Your facts do not in any way mitigate the tremendous WHOOOOSH.

According to that logic, wouldn't ABC, CBS, MSNBC, CNN, et al also be against it?

Speaking of FOXNews, here's something from them on net neutrality. It might surprise folks here, should they care to read it.

Do you really think that other countries are not doing the same to the US and everyone else? Of course they are. Their cables just haven't been leaked yet.

As far as Europe being all peaceful, present-day Europe has been mostly peaceful, except for some regional wars in the Balkans recently. But prior to the cold war, Europe was nothing but wars going back to the Roman empire and beyond. Even during the cold war, NATO was predicated on the assumption that Europe would again be a battleground, and would need defense. Current events make Europe look peaceful. History, not so much.

Technological superiority, be it military or otherwise, is a race held on a treadmill. Standing still isn't an option. Railguns might buy us 5, 10, 20, maybe 30 years until someone else invents their own (or steals ours), much like stealth fighters, which are now in various stages of making their way into the arsenals of potential opponents around the world.

Some perspective is needed here. Note that I said "perspective", not "denial and defense". The Japanese internment camps did not feature Zyklon B and gas ovens. What happened wasn't right by a long shot, but it isn't even in the same league as the Nazi purges. "All men are created equal" didn't have the same meaning then as it does now, because at the time it was intended as a rejection of the presumption that nobility were inherently superior to commoners, not a declaration of universal suffrage. It's true that in order to have the right to vote one had to be a land-owning white man, but generally, Constitutional protections covered all non-slaves.

"Biggest cunt in a suit" comes dangerously close to invoking a mandatory Rule 34 google search.

The cake is a lie.

Julian Assange is protecting himself with secrecy. Is that evil? Or are you justifying it because someone you support is doing it, as opposed to someone you don't like?

Or is it okay because sometimes secrecy is necessary?

The difference is that most slashdotters wouldn't blame the farmer much for shooting the pig thief.

+5 Informative

Metahumor?

No, no, no, no. It is bottled, labeled, marketed broth , likely with a malt base.

Perhaps things have changed a lot since the first Gulf war, but I seem to remember there was a big mismatch between Saddam's forces and the forces the Saudis could put on their borders.

I apologise if I was reading you in an overly literal way. I can be dense like that.

Right. Because Mohammed Akbar* in Pakistan is going to be covered by CNN when the Taliban guns him down. Are you serious?

* Fictitious, obviously.

If the documents only harmed the $evil_guys_in_power, that would be one thing. But a mass release of diplomatic cables damages far more than just those at the top. It risks exposing confidential sources to those who would kill them. Ironic, considering Wikileaks' own reliance on confidential sources, and the need to protect sources from harm, don't you think?

In the case of China, the US, and North Korea, it could further destabilize a situation that is tenuous at best. North Korea has something like 10,000 mortars (which it apparently has no qualms about using) aimed at the heart of Seoul and its 12 million people. Can you imagine the carnage and suffering on both sides if things go from bad to worse? Assange and his supporters can say whatever they want, but the fact is that they have no way of knowing how much bad shit could happen because of the release. They are fucking with things beyond their knowledge and control, and are in over their heads.

You know what? If Assange had a cable that said "Hey, I just personally blew the head off a civilian I suspected of terrorism, signed, GW Bush" and published it, I'd be okay with that. Find some true evil and expose it. That's what Wikileaks is all about, right? Instead, he released information that isn't a big pile of $evidence_of_evil, it's just a collection of stuff that some other guy (with an anti-US-govt bias) stole. If what I read in the news is correct, it doesn't even have a big "US is teh evil" smoking gun. Of course, it does make it harder for our diplomats to do their jobs, because now the guys who talk to China, the Saudis, and others around the world have to convince them that their private chat won't end up on the front page.