It took ten years, but finally Theresa May, the British Home Secretary, has denied the United States’ extradition request for Gary McKinnon, the British hacker who broke into the Pentagon and NASA.
This was an absurd case from the start, and it is awful that McKinnon, who essentially did nothing wrong other than exploit incompetence — the systems he entered had blank passwords — had to live for ten years with the shadow of spending sixty or seventy years in a Federal Supermax.
McKinnon was searching for evidence of exotic energy and flying-saucer technology, and believes he found evidence of the latter, describing seeing images of a cigar-shaped craft:
Recently declassified documents corroborate that the United States Air Force was working on supersonic flying-saucer-type craft in the 1950s:
The aircraft, which had the code name Project 1794, was developed by the USAF and Avro Canada in the 1950s. One declassified memo, which seems to be the conclusion of initial research and prototyping, says that Project 1794 is a flying saucer capable of “between Mach 3 and Mach 4,” (2,300-3,000 mph) a service ceiling of over 100,000 feet (30,500m), and a range of around 1,000 nautical miles (1,150mi, 1850km).
Whatever the truth behind McKinnon’s claims, it is encouraging that Britain has finally stood up for its sovereignty and refused the United States’ extradition request. Britain is — at least in theory — an independent country, and not merely a corner of the America empire and there is absolutely no reason beyond dogged loyalty that the British government should be cowed into complying with American demands. America’s neoconservative policy elite have already dragged Britain into multiple stupid and awful invasions and occupations of the middle east, costing billions of pounds and thousands of lives, jeopardising Britain’s national security, and making Britain into a prime target for international terrorism. Rejecting this extradition request is a good first step toward restoring British integrity.
azizonomics 
I believe that cigar-shaped craft was a Clinton-era initiative. Something about covertly transporting interns or something.
Quite a caricature:
If Britain ever want to develop its own competitive IT enterprise or any top enterprise that can compete with the U.S and the world, they need more brilliant smart brains such as Gary McKinnon to stay at home. Why should Britain handover their top brain to the U.S?
Indeed.
Why should Britain handover their top brain to the U.S?
Hahahaha…………no way: let me say that again “NO WAY”
What a brain he would be in the next world war 😦
Gary McKinnon is one of the finest next to Julian assange and there was no way he would have been handed over to the US, his IT skill are just too good and everybody knows it…
Didn’t he do all this hacking from a cheap desk top pc on a dial up connection (that’s what I herd from his mum on tv) ?????????
If only a little Theresa May went up in my book, to wake up and see that on the news was a breath of fresh air and im now Hungry for more:
Like a banker = Life sentence/Ban from touching money for life and dies in prison (no parole)
The problem is, if he had hacked greece, or spain, or germany, he would not have had an appeal, or any judicial review.
He would be on the next flight out regardless of the lack of evidence.
The EEC was a very good idea. The EU, not so much.
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“It’s an extremely valuable study,” says Steven Pinker, the Johnstone Family Professor in the Department of Psychology at Harvard University. “The design of any language reflects a compromise between properties that make it more useful — clarity, expressiveness, ease of articulation — and properties that are standardized across a community of speakers so that everyone is using the same code. Most grammatical theorists have focused on the arbitrary nature of the community-wide grammar. Gibson has now shed light on how each of these grammars has evolved, in a few predictable ways, to maximize clarity in communicating who did what to whom. That is, much more can be said than just ‘That’s the way English is; that’s the way Turkish is,’ and so on. Gibson’s study shows that there is a great deal of functional design in seemingly arbitrary patterns of variation across languages.”
http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/applying-information-theory-to-linguistics-1010.html
Communication is the key peace tool
http://themagnetisalwayson.com/what-if-speech-is-just-a-gooey-eggy-mess-all-the-way-down-the-line/
His point about lowest common dominators at around 19min seems particularly pertinent
although when you think about it, the grey zone between skepticism and (absolute) certainty he tends to paint is hardly practical..insofar as it argues that some types of uncertainty can be absolute, which itself seems to be a paradox
alistercblanc, all things [including ideas] have a birth, a life, and a death. If you attach to one of thee things, you have sentenced yourself to living in the past, which is fine if your happen to be Jethro Tull, but…
Although Noam Chomsky is an absolutely brilliant man, his words only point to a particular truth, one that he gave birth to, lives, and will die. Even if you are able to ascertain his truth, it exists only for a moment.
Now, this is not to say that great thinkers do not have great value, it is just to say that they live in a particular moment, one that must be appreciated only in its time, then let go.
The intellect is a tool that [when used properly] can greatly assist the observer in finding his way, but, most always, becomes the way. As brilliant as the greatest intellects are, time severely dulls their luster, rendering their insights empty.
The truly profound, are so, never because of what they say, only because they are able to manifest their truth through helping others.
I am glad Gary McKinnon is now safe. What an ordeal for him to live through, facing years in prison. My son has this type of mind, extremely intelligent, curious, ability to figure out whole systems. So he logs onto an administrative account with no password – to people with curious minds, that’s like leaving a loophole in front of a banker.
My prediction for the future. This Anonymous phenomenon is quite concerning. Here you have a “Gang” that recruits the most marginalised and bullied in the schoolyard and gives them a “home”. A place where they feel empowered and part of a group, with a “noble” goal, what ever that may be.
It is spreading all over Youtube etc.
And this gang’s recruits are not the thick skilled thugs of Capone’s era, these are the brightest on the planet, highly skilled with high tech that drives our war machines.
Let’s hope the gang “leader” is noble and not ignoble.
Buddy – I don’t know enough about Anonymous, but I would think these types would be more noble than anything else, would delight in exposing untruths.
The ignoble usually get into fraud and corruption, kind of like our current financial elite.
These hackers are bright enough to work in fraudulent areas, but somehow they don’t. Why is that? Must be a different kind of smart.
In fact, I would argue that it is the fraudulent/manipulator/deceiver/corrupt/something for nothing types who never had a “home”.