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 ;)

You really can't see the loophole in that? The new drug isn't designed to do the same thing. It would do something slightly different. Sure, you could try to reword that, but that's the difficulty with creating laws...you either get too broad and have unintended consequences, or you get too specific and someone finds a way around it on a technicality you didn't anticipate.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yep. But apparently he doesn't want to do it with his own money. Hence the need for Assange to use the Wikileaks twitter feed to promote the kickstarter.

Horses' asses can still serve important functions from time to time. Just ask a horse.

Of course, that notwithstanding, even a horse probably wouldn't want a statue of their ass made and sent on a world tour.

What he's "paying a high price for" is F*ing a sleeping girl to work around her repeated refusal to consent to his preferred form of sex, then running from the charges.

Right, because using the official Wikileaks feed to tweet a kickstarter page whose goal is to build a statue of him isn't in any way, shape or form trying to raise money to build a statue of him?

*Whoosh*

The Swedish government had no force measures against him because they believed his attorney that he was still in Sweden getting ready to voluntarily come into the police station for an interview, up to several days after he had left the country, because apparently this "constant surveillance" didn't see fit to bother to mention to them that he was gone. They also believed his attorney's lies for about a month that Assange was getting ready to return to Sweden because this "constant surveillance" didn't even bother to mention that Assange was shopping around for a permanent address. Then when he was under force measures in the UK, and yes, out on bail (ankle tracking bracelet and everything), this "constant surveillance" didn't see fit to mention when he left his court-imposed house arrest and walked into the embassy of a state whose president he'd been recently palling around with on Russian TV.

How F'ing incompetent is this "constant surveillance"?