You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to speak to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you. Do you understand these rights as they have been read to you?

That is the standard US “Miranda warning” that anyone who has been in law enforcement for any length of time can recite in their sleep. Someone should explain the concept to Julian Assange so he will understand why his attorneys should be attempting to shut him up. The guy is a gold mine for prosecutors, and he needs to understand that this stuff is available for use in all of the legal proceedings he is facing.

Kryten left this link in comments from the Melbourne Herald Sun: WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange turns on everyone. It is coverage of an interview Assange gave to The Times in which he complains about the Guardian leaking the police reports from Sweden.

The ABC carried the Agence France Presse report of a BBC interview: Women in a ‘tizzy’ over STD, says Assange

“I don’t need to go back to Sweden. The law says I… have certain rights, and these rights mean that I do not need to speak to random prosecutors around the world who simply want to have a chat, and won’t do it in any other standard way.”

I hate to break to Mr. Assange, but prosecutors rarely make house calls, and getting hauled into their office is the “standard way” this is done.

Here’s the BBC Assange interview transcript with Today “programme presenter” John Humphrys.

Mr. Assange is talking his way into a conviction, as well as really ticking off women.

I noticed that in addition to all of the astronomy that is going on [I forgot to mention the meteor shower] in 1620 a group of illegal aliens [no one got permission from the local people to come ashore] known as the Pilgrims stepped ashore at Plymouth Rock. This event is used by many to justify claims about the US being “a Christian nation”.

Well, they weren’t stupid, so they set about building shelters and continued their work right through December 25^th without pausing. You see they believed that Christmas was nothing more than a disguised pagan celebration. In order to combat any possible outbreak of spontaneous singing of Christmas carols they imposed a 5 shilling fine on anyone doing anything in celebration of this “secular excuse for excess”. Five shillings may not seem like much today, but it was a quarter of a pound of silver and all of Manhattan was purchased for 10 pounds of silver at about the same time.

After the Revolution Christmas was considered an “English holiday” and did not become a US holiday until 1870. The Puritans aren’t the only Christian sect that does not celebrate Christmas, but to be aware of that people would have to meet people who were different than they are, and Americans are very adverse to doing that.

At 5:38 PM CST the winter solstice occurs marking the longest night of the year. If everyone has been good, the days start getting longer tomorrow. Locally, the sun will rise at 6:38AM and set at 4:49PM for a total of 10 hours and 10 minutes of daylight, but tomorrow will be a whole 2 seconds longer.

This year there’s a total eclipse of the moon, known in some places as a “blood moon” to add to the celebration.

This also marks HogWatch, so don’t forget to put out the turnips.