Need of a Creative Commons pic to head this piece lead me to discover this nugget here and here:
The person who is allegedly Assange is referring to a version of this public domain photo, which had been cropped into a head shot by other Creative Commons contributors:
Oh, my. It's unclear how this December 2009 photo "undermines his message." Is his expression not dour and serious enough? Does he fail to evoke James Bond to the extent he wishes to? I wondered.
Color me disappointed. Apparently, he believed this poorly lit wind-swept outdoor pic was a depiction more "suitable to [his] public role."
If this request actually came from Assange, it simply underlines just how much his efforts are driven by a huge ego and thirst for fame, rather than anything remotely resembling altruistic intent. If it didn't come from him, one wonders how it's managed to remain up on Wikipedia, attributed as his direct contribution, for more than six years now.
So much for that Wikileaks "October Surprise that's going to DESTROY Hillary!" in the wee hours of this morning. You can almost hear Fox News' collective heart breaking in this story:
I stayed up for quite a bit to watch Julian Assange's middle of the night (US time) Berlin press conference, but I finally went to sleep because they kept pushing his start time back. I'm now annoyed that I stayed up until 1:30 am Pacific Time, listening to/watching Alex freakin' Jones (does that man ever NOT yell??) live stream over this. =P
So, after a much needed night's rest, I just listened to Assange's remarks at the event and his Q&A portion. His remarks were basically uninspiring calls for "a worldwide army of defenders" (folks were encouraged to follow a couple of new Wikileaks-associated Twitter accounts), and for much, much more grassroots financial support (with touting of a donation site), and an announcement that they're developing some sort of voting membership organizational model. He also:
1. disputed the notion that he has an axe to grind with Hillary specifically (interesting, since he's circulated this story that she said in a security meeting, "Can't we just drone him?" and since all of their US Election releases to date have been targeted exclusively at the Democratic side of the ledger)
