I agree. The problem is that most of us are not in any way remotely qualified to judge the quality or reliability of the information we receive. We end up trusting the information based on the source - which is hardly scientific. I do not know if this is true, but I heard recently that Cambridge University in the UK has changed its policy on papers which are published there. It used to be that if a paper was payed for by a corporation or organization etc, as opposed to being pure research - that Cambridge required that the entity who financed the paper would be identified on the cover. That way the reader could at least take that into consideration. Now apparently they no longer identify the sponsor of a paper. If this is true, it makes me trust Cambridge information a lot less than I would have previously. I would like to know if its true of course, or just rumour.
Some "Scientists" insist on presenting as "facts" things which are not necessarily true. As long as scientific studies are being produced with a pronounced bias towards a particular viewpoint, I think people will tend to disbelieve scientific studies that disagree with the view that they hold. When Corporations can pay for studies that "prove" their viewpoint but appear to be unbiased why should we believe everything we are told just because a scientist says its so. If they remain neutral then they gain credibility but the more biased opinions that get passed off as "scientific fact" the weaker their credibility. I am thinking here of some of the studies done with the financing of Big Pharma that just happen to support a product they are selling/developing, and then later we discover it was all a sham.
Then its that authorization clause that needs to go first. If you want to accuse me of something in court, the least you can do is do it yourself, not farm it off to some third party contractors solely because it makes it easier for you to accuse your supposed customers. It sure would be nice if government would stop favoring the corporations in these matters, but I guess the bribes are just too good to ignore.
Precisely. Although Unions have their own problems that they bring to the table, the general effect is to improve the worker's conditions, safety, wages, etc. As long as they are watched as closely as the Corporations (and to be honest they watch each other), then some balance can be struck where everyone benefits. Without Unions, Corporations are free to abuse their workers without check. Yes, as people will point out, the worker's are free to quit if they want to - and if they are aware of the problems in the first place - but that is not always a viable alternative in a society and economy where finding a job is practically like winning the lottery at times. Left to themselves, I think most corporations *will* misuse and abuse their workers in the name of profit.
Actually all he did was eliminate the bond that made the English Church subject to the Pope in any regard. Instead he assumed the role with regards to the English church. Other than that there were very few differences at least at first. A role theoretically still held by Queen Elizabeth I believe.
You can only read *some* books on the internet. Say I am interested in the history of the KGB. There is an excellent source book called "The Mitrokhin Archive" (archives of the KGB preserved and smuggled out of the USSR). I have a paper copy and am slowly working my way through it. Go ahead and find me a copy to read online, please. Now, I can find out about how to get the book, read the Wikipedia article on it etc, gaining a shallow knowledge of what its about, perhaps read some articles supporting its validity or criticizing its accuracy etc, and I can get a good idea what other books people who read it also liked but that doesn't get me the data inside the book. I can of course read lots of information about the history of the KGB as well online, but as I said most of it is far shallower than the contents of the book I specified above. I fail to see your point.
Of course the vast majority of that debt was spent while Republicans were in power and getting the US involved in very costly wars. Not all, granted, but a majority I am sure. Obama is trying to do something to improve the lot of all Americans, obviously the Right can't have that, only the quality of life for the very rich and powerful should be improved. The Republicans seem bent on opposing anything that might improve the US at the moment, so that no credit can be given to Obama and the Democrats. This is counter productive and a disservice to your country IMHO.
I agree with you overall. My primary concern is with the rise of fundamentalism (regardless of faith). I see that as a generally negative event in human history, and consider most fundamentalist thinking to be dangerous to the public well being. I have known many Muslims, and have yet to meet one I thought was harmful in any regard. Most seem totally average and fit into society quite normally. I have known quite a few fundamentalist Christians as well, and quite frankly they have frightened me far more with their blind acceptance of principles I can in no way agree with, and with their far larger numbers in my community. Do I spend a lot of time thinking about any of these people typically? not really. I am however in Canada, not TN:P
You don't mean Polyamorous - thats simply a relationship that is open enough to allow each member to have relationships with others as well as the couple specified, kind of like a group relationship. You mean "Polyandry" which is one woman marrying more than one husband. Its not that common, but it does occur in some societies. Often its one woman marrying brothers as well.
However, the *quality* of the information returned from a search is often questionable. So many of the "facts" presented on the web are really biased opinion these days and usually presented in a rather shallow format it seems. Good highly detailed information is still mostly found in books I think. I don't see much replacing it on the internet except as shallow treatments of a subject. You can get the summary of relevant information really quickly, get the gist of a subject effectively, but to get really good detailed knowledge of some specific subject - thats why I have a library at home and the public library or university library available elsewhere in the city (granted the data there is often dated by contrast).
Imagine the reaction in the US, if a US citizen was being investigated by a foreign government - say Russia - and the Russians sent the FSB over to shut down a US business, seize its assets and arrest that citizen prior to him being tried. Thats what its like to live in another country that, through fear/intimidation - or massive bribery - allows the US to run roughshod over its own laws and basically do whatever the fuck it wants to whomever the fuck it wants because that individual is seen as a threat by some powerful US corporation or organization. If it was a rare occurrence it would still be wrong, but not much concern but its happening a lot more these days it seems.
The music industry has *always* been slow to adapt historically. Its been slow to recognize new markets when they appear, and in fact usually resists them and attempts to shut them down. I was just listening on CBC radio to a documentary about the music industry, where one of the executives who in essence created the market for both Rock and Roll and Country & Western said the established labels of the time didn't want anything to do with those emerging markets - they thought they would never amount to anything. He said it was the rising small labels that built those markets against opposition from the big labels. Its no different now, except that the RIAA has the backing of the US Government in prosecuting its attempts to shut down new markets and new ways of doing business. They are still resisting change, likely because the current crop of executives in charge is afraid of trying to adapt, its risky and the likelihood is that they would be replaced by those who understand the new possibilities. In the meantime the rest of the world gets its rights to privacy destroyed in the name of protecting an outdated business model run by an industry that has been all but criminal in its treatment (re: abuse) of the "artists" it supposedly represents.
I suggest a prerecording of Bagpipe music, piped (no pun intended) through the stereo system at about 130 db, but only if the computer can detect and react to heart attacks as well:P
Take highly competent tech people who are generally speaking somewhat anti-authoritarian, give them the tools to do nasty things to the nations enemies via hacking, malware programming etc, and expect them to keep their mouths shut about it. A lot of people don't trust the government - and often with very good reason - why would they want to hack for it? How long until the complete log files of everything they and everyone they associate with are sent to Wikileaks? Find technical people who are not anti-authoritarian and get them to do your hacking - just hire them for ability and knowledge rather than the traditional military virtues that most military organizations look for. In fact, hire them as civilian contractors and then keep them away from the rest of the military:P
And then the purchases you make with your credit card can be matched to your cellphone location, and the stores you purchase things in, along with what you purchase can be used to build up a profile of the things you like and do etc etc. Individually each thing means nothing but collectively they add up, geolocation is an important factor in that data. Once a company has your data they can sell it - oh they might say they are going to preserve your privacy but nothing prevents them from doing so other than laws which may or may not be enforced. Trackers is a good name. Making phone calls is about 10% of what my smartphone is capable of doing at most I am sure.
And often as not more is less. I can't count the number of beautifully designed artistically creative website designs I have seen - which violate all the rules for design and layout and conveying information ever devised, and have zero content worth actually reading - but *my* its pretty. In many ways a lot of modern websites are a triumph of form over function and not much else. Wikipedia has a simple layout that works quite well, it is consistent and I think quite easy to read generally. If it takes learning a slightly specialized markup language to encode the data - well then thats a small barrier to entry that might encourage only those who can be bothered to learn how to edit the pages to actually edit the pages. If editors were let loose with a wysiwyg editor then Wikipedia entries would be a chaos of inconsistent layout and display and effectively unreadable, in very short order.
Its Big Media (tm) trying to impose this on the world, in this case through their hired lapdog Canada's PM Steven Harper. Harper will do whatever it takes to pass legislation he wants passed. Usually he does this by inserting it in legislation that has no bearing on the new insertions - recently this meant changes to our criminal code and prison system, revamping the entire fisheries act, attempting to close down environmental groups etc, all inserted in some budget legislation that was because of its nature, not open to general debate. Harper is very close to acting like a dictator in many ways, and he is ramming through his provisions to create the most authoritarian version of Canada in its history, while letting Canadians retain what appears to be freedom. A large part of this seems to be enacting whatever legislation will best suit the folks who run the US - i.e. Big Media corporations and the Patent trolling folks down south of the border. I would say the insertion of the text of ACTA in another bill is perfectly in keeping with the way Harper acts.
And when they got there discovered that while things are better, they are headed much the same way... Russia is just ahead of the US and UK in controlling the minds and lives of their "citizens" thats all. Sadly for me, Canada is rushing to get ahead under our current PM.
is to combine this technology with remotely piloted drones, spy-copters, and eventually combat robots. Then I can imagine a military formation formed up to receive orders, being told they were going to war, and then told to go to it - and no one needs to move:P
The US is right-wing generally. What you call a "liberal" is what we call middle of the road or possibly a conservative. I agree that Faux News is batshit crazy right wing, but I see CNN as merely right wing, not liberal by any means, and most of the people who comment on CNN stories are also batshit rightwing it seems. The extremes are dangerous IMHO, in the very least because they don't think they are dangerous. While I am slightly leftwing politically myself, the extreme leftwing people are often out to lunch IMHO, and the rightwing Conservative types seem only a few steps from Fascist. I don't think the typical American political range from left to right is lining up with the rest of the world's similar range. You folks tend to be slid towards the rightwing side more. At least thats my perspective on it:P
Well I can't argue that myself. However, he seems to think that the whole purpose of them wanting him to go to Sweden is so that he can then be extradited directly to the US, and he apparently feels that the US Gov't is somewhat irritated with him for some reason. Since the Swedes have allowed the US to use extraordinary rendition against at least one individual in Sweden in the past, and since they have already questioned him, determined that there was no case, and given him permission to leave, I don't think his suspicions are entirely unreasonable. I don't pretend to know all the details, understand Swedish law or understand the finer nuances of how Swedish law defines sexual misconducts (its much more defined there than it would be in Canada (where I am from) or the US (where most of you are). I can understand someone deciding that having already been examined, and given permission to leave because no charges were going to be laid after answering all the questions put to him, he might decide he doesn't see why he should have to go through that whole process again. Then we have the various questions about why the 2 women raised the whole issue in the first place and their (to me at least) somewhat suspicious behavior, plus the fact that one of them has had some connection to the CIA in the past (if that is true). Assange has to be fairly paranoid and I am sure this all feeds that - whether or not there is any justification to his fears. I am not defending him mind you, just saying I can understand why he doesn't want to go to Sweden.
Personally, I am now of the mind that the US does want him, but mostly so they can use him in the trial of Bradley Manning. Assange has had so much publicity that if the US does extradite him they will have to watch what they do with him under the world's eyes (although that often doesn't seem to matter to the US Gov't I admit). Manning on the other hand is clearly someone they want to try and punish. Its two ends of the same problem. If the US shows they will locate, try and punish harshly anyone who reveals stuff to Wikileaks, then they achieve the same goal: preventing something similar from happening in the future.
Sure, I should have said more evidently. I thought I was being obvious, but obviously I was not:P
Despite the legions of posters on this site (and every other site I have been to so far) who seem to feel that because Wikileaks DARED to releas US Government secrets that were submitted to them, Assange should be hung, drawn and quartered in public for having the temerity to do so, I think that Wikileaks serves a very valuable service to the bulk of humanity who might be interested in the things their governments are doing in their name and often keeping them from knowing. Releasing the emails from the Syrian government might prove to be very important and have a useful bearing on what is and has been going on there. Without some organization like WL we wouldn't see this stuff at all as members of the public. Moreover, the legion of journalists that will descend on this stuff wouldn't have the ability to root through it and summarize the key information they come across, and then disseminate to us in a more readable format.
Assange may be an egotistical ass, but the legion of the same posters above who are willing to see him tried and convicted of rape, without charges, without a court deliberation after a trial etc is getting rather annoying to me at least. If he's guilty then let him be charged and tried etc. Until then, he's innocent, just as anyone else who hasn't been charged is innocent. Stating otherwise is just ad hominem attacks that serve no purpose other than to show the poster's personal bias/agenda. What he is doing is a remarkable job of staying in the news, and thus advertising Wikileaks though. He's a figurehead that garners a lot of attention - or an attention whore in other words, and he's doing that very effectively. I have a feeling his greatest crime in the eyes of most US posters though is that he dared to do something that might reflect badly on the US, and "my country tis of thee" etc, they don't want to see a foreigner criticize the US, I guess only US citizens can do that without rancor it seems.
I think the world needs to do something about the situation in Syria. This information might give us a chance to be better informed on what has happened there and what is happening there, how can that be a bad thing in the long run? Unless of course it turns out that US Government agencies and US Corporations are implicated in the massacre of civilians there - then those same people I mentioned above will only have more ammunition for their arguments as to why Assange should be tried, convicted of treason (against a country he is not a citizen of) and then executed.
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I agree. The problem is that most of us are not in any way remotely qualified to judge the quality or reliability of the information we receive. We end up trusting the information based on the source - which is hardly scientific.
I do not know if this is true, but I heard recently that Cambridge University in the UK has changed its policy on papers which are published there. It used to be that if a paper was payed for by a corporation or organization etc, as opposed to being pure research - that Cambridge required that the entity who financed the paper would be identified on the cover. That way the reader could at least take that into consideration. Now apparently they no longer identify the sponsor of a paper. If this is true, it makes me trust Cambridge information a lot less than I would have previously. I would like to know if its true of course, or just rumour.
Some "Scientists" insist on presenting as "facts" things which are not necessarily true. As long as scientific studies are being produced with a pronounced bias towards a particular viewpoint, I think people will tend to disbelieve scientific studies that disagree with the view that they hold. When Corporations can pay for studies that "prove" their viewpoint but appear to be unbiased why should we believe everything we are told just because a scientist says its so. If they remain neutral then they gain credibility but the more biased opinions that get passed off as "scientific fact" the weaker their credibility. I am thinking here of some of the studies done with the financing of Big Pharma that just happen to support a product they are selling/developing, and then later we discover it was all a sham.
Then its that authorization clause that needs to go first. If you want to accuse me of something in court, the least you can do is do it yourself, not farm it off to some third party contractors solely because it makes it easier for you to accuse your supposed customers.
It sure would be nice if government would stop favoring the corporations in these matters, but I guess the bribes are just too good to ignore.
Precisely. Although Unions have their own problems that they bring to the table, the general effect is to improve the worker's conditions, safety, wages, etc. As long as they are watched as closely as the Corporations (and to be honest they watch each other), then some balance can be struck where everyone benefits. Without Unions, Corporations are free to abuse their workers without check.
Yes, as people will point out, the worker's are free to quit if they want to - and if they are aware of the problems in the first place - but that is not always a viable alternative in a society and economy where finding a job is practically like winning the lottery at times.
Left to themselves, I think most corporations *will* misuse and abuse their workers in the name of profit.
Actually all he did was eliminate the bond that made the English Church subject to the Pope in any regard. Instead he assumed the role with regards to the English church. Other than that there were very few differences at least at first. A role theoretically still held by Queen Elizabeth I believe.
You can only read *some* books on the internet. Say I am interested in the history of the KGB. There is an excellent source book called "The Mitrokhin Archive" (archives of the KGB preserved and smuggled out of the USSR). I have a paper copy and am slowly working my way through it. Go ahead and find me a copy to read online, please.
Now, I can find out about how to get the book, read the Wikipedia article on it etc, gaining a shallow knowledge of what its about, perhaps read some articles supporting its validity or criticizing its accuracy etc, and I can get a good idea what other books people who read it also liked but that doesn't get me the data inside the book.
I can of course read lots of information about the history of the KGB as well online, but as I said most of it is far shallower than the contents of the book I specified above.
I fail to see your point.
Of course the vast majority of that debt was spent while Republicans were in power and getting the US involved in very costly wars. Not all, granted, but a majority I am sure.
Obama is trying to do something to improve the lot of all Americans, obviously the Right can't have that, only the quality of life for the very rich and powerful should be improved. The Republicans seem bent on opposing anything that might improve the US at the moment, so that no credit can be given to Obama and the Democrats. This is counter productive and a disservice to your country IMHO.
I agree with you overall. My primary concern is with the rise of fundamentalism (regardless of faith). I see that as a generally negative event in human history, and consider most fundamentalist thinking to be dangerous to the public well being. :P
I have known many Muslims, and have yet to meet one I thought was harmful in any regard. Most seem totally average and fit into society quite normally. I have known quite a few fundamentalist Christians as well, and quite frankly they have frightened me far more with their blind acceptance of principles I can in no way agree with, and with their far larger numbers in my community.
Do I spend a lot of time thinking about any of these people typically? not really.
I am however in Canada, not TN
You don't mean Polyamorous - thats simply a relationship that is open enough to allow each member to have relationships with others as well as the couple specified, kind of like a group relationship.
You mean "Polyandry" which is one woman marrying more than one husband. Its not that common, but it does occur in some societies. Often its one woman marrying brothers as well.
However, the *quality* of the information returned from a search is often questionable. So many of the "facts" presented on the web are really biased opinion these days and usually presented in a rather shallow format it seems.
Good highly detailed information is still mostly found in books I think. I don't see much replacing it on the internet except as shallow treatments of a subject.
You can get the summary of relevant information really quickly, get the gist of a subject effectively, but to get really good detailed knowledge of some specific subject - thats why I have a library at home and the public library or university library available elsewhere in the city (granted the data there is often dated by contrast).
Imagine the reaction in the US, if a US citizen was being investigated by a foreign government - say Russia - and the Russians sent the FSB over to shut down a US business, seize its assets and arrest that citizen prior to him being tried.
Thats what its like to live in another country that, through fear/intimidation - or massive bribery - allows the US to run roughshod over its own laws and basically do whatever the fuck it wants to whomever the fuck it wants because that individual is seen as a threat by some powerful US corporation or organization. If it was a rare occurrence it would still be wrong, but not much concern but its happening a lot more these days it seems.
The music industry has *always* been slow to adapt historically. Its been slow to recognize new markets when they appear, and in fact usually resists them and attempts to shut them down.
I was just listening on CBC radio to a documentary about the music industry, where one of the executives who in essence created the market for both Rock and Roll and Country & Western said the established labels of the time didn't want anything to do with those emerging markets - they thought they would never amount to anything. He said it was the rising small labels that built those markets against opposition from the big labels.
Its no different now, except that the RIAA has the backing of the US Government in prosecuting its attempts to shut down new markets and new ways of doing business. They are still resisting change, likely because the current crop of executives in charge is afraid of trying to adapt, its risky and the likelihood is that they would be replaced by those who understand the new possibilities.
In the meantime the rest of the world gets its rights to privacy destroyed in the name of protecting an outdated business model run by an industry that has been all but criminal in its treatment (re: abuse) of the "artists" it supposedly represents.
I have never eaten too much. I got T2 Diabetes all the same - because it can be genetic it seems.
I suggest a prerecording of Bagpipe music, piped (no pun intended) through the stereo system at about 130 db, but only if the computer can detect and react to heart attacks as well :P
Take highly competent tech people who are generally speaking somewhat anti-authoritarian, give them the tools to do nasty things to the nations enemies via hacking, malware programming etc, and expect them to keep their mouths shut about it. :P
A lot of people don't trust the government - and often with very good reason - why would they want to hack for it?
How long until the complete log files of everything they and everyone they associate with are sent to Wikileaks?
Find technical people who are not anti-authoritarian and get them to do your hacking - just hire them for ability and knowledge rather than the traditional military virtues that most military organizations look for. In fact, hire them as civilian contractors and then keep them away from the rest of the military
And then the purchases you make with your credit card can be matched to your cellphone location, and the stores you purchase things in, along with what you purchase can be used to build up a profile of the things you like and do etc etc. Individually each thing means nothing but collectively they add up, geolocation is an important factor in that data. Once a company has your data they can sell it - oh they might say they are going to preserve your privacy but nothing prevents them from doing so other than laws which may or may not be enforced.
Trackers is a good name. Making phone calls is about 10% of what my smartphone is capable of doing at most I am sure.
And often as not more is less. I can't count the number of beautifully designed artistically creative website designs I have seen - which violate all the rules for design and layout and conveying information ever devised, and have zero content worth actually reading - but *my* its pretty. In many ways a lot of modern websites are a triumph of form over function and not much else.
Wikipedia has a simple layout that works quite well, it is consistent and I think quite easy to read generally. If it takes learning a slightly specialized markup language to encode the data - well then thats a small barrier to entry that might encourage only those who can be bothered to learn how to edit the pages to actually edit the pages.
If editors were let loose with a wysiwyg editor then Wikipedia entries would be a chaos of inconsistent layout and display and effectively unreadable, in very short order.
Yes and the amount of money received by the artists and content creators that they represent won't change a bit :(
Its Big Media (tm) trying to impose this on the world, in this case through their hired lapdog Canada's PM Steven Harper. Harper will do whatever it takes to pass legislation he wants passed. Usually he does this by inserting it in legislation that has no bearing on the new insertions - recently this meant changes to our criminal code and prison system, revamping the entire fisheries act, attempting to close down environmental groups etc, all inserted in some budget legislation that was because of its nature, not open to general debate. Harper is very close to acting like a dictator in many ways, and he is ramming through his provisions to create the most authoritarian version of Canada in its history, while letting Canadians retain what appears to be freedom.
A large part of this seems to be enacting whatever legislation will best suit the folks who run the US - i.e. Big Media corporations and the Patent trolling folks down south of the border. I would say the insertion of the text of ACTA in another bill is perfectly in keeping with the way Harper acts.
And when they got there discovered that while things are better, they are headed much the same way...
Russia is just ahead of the US and UK in controlling the minds and lives of their "citizens" thats all. Sadly for me, Canada is rushing to get ahead under our current PM.
is to combine this technology with remotely piloted drones, spy-copters, and eventually combat robots. Then I can imagine a military formation formed up to receive orders, being told they were going to war, and then told to go to it - and no one needs to move :P
The US is right-wing generally. What you call a "liberal" is what we call middle of the road or possibly a conservative. :P
I agree that Faux News is batshit crazy right wing, but I see CNN as merely right wing, not liberal by any means, and most of the people who comment on CNN stories are also batshit rightwing it seems.
The extremes are dangerous IMHO, in the very least because they don't think they are dangerous. While I am slightly leftwing politically myself, the extreme leftwing people are often out to lunch IMHO, and the rightwing Conservative types seem only a few steps from Fascist.
I don't think the typical American political range from left to right is lining up with the rest of the world's similar range. You folks tend to be slid towards the rightwing side more. At least thats my perspective on it
Well I can't argue that myself. However, he seems to think that the whole purpose of them wanting him to go to Sweden is so that he can then be extradited directly to the US, and he apparently feels that the US Gov't is somewhat irritated with him for some reason.
Since the Swedes have allowed the US to use extraordinary rendition against at least one individual in Sweden in the past, and since they have already questioned him, determined that there was no case, and given him permission to leave, I don't think his suspicions are entirely unreasonable. I don't pretend to know all the details, understand Swedish law or understand the finer nuances of how Swedish law defines sexual misconducts (its much more defined there than it would be in Canada (where I am from) or the US (where most of you are). I can understand someone deciding that having already been examined, and given permission to leave because no charges were going to be laid after answering all the questions put to him, he might decide he doesn't see why he should have to go through that whole process again.
Then we have the various questions about why the 2 women raised the whole issue in the first place and their (to me at least) somewhat suspicious behavior, plus the fact that one of them has had some connection to the CIA in the past (if that is true). Assange has to be fairly paranoid and I am sure this all feeds that - whether or not there is any justification to his fears.
I am not defending him mind you, just saying I can understand why he doesn't want to go to Sweden.
Personally, I am now of the mind that the US does want him, but mostly so they can use him in the trial of Bradley Manning. Assange has had so much publicity that if the US does extradite him they will have to watch what they do with him under the world's eyes (although that often doesn't seem to matter to the US Gov't I admit). Manning on the other hand is clearly someone they want to try and punish. Its two ends of the same problem. If the US shows they will locate, try and punish harshly anyone who reveals stuff to Wikileaks, then they achieve the same goal: preventing something similar from happening in the future.
Sure, I should have said more evidently. I thought I was being obvious, but obviously I was not :P
Despite the legions of posters on this site (and every other site I have been to so far) who seem to feel that because Wikileaks DARED to releas US Government secrets that were submitted to them, Assange should be hung, drawn and quartered in public for having the temerity to do so, I think that Wikileaks serves a very valuable service to the bulk of humanity who might be interested in the things their governments are doing in their name and often keeping them from knowing. Releasing the emails from the Syrian government might prove to be very important and have a useful bearing on what is and has been going on there. Without some organization like WL we wouldn't see this stuff at all as members of the public. Moreover, the legion of journalists that will descend on this stuff wouldn't have the ability to root through it and summarize the key information they come across, and then disseminate to us in a more readable format.
Assange may be an egotistical ass, but the legion of the same posters above who are willing to see him tried and convicted of rape, without charges, without a court deliberation after a trial etc is getting rather annoying to me at least. If he's guilty then let him be charged and tried etc. Until then, he's innocent, just as anyone else who hasn't been charged is innocent. Stating otherwise is just ad hominem attacks that serve no purpose other than to show the poster's personal bias/agenda. What he is doing is a remarkable job of staying in the news, and thus advertising Wikileaks though. He's a figurehead that garners a lot of attention - or an attention whore in other words, and he's doing that very effectively. I have a feeling his greatest crime in the eyes of most US posters though is that he dared to do something that might reflect badly on the US, and "my country tis of thee" etc, they don't want to see a foreigner criticize the US, I guess only US citizens can do that without rancor it seems.
I think the world needs to do something about the situation in Syria. This information might give us a chance to be better informed on what has happened there and what is happening there, how can that be a bad thing in the long run? Unless of course it turns out that US Government agencies and US Corporations are implicated in the massacre of civilians there - then those same people I mentioned above will only have more ammunition for their arguments as to why Assange should be tried, convicted of treason (against a country he is not a citizen of) and then executed.
We need Wikileaks. Information like this will likely prove to be very informative.