Pamela Anderson poisoning Julian Assange?

[sonrisa]

WTF? Have we discussed this? Pamela Anderson brought Julian Assange a vegan sandwich and now he thinks she tried to poison him? (or something. It was too weird not to pass along but too long to hold my attention the whole way through).

www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/10/17/conspiracy-theorists-pamela-anderson-poisoned-julian-assange-with-a-vegan-sandwich.html

[sonrisa]

Here it is.

Conspiracy Theorists: Pamela Anderson Poisoned Julian Assange With a Vegan Sandwich

by Amy Zimmerman

According to today’s most ludicrous new conspiracy theory, PETA activist Pamela Anderson poisoned WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange with a vegan sandwich. Beware of body doubles!

In past years, a Presidential nominee calling women he’s accused of groping ugly liars or a major foreign power allegedly hacking into huge swathes of campaign emails would be Internet-breaking ammo. In this election cycle, that’s a slow news day. As America’s collective bad karma continues to manifest in this strange surreality, we’ve become increasingly un-shockable. It’s been a few weeks since a non-Trump headline has hit this new, higher bar for astonishment. And then Pamela Anderson allegedly poisoned Julian Assange with a vegan Pret a Manger sandwich.

According to The Daily Mail, WikiLeaks founder Assange “says his internet link was ‘severed’ by state agents hours after claims he was poisoned by a Pret vegan sandwich brought to him by Pamela Anderson.” We might be less than a month away from a post-apocalyptic hell of our own creation, but no one can ever take that lede away from us.

Ludicrous as these death-by-Pret theories may seem, the facts in this case might be even stranger than fiction. Former Baywatch star and current anti-fur activist Pamela Anderson actually visited the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief last Saturday. Anderson and Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, the anti-porn movement’s favorite odd couple, were in town to give a speech at the Oxford Union against the corrosive effects of pornography. Or as they phrased it in their recent, polarizing Wall Street Journal op-ed, porn is “a boring, wasteful and dead-end outlet for people too lazy to reap the ample rewards of healthy sexuality.”

Many thought that the serious, Jewish-ish op-ed in which the beloved sex symbol raged against the unverified dangers of virtual sex marked the zenith of Pamela Anderson absurdity. Luckily, the 49-year-old’s choose your own adventure tale appears to have taken a turn for the even weirder. Cue the glamorous snaps of Anderson strolling into Assange’s Ecuadorian embassy hideout in London, coming soon to a conspiracy theorist’s basement wall near you. In the paparazzi pictures, the PETA darling is shown clutching several Pret a Manger bags, as well as a copy of fashion designer Vivienne Westwood’s new book. (For those of you not around Manhattan’s midtown, Pret is a popular, perfectly adequate sandwich shop.)

Apparently, Westwood is the visionary behind this legendary blind date. According to the British designer, “I was supposed to take Pamela Anderson to see Julian in the embassy but she got the date wrong, so she went on her own the day after me…She told me afterwards that they got on very well. Julian was just brilliant.” Westwood added that Anderson is attempting to “help people with her new trust, and that [Assange] gave her some ideas on how to do that.”

So how did this confusing networking opportunity devolve into a game of Pret-centric Clue? Apparently, the murder mystery rumors started when Anderson spoke to the press about her and Assange’s meet-cute. Anderson confirmed that she brought Assange “a nice vegan lunch and some vegan snacks,” joking, “He said I tortured him with bringing him vegan food.” To be fair, as someone who has felt personally attacked when gifted with a gluten-free dessert, it’s hard to imagine the profound disappointment of receiving a seven-dollar vegan sandwich after four years in captivity. The Baywatch actress told the Press Association: “I really believe in him and think he's a good person, and I'm concerned about his health, his family, and I just hope that by some miracle he’s set free.”

Unfortunately, it seems that no unsolicited good deed goes unpunished. In the wake of Anderson’s comments about Assange’s health, as well as her ill-advised torture comment, WikiLeaks’ official Twitter sent off a series of mysterious tweets—coded missives labeled as pre-commitments. Apparently, many people on Twitter—a virtual think tank for accredited experts—declared these tweets a “dead man’s switch,” meant to be activated when and if Assange met his untimely end. This conspiracy theory was further fueled by the massive Saturday WikiLeaks dump of over 1,000 John Podesta emails.

For many of these erudite egg avatars, the timing of the “dead man’s switch” immediately pointed to death by Pret. “Don't trust unconfirmed reports of Assange being alive. The Clinton machine is capable of body doubles,” wrote one user, adding “ARREST PAMELA ANDERSON NOW.” Controversial pickup artist and blogger Roosh V similarly elevated social media discourse, noting, “Pamela Anderson brought ‘healthy food’ for Julian Assange on Sunday. If he’s dead, I’d have that food tested.”

While this story certainly lives up to the new news standard of “tweeted out by multiple Twitter bots,” it is, unfortunately, baseless and stupid. The imagined existence of a WikiLeaks “dead man’s switch” is largely inspired by a 349 GB, heavily-encrypted WikiLeaks file from 2013, which is oft-cited as “WikiLeaks insurance.” But as Gizmodo pointed out, these three new tweets have a clear, separate purpose. “Pre-commitment” is a means of ensuring that unreleased information isn’t tampered with. If the documents in question are changed in the future, those alterations will likewise alter these 64-character codes. The fact that this is a common strategy for protecting sensitive information should be enough to assuage Assange supporters. Furthermore, the WikiLeaks pioneer’s real “dead man’s switch” would almost certainly amount to more than three leaks.

In addition to the notable absence of what we can only imagine would be the world’s largest data dump, the organization’s Twitter account has remained active in the wake of Assange’s alleged passing. A WikiLeaks volunteer also tweeted that “Julian is confirmed to be perfectly fine,” and even shared photos of the virtual vigilante turned accused sex criminal.

But the plot thickens. Later on Sunday, the WikiLeaks Twitter account went live again, claiming, “Julian Assange's internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.” Forcing Assange to eat kale is one thing, but subjecting him to a dodgy Wi-Fi connection is quite another. Conspiracy theorists have convinced themselves that this alleged cyber-attack is linked to Secretary of State John Kerry meeting with U.K. Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in London. Or maybe that’s what the Pamela Anderson body double hired by Hillary Clinton wants us to think.

Apparently, Anderson’s new crusade against sexual misconduct doesn’t extend to rape. Assange, who is currently wanted for questioning in Sweden over one count of “minor rape,” was granted political asylum by Ecuador in 2012. He proceeded to take up residence in London’s Ecuadorian embassy, where he lives in a small room with a specially adapted lamp designed to imitate natural light. (Over the course of four years in self-imposed captivity, Assange has reportedly only stood in direct sunlight for 20 minutes, when he gave a balcony address to his supporters back in August 2012.) Assange believes that if he goes to Sweden to cooperate with the investigation, he will be extradited to the United States for questioning over his involvement in WikiLeaks. Criminal activity and cowardice aside, you’ve got to feel for Julian: he spent four years in a 15 by 13-foot bedroom, and all he got was this stupid Pret sandwich and a S.A.D. lamp.

[LLL]

That would be the best thing Pamela has done since Baywatch. Also? Didn't read

[cville]

I enjoy this very much. I think they should do a buddy cop turned double crossing spy movie together.

[sonrisa]

Update: It was Ecuador! They cut his internet access. And then he went down his little paranoid rabbit hole to concoct the Pamela-Anderson-vegan-sandwich-murder-plot theory. lol!

www.nytimes.com/2016/10/19/world/europe/julian-assange-embassy.html?hp&action=click&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=second-column-region®ion=top-news&WT.nav=top-news&_r=0

LONDON — Ecuador said Tuesday that it had cut off Julian Assange’s access to the internet in his exile in the country’s London embassy, making clear that it feared being sucked into an effort to “interfere in electoral processes” in the United States by the activities of the WikiLeaks founder.

Ecuador said that it was not evicting Mr. Assange from its embassy, where he sought asylum four years ago. It said that its “temporary restriction” of internet services to Mr. Assange “does not prevent the WikiLeaks organization from carrying out its journalistic activities.”

But it was clearly intended to keep the embassy from being the control center for that leaking operation. “The government of Ecuador respects the principle of nonintervention in the affairs of other countries,” it said in a statement, “and it does not interfere in the electoral processes in support of any candidate in particular.”

The internet cutoff was the latest twist in the odd tale of Mr. Assange’s self-imposed exile, which began in 2012 when he sought refuge from a Swedish rape investigation that he said was a cover for an American effort to extradite him. Since then, his world has shrunk to a single apartment inside the small diplomatic compound in central London. He has communicated through the embassy’s internet connections, visitors and, presumably, cellphones that would give him another form of internet access.

Ecuador’s decision was the first sign that the government in Quito was beginning to wonder if its guest in London was overstaying his welcome.

It doubtless was considering the possibility that, should Hillary Clinton prevail in the United States election next month, it would have to explain its role as host to the man who, by remote control, appears to have coordinated the publication of emails purloined from people close to Mrs. Clinton, along with those of the Democratic National Committee and other organizations.

The announcement came a day after WikiLeaks said that Mr. Assange’s connection to the internet had been severed shortly after the organization published speeches that Hillary Clinton gave to Goldman Sachs, the global investment firm. The transcripts, the latest in a series of disclosures, appear to have come from the hacked email account of John D. Podesta, the chairman of her campaign and a White House chief of staff when Mrs. Clinton’s husband was president.

The statement clearly sought to separate Ecuador from the decision by WikiLeaks to publish Mr. Podesta’s emails and, before that, those hacked from the national committee and elsewhere. In recent weeks, Mr. Assange, once the hero of the American left for exposing classified State Department and Pentagon documents, has been hailed by Donald J. Trump and his advisers for disclosures from Mrs. Clinton’s campaign, which Mr. Trump has used almost daily to fuel his attacks on her.

American intelligence agencies have said that the D.N.C. hack was the work of the Russian government and had to be approved at the highest levels of the Kremlin. But it is unclear how the documents made it to WikiLeaks, which has never said where the emails came from, if it knows.

Only hours before Ecuador’s announcement, WikiLeaks charged that Secretary of State John Kerry quietly urged the Ecuadorean government, in a meeting late last month, to stop Mr. Assange from publishing the emails or interfering in the election. The State Department issued a statement declaring that the reports were untrue.

Ecuador’s action, experts inside and outside the United States government say, is not likely to slow the flow of leaked emails. Those emails are routed through servers around the globe, and if the United States wanted to shut them down covertly, that presumably would have happened years ago.

In fact, American officials have said, turning off the flow of WikiLeaks data is a legally complicated issue, especially if American citizens or American-based firms are involved. The Obama administration, they say, does not want to be accused of suppressing unwelcome speech — in the manner of the Russians and the Chinese.

Efforts to reach WikiLeaks on Tuesday were unsuccessful. A sometimes spokesman, Kristinn Hrafnsson, did not return messages, and a telephone message and an email message to Sunshine Press, which represents Mr. Assange, were also unanswered.

Mr. Assange has insisted he does not know the source of the WikiLeaks material, though he has made no secret of his distaste for Mrs. Clinton. The United States government has said that much of the hacking was the work of Russian intelligence and was part of a broad effort to influence the election. So far, the White House has not announced how it will respond, though several options have been discussed with President Obama, according to administration officials.

On Sunday, in a taped interview broadcast on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., in what was either a warning or an effort at psychological warfare, said that “we’re sending a message” to the Russians “at a time and place of our choosing” and that President Vladimir V. Putin will “know it” when the message arrives. That seemed to suggest some kind of covert action, perhaps a cyberstrike, in retaliation for what the American intelligence community has described as a broad and unprecedented effort by a foreign power to influence American voters.

It is possible that Ecuador feared that, because of its decision to give exile to Mr. Assange, it risked becoming a witting or unwitting participant in an effort at voter manipulation.

WikiLeaks provided no evidence to support its claim that Mr. Kerry had pressured Ecuadorean officials, during a private meeting in Colombia last month, to clamp down on Mr. Assange, and the State Department’s spokesman, John Kirby, immediately denied the accusation. “Reports that Secretary Kerry had conversations with Ecuadorean officials about this are simply untrue. Period,” he said.

The president of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, is a man of the left, and he recently told the Kremlin-backed broadcaster RT that he would support Mrs. Clinton.

At the same time, he suggested in the interview that a victory by Mr. Trump, who has made no secret of his admiration for Mr. Putin, would be good for Latin America because it would, paradoxically, bolster leftist parties.

“I sincerely believe that it would be better for Latin America if Trump won,” Mr. Correa said. “When did progressive governments come to power in Latin America? During the Bush administration. His primitive policies were rejected so much that it caused reaction in Latin America. Trump would do the same.”

Questions to the Ecuadorean Embassy on Tuesday were met with a reference to the embassy’s website and a brief statement.

“In view of recent speculations, the government of Ecuador reaffirms the validity of the asylum granted four years ago to Julian Assange,” the statement said.

Mr. Assange is the subject of an arrest warrant in Sweden, which wanted to question him about allegations of rape and sexual abuse dating to 2010, to decide whether or not to bring charges.

Mr. Assange, saying that he feared extradition to the United States on espionage charges stemming from the publication by WikiLeaks of secret documents given to the website by the former Army analyst Chelsea Manning, broke bail and took refuge in the Ecuadorean Embassy in June 2012. He has been in the tiny embassy since.

Given the statute of limitations, the one allegation Mr. Assange still faces in Sweden is rape. He is wanted for questioning but has not been charged.

There is no public indictment in the United States of Mr. Assange; if Sweden chose not to press charges, he would presumably be free to leave the embassy.

[snipsnsnails]

Et tu, Pamela?





😜

[mrsukyankee]

He's seriously fucked up.

[snorky]

Why the hell is Vivienne Westwood setting up Pamela Anderson and Julian Assange on blind dates? Am I missing this amidst all the other wtf in the article?

[Aloe Vera]

Lol, this has to be the most grotesque tale he invented so far. This guy is nuts.