Technology

Anyone still intent on believing the nonsensical argument that because most media outlets are corporate-owned this makes them somehow conservative should head over to Michelle Malkin's new web video channel, Hot Air and watch her first episode which talks about the extent to which American companies are assisting the efforts of China's communist government to repress its citizens.

Does Wikipedia, the online community encyclopedia that anyone can edit, have a liberal political bias? Over at PBS's MediaShift blog, Mark Glaser hosts a fascinating debate on the subject between Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales and Olbermann Watch blogger Robert Cox.

The discussion revolves around Cox's attempts to edit Wikipedia's entry on MSNBC host Keith Olbermann to make it more politically neutral (a stated goal of the site) and to include facts that were left out. Cox contends that his changes were continually discarded by fans of Olbermann who monitor the article, seeking to ensure that it reflects their liberal views, something he believes has happened to Wikipedia articles about partial-birth abortion, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton.

Completely off-topic but since it's a weekend, here goes. It seems as though the "Star Wars kid," a roly-poly French Canadian boy whose awkward copying of a light saber fight made him into an ironic web celebrity, apparently wasn't happy with being made the object of fun. (Or was it that the petition to get him into the third SW prequel failed?)

In any case, Ghyslain Raza, now 18, reached a settlement with three former schoolmates who put out the video which has since spawned scads of derivative works. The deal, whose terms are not known, averted a lawsuit that was supposed to go to trial Monday. Canada's Globe and Mail has the story:

Lawyers for the three schoolmates had suffered a setback after they were not allowed to introduce as evidence a transcript of a phone conversation Mr. Raza had with a blogger, Jishnu Mukerji.

The blogger had posted a transcript of the exchange on the Internet.

Conducted a month after the video and parodies of it began circulating, the conversation has Mr. Raza calling the spoofs "interesting" but not expressing much distress. [...]

In the transcripts, Mr. Raza said the experience left him unable to attend school.

"It was simply unbearable, totally. It was impossible to attend class," Mr. Raza said.

British tech site The Register reported that Linda Callahan was trying to sign up for an email account with Verizon and was not allowed to because her name was blasphemous to Yahoo, which is in partnership with Verizon.

Yahoo banned any name that has "Allah" in it, including Callahan or Kallahar. The blasphemy policy didn't, however, cover God, Jesus or Buddah.