's also problematic because it's just not very in-depth or insightful. 

In conclusion.. FAIL.

Julian Assange is Dead

In a twist on the "Julian Assange is in bed with the CIA" conspiracy theory, a new theory proposes that the US Government has control of the cables and is releasing the ones that put the USA in a good light and Iran in a bad light, opening the door for the US to take decisive military action against (read "bomb") Iran. The leaks about Iran have been interspersed with information about various other inconsequential matters to keep the sheeple from being suspicious.

My Comments: There are a lot of factual errors in the blog entry that details this theory. I should probably enumerate them here in the interest of educating the author, but that's not what I'm here for. What I'm here for is to play strip Scrabble with Julian Assange, and since that hasn't happened yet, I'm going to conclude that he's still alive.

Julian Assange is Fucked Up Because of His Childhood

Sometimes, when I'm eating dinner, I save the tastiest bits for last. So it is with this item. I've been sitting on this "thing people say about Julian Assange" for a while now, waiting for a time when I needed to reward myself by biting into something really juicy. That time has now come.

Recently, some information has come to light about Julian Assange's unusual childhood. Key points:

- Julian never knew his biological father

- When he was an adolescent, Julian and his mother went into hiding in an attempt to escape from her abusive boyfriend, moving frequently from town-to-town and state-to-state (or province-to-province - whatever they've got down there in Oz)

- During this time, Julian was frequently bullied and ostracized by his peers

- When he was 13 or 14, his mother bought a computer for him, and the computer became his "only friend"

All of this paints a picture of a lonely child at the margins of society - someone who couldn't help but grow increasingly resentful, increasingly marginalized, increasingly deviant, increasingly paranoid, and increasingly... dangerous...

It's obvious that someone so brutally abused, shunned by society, and left to communicate with the world through nothing but combinations of zeros and ones would become evil, and eventually ... MANIACAL!!! And obviously his target would be the very paragon of power and captain-of-the-football-team-type popularity.. the United States of America!!

My comments:

** oh JesusChristDeepSigh..**

Really, seriously.. how hard is it for people see that all they are doing is working backwards from the man they *think* they see to what effect they *think* his childhood had on him?? Let's count the problems with this:

- We only know the most salient things about his childhood

- We only know the things that were raised in court in an attempt to protect him from prosecution during his previous run-in with the law

- The connection between this information and the behaviours of the man we see today are speculative at best, unless we have an insightful and deeply incisive and personal analysis from Assange himself

- One could very easily argue that this history led him to be someone who is protective of others, and concerned with ensuring that vulnerable people have access to the information and resources that can help them protect themselves

In summary, I'm no psychologist, but.. oh wait, yes I am..

In summary, no one can know how Julian Assange's childhood affected him except Julian Assange himself. So we all need to wait for him to disclose this, if he wants to do that. If he decides he doesn't, we all need to be just fine with that, because that information.

is.

and should be.

private.

Julian Assange is Tintin

This video gives evidence that Julian Assange might be the flesh-and-blood incarnation of the popular cartoon character, Tintin. To sum up:

- They are both investigative journalists

- Their work has been translated into many languages (I myself have read them in three!)

- They both fight injustice world-wide

- They both wind up in dangerous situations on a more-or-less ongoing basis

- Neither appears to have a boss or a senior editor to whom they report

- Tintin appears to have no coworkers, and Assange's are ghostly figures at best, except for the pretty woman with the curly hair and the comfy scarf, and the cute guy with the high hair and the glasses. I adore them both, but I'm not sure what their role is exactly.

A side-by-side indicates some striking physical similarities..



Tintin is rarely seen at his at his own place. According to my sister, who is a Tintin expert, he does rent a room somewhere, but is normally seen at Marlinspike Hall, the home of his wealthy friend, Captain Haddock, or he is travelling. As we all know, Assange is currently being hosted by HIS wealthy friend, Vaughan Smith, at HIS home, Ellingham Hall, pictured on the left below. Marlinspike is on the right.

My Assessment: I probably need to see my doctor to tweak my meds, because I think this might actually be true. It definitely makes more sense than him being an agent for the CIA or a crappy lover (come on, you don't believe that any more than I do) There are some problems though:

- Haddock is an alcoholic, and while he does redeem himself at times, he usually gets the crew into more trouble than it was in before. Vaughan Smith seems quite a bit more stable, and has yet to be seen in public falling-down drunk. There is still time though.

- Tintin never has girlfriends or lovers. I don't think I need to expand on this point.

- Tintin has been to outerspace.

- The cast of characters has yet to be fleshed out. We need a rotund female opera singer, an absent-minded Swiss physicist, and a fluffy little terrier. The parts of the bumbling detectives, Thompson and Thompson have of course been filled by Marianne Ny and Claes Borgström.

- It's unclear how he would have leaped off the page and become a three-dimensional organism, but maybe the nice people who produced the movie "The Ring" can help out with that part.

Overall, I think this one is a winner. Hopefully soon our hero will be able to go on his next adventure!

Julian Assange is the World's Worst Lover!

Wow! It must suck to be Julian Assange, with this sort of thing being widely reported about your sexual skills. Yet, legions of women still want to fuck him, so I guess it's not so bad after all.

My comments: Hey, Salty Droid! Somebody's getting pussy, and it's not you. Wanna know who it is?? Here's a hint...

Julian Assange Blinks Too Much!!

Thanks to Paul Ekman, everybody now thinks they can tell who's lying and who's not. Apparently it's just plain obvious that Julian Assange is lying, because he blinks a lot. Someone even made a video about it.

Some other comments on blogs/discussion boards:
"Anyone notice Assange constantly blinking and even scratching his ears? Tell signs for lying perhaps?" and "By all means ... get your body language expert ... because he does blink excessively and looks like a liar and fraud. In my line of work, I question a lot of frauds and there are red flags all over this guy in what he says and how he says it."

Glory! Here's another opinion about the reason for the blinking:
"Watching his eyes blink frequently and seeing some of his facial twitches I get the feeling he was on the verge of tears. Maybe he didnt want his followers to see him break down and cry. He can dish it out but doesnt seem like he can take it."

My Assessment:

*sigh**

Eye blinking has been empirically linked to lying, but as far as I can tell this is only through anxiety (i.e. lying results in anxiety, which results in a higher rate of eye-blinking). Perhaps Julian is lying, and this is making him anxious, which results in higher rates of eye-blinking, but it could also be the case that he is just tense.

Higher rates of eye-blinking are also used as a non-invasive measure of CNS dopamine activity, so you could make the case that his levels of dopamine are either consistently high or abnormally variable. There are a number of disorders that could cause this, but all of them have other symptoms. Depressed people who are sleep deprived have higher rates of eye-blinking, and it is assumed that sleep deprivation elevates their dopamine levels, and that this is how sleep deprivation works as an antidepressant. I read somewhere that JA was at one time hospitalized for depression, and it's possible that he may stiff suffer from bouts of depression or dysthymia. We also know that he takes very little sleep. It may be the case that he blinks a lot because he's a depressed person who is sleep deprived.

Related to the above, he could also be taking a lot of cocaine and/or drinking a ton of Red Bull, which would effectively increase dopaminergic activity in his CNS, thereby resulting a high rate of eye-blinking, but I doubt he would appear so calm if this were the case.

And, of course, his eyes might just be dry. The function of eye-blinking is to spread tears over the cornea, so dry eyes make you blink a lot. There are quite a number of environmental and medical conditions that can cause dry eyes.

Summing up: Dude could be anxious, depressed and sleep deprived, addicted to coke and/or energy drinks, or suffering from a medical condition that causes dry eyes. It's certainly not as simple as "he blinks a lot, therefore he lies". In any case, everything he has said is independently verifiable, so instead of wasting time slowing down videos of him to count the eye blinks, maybe people could spend that time evaluating his claims by doing a little reading.

Let's look at Julian Assange's soulful grey eyes for some clues:



He can lie to me all he wants.

Julian Assange is Flamboyant

Merriam Webster defines flamboyant as an adjective meaning (a) characterized by waving curves suggesting flames (b) marked by or given to strikingly elaborate or colorful display or behavior.

A Google image search on "flamboyant"turns up this:




And this is Julian Assange:



He has white hair, he's as pale as an unused condom, and even his eyes are grey. Nobody ever needs to photoshop his images to grayscale because he exists as shades of gray. He speaks in a regular, measured tone that one could easily use in food preparation if an egg timer wasn't handy. The most "flamboyant" thing he's done is to fuck two chicks in the same week. And really, who hasn't done that?

My assessment: Someone needs to stop teaching the rednecks big words, because they go out and use them. It's not good for anyone.

Julian Assange is a lot smarter than Sarah Palin

Julian Assange is impossibly intelligent. This point is not contestable. Let's take a look at the text of SP's recent post-Arizona-shooting video and see if we can say the same about her..

Like millions of Americans I learned of the tragic events in Arizona on Saturday, and my heart broke for the innocent victims. No words can fill the hole left by the death of an innocent, but we do mourn for the victims’ families as we express our sympathy. I agree with the sentiments shared yesterday at the beautiful Catholic mass held in honor of the victims. The mass will hopefully help begin a healing process for the families touched by this tragedy and for our country.

Okay, nice opener. She's showing she's sad, similar to "millions of Americans", and that she's down with the Catholics, so she's accepting of other faiths. She's positioning herself among "the people". The second sentence has some syntax issues, but okay.

Our exceptional nation, so vibrant with ideas and the passionate exchange and debate of ideas, is a light to the rest of the world.

America, I love you, but please. Please stop deluding yourself into thinking that the rest of the world looks to you as a guiding light. They look to SWEDEN. Well, before all this messy sex business, but never mind that - they still don't look to you the way you think they do.

Congresswoman Giffords and her constituents were exercising their right to exchange ideas that day, to celebrate our Republic’s core values and peacefully assemble to petition our government. It’s inexcusable and incomprehensible why a single evil man took the lives of peaceful citizens that day.

Well, from what I understand, the shooter is a schizophrenic. You're not supposed to be able to understand his state of mind, and yes, you do have to excuse him, because he's mentally ill.

There is a bittersweet irony that the strength of the American spirit shines brightest in times of tragedy. We saw that in Arizona. We saw the tenacity of those clinging to life, the compassion of those who kept the victims alive, and the heroism of those who overpowered a deranged gunman.

This is a goddamn tautology. Of course strength exhibits itself in times of crisis. It's always going to be that way unless 100% of the people die, in which case there's no one left to talk about the strength and heroism. Anyone who survives will be "tenaciously clinging to life" (I mean what else is there to do?) and/or helping the other people. Again, this is something that is not exclusively American. Even non-human animals exhibit this type of behaviour, so in fact it's not "American" at all.

Like many, I’ve spent the past few days reflecting on what happened and praying for guidance. After this shocking tragedy, I listened at first puzzled, then with concern, and now with sadness, to the irresponsible statements from people attempting to apportion blame for this terrible event. President Reagan said, “We must reject the idea that every time a law’s broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.”

Here's where some of that education that the elites have would have come in handy for ya. In school, you would have learned the word "context" and how things happen in a "context". You may have also heard the expression "X doesn't happen in a vacuum." Same idea.

Acts of monstrous criminality stand on their own. They begin and end with the criminals who commit them, not collectively with all the citizens of a state, not with those who listen to talk radio, not with maps of swing districts used by both sides of the aisle, not with law-abiding citizens who respectfully exercise their First Amendment rights at campaign rallies, not with those who proudly voted in the last election.

This is even more narrow than the previous statement. How anyone can say that criminal acts stand on their own is incomprehensible to me. Refer to the discussion of "context" above. The very fact that certain acts are considered criminal presupposes that there is a legal framework within which these acts are designated as criminal or not criminal (see Sweden's rape laws for an example).

The last election was all about taking responsibility for our country’s future. President Obama and I may not agree on everything, but I know he would join me in affirming the health of our democratic process. Two years ago his party was victorious. Last November, the other party won. In both elections the will of the American people was heard, and the peaceful transition of power proved yet again the enduring strength of our Republic.

I think actually this is just the definition of an election as it would happen in any democracy.

Vigorous and spirited public debates during elections are among our most cherished traditions. And after the election, we shake hands and get back to work, and often both sides find common ground back in D.C. and elsewhere. If you don’t like a person’s vision for the country, you’re free to debate that vision. If you don’t like their ideas, you’re free to propose better ideas. But, especially within hours of a tragedy unfolding, journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.

The phrase "blood libel" has been dealt with extensively elsewhere, so I won't address this here.

There are those who claim political rhetoric is to blame for the despicable act of this deranged, apparently apolitical criminal. And they claim political debate has somehow gotten more heated just recently. But when was it less heated? Back in those “calm days” when political figures literally settled their differences with dueling pistols? In an ideal world all discourse would be civil and all disagreements cordial. But our Founding Fathers knew they weren’t designing a system for perfect men and women. If men and women were angels, there would be no need for government. Our Founders’ genius was to design a system that helped settle the inevitable conflicts caused by our imperfect passions in civil ways. So, we must condemn violence if our Republic is to endure.As I said while campaigning for others last March in Arizona during a very heated primary race, “We know violence isn’t the answer. When we ‘take up our arms’, we’re talking about our vote.” Yes, our debates are full of passion, but we settle our political differences respectfully at the ballot box – as we did just two months ago, and as our Republic enables us to do again in the next election, and the next. That’s who we are as Americans and how we were meant to be. Public discourse and debate isn’t a sign of crisis, but of our enduring strength. It is part of why America is exceptional.

America, I love you, but honestly you need to face the truth. There's no fucking Santa Claus, Barack Obama really was born in America, people evolved from lower animals, and what y'all do is not debate or discourse. It's just screaming. There's no content in what you're yelling. It's just the same phrases and words scrambled around and thrown out. The only people who make sense are the smart people, and their opinions are written off as the words of the "elites". You need to stop yelling, start looking at the way other countries talk about their issues, and start taking notes. And you need to acknowledge that the best people to run a country are the smart people - the people with the high IQ's and the education.

No one should be deterred from speaking up and speaking out in peaceful dissent, and we certainly must not be deterred by those who embrace evil and call it good. And we will not be stopped from celebrating the greatness of our country and our foundational freedoms by those who mock its greatness by being intolerant of differing opinion and seeking to muzzle dissent with shrill cries of imagined insults. Just days before she was shot, Congresswoman Giffords read the First Amendment on the floor of the House. It was a beautiful moment and more than simply “symbolic,” as some claim, to have the Constitution read by our Congress. I am confident she knew that reading our sacred charter of liberty was more than just “symbolic.” But less than a week after Congresswoman Giffords reaffirmed our protected freedoms, another member of Congress announced that he would propose a law that would criminalize speech he found offensive.

Way to pull it back to the woman you had in your crosshairs of civilized debate. Nice work.

It is in the hour when our values are challenged that we must remain resolved to protect those values. Recall how the events of 9-11 challenged our values and we had to fight the tendency to trade our freedoms for perceived security. And so it is today.

I think the freedoms may have lost out on that one. See "Department of Homeland Security", "David House", and "Jacob Appelbaum" for some examples.

Let us honor those precious lives cut short in Tucson by praying for them and their families and by cherishing their memories. Let us pray for the full recovery of the wounded. And let us pray for our country. In times like this we need God’s guidance and the peace He provides. We need strength to not let the random acts of a criminal turn us against ourselves, or weaken our solid foundation, or provide a pretext to stifle debate. America must be stronger than the evil we saw displayed last week. We are better than the mindless finger-pointing we endured in the wake of the tragedy. We will come out of this stronger and more united in our desire to peacefully engage in the great debates of our time, to respectfully embrace our differences in a positive manner, and to unite in the knowledge that, though our ideas may be different, we must all strive for a better future for our country. May God bless America.

And may whatever higher power there is (if such a thing exists) bless the countries of the world where the above does actually happen. And America too.

My overall assessment: It would actually be difficult to construct a less nuanced argument than this. In addition to leaning excessively on the false dichotomy of individual vs collective responsibility (clearly what happened is a mix of the two), it's so peppered with rhetoric as to be a complete waste of everyone's time and cognitive energy. There is nothing real or genuine here, and nothing salvageable. I can't believe someone gets paid to write this crap.

Julian Assange is in bed with the CIA (!?)

Oh, Julian Assange - you DO get around don't you??

There are many theories about Julian's involvement with the CIA. This is but one example.

Basically, the theories about Assange's relationship with the CIA center on the US government's supposed desire to tighten internet security and increase its own powers to invade the privacy of its citizens by allowing it to legally access information about those citizens' online activity. After the release of the "Collateral Murder" video, the USG decided to recruit Assange to assist with this end goal.

Enter Karl Rove, who had been advising Sweden's Moderate Party , which is the center of the political alliance currently in control of the Swedish parliament.Rove suggests to the Swedes that Assange be invited to move at least part of his operations to Sweden, where Assange and his organization will benefit from protections offered to journalists and journalistic enterprises.

Assange is then provided with the (relatively benign) diplomatic cables now being slowly released. Spurred on by the USG - The media makes much of the cables and the threat that their release purportedly poses to national security. Without researching the fine detail, the citizenry whips itself into a frenzy over the release of government secrets, and the USG has justification for an internet kill switch, the indiscriminate seizure of individual's laptops, the long-term detainment of people suspected to be involved, and so on.

My comments: Jesus Christ. The more I read these conspiracy theories, the more synapses I lose. which explains why they all start to sound plausible to me after a while. The problem with all of them is that they all hinge on Assange being massively compensated for this act of betrayal to his avowed ideals, and/or secretly being an American sympathizer. In addition, he would also have to be an Oscar-calibre actor who is willing to risk his life for the cause. I guess time will tell if all this is true. If it is, Assange will suddenly, magically be released from custody, move to LA, start dating Paris Hilton, and sign up for the next season of Dancing with the Stars. I hope this happens - I love that show!!! Oh - I hope he gets partnered with Cheryl Burke. She's really good, and she knows how to dance with tall dudes.



Save a horse, ride a hacktivist cowboy.

Julian Assange is in bed with the Chinese!

Poor Julian Assange - is there anyone he's not in bed with?? Well.. me.. but I have nothing to offer, although I did just bake a nice pound cake that he'd certainly be welcome to.

Someone has cooked up a conspiracy theory that had Julian working alongside the Chinese to bring about the downfall of the US. Apparently all Wikileaks is is a front for the Intelligence arm of the Peoples Republic of China.

Here is the gist of the theory:

Wikileaks was started in China, by a group of Chinese dissidents. The Chinese government then recruited Assange to run the site (How it passed from the dissidents to the gov't is unclear in this theory). The Chinese now use Wikileaks as a front to attack the US. This way it looks like Wikileaks is acting on its own, but in fact Assange and his organization are working following the commands of an evil puppet-master.

My comments: I'm not going to say anything negative about the person who concocted this theory, because I'm assuming he/she owns a gun.

Julian Assange is a Militant Lesbian?

Wow, Julian Assange really knows his way around a sexual orientation! Half the planet thinks he's gay, the other half thinks he's some sort of sexual deviant, another half thinks he's the hottest piece of ass ever to stroke a key, and then there's this outlier who thinks he's a lesbian. Poor Julian must be exhausted with all this wild activity!! Here's the full text of what the person said: "Between the haircut, the name, the vocation and the behavior, I really thought he was he was a militant lesbian until a couple of weeks after the Afghanistan documents were leaked."

My comments: Please, talk to me some more. You amuse me.

Julian Assange is Nuts (part 1 of many)

I was originally going to write an entry about all the different ways in which people have described Julian Assange as mentally ill, but it's just too big a topic, so I'm splitting it up. I think it's cute when people pull out their textbooks from Intro Psych and try to make a diagnosis based on the incomplete and highly sensational information they get from the media, but I really am a psychologist, so I'm not going to do that. Instead I'm going to respond to what people have said and why it does or doesn't make sense.

First up is a genius named John Ward. He writes a blog in which he purports to deconstruct bullocks using evidence. In his entry about Assange, he does the usual "delving into X's childhood" thing that people like to do when they want to show that they're not just basing their analysis on bits of badly-sourced evidence, but instead are basing it on the solid foundation of X's entire life history.

Here's some of the evidence John cites, and on which he bases his analysis:
Friends consistently talk of a man who needs “only five hours sleep”, who “is often bemused and energetic. He can concentrate intensely, in binges, but he is also the kind of person who will forget to reserve a plane ticket, or reserve a plane ticket and forget to pay for it, or pay for the ticket and forget to go to the airport….” “Julian can deal with incredibly little sleep, and a hell of a lot of chaos, but even he has his limits.”

From this, our brilliant blogger concludes:
"You don’t have to be Freud to see these as classic symptoms of an obsessively manic personality."

My response:
Well no, you don't have to be Freud, and if you were Freud, this isn't something you'd say. Freud would have been more interested in a cause for this behaviour - something that lies in Assange's subconscious, which nobody - not even Assange himself - has access to. Further, I don't know that he'd think this was all that odd. Plenty of people go through every work week on 5 hours of sleep a night, and intense concentration on something quite engrossing will probably lead you to forget other things. See the math department of your local university for other examples of this - those people never sleep, and they can't all be crazy.

In conclusion, I don't have enough information to determine whether JA is crazy, but I can tell you that he's crazy sexy.

Julian Assange is Arrogant

At some point during the last US Presidential election, the rednecks looked up the word "arrogant" in a dictionary (a pocket one, no doubt), because they needed a word to describe Obama, and they needed that word to be sort of highbrow. Since then, the meaning of the word has been so badly degraded that it's come to be associated with anyone (on the left) who seems reasonably self-assured. People who hear that someone is "arrogant" then work backward to conclude that the target doesn't know what he/she is talking about. Following that, they decide that there is no point in actually listening to what the target says and making an independent conclusion about his/her arrogance or lack thereof.

Does Julian Assange know what he's talking about? Is his steely resolve just an act that disguises a trembling, insecure little boy who's accidentally gotten himself mixed up in a huge mess and really just wants his teddy bear and some hot cocoa? Let's take a look at a picture of him. Maybe that will help us decide...



I rest my fucking case... although maybe he'd still like some hot cocoa.

Julian Assange is Gay (??)

Wow! I didn't even know this was a rumor, but I'm glad it's out there, because I need some more crazy shit to write about.

A source close to the Assange family says that they can’t believe the rape charges because friends say that Julian is gay and has been openly gay to his family for years.

Other people have also remarked that he's probably gay, and that that explains his connection to Bradley Manning, who is openly gay. Of course! How could I have missed this??? Obviously the entire thing is an intricate scheme, backed by an international network powerful of gays to bring about an end to DADT and/or pave the way for a gay president. Makes total sense. That must be why Elton John hasn't weighed in on this - he's probably in an underground bunker in Iceland manning the controls.

I guess that puts a new spin on the rape charges (or not). Consensual sex with women doesn't seem like the sort of thing a gay boy does for fun, so maybe he did it because he hates women(?!?!) But he told the Sunday Times that he "really likes women"! Maybe he meant "I just really like women TO GO SHOPPING WITH" but other than that he hates them?!?!?

The only way to settle this for sure is to have sex with him myselfs. I can tell if the boy I'm engaged in sexy times with is gay. Experience.... trust. I will start working on this immediately. Wish me luck!!!