Phew. The Brits didn't shoot Assange.

When I heard that Julian Assange would address the public from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, I thought the UK police would shoot him with a dart, he'd pass out and fall off the balcony, and they'd arrest him "on British ground".

Thankfully, this didn't happen. What Assange said from that balcony was important and true. From the BBC:

Mr Assange said: "As Wikileaks stands under threat, so does the freedom of expression and the health of all our societies.

"We must use this moment to articulate the choice that is before the government of the United States of America.
 
"Will it return to and re-affirm the revolutionary values it was founded on?

"Or will it lurch off the precipice, dragging us all into a dangerous and oppressive world in which journalists fall silent under the fear of prosecution and citizens must whisper in the dark."

What Assange did by publishing the American cables was the same thing the NY Times has done on many occasions. It's called breaking a story. Remember stories? We used to have them all the time; they told us what was going on in our country. Now, of course, all we have is government propaganda and the white noise of illogic. The fact that our government is fighting Wikileaks and Assange is the most disheartening thing in the world. It's so un-American.