yesterday, my friends and i went to a very interesting forum about wikileaks and free speech. speakers included, adam bandt (first green member for melbourne), julian assange (via pre-recorded video) and a few other great people.
our TOK teacher for IB had recommended us to go as we are currently discussing whether wikileaks is good or bad in class. we were lucky to get seats in the auditorium as another friend could only watch it on the big screen outside.
anyways, it really made me think about the situation, and how many governments are accusing mr. assange as a way of defending themselves. however, as it said at the forum, what mr. assange did is not illegal as there is no current law which does not allow one to publish these leaks. yet, people are ordering for mr. assange to be trialled and executed.
president of america, barack obama once a winner of the nobel peace prize, has joined the assault on wikileaks. in case you are unaware, wikileaks has leaked confidential cables of governments and published it in the interest of the public.as a nobel peace prize winner, mr. obama should realise that there is freedom of speech in this world. his attacks on the website are weak as he most likely afraid of the cables to ruin his diplomatic relations with nations.
however, my opinions may not be entirely correct as i have not fully understood the full extent of the situation. i am purely speaking from the information i have learnt in the recent days. i just believe that mr. assange should be fairly trialled and for the sexual assault charges on women against him, if they are true, then he must also accept the responsibility.
but, back to the point of this post. coming back from the forum, we experienced a massive storm. the clouds a lot of which are linked to those of cyclone yasi dumped a total of 85.2mm of rain in a couple of hours. many places flooded, including the city. we had no way of getting home by public transport and we were basically stranded for a good half an hour. we finally decided to walk back to our friend's house with shoes off and get my other friend's mum to drive her 4WD to come pick us up.
we were lucky to be able to get home in about an hour opposed to those stranded in the city. i hope that melbournians did not stranded too long and that those houses that flooded are not too serious.
stay safe melbourne for the remainder of the weekend.
