Prev
Next

If you’ve got anything worth leaking, better get in now

Joe Hildebrand

by Joe Hildebrand

03 Dec 05:40am

Must Reads

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project - this is a caption

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

41

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics - this is a caption

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

60

Please enter your password - this is a caption

Please enter your password

39

Filed under: Secrets, Society, Wikileaks

38 comments

From: Joe Hildebrand
Sent: Wednesday, 1 December
To: Undisclosed recipients
Subject: WikiLeaks

Hi all,

Er, look, this is a bit embarrassing but it appears that in the interests of freedom and democracy WikiLeaks is about to publish everything I ever said to or about anyone. I figured it’s better if you hear it from me first, so I thought I’d let you know what was coming.

I'd really rather not reveal the events leading up to this moment…

Firstly, to my cousin Dan: When I was seven years old and me and my friend Chris wouldn’t play with you on the beach that time, it was because Chris said you had boogers and I agreed with him. I now accept that you do not have boogers. At least not anymore.

To Lisa B: I told my best friend Gareth in Grade Six that I liked you and now WikiLeaks is going to send it to The Guardian. To be fair though, you should have been able to figure it out when I kept hitting you on the oval. So anyway, what are you up to these days?

To my mum: When I was 15 I ran away from home and said “I hate you” as I was walking out the door. I didn’t really mean it and in retrospect I did not have a “constitutional right” to smoke bongs as I argued at the time.

To my lecturers at uni: You were right: I do not have 15 grandparents who all died. I was just incredibly lazy and had failed to complete my essays on time. Having said that, you guys really should have cross-checked my excuses earlier and you could have had me at number five.

To Centrelink: The time that I was half an hour late to the job training workshop was not due to a localised earthquake as I said in my stat dec but because I overslept. Also all the employers I put down in my jobseeker diary were fake, except for the position of “Avon Ambassador”.

To the Australian Tax Office: My income as Avon Ambassador was in fact only one-tenth of what I declared. I grossly over-inflated it because I wanted to impress my accountant.

To the people at the bar where I worked for three shifts: That time we were watching Pauline Hanson on the news and I said out loud “What a racist bitch!” I was secretly wondering what it would be like to shag her.

To Pauline Hanson: See above.

To the girl I broke up with in 2003: Actually it wasn’t me, it was you.

To Jerry Seinfeld: I used to slag off your show all the time but now I get it.

To Darrin: For years I wrote a column in which I constantly referred to you as fat and gay. I know this was unfair to you, particularly since you can’t read.

To Table 14 at the Aurora Hotel: That time I got a shout for everybody, I actually put it on Gazza’s tab. Apologies to everyone for taking the credit for it. Apologies also to Gazza.

To the girl from Tonic Nightclub: Actually the tests came back positive, but I guess you know that by now.

To Dick Cheney: It was me who first started telling people that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. I thought it was funny at the time but it kind of got a life of its own. Sorry!

Anyway, that pretty much covers it. While this has been a bit awkward, I now realise that it is vitally important that everybody knows everything everyone has ever said or done. Otherwise how would albino sociopaths like Julian Assange know what it was like to be human?

Warm regards,
Joe

Most commented

431Australia, you have nothing to fear but fear itself
390There's no one Thomson won't burn to save his skin
336Animal experiments won't cure me from cancer
313Thomson didn't answer the question everyone is asking
266Who murdered the Arts degree?
246A big day for Thomson, who thus far is guilty of nothing...
231South Australia. It's the middle bottom bit.
231Craig Thomson speaks. Meanwhile, in Australia...

38 comments

Show oldest | newest first

    • dead to me says:

      06:04am | 03/12/10

      Some leaks are pretty obvious news we already suspected, but some leaks may be enough to bring down a government or organisation. Hope Assange leaks some of the Gillard government dirt.

      Reply

    • MarK says:

      06:39am | 03/12/10

      One of the most disturbing things about the latest leaks, actually the only disturbing thing that I can see as they are mostly concerned with some cocktail circuit bitchiness and stuff that was already evident, was the fact that The New York Times reported them at all.

      Here we have the excuse not to publish The Climategate emails by The Times
      “A thick file of private emails and unpublished documents generated by an array of climate scientists over 13 years was obtained by a hacker from a British university climate research center and has since spread widely across the Internet starting Thursday afternoon. Before they propagated, the purloined documents, nearly 200 megabytes in all, were uploaded surreptitiously on Tuesday to a server supporting the global warming Web site realclimate.org, along with a draft mock post, said Gavin Schmidt, a NASA climate scientist managing that blog. He pulled the plug before the fake post was published.

      I have a story in The Times on the incident and its repercussions, which continue to unfold. But there’s much more to explore, of course (including several references to me). The documents appear to have been acquired illegally and contain all manner of private information and statements that were never intended for the public eye, so they won’t be posted here. But a quick sift of skeptics’ Web sites will point anyone to plenty of sources. “

      So look at us hollers The Times. We are pure. peoples private correspondence should remain that. I mean what public interest could there be in a bunch of guys in white coats that simply measure stuff? Oh, yes, we at The Times are AGW alarmists and have invested heavily in prosecuting a case for social and economic reordering of the world because of a ideology we hold dear but that isn’t why we did not release them. They are private. A chap doesn’t read another chaps mail don’t you now!!

      Of course we can point to the fact that that type of moral stand was held in a prior time, an age different to now, all the way back in 2009.

      Fast forward to 2010, yes I recognise that a year has past and it is always hard to line up morals and social norms when separated by the vast time difference of 12 months.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/29/world/29editornote.html?_r=2

      Yes yes I can see the difference

      “The Times believes that the documents serve an important public interest, illuminating the goals, successes, compromises and frustrations of American diplomacy in a way that other accounts cannot match.”

      Oh and

      “Of course, most of these documents will be made public regardless of what The Times decides. WikiLeaks has shared the entire archive of secret cables with at least four European publications, has promised country-specific documents to many other news outlets, and has said it plans to ultimately post its trove online. For The Times to ignore this material would be to deny its own readers the careful reporting and thoughtful analysis they expect when this kind of information becomes public. “

      I see. Private conversations between guys costing the world billions because they make up stuff and tell porkie pies are off limits even though ot is all over the web BUT the truth sent in cables of behind the scenes analysis of diplomats etc is somehow worthy of thoughtful analysis.

      In future when the word hypocrite is given a definition the first explanation should be

      1. The New York times.

      For some further rip snorting reporting from The Times. Nice summary from Delingpole

      http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/jamesdelingpole/100065919/wikileaks-old-gray-lady-invokes-the-harlots-prerogative/

      Reply

    • iansand says:

      08:41am | 03/12/10

      What is this Climategate of which you speak?  How is it that there was no publicity about it?

      Why did I choose this post, out of all of MarK’s posts, to read?  If this is typical my policy of ignoring him has proved to be worthwhile.

    • MarK says:

      09:02am | 03/12/10

      *Snicker*

      ian made another funny.

      It is good to know I am ignored. If that is the case I have achieved my aim of poking the left till it admits defeat and wanders off.

      When they can’t attack the thoughts and ideas you write about and chuck a David Marr style wobbly the tears of the vanquished taste so sweet.

      I myself choose to read as much as possible. That way I get a good perspective on all sides of an argument. Just my 2 cents.

      Thanks so much for your time ian. It gave me the most fun I have had on these boards for ages

    • The Badger says:

      09:08am | 03/12/10

      Ghost writing for Bolt?

      conspiracies abound

    • TimB says:

      09:26am | 03/12/10

      Badger I take it that means you cannot refute MarK’s point?

      Good to know.

      iansand….

      Actually no, MarK’s already responded appropriately to your pettines, I’m going to leave this one.

    • MarK says:

      09:27am | 03/12/10

      Absolutely Badger.

      And for Blair.

      And for Delingpole.

      See the absolutely hilarious thing is I picked this up off Blairs blog. I also noticed it on AB’s blog at a later time. I actually said to my wife this morning I am posting this story that comes from people the lefties hate so much they say they do not read them.In leaving the names and links out because they “say” they refuse to read him in good old “head in the sand fingers stuffed in ears screaming nah nah nah nah style i might get them to bite.

      I also said I bet Badger comes on through the day and accuses me of ripping off BoltA.

      Hahahaha I’m a winner!!!!!1

      Two strident I ignore all that crap dudes responded. Ahh me oh my. Makes a boy feel happy inside.

      It’s Friday yippeeee.

      I really like how The Times tried to justify itself. AGW must be happening because we ignore anything to the contrary AHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    • TheRealDave says:

      09:30am | 03/12/10

      Ahh fer christs sake. Thats two days in a row I’ve agreed with a post of MarK’s :(

      I feel dirty and need a shower….


      :p

    • Tombowler says:

      09:31am | 03/12/10

      I’m in amazement! I had no idea the times refused to publish the climategate material!

      It just goes to show: It’s only in the public interest if your beating the U.S over the head with it…

      Assange is at best en ego-driven, attention-hungry whore with that oh-so-potent combination of god-complex and victim-complex. As with most of these types (Hitler, Stalin, Robespierre, Rasputin) they start off wildly popular for sticking it to the ‘man’.. (The Weimar Republic, Lenin/Trotskyists, Louis XVI, The British Influence in Tsarist Russia) then finally the fickle morons that initially tout them as heroes and wildly affirm the subject’s suspicion that they are in fact god incarnate suddenly realise they may have been wrong.

      This is invariably ‘not their fault’; the Germans with their wild support for facism, Hitler and the Nazi party were suddenly (come the fall of Berlin) all victims and even Merkel’s speech as of last year seemed to indicate that Germany circa 1939 the population was actually held prisoner by a couple of ‘bad apples’...

      Once the fickle moron has decided that he no longer agrees with the dictator/dictator/revolutionary/magician then he inevitably demands swift action and retribution (Nuremberg/democracy/execution & further revolution/poisoning, shooting, beating & drowning)

      The fickle moron will then, as described above, divorce himself from all responsibility. It’s just a matter of pulling those ‘I Voted Hitler in ‘33’ bumper stickers off and building a false divide between ‘German’ and ‘Nazi’...

      This wiki-leaks crap will go down much the same. Everyone will love him for the ‘transparency’ and whatnot until some nasty sh#t goes down that was enabled by him and the adoring league of populist morons who will ultimately declare that they hate him- baying for blood even as they find themselves a new messiah….

      I can picture the editorial pages of the ABC website changing now to
      “Assange is dangerous; why I was joking in my earlier article about how unreservedly awesome he was”

    • Chase Stevens says:

      10:45am | 03/12/10

      Um. I think knowing the US orders it’s diplomats to gather biometric information on people like Ban Ki-moon is important to know.

    • MarK says:

      11:27am | 03/12/10

      Sure chase. We all need to know the biometric gatherings of the US on old spanly-banky but do you think that a few guys telling lies in white coats and being caught out whilst trying to rearrange the globes economy is not noteworthy?

      Do you think that The Times has a justified and consistent position on what it will and will not publish in the public interest vis the source it gets that information from?

    • Mr Mustela says:

      11:45am | 03/12/10

      The NY TImes might publish things such as climategate, but you’d have to wander over to the “fiction” part of the arts section.
      I doubt deniers ever visit that section of the NY Times.

    • TEZZA says:

      11:56am | 03/12/10

      Brilliant post MarK. Skewers the hypocrisy of a leading liberal newrag. I’m amazed by the number of journos who come out against the wikileaks document drop. Sure it might bruise a few people who are embarrassed by something they did or said, but the truth is better out than in.

    • Badjack says:

      07:25am | 03/12/10

      Be honest with yourself…......You and the rest of the media who are deriding him are only dirty on Assange because he is getting the leaks.
      If the mainstream media were the first receivers you would be spruiking from every pulpit it was your duty and right to publish the leaks.
      C’mon Joe, man up. Stop sooking like a spoilt kid.

      Reply

    • Macca says:

      07:26am | 03/12/10

      Love your work Joe

      Reply

    • fairsfair says:

      09:55am | 03/12/10

      The man is as funny as ever! Love how people generally missed the point of it though… I see MarK has even supplied a link, but I don’t have the capacity at the moment to actually read what he has written.

      It is Friday! Does Julian Assange need to confirm that this is a joke for you all to get it?

    • MJ says:

      07:28am | 03/12/10

      Ha, that was great, Joe. smile

      Reply

    • Ken Maynard says:

      08:15am | 03/12/10

      It is difficult to comprehend Julian Assange; his mother says he is devoted to the pursuit of truth, but what ultimate truth does he seek to find; that we are all human & all humans are a bit grubby in our private time. 

      So we are all sinners, that is always news but it is hardly new news.  As others have said, it is not something we did not know before.

      He has revealed that governments & leaders are struggling to maintain stability & order, but given our riven world what else does he expect.

      Like an out of control vandal or street protester he is good at destroying or vilifying the efforts of others, yet he offers no coherent alternate to replace the public order he seeks to destroy.  Further, all the people he denigrates are in some way accountable, while Assange does not seem to think he is accountable to anyone. 

      (The freedom to do only that which is right in ones own eyes is called anarchy & sedition.  It can be a capital crime if carried out with total disregard for the consequences to others)

      I also have to ask just who he is being used as a front for, as the sheer scale of his information would seem to require the assistance of a professional intelligence service.

      In sum, I think he is a mug; one being used by others cleverer than himself but he can’t see it.  The sheer scale of his delinquency is a criminal act.  He is also a totally self absorbed ~wannabe somebody~ who has insufficient personal merit to be an anybody of any worth.

      Public attention seeking deficit disorder..

      Reply

    • Richard M says:

      08:52am | 03/12/10

      I was going to post about Assange, but you’ve said it all, Ken, and better than I could.  Well done.  The only thing I’d add is how sickening is the sight of the western media lapping this stuff up.  They are just about as culpable as Assange.

    • Chase Stevens says:

      10:49am | 03/12/10

      Yes he’s a mug because he’s exposing the illegal activities of the United States (among other countries). Totally a mug for challenging the power of the state.

      Please.

    • michael j says:

      02:12pm | 03/12/10

      YES his performace to date hasen’t left us with a lot of earth shattering news,Alpha dog,little fattie,and a frenchie who doesn’t like to P J,s ,, and as you say why is he doing this,Not to tell us the USA breaks the rules sometimes and spies on countries inculeding AUS,they also fly predator bombs, from as much 4,000 mls away sometimes missing thier target and hitting a truck load of goat herders,or drop a load of naplam on a fractory,read (school) yes i know the US are not the only one’s that make mistakes like the jail they built in cuba to torture people outside of international law,all of these things eventually came to us through to us from the standard media so we haven’t seen anything to topple a goverment as yet but as you say what’s he up tp,,next is to be a major bank in the USA and the immoral way they do bussiness so i think he’s getting kickbacks from somewhere,he has to be earning a quid,but if he can come up with a gov policy fore the future for some part of the world,,,sort of like where ‘mien kampf’ was telling of Hitler’s trail of destrucsion at teast 10 years before it happended,,or if he can get something like the CIA’s mind control exp that ran for 15 yrs,,using LSD to make assasins out of mental health patients,,,but ere in AUS,,,yeah i sort of held out big hopes for him ,,so if he doesn’t end up in a jail like the one in cuba,(smiles,we know they have another one) or something much worse he might find out something usefull,,and not that Clinton really did inhale when he had that joint,,,,,,,,,,,,,

    • Richard M says:

      09:41am | 04/12/10

      Yawn!  Chase Stevens and michael j serve up the usual tiresome, facile, confused and paranoid anti-Americanism.

    • fairsfair says:

      08:42am | 03/12/10

      To My Brother: In 2002 after my senior formal you said I could not take your Caterpillar collectors item esky to the after party. I took it anyway because I thought it was cool and awoke the next morning to find it kicked in and run over by a cane harvester out the front…. To this day you still think it is safetly stored in a cupboard at mum and dad’s.

      Thanks Hildebrand - Wikileaks are liberating!

      Reply

    • Dan says:

      09:10am | 03/12/10

      I love how the governments and most of the media are focusing on Julian (the whistle blower) instead of what he is publishing.

      Why has no one questioned Hilary Clinton over the UN spying allegations ?

      Why has the media not picked up on the fact that a culture must exist within the US embassies that berate everyone else that are not American ?

      What agenda does the US really have - do they want allies or just people to do their dirty work ?

      The truth is out there - you may be surprised with what is yet to come, Big Banks and Big Business are also targeted.

      Maybe it is easier just to keep living the Lie, there are some benefits to it after all.

      This article is a fail. The truth is there yet it keeps getting ignored.

      Reply

    • Tombowler says:

      09:58am | 03/12/10

      Or maybe… Just maybe… The world is a dirty place full of nasty people and governments must act accordingly.

      Imagine if this douche started leaking things before World War 2? Perhaps that the U.S was planning to invade on Normandy?

      The U.S is a largely benevolent power- particularly in regard to our interests; a rare thing in this world. Why is it wrong for the U.S to be spying when it is accepted fact that China is attempting to hack our defense systems and most nations have some pretty hardcore intelligence gathering methods.

      This idea that diplomatic cables should be anything but frank and that the U.S should relinquish valuable intelligence gathering that is not only in their national interest but ours is ridiculous.

      What would Assange say if the leaks about Kim Jong resulted in the crazy f#$ker shooting off a couple of ICBM’s?

      I suppose Assange runs on the philosophy that “if your doing nothing wrong you have nothing to hide.”

      A tad hypocritical, no?

    • Bex says:

      09:23am | 03/12/10

      I was all in a giggly warm mood after reading that and then less than a second of further scrolling I became immediately depressed again.

      Reply

    • MarK says:

      10:03am | 03/12/10

      /target Bex
      /cast hug and kisses (platonic style)

      Did that help?

    • hot tub political machine says:

      12:28pm | 03/12/10

      Does it help to know someone else feel the same?

      I’ve noticed a drop in the maturity of comments on here. Arguments have been come very school yard. Surprising - no, Depressing - yes.

    • TheRealDave says:

      09:27am | 03/12/10

      “To the girl from Tonic Nightclub”

      Dad?

      Reply

    • dancan says:

      11:06am | 03/12/10

      In the same way people defend the governments ever increasing desire to invade our privacy under the guise of protection and necessity with the phrase “if you’re doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear”.  Well now it’s the turn of our governments to feel the same oppressive and invasive emotions that the majority of us experience, because now little brother is watching back.

      Reply

    • jane wallace says:

      11:44am | 03/12/10

      leaks are outside,thanks

      Reply

    • hot tub political machine says:

      12:19pm | 03/12/10

      Dear Bro,

      When I told you Joe Hildebrand’s review of Commando was the funniest thing I read all year….I was telling the truth

      Reply

    • Adrian says:

      12:32pm | 03/12/10

      Dan definitely had boogers, you shouldn’t apologise for that Joe.

      Reply

    • stephen says:

      01:05pm | 03/12/10

      I’m surprized at Vladamir Putin’s response to this leaked gossip.
      I see his picture now with him atop a white horse barechested (no,not the horse), or blazing away at cardboard targets with a 50. calibre, or twy-kon-doing an opponent or shaking hands with Leonardo Di Caprio (perhaps he was his stand-in ?), so why is this ex-KGB hero so upset at what is said, privately, with hardly the merest mention of Stalin or Lenin ?
      Perhaps he is looking for concessions with the ‘traitor’, the US, over new Arms Reduction Treaties ?
      (Or maybe Vlad. is a woman in disguise.)
      Some countries are going to try and make a mile out of this nonsense, and reasonable people should ignore the squabble.
      As Frank Furedi said today in The Oz, it’s only unimportant gossip.

      Reply

    • Reg says:

      06:35pm | 03/12/10

      Stephen, Stalin is in the process of having his credentials restored in Russia and Putin is one of his supporters. What do the leaks have to say about that? There is also the situation where Condy was undermining negotiations between the Israelis and the Arabs by negotiating directly with the Israeli without including the chief negotiator. I have expressed my reservations about whistle-blowers before in this pages, but there are some underhand activities such as I mention, that deserve closer inspection.

    • stephen says:

      07:56pm | 04/12/10

      Reg, the Americans should ignore Putin, who may be sulking that NATO may finally settle Afghanistan, which would sniffle the Bolshevics who are, and always have been, flunkies.

      Someone in the State Department is going to charge Assange with espionage, but I think the Americans shouldn’t get too upset about ‘voices in the sky’ ; they have always stressed the act over the thought (or even the intent, for that matter), so to observe them scrambling for cover may be effective public relations.
      Assange, if he gets convicted, will need a padded cell.

      You mentioned Condy and the Chief Negotiator, and are you referring to Saeb Erekat, the Palestinian ? That she may have been negotiating behind someone’s back, well hell, when don’t they ?
      We already know the the double-speak of the Arabs ; I bet we don’t get to hear all of the WikiTapes.

    • mary wide bay says:

      04:30pm | 04/12/10

      There there Joe, one day you will get it.

      Reply
 
Comment

Facebook Recommendations

Read all about it

Punch live

Up to the minute Twitter chatter

Anthony Sharwood

antsharwood 26 May 12 09:27PM

Dementor doing a good job for sweden #sbseurovision

Anthony Sharwood

antsharwood 26 May 12 09:11PM

Ukraine song pinches chord progression from The Verve's Bittersweet Symphony. Fo real #sbseurovision

Anthony Sharwood

antsharwood 26 May 12 09:00PM

RT @GerardDaffy: @antsharwood all the talk over there is the grannies will win.they entered to get a church built,feelgood story

Anthony Sharwood

antsharwood 26 May 12 08:57PM

These peole insult my grandmothjer, who was born in minsk, belarus #sbseurovision

See all tweets

Recent posts

The latest and greatest

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

by Claire Connelly

41

We don’t deserve this huge, exciting scientific project

I’d like to be able to say that sharing the world’s largest radio telescope with South Africa…

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

by Laurie Oakes

60

Mining money talks the loudest in Australian politics

When North Queensland Liberal MP George Christensen got the idea of launching a new political organisation…

Please enter your password

by Lucy Kippist

39

Please enter your password

Help! I’ve succumbed to a crippling modern illness that can strike at any moment. Symptoms include:…

Nosebleed Section

choice ringside rantings

From: They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

Michael S says:

"A teacher at Geelong Grammar had criticised her for using words that were too long, which had left her confused and had made her doubt her ability to write essays. She became ''quite distressed'' when her English marks began to fall." I can sympathise. My scholastic mentors conveyed to me a causal relationship… [read more]

From: Welfare for breeders is a bonus for everyone

Change Up! says:

I have no problem paying my taxes. As a single, childless person on a very decent income, I can afford it and not have my life severely altered. Plus I understand that my taxes paying for things like schools, childcare and infrastructure is ultimately a good thing. A better community is better for me… [read more]

Light weight

Gentle jabs to the ribs

They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

They must pay for one’s bitter disappointments

A private school girl’s family is sueing her elite, extremely expensive private school for not… Read more

243 comments

Newsletter

Read all about it

Sign up to the free daily Punch newsletter

Subscribe to The Punch RSS feed