Yeah, just like God is doing a great job keeping all the paedophilia out of churches, right?

Mr Hoppy!

You're the one who thinks he's so awesome and keeps calling him things like "the anointed one" so I guess I'll just leave you with your opinion. Have a fun time finding more people to hate for no apparent reason! xx

Hmm. So you don't disagree with the fact that the US government is likely instituting a secret campaign against Assange. Your lack of counterargument among the rest of what you said leads me to conclude that you concede this point.

Based on which facts do you make the statement that Assange has discredited himself? Are you referring to the charges which had been dropped but were then reopened against him 3 days after he released the diplomatic cables, during the same week that Mastercard and Visa suddenly decided they didn't like Wikileaks as well? I thought you already conceded that these were likely manufactured by the US government by not counterarguing the main point I was making.

Interesting to hear you compare him to Charles Manson. As far as I can tell he hasn't murdered any women or set up any cults to murder women either. Perhaps you need to examine your feelings and check whether you are biased, because you clearly have strong feeling on this point if you are making such obviously skewed comparisons without batting an eyelid. A Ralph Nader? So, you'd like Assange to say a lot of good stuff and not actually get anything fixed in the ever so slightly dystopian world we live?

Your argument that scandals would come out without an Assange (or at least Wikileaks) is clearly false, as the scandals which were caused by the release of the diplomatic cables and helicopter footage prove. Somebody who isn't afraid to spit in the face of authority is required for a job like this, and such people make enemies who will do their best to discredit them.

You are putting words in my mouth, claiming I am saying that "ALL MUST BOW DOWN BEFORE THE ALMIGHTY ASSANGE". I am saying nothing of the sort. I just think that we shouldn't judge somebody's strength of character on whether they jumped a bail when they were about to be extradited to another country on what may be trumped up charges, particularly if that person has a lot of very angry enemies in high places.

BM knew what he was getting into, but that still doesn't justify the treatment he has been given. Even as a member of the military he is allowed the right to a speedy trial and humane living conditions. And thinking that the same couldn't happen to Assange suggests you have never heard of a certain prison facility located in Guantanamo Bay.

Every single cell has a complete blueprint of the entire thing. Which makes it slightly difficult if you want to keep some of the design classified...

Since you can't figure it out for yourself, let me spell it out for you.
The data Wikileaks has published has made us blatantly aware that governments don't bother to inform their citizens about the plethora of illegal and morally reprehensible activities they partake in on a regular basis. Thus, we cannot make an argument that he is safe based on the information that we have been given. If there was a secret plan to assassinate Assange, do you think the US government would let you know? If the US government had set up a secret deal with the Swedes to deport Assange the moment he steps foot on their soil, do you really think you would be privy to that information?

In contrast, Assange has set himself up to be a recipient of any information that people feel unhappy about keeping secret. If there were plans, and anybody felt like talking about it, if anyone knew about it, chances are he would too. Can you blame him for breaking the law and not pitching after his parole if he knows he is the target of an inter-governmental plot to have him "bradleymanninged"?

No no, that's Al Gore.

Pinochet being another.

Maybe he knows something we don't...

I guess it depends on what field you're in. If your field has 3 months of hard work implementing a system in order to be able to get any results at all, you probably won't have that kind of problem - it tends to weed out the people who aren't willing to put in the effort. I'm currently doing my MSc in robotic mapping (AKA SLAM) and the quality of papers I find has been consistently high. In fact, sometimes I wish they had tried some little tweak, because it would take me two weeks of coding/testing to figure out if there is even any merit to the idea and chances are my system is so different from theirs to begin with that the results wouldn't even be comparable.

I'm the other way around: I grew up in the US then moved to (and am now a citizen of) South Africa. Unfortunately, there isn't a status of 'African-American' in the affirmative action sections of applications here...