Blog Review - Crooks and Liars

I recently came across crooksandliars.com (C&L), a blog covering stories about, you guessed it crooks and liars in the American Establishment. The site content is open to all, but has a membership option for people to publish their own posts; membership is also required to add comments to posts. Having browsed fairly extensively, I would say that the posts come from a combination of straightforward people from blue-collar backgrounds/proponents of small government:

... and people who lean just a little (only a little) to the left:

The comments on the posts tend to be a little less restrained than the articles, but most are nevertheless considered and to the point. The posts themselves, although almost exclusively US-centric, are really quite enlightening, with the right mix of fact and opinion. At the top of the site are tabs linking the reader to topic-specific areas, such as 'Blue America' ("actions dedicated to specific endeavors, like defeating Blue Dogs") and 'Third Branch', containing posts related to the goings-on in, for example, the Supreme Court.

Overall, this blog is well worth a look - a few of the articles are truly eye-opening, and many of the rest will hold the interest of people even in the UK and Europe.

Dreadnought Rating: 7 out of 10

Wikileaks Update

Further to the previous post, it seems that Wikileaks is nowhere to be found. Sources suggest pressure has been put upon the current host, U.S.-based EveryDNS.net, to evict, or at least suspend, the controversial website from it's quarters, resulting in it's disappearance from the net.

EveryDNS.net has claimed that hacking attempts (Government sponsored? see previous post) aimed at Wikileaks have been disrupting service to it's other customers, but as usual this seems rather too neat and tidy for Dreadnought's liking. They have provided a statement:
"EveryDNS.net provided domain name system (DNS) services to the wikileaks.org domain name until 10PM EST, December 2, 2010, when such services were terminated. As with other users of the EveryDNS.net network, this service was provided for free. The termination of services was effected pursuant to, and in accordance with, the EveryDNS.net Acceptable Use Policy...

...Thus, last night, at approximately 10PM EST, December 1, 2010 a 24 hour termination notification email was sent to the email address associated with the wikileaks.org account. In addition to this email, notices were sent to Wikileaks via Twitter and the chat function available through the wikileaks.org website. Any downtime of the wikileaks.org website has resulted from its failure to use another hosted DNS service provider."

Will we see the exposure of the hacking source in the near future? After all, government employees are notoriously gossipy, and much given to spilling the beans to the press at every opportunity.

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Wikileaks Founder Named In Interpol Warrant - US Governmant Smear Tactic?

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has recently been the subject of an Interpol 'red notice' regarding charges of alleged rape and sexual molestation in Sweden. This red notice is effectively an arrest warrant, requesting that a participating country detain and extradite the individual named in the warrant as soon as possible. Mr Assange is at the time of writing residing in the United Kingdom; however, Scotland Yard have not recieved any specific request to arrest him, and it has been put forward that the issuance of this red notice is in fact politically motivated, and is at the behest of the United States, angry at the publishing by Wikileaks of huge numbers of leaked secret and confidential documents.

A Swedish judge originally ordered Assange to be detained on November 18th, prior to which the former hacker had been given permission to leave the country, from where he proceeded to the UK. He has been living openly somewhere in the southeast of that country, leading some to speculate that the timing of the Interpol red notice, and indeed Interpol's very involvement, are a direct or indirect result of pressure from the US. This has in turn left the Obama administration open to accusations of using smear tactics to attack Mr Assange, as they are currently unable to prosecute him for publishing the leaked information - they are only able to pursue the source or sources of the leaks, rather than the publisher himself.

Additionally, the Wikileaks website has been under attack by a hacker or hackers, and has had to 'move house', possibly more than once. The perpetrator of these denial of service attacks has come forward as an ID-disguised private individual using a Russian email address, but sources claim that this is, again, the actions of a government department, be it the US or some other affected nation.

Dreadnought in no way condones the crimes alleged to have been commited by Mr Assange, and suggests that he return to Sweden freely and of his own accord to face the allegations. At the same time, however, we find that the tactics said to have been used by the US government smack of state bullying, and rather tarnish the reputation of the American people.

This is not the way to run a nation which boasts, with good cause, of being the best qualified to lead the way this century.

Dreadnought would appreciate your comments...



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