WikiLeaks Media Coverage and State Department Cable Terminology
The reaction to the WikiLeaks document release is characterized as more significant than the actual content of the leaked papers. Discussion focuses on the archaic use of the term "cables" by the State Department to describe internal electronic communications, drawing parallels to obsolete Telex technology. The hosts suggest the media is over-sensationalizing the event while ignoring other news.
wikileaks· julian assange· interpol· state department· cables· telex
00:00 Inventing the wheel in advance in case we have to. Huh? Adam Curry, John C. DeVore. It's Thursday, December 2nd, 2010. Time for your Gitmo Nation Media Assassination Episode 257. This is no agenda. Looking over here while you look over there and coming to you from the Hilltop Watchtower, Crackpot Command Center, Gitmo Nation West, and the People's Republic of Southern California. In the morning I'm the man wanted by Interpol, I'm Adam Curry. And from Northern Silicon Valley where I'm also known as KJ6LNG, I'm John C. Dvorak. It's Crackpot and Buzzkill! In the morning! KJ6LNG.
00:41 In the morning to you, Ham. In the morning to you and all ships at sea. And all of our boots on the ground and of course our human resources in the chatroom at noagendachat.net all charged up ready to go the way their government loves them and needs them. We need you human resources. Hey John. So there's some news this week. You know it's funny I got up my usual 530 this morning. 350 individual stories that I tagged that I you know then I kind of had to go through and remember them and look at things. I spent three hours last night trying to look at things other than WikiLeaks.
01:22 Oh, you're talking about Wiki... Oh, I thought the big news was that Michael Douglas is playing Liberace. Yeah, I'll give you one. No, because, you know, I'm seeing all... every single news channel, WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks, WikiLeaks, Interpol, WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, WikiLeaks, Interpol, kill him, arrest him. And I'm like, something is going on. And there was so much going on. I have a bunch of clips, but what I got out of it was the fact that it's the reaction to this is more interesting than the actual event. Well, indeed, because the first thing you and I are kind of trained to do is to go look at the leak, to go look at the papers. And I'm like, brother, how boring is this?
02:09 It's like first of all lots of stuff in there that we've been talking about for six months none of it deemed top-secret. It's all classified or do not you know it's all bogus is like memos is like little notes the teacher the teacher their cables and Cables what the hell's a cable I still don't get that I think a cable is like it goes through a secure cable I guess it's kind of like a cable It's a cable it's a cable is synonymous with Telex remember the Telex machine those days are over they don't do cables anymore Do they don't email this stuff around no apparently they do cables cable they have some kind of internal system and
02:51 It's called a computer network. Who are they kidding with this cable nonsense? Well, that's what they call it still a cable. Oh Confidential cable came in a break grow up with the program check the calendar 2010s calling you got to get your emails Yeah, well why don't we thank our... do we have producers? Yeah, we got a couple. Let's thank them first and then we'll dive into this and there's lots of other stuff because as I said I was looking over there while you were all looking here. We've got one executive producer and four associates. Okay. And our executive producer is Sir Mike Menzies.
