And yet, he's still alive!

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"There have been expressions of alarm over the possibility that the release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks could endanger Americans and others, notably human-rights activists in other countries, leaving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "with blood on his hands." To date, however, the government has not described a single instance of a life being endangered, or even of a diplomatic initiative threatened, by the document dumps – which you know it would do if it had a credible example.

I'm not saying there aren't a number of things the government justifiably should keep secret, but I've come to believe it's a fraction of what is actually classified. When I worked in the nation's capital in the 1970s, including three years as a congressional aide with limited access to classified material, I got the distinct impression that a significant reason for classifying so much information was to give those with access a boost in self-esteem; yes, they were entrusted with facts about the nation's business that were so vital, only they could know. I can't tell you how many times at cocktail parties staff members, state department workers and others would explain that if we knew what they knew, but which, unfortunately, they couldn't tell us, we wouldn't be questioning policies or actions so vigorously. Out of curiosity I tracked down a few such boasts and found them to be bogus or bravado."


http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-280775--.html
 
"There have been expressions of alarm over the possibility that the release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks could endanger Americans and others, notably human-rights activists in other countries, leaving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "with blood on his hands." To date, however, the government has not described a single instance of a life being endangered, or even of a diplomatic initiative threatened, by the document dumps – which you know it would do if it had a credible example.

I'm not saying there aren't a number of things the government justifiably should keep secret, but I've come to believe it's a fraction of what is actually classified. When I worked in the nation's capital in the 1970s, including three years as a congressional aide with limited access to classified material, I got the distinct impression that a significant reason for classifying so much information was to give those with access a boost in self-esteem; yes, they were entrusted with facts about the nation's business that were so vital, only they could know. I can't tell you how many times at cocktail parties staff members, state department workers and others would explain that if we knew what they knew, but which, unfortunately, they couldn't tell us, we wouldn't be questioning policies or actions so vigorously. Out of curiosity I tracked down a few such boasts and found them to be bogus or bravado."


http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-280775--.html

And yet, you're still allowed to be alive. :good4u:
 
Thanks for bumping my threads.

"One unexpected consequence of the Wikileaks saga has been to turn the spotlight on the debate over rape, sex, and consent. Julian Assange, journalism's misbegotten enfant terrible, has been hounded by accusations of sex crimes after he vaulted to fame by releasing leaked classified documents on the Internet. The charges were dismissed but then reinstated; Assange is now in detention in London fighting extradition to Sweden. The nature of these charges has revived questions about where the law should draw the line between bad behavior and criminal acts, and whether the feminist rethinking of rape has made it easy for any man to be targeted.

As is widely known, Assange is accused of sexual offenses against two women: Anna Ardin, a left-wing activist who helped organize his speaking tour in Sweden last August, and photographer Sofia Wilen. The prosecution asserts both encounters started out as consensual but later turned into assaults -- partly, it seems, because of Assange's failure to use a condom despite the women's wishes. The triviality of the offenses is compounded by the women's un-victim-like behavior afterward: Ardin had sex with Assange again and threw a party for him; Wilen made him breakfast. It was only when the women learned of his two-timing that they went to the police -- initially intending to force him to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...ver-expanding_definitions_of_rape_108267.html

And yet, the authoress of this piece, and I, are still alive.

Please, congratulate both of us.
 
Thanks for bumping my threads.

"One unexpected consequence of the Wikileaks saga has been to turn the spotlight on the debate over rape, sex, and consent. Julian Assange, journalism's misbegotten enfant terrible, has been hounded by accusations of sex crimes after he vaulted to fame by releasing leaked classified documents on the Internet. The charges were dismissed but then reinstated; Assange is now in detention in London fighting extradition to Sweden. The nature of these charges has revived questions about where the law should draw the line between bad behavior and criminal acts, and whether the feminist rethinking of rape has made it easy for any man to be targeted.

As is widely known, Assange is accused of sexual offenses against two women: Anna Ardin, a left-wing activist who helped organize his speaking tour in Sweden last August, and photographer Sofia Wilen. The prosecution asserts both encounters started out as consensual but later turned into assaults -- partly, it seems, because of Assange's failure to use a condom despite the women's wishes. The triviality of the offenses is compounded by the women's un-victim-like behavior afterward: Ardin had sex with Assange again and threw a party for him; Wilen made him breakfast. It was only when the women learned of his two-timing that they went to the police -- initially intending to force him to get tested for sexually transmitted diseases."

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/ar...ver-expanding_definitions_of_rape_108267.html

And yet, the authoress of this piece, and I, are still alive.

Please, congratulate both of us.

No problem, as long as you're alive. :)
 
"By now, you no doubt know that yesterday, with much fanfare, Time magazine named Mark Zuckerberg its Person of the Year for 2010.

I'm here to tell you they got it wrong. Julian Assange was the Person of the Year, and that's true whether you think he's a hero or a clown. Here's why.

Let's start by quoting Time's reasoning for its choice:


For connecting more than half a billion people and mapping the social relations among them; for creating a new system of exchanging information; and for changing how we all live our lives, Mark Elliot Zuckerberg is TIME's 2010 Person of the Year.

Sounds wonderful, doesn't it? All that mapping and creating and connecting. As my son's first grade teacher used to say, "lots of juicy verbs," except it's not really relevant in 2010. Maybe Zuckerberg would have been a good choice in, say, 2007 or 2008, even last year when so many Boomers joined Facebook… but 2010? Not so much. Facebook may be part of the fabric of our lives now, but it has been for some time. This didn't suddenly happen in 2010.

I actually asked Time Inc. what criteria they used to choose the Person of the Year, and a Time spokesperson said, agrammatically, it was "the person or persons who has most affected our lives and the culture, for good or for ill, over the past year."

Based on that criterion, Assange was clearly a stronger candidate than Zuckerberg, who has done little over the past year other than continue to add to his company's value.

Zuckerberg and his company didn't even make the news very much this year. Oh sure, there was a movie, The Social Network, made about them, and Zuckerberg went on 60 Minutes to announce Facebook's dazzling new profile design (yawn), but what did he actually do that broke ground or made him the news maker of the year? In the words of Suzanne Vega: "Nothing Much, nothing much."

Why would Assange be a better choice? Well, who took the world by storm in 2010? Whose name was on everyone's lips? Who was chased by governments, threatened with death, repudiated and hated, arrested and rejected? Who by turns was hailed as a hero and champion of free speech and democracy and backed by a legion of mystery hackers? That person was Julian Assange, the man who should have been Time's 2010 Person of the Year.

Assange broke the news story of the year when his organization, WikiLeaks, released the State Department cables at the end of last month. He moved world governments to act. Nobody had more influence on society at large or the news than this fellow. Sure, he's a controversial figure, but that makes him all the more deserving of the honor.

You can view him positively or negatively, but his influence on the news this year was far greater than Zuckerberg's. And by the way, if you're thinking he was a negative influence and therefore doesn't deserve such an honor, consider that Hitler won in 1938; so being a positive figure doesn't really figure in as far as I can tell.

Time deserves some credit for having made Assange a runner-up along with The Tea Party, The Chilean Miners, and Afghan president Hamid Karzai, but if they were being honest, no way he would be a runner-up to Zuckerberg.

Maybe they chickened out and went for the safe choice. But whatever the reason, Time chose the wrong guy."

— Ron Miller is a freelance technology journalist, blogger, FierceContentManagement editor, and contributing editor at EContent magazine.

http://www.internetevolution.com/au...7&doc_id=202063&f_src=internetevolution_gnews

Ron Miller is still alive.
 
"There have been expressions of alarm over the possibility that the release of diplomatic cables by WikiLeaks could endanger Americans and others, notably human-rights activists in other countries, leaving WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange "with blood on his hands." To date, however, the government has not described a single instance of a life being endangered, or even of a diplomatic initiative threatened, by the document dumps – which you know it would do if it had a credible example.

I'm not saying there aren't a number of things the government justifiably should keep secret, but I've come to believe it's a fraction of what is actually classified. When I worked in the nation's capital in the 1970s, including three years as a congressional aide with limited access to classified material, I got the distinct impression that a significant reason for classifying so much information was to give those with access a boost in self-esteem; yes, they were entrusted with facts about the nation's business that were so vital, only they could know. I can't tell you how many times at cocktail parties staff members, state department workers and others would explain that if we knew what they knew, but which, unfortunately, they couldn't tell us, we wouldn't be questioning policies or actions so vigorously. Out of curiosity I tracked down a few such boasts and found them to be bogus or bravado."


http://www.ocregister.com/articles/-280775--.html

When Hillarious Clitnon told the world that American lives were endangered it was, in fact a Palinism. She meant to say, 'My job and comfortable lifestyle are endangered.'
 
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