The hits just keep on coming for affable paranoid mad scientist Julian Assange. He’s been accused of putting countless informants’ lives on the line by releasing the Afghan War Diaries. He’s been accused of an act fitting the Swedish legal definition of the crime of rape. And now, a former employee is accusing him of abusing his cat in a “battle for dominance.”

Call it a tale of two media break-ups. Shortly after the New York Times’ Bill Keller penned a scathing (and shockingly personal) account of what it was like to work with Julian Assange, UK collaborator The Guardian has done the same. While their rendition of experience does not fail to leave out the requisite depiction of Assange as overbearing and paranoid, the overall tone of the story, rather than vengeful, is surprisingly self-effacing.

Screw Time’s “Person of the Year,” it looks like WikiLeaks could be going after a much bigger award. A Norwegian lawmaker named Snorre Valen has apparently nominated the website for the Nobel Peace Prize. And, while nominees are officially kept secret for 50 years, Valen has taken to the Internet (perhaps in an homage to WikiLeaks’ transparency ideals) to write a blog post entitled “Why I have nominated Wikileaks for the Nobel Peace Prize,” thus ensuring that a bunch of American newscasters are now going to have to learn how to pronounce the name “Snorre Valen”.

Today, WikiLeaks has released cables concerning U.S.-Egyptian relations, which may help further understand and add context to the current uprising gripping Egypt, with the fate of current President Hosni Mubarak (pictured) up in the air. The continued turmoil and violence threatens not only the fate of the Egyptian government and the well-being of the country’s people, but also threatens the stability of the Middle East as a region, as well as the the price of oil and, inevitably, a U.S. economy so reliable on the price of oil.

Most people following the case against Wikileaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange would probably argue that he and his legal team are in no position to be thinking about prosecuting anyone else, but that hasn’t precluded Assange’s attorney from threatening to do just that. In an interview with NPR, attorney Robert Stary threatened legal action against, of all people, Sarah Palin for “incit[ing] others to commit violence” against Assange, a crime, he says, that could result in “private prosecution.”

The Hollywood Reporter is reporting that Hollywood has begun the quest to get Julian Assange into our theaters. No, he won’t be fulfilling his destiny and starring as the villain in the next James Bond movie. Instead, they’re planning on making a biopic of his life. Many are now questioning who should get the plum lead role. Over here, though, the only thing we want to know is whether or not this tale of cyber-intrigue and political transparence will be coming at us in MIND-BLOWING 3D!

Here’s a pretty big get for WikiLeaks, Julian Assange‘s polarizing document-leaking database: A former banker in Switzerland named Rudolf Elmer has handed the organization information concerning several offshore bank account holders. His motive? Apparently, he “wanted to draw attention to financial abuses.”

Miss America 2011 Teresa Scanlan paid a visit to the set of Fox & Friends this morning to talk about her win and her goals for the coming year. As it turns out, Scanlan has proven that she’s not only a young woman with firm opinions, she’s rather rather adept at expressing those opinions clearly, be they about the nature of the Miss America competition… or WikiLeaks.

The noose around the necks of Wikileaks is now tightening at a rapid pace, with the United States finally getting overtly involved. Last night, Icelandic Parliamentarian and producer of Wikileaks’ “Collateral Murder” video Birgitta Jonsdottir stated she had just been notified that the US Department of Justice had sent Twitter a subpoena for all of her activity on Twitter– and that of Julian Assange, and anyone involved with Wikileaks.

April 11: That’s the day that WikiLeaks front man Julian Assange‘s memoir will be unleashed onto the public. Assange previously said he’s writing the book not because he wants to, but because he needs the money to pay for his mounting legal costs and to keep WikiLeaks up and running. And because haircuts don’t pay for themselves. But why the rush?

Say what you will about Wikileaks supreme hero/villain Julian Assange, he has crafted quite the reputation as one of the most difficult men to work with in the world, despite fronting an organization that relies upon collaboration with the media. Vanity Fair‘s latest extensive feature goes behind the scenes into how at least one newspaper, The Guardian, kept Assange at the table. Hint: it involved “a great deal of coffee followed by a great deal of wine.”

Ex-New York Times reporter Judith Miller has come out swinging at critics who jumped on her for comments made over the weekend calling WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange a “bad journalist.”

Miller, who many consider a bad journalist herself for her Times reporting that helped build the case for war in Iraq, told Yahoo’s The Cutline that there’s simply no comparison between the work she did for the Times and what Assange has done with WikiLeaks:

Throughout the hubbub over WikiLeaks recent batches of leaked cables, many people have pointed out that a large amount of the content is material the public may not have known, but probably could have guessed. Well, this story is certainly not like that at all. Der Spiegel is reporting of an incident described that took place during the furor over Iran’s disputed 2009 election in which a general for Iran’s Revolutionary Guard reportedly slapped President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad across the face. Now that’s some juicy classified information.

Clive Thompson’s latest column for Wired picks up on something I’ve noticed: “I save the little stuff for Twitter and blog only when I have something big to say,” as blogger Anil Dash put it. It turns out readers prefer this: One survey found that the most popular blog posts today are the longest ones, 1,600 [...]

A mansion in the country isn’t a bad place to spend Christmas, especially when you’re a restless, internationally alleged criminal whose most recent bed was in prison. As Newsweek reveals in its newly published photo exposé, Julian Assange spent his holiday season in a calm, relaxing, and at times adorable fashion.

Some hold WikiLeaks responsible for committing crimes, while the transparency-obsessed Julian Assange says his organization merely commits journalism. But one pioneering online soul thinks that WikiLeaks is producing something else entirely: poetry.

The conditions under which suspected Wikileaks source Bradley Manning is being held have elicited responses ranging from simple acceptance to cries of torture, most debating whether Manning is being hurt by his solitary confinement. Today’s O’Reilly Factor panel (led by Eric Bolling) decided instead to question the alternative: how would a general prison population accept the accused Wikileaker?

Do you love books with mystery? Intrigue? Alleged romance? Then you’ll want to pick up the upcoming page-turner from Julian Assange, who signed a $1.3 million deal to pen an autobiography. And it looks like the proceeds will go to his pet cause, WikiLeaks; Assange said in an interview, “I don’t want to write this book, but I have to. I have already spent £200,000 for legal costs and I need to defend myself and to keep WikiLeaks afloat.”

In an exclusive interview with Cenk Uygur on MSNBC’s Dylan Ratigan Show, Julian Assange described criticism in Washington and elsewhere of WikiLeaks as nothing short of attacks on journalism and the first amendment. Pressed by Uygur on comments made recently by Mike Huckabee and others who consider Assange a terrorist, the WikiLeaks founder dismissed Huckabee as “another idiot trying to make a name for himself.”

A week after Countdown host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Mooresparked a Twitter protest over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show in which he failed to address the protest directly, but made their imprint obvious in his transformed rhetoric on rape accusations. In a crowning irony, the man whose zeal for transparency-God Julian Assange started this protest finally made direct acknowledgement of it…in a private Twitter message to #MooreAndMe creator Sady Doyle.

Well its nice to know that U.S. intelligence leaders appear to have a sense of humor (or are at least familiar with Internet culture.) The Washington Post is reporting today that the Central Intelligence Agency has launched a special task force designed to assess the impact of WikiLeaks . The task force is reportedly referred to as W.T.F. Ha!

A week after Countdown host Keith Olbermann and guest Michael Moore sparked a Twitter protest over their dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, Moore made an appearance on The Rachel Maddow Show that was much anticipated by those protesters. He did not apologize for his earlier assertion that Julian Assange was only accused of consensual sex with a broken condom, nor did he retract it.

Remember Glenn Beck‘s fuzzy math, which calculated that 10% of Muslims are actually terrorists? Well, according to one of those WikiLeaked diplomatic cables, the man may have been wildly underestimating. At least when it comes to British Muslim students, one-third of whom “believe killing in the name of religion is justified,” according to the Daily Mail.

Are you a busy, on-the-go professional who wishes there was a way to access top-secret government documents and diplomatic cables from your smartphone? As of last Friday, there was an app for that. But last night, Apple decided to pull the WikiLeaks App from its AppStore, joining Amazon, MasterCard, Visa, and PayPal as companies that have distanced themselves from the Julian Assange-led organization.

After a self-imposed weekend suspension (an emerging MO), Countdown host Keith Olbermann returned to Twitter this morning to engage the controversy surrounding his dismissive treatment of rape allegations against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange. Given the time to compose a calm, reasoned response, Olbermann elected to use a single random tweet to tar the #MooreAndMe protest as violent, accuse its members of financial coercion, attack #MooreAndMe creator Sady Doyle for smoking cigarettes, and finally, to ignore the central issues in this brouhaha.

Someone should gently suggest to Olbermann that when you’re already in a hole, stop digging.