This is just the tiniest fraction of what we can do with our banks over here; I just can't get over how backwards US banks are and how they can't seem to get into the modern world. Not only do we have instant free transfers (and to Americans: the ability to conveniently or easily pay absolutely anyone, anywhere, any time with just a computer or smartphone is a much bigger deal than you're thinking... it's so easy that it's to the point that when people want to collect money for a gift for a coworker, rather than going around asking for cash, they just put the destination account in the email).

The banks are also connected more closely to other major billing systems. For example, there's a page in your bank account to let you add credit to pay-as-you-go phones. Not just your phones, but anyone's in the country, all in one system, so I can fill up a friend's phone or what not.

All our bills come straight into our bank accounts. Not most of them - ALL of them, everything from rent to the gardener. All payable with a single select-and-submit interface (with delay pay options, of course). There's a page for charity listings, too, to make it easier to give - heck, there's even a stock trading section built in and the like.

  All of your documents associated with the bills are automatically filed into your bank account, you just click on the documents section and you can view, say, your wage slips or bills, from many years in the past if you want. Not like you typically need them, everything is automatically submitted through to our taxes - for most people, taxes are just a log-in to the tax site and click through a couple pages, and they're done, it just takes a couple minutes.

Single system (despite competition in the banking industry). Everyone's on it. Everyone uses it. And it works really, really well. To give an example: checks have become so rare that cashiers in banks look at them funny and often have to get their managers to figure out what to do with them ;)

Under Bush, our country was attacked despite the fact that FBI agents tried unsuccessfully to warn about it; gasoline more than quadrupled in price (very suspicious; he's an oil man); got us into two wars, one of which was not only completely unnecessary but led to the rise of ISIS; took office in some of the best economic conditions I've seen in my life and left the economy in worse shape than any time since the great depression.

I never thought I'd see a worse President than Carter, who was far worse than Obama, but Bush proved me wrong.

Under Obama the wars are over, unemployment is half of what it was, gasoline is half what it cost under Bush. He's by no means a great President, but you have to remember that the Republicans' #1 agenda was to make his a failed Presidency.

The two best Presidents in my lifetime were, I think, Eisenhower and Clinton.

How else would you characterize this song from their third album?

"After Forever"

Have you ever thought about your soul - can it be saved?
Or perhaps you think that when you're dead you just stay in your grave
Is God just a thought within your head or is he a part of you?
Is Christ just a name that you read in a book when you were in school?

When you think about death do you lose your breath or do you keep your cool?
Would you like to see the Pope on the end of a rope - do you think he's a fool?
Well I have seen the truth, yes I've seen the light and I've changed my ways
And I'll be prepared when you're lonely and scared at the end of our days

Could it be you're afraid of what your friends might say
If they knew you believe in God above?
They should realize before they criticize
that God is the only way to love

Is your mind so small that you have to fall
In with the pack wherever they run
Will you still sneer when death is near
And say they may as well worship the sun?

I think it was true it was people like you that crucified Christ
I think it is sad the opinion you had was the only one voiced
Will you be so sure when your day is near, say you don't believe?
You had the chance but you turned it down, now you can't retrieve

Perhaps you'll think before you say that God is dead and gone
Open your eyes, just realize that he's the one
The only one who can save you now from all this sin and hate
Or will you still jeer at all you hear? Yes! I think it's too late.

You should *fight the hypocrites because they are much more dangerous than those who are fundamentally heretics*

Agreed.

In fact, he'd be safer in Sweden than the UK. EAW regulations require that extradition to a third party requires the sent of both the sending state (UK) and the receiving state (Sweden), rather than just the sending or receiving states alone. And Sweden has among the most restrictive extradition treaties in Europe, with a flat-out ban on extradition for intelligence or military crimes - which is why Assange was applying for a residence permit and moving Wikileaks' main base of operation there in the first place (he repeatedly called Sweden his "shield" in interviews.. right up to when he became wanted for rape, when suddenly Sweden transformed into an evil US lackey... funny how that works!). Sweden is home to hundreds of US defectors and is the country that sheltered Edward Lee Howard (highest profile CIA defector to the Soviets during the Cold War) from the US. In fact, their prime minister back then is the same foreign minister (Carl Bildt) that Assange rails against.

Yes, which is why I installed Thunderbird. I now still have my old 10+ year old email address and a stable email client. My phone's email client works well with the yahoo email as well.

Just install a real email client and your problems vanish.

I think people are all too quick to credit every action Putin takes as being part of some grant overarching plan. Does one think his grand overarching plan included the Ruble falling 40% and the economy solidly on path to contraction after a bunch of failed poorly thought-out attempts to bolster them while turning Ukraine from a militarily-incompetent country with a largely very pro-Russian population into a Russia-hating country full of veterans and causing its neighbors to start clamouring for (and in some cases, getting) NATO bases that NATO had previously been reluctant to do?

Putin's not some brilliant chessmaster pulling all the strings, but nor is he some sort of bumbling fool. He's just a person. He's made some moves in the past that have turned out to be excellent strategically. He's also made a number of blunders. But he's now committed to this path, so he has to walk it wherever it takes him. Given his style, he'll probably keep doubling down.

Cheney is an evil man who was Vice President during the worst administration I've seen in my 62 years and possibly the worst in history.

Which is why he's surrendered to police custody and stood trial, right?

From the kickstarter page:

We need your help to make a monument to courage. There is no room for compromise today and art is called upon to make choices and show a direction. We want to create a life-size bronze statue of Assange, Manning and Snowden standing on three chairs with an empty fourth chair next to them. It is not a simple homage to individuals, but to courage and to the importance of freedom of speech and information.

Yes, if you listen casually to early Black Sabbath music, it sounds like a celebration of evil, but if you listen carefully it's actually Christian music. Hell, Iron Maiden's two minutes to midnight is an anti-abortion song. Twisted Sister was hauled in front of Congress for the "bloody" song under the blade; the song is about undergoing surgery.

something doesn't quite match rape

The entry listed on the EAW checked as rape:

4. On 17th August 2010, in the home of the injured party [name given] in Enkoping, Assange deliberately consummated sexual intercourse with her by improperly exploiting that she, due to sleep, was in a helpless state. It is an aggravating circumstance that Assange, who was aware that it was the expressed wish of the injured party and a prerequisite of sexual intercourse that a condom be used, still consummated unprotected sexual intercourse with her. The sexual act was designed to violate the injured party’s sexual integrity.

Which is F'ing rape - in Sweden, in the UK, in the US, pretty much bloody everywhere. As it very well should be. And people like you who try to say that that's not really rape should be ashamed of yourselves.

while bail skipping child rapists like Polanski are left alone.

Wait, you think the US hasn't tried repeatedly and with great effort to get Polanski and bring him to trial?

. He pissed off a "tyrant"

Wow, great to know that we have the Amazing Kreskin here who knows more than all of the police investigators, the Swedish prosecutor's office, the Swedish lower court judge that issued the Swedish warrant and the EAW, the Svea Court of Appeals that found Assange for probable cause of rape, the Swedish Supreme Court who refused his appeal, the British lower court who ruled against him, the British high court which ruled against him, the British Supreme Court which ruled against him, and now the Svea Court of Appeals once again ruling against him. Nope, we don't need any damn judicial system - we have the Amazing Kreskin here to tell us how the girls are clearly just lying sluts and how F*ing a sleeping girl to work around her refusal to consent to one's preferred form of sex isn't really rape!

Ah, Xest, you grace us with your presence and personal attacks. Thanks for predictably showing up.

She likes to sound intelligent by throwing in random Swedish words like the Swedish version of "the accused" as if it somehow makes her sound more intelligent, but honestly it just comes across as plain weird, I really to this day cannot understand why you'd write out a paragraph in English and just throw in a few otherwise directly translatable words in Swedish other than to try and pretend you have more of a clue than you actually do.

Because it's one of the standard Assange fanboy tactics to say "he's not been charged with anything". Except that that's just a linguistics games. Swedish has two words which one can translate as "accused", "charged", or "indicted" - anklagad and åtalad. Neither corresponds 100% directly to the English equivalent of "charged". Anklagad is to get someone into custody, åtalad is to get them to trial once in custody. Now, if I were to say "the things Assange was charged with...." then I'd be harrassed by a bunch of Assange fanboys playing this dumb linguistic game where they call åtalad "charged" and call anklagad absolutely nothing. So I just simply use the Swedish terms to avoid this.

Note that the UK court system has at every level ruled the fact that Assange is anklagad as being equivalent to being charged for the purposes of the EAW.

"Rape fugitive"? yeah sure Rei, that doesn't sound like a loaded description of someone who has neither been found guilty of rape, nor even been charged for rape, but merely wanted for questioning.

1) You know damn well that he is not "merely wanted for questioning". From the signed statement of the prosecutor to the UK lower court, point #10: "Subject to any matters said by him, which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be launched with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."

It's a ridiculous notion that someone who has already been found by a court of law and repeatedly upheld on appeal to have probable cause of having committed rape is "merely wanted for questioning".

2) Gee, what a shock, you're playing the anklagad/åtalad word game. How predictable could you possibly get?

3) A person who runs from the police is known as a fugitive. That is THE word for it. When the cause that the police want them for is rape, then they're a rape fugitive. Period. If you don't like the English language, don't speak it.

Oh let me guess, the tired old "but Sweden can't charge someone without doing it on their soil!". Bollocks. Completely false.

Once åtalad, there's a time limit for when the trial must begin. Pray tell, how are they supposed to manage that with a person who refuses to turn themselves in?

I'll reiterate: the process of having someone åtalad is to bring someone in custody to trial. Assange is not in custody. Hence this is not the stage to åtala him.

Sweden can do this and have done this.

And your example is...?

They haven't done it because they're not far enough along in their investigation yet.

Right, "not far enough along in their investigation"! Over half a dozen court rulings including formal findings, upheld by other courts, of probable cause of rape, but "not far enough along in their investigation". How do you work that one?

propagandist man-haters like Rei

Come on, you can do better than that. Tell me that I eat kittens and torture seal pups for fun!

Sweden isn't far along enough in it's investigation yet because it refuses to question Assange anywhere other than on it's soil even though it can and has done this for many other suspects in the past.

Sweden can and has questioned people remotely to gather information to help an investigation. They cannot and do not åtala people remotely. And according to the prosecutor, "Subject to any matters said by him, which undermine my present view that he should be indicted, an indictment will be launched with the court thereafter. It can therefore be seen that Assange is sought for the purpose of conducting criminal proceedings and that he is not sought merely to assist with our enquiries."

In fact, Sweden's own courts recently criticised Assange's prosecutors for not being willing to move the case forward by simply questioning him in the UK or via video link:

If someone actually reads your link, they find that it's actually a very mild comment in the middle of a ruling harshly against Assange's run from the law. Yes, the prosecutors absolutely can go question him. They have to give him another questioning at one point anyway. But that alone is not enough to åtala him, because he cannot be brought to trial as it stands. Some people (including, apparently Svea Hovrätt - which, I should add, is the court that found probable cause of him having committed rape, unlawful sexual coersion, and 2 counts of molestation) feel that it'd be good to do even though it itself isn't enough to bring him to trial. The prosecutor's office thinks it sets a bad precident. I agree with the prosecutor's office.

Honestly I've not bothered before

Oh, please, you "bother" every bloody time, you're one of the most extreme Assange fanboys on this site:

Link Link Link Link Link ... I could go on with hundreds of examples. You post so damn much on the subject, let me provide your own words back to you: Go away Xest, Slashdot isn't yours.

Of course we, the UK tax payers, stuck in the middle are footing the bill for this

Assange can end this absurd waste of money that he's caused in sixty seconds. Seriously, you're mad at the police for not wilfully ignoring a supreme court ruling and just letting a wanted man leave, rather than the wanted man who refuses to hand himself over to the police? Is that the sort of country that you want to leave in, where the police just ignore the courts system because a fugitive is popular in certain circles?

Rapists should be hung, drawn, and quartered, and the widespread failure by authorities globally to deal with sexual assault and obtain convictions in cases where they should is a major problem.

Says a guy supporting a rape fugitive's multi-year run from the law.

Well, you need a lax SWF policy to allow the SWFs to swim upstream and spawn.

Sic semper stupratoribus.