WIKILEAKS IS ALL AROUND

ITEM: Several former members of WikiLeaks have started a new site called OpenLeaks that will serve the same basic function but won’t host the actual documents, but act as an intermediary for whistleblowers and other groups, including media organizations.

It’s tempting, of course, to focus on the drama over how much of a dick Julian Assange is – something I’ve heard a lot from people who actually support WikiLeaks but seem compelled to qualify it with “even though Julian Assange is a big jerk”, which I thought was an irrelevant issue.

Evidently not, given that OpenLeaks was co-founded by Assange’s former lieutenant, Daniel Domschelt-Berg (a.k.a. Daniel Schmitt), who didn’t like the way Assange handled the release of the Iraq war documents a few months ago.

Still, what’s far more interesting to me is that this has become far bigger than WikiLeaks.

It probably always has been. But we’ve officially reached that point where it no longer matters what happens to WikiLeaks, or even Assange. Other True Believers are ready to take up the cause of enabling whistleblowers and letting govts know that (1) we’re sick of you using “national security” as an all-purpose excuse to hide everything you do and avoid accountability, and (2) if you don’t like it, get better security for yr secrets, you fools.

Which is admirable but, as I’ve said elsewhere, could have dire consequences for the rest of the Internet. And I don’t mean stupid stunts like launching DDoS attacks on Visa and Mastercard (which won’t teach Visa and MC anything but will inconvenience millions of people who have nothing to do with the WikiLeaks saga). Congress has been looking for an excuse for a broad Internet clampdown since the 90s, from kiddie pr0n to The Pirate Bay. This could be it.

On the bright side, overbroad Interwub clampdown laws have always failed to pass muster with the Supremes. And even with the “national security” meme over WikiLeaks, the legal precedent of the Pentagon Papers case could put paid to that old chestnut – at least until John Ensign rewrites the Espionage Act. Then again, the Supreme Court of 1971 is not the Supreme Court of 2010. So who knows?

Well, we’ll see, won’t we?

I’ve got a secret,

This is dF

DOCTOR GIBA IS DISPLEASED THAT YOU PHOTOBOMBED HIS PHOTO

His biolifeform assistants Marsha and Karsha will destroy you now. That is all.



Background here.

[Via Radioactive Lingerie]

I think I’m Gibanoid,

This is dF

SHAKIRA’S BEDROOM KUNG FU CANNOT BE DEFEATED

I confess I’m not always sure what to make of Shakira.

Musically, she has a little more range than, say, Britney Spears (which is to say she’s not afraid to venture into guitar territory when it suits her), but doesn’t have a whole lot new to say. And the fact that she can do that thing with her voice that most pop divas need vocoders for doesn’t make it any less annoying.

Also, for someone who’s from Columbia, she’s not quite as mysteriously fascinating and exotic as she could be.

On the other hand, she does make videos like this.

Not exactly pushing the the boundaries of good taste (like, oh, the average Lady Gaga video). But it is a pretty impressive display of bedroom gymnastics.

So much so that someone should send a copy to the International Olympic Committee and lobby to have Bedroom Gymnastics as a competitive category. I’d watch that.

More bounce to the ounce,

This is dF

HE WAS THE WALRUS, NOW HE’S JOHN

There’s been a lot of bloggery about John Lennon this week, partly from Wednesday being the 30th anniversary of Mark David Chapman gunning him down, and partly from Rolling Stone publishing the full text of his last ever print interview.

I hadn’t planned to do a post on it – I’m a big Lennon fan, but it’s pretty well covered, and I’m not so sentimental about anniversaries – but one excerpt from the interview stuck out for some reason:

"These critics with the illusions they've created about artists – it's like idol worship," he said. "They only like people when they're on their way up ... I cannot be on the way up again.

"What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I'm not interesting in being a dead fucking hero. ... So forget 'em, forget 'em."

Which is one thing I’ve always kind of respected about Lennon – he always seemed aware that after the Beatles he would never live up to everyone’s expectations no matter what he did, so he essentially did what he wanted. And it’s ironic that he’d just about reached a point with Double Fantasy where he didn’t have to become a “dead hero” for critics to respect him again.

Three days after that interview, that’s what he became anyway.

Anyway, while we’re at it, here’s the most relevant song he wrote on the subject (in 1970), which is one of my favorites that hasn’t got a lot of circulation in the tribute posts – maybe because it’s supposedly the one that made Chapman angry enough to want to kill him.

Which, of course, just makes me more determined to post it.

The dream is over,

This is dF