Twitter This Commentary In The News: Thanks this morning to ChrisM, my MP3Angel, for supplying the news and commentary audio files. The Obama administration has cut a deal with the Republicans meaning the rich won't have their taxes raised and you will get your unemployment check. There's ugly fallout regarding this compromise in the press and talk shows. UPDATE! (and quote of the day)...

"The more the dinosaurs thrash around, the faster they sink themselves into the quicksand. This is Armageddon in the networks vs. hierarchies war, and we’ll have their bleeding heads on our battlements." (Source...)

...and it was so: "Hackers take down site of bank that froze WikiLeaks funds" Fetch my trusty steed! WikLeaks founder is in court in Britain after he turned himself in, but maverick congressman and 2008 presidential candidate Ron Paul has said "What we need is more WikiLeaks" even as...

British police arrested WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange today, after he showed up at a police station in London. His appearance had been previously arranged with authorities. He will appear in front of a court later today, where a magistrate will rule on his lawyers' request that he be freed on bail. The WikiLeaks Twitter feed wrote that the hearing is scheduled for 1:30 pm. Assange, who was arrested by Scotland Yard's extradition unit, faces charges of rape and sexual molestation in Sweden. Mark Stephens, Assange's lawyer in Britain, has previously argued that the request for extradition is meant to place pressure on Assange to halt WikiLeaks' release of over 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables. WikiLeaks, however, said that Assange's arrest will not alter its plans to release the documents.

"Today's actions against our editor-in-chief Julian Assange won't affect our operations: we will release more cables tonight as normal,"

a post on the WikiLeaks Twitter account stated. _{[In Full, Foreign Policy Magazine]}

The US government has warned students not to share wikileaks information OR LINK TO THEM, or it MIGHT interfere with a future career in government... State Department/Foreign Office personnel are also so warned for their current employment. Juan Cole at Informed Comment has some interesting notes on the ILLEGALITY of the harassment of Wikileaks and it's supporters. Spiegel parses the Iraq War diplomatic cables and finds

US Diplomats Bewildered and Bamboozled in Baghdad By Dieter Bednarz and Bernhard Zand

Roughly 5,500 classified cables from the US Embassy in Baghdad paint a grim picture of why America's stunning military victory over Iraq devolved into disaster: The Americans allowed themselves to get entangled in the Sunni-Shiite conflict while being systematically outmaneuvered by the Iranians.

There hadn't been a US Embassy in Baghdad for 14 years when the United States and Iraq resumed diplomatic relations on June 30, 2004. On that day, Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari wrote to his American counterpart, Secretary of State Colin Powell, that it was "great honor" to accredit US Ambassador John Negroponte. "I look forward to developing friendly and constructive relations between our two nations," Zebari wrote. But it was under bizarre circumstances that these relations got started, as can be seen, for example, by the location the Americans chose for their new embassy: an ostentatious former palace of Saddam Hussein nestled in a bend of the Tigris River. And the plans of the US diplomats moving into this palace were every bit as grandiose as the statues the deposed dictator had left behind. Still, they had little idea of the challenges that lay ahead. Indeed, America's relations with the liberated Iraq have been anything but "friendly" and "constructive." Within just five years, the State Department went through five ambassadors and an army of analysts and consultants. And what made them fail can be gleaned from over 5,500 secret and confidential dispatches from the embassy in Baghdad. _{[In Full]}

Six nation talks to discuss Iran's nuclear policy begin and end even as Iran claims full vertical integration of their atomic program. in other words, their program is self-sufficient. It's notable one can already begin to see the WikiLeaks driven CableGate effect on the nature of international diplomacy:

Time Runs Short for Progress on Iran Nuke Talks By Barbara Slavin WASHINGTON, Dec 7, 2010 (IPS) - The first meeting between Iran and the world's major powers in more than a year ended Tuesday with little to show apart from a vague promise to meet again next month in Turkey. However, the disappointing results were expected – indeed predicted – by all sides before the two-day session in Geneva. • • • An October 2009 cable disclosed recently by Wikileaks quotes an unnamed U.S. diplomat as saying that IAEA chief Yukiya Amano of Japan is "solidly in the U.S. court on every key strategic decision". That contrasts with Amano's predecessor, Egyptian Mohamed ElBaradei, who often criticised the U.S. approach to Iran. It is not clear whether the Iranians brought up the comment at the Geneva meetings. Before the talks, U.S. officials had indicated that they had prepared a new version of a confidence-building measure that Iran had shown interest in a year ago. The plan would require Iran to send out large quantities of low-enriched uranium in return for fuel for a Tehran research reactor (TRR) that makes medical isotopes. In May, after mediation by Brazil and Turkey, Iran agreed to swap 1,200 kilogrammes of its stockpile, but the U.S. and its partners rejected the plan because by then, Iran had enriched more uranium. _{[More @ Inter Press Service]}

California's governor has declared a state of emergency and has called the legislature into special session over the state budget. In RADIO news... Pacifica Radio Network has picked up Al Jazzera Radio News for it's national broadcast network. In OTHER News... The US economy may be decrepit, but there's money to burn! The Treasury Department apparently doesn't have the printing presses it needs to print the new more secure currency, and there have been literally more than a billion $100 dollar bills 'quarantined' due to flaws in the notes. There are misprints totaling $110 billion dollars... more than 10 percent of the whole US cash supply, cost approximately $120 million dollars to print, and they will have to be burned. According to uninformed sources, America's money manufacturing needs will be outsourced to resolve the issue. -30-
Creative Commons Copyright Courtesy of Cabale News Service, KPIG Radio, and KVMR Radio. Listen to KVMR Recorded & transcribed by Razer Raygun @ Razed By Wolves Postings Auntie Imperial, Razer Raygun, and Da' Buffalo Have Done Lately Are [Here] The Consolidated Items Listing in RSS format [Here] In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107 and The Berne Convention on Literary and Artistic Works, Article 10, the news clippings, audio, and images used in this posting are made available without profit for research and educational purposes.

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