Free Republic

I was at the airport in Auckland the other day and mooching around the duty free shop. My little girl likes snow globes, so I picked out one showing some charming New Zealand sheep. No snow, technically, but when you shook it, little stars sparkled around the ovine cuties. The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, "Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?" I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that, in an expansive definition worthy of the Massachusetts Supreme Court constitutional-right-to-same-sex-marriage ruling, the twinkly fluid...

Encouraging signs from the Wikipedia project, where co-founder and überpedian Jimmy Wales has acknowledged there are real quality problems with the online work. Criticism of the project from within the inner sanctum has been very rare so far, although fellow co-founder Larry Sanger, who is no longer associated with the project, pleaded with the management to improve its content by befriending, and not alienating (http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2004/12/30/142458/25), established sources of expertise. (i.e., people who know what they're talking about.) Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that's almost unprecedented in our...