I was a bit surprised to read that someone is trying to organize a class action lawsuit against Wikipedia, on behalf of people who have been defamed there. Is this a case of greedy lawyers trying to cash in on recent bad publicity that Wikipedia has garnered? As it turns out, the people behind the lawsuit are the same people who set up a fraudulent charity that purported to be collecting money for earthquake relief, which was exposed on Wikipedia. So their response to being outed as fraudsters is to file a lawsuit against Wikipedia. Let’s hope that no money is spent dealing with this garbage.

How strong is Apple’s brand right now? The iPod Mini became an instant collector’s item as soon as it was discontinued.

Naomi Klein has written an important article about the United States’ history of condoning and using torture when it suits our purposes. Her goal is to war us about the dangers of assuming that the use of torture by our government began with the invasion of Iraq, or 9/11, or the Bush administration. Most people who are paying attention know that “extraordinary rendition” is a legacy of the Clinton administration, and that our history of torturing people and more commonly, teaching others how to torture, goes way back. Not only do we have to accept that torture isn’t just being perpetrated by a few bad apples, but also that it’s not something that Donald Rumsfeld came up with.

The mystery of who wrote the false information in the Wikipedia entry about John Siegenthaler has been solved. The writer confessed after an anti-Wikipedia activist tracked down the computer he used (at his workplace). For what it’s worth, he made up the allegations so that he could show them to a coworker.

I’m pretty sure that President Bush should declare the insurgents who are resisting the “War on Christmas” unlawful combatants and detain them at Gitmo.

The rampant acquisition of early stage companies continues, as Yahoo picks up del.icio.us. I think that there’s something to this buy ’em while they’re cheap strategy. If you have enough cash, why not just buy everything and see what sticks? The worst case scenario is that you bring in some smart, creative people who have already proven they can get a product out the door.

If you’re interested in the Human Interfaces discussion that I talked about yesterday, you can read Martin Fowler’s original post, which helpfully includes links to many of the subsequent comments that have been posted all over the place in response.

Charles Miller’s comment on this topic is particularly useful.

I’m beginning to think that the day when your contract with your mobile phone provider ends should be celebrated like your birthday. As of December 5, I’m no longer on the hook with Cingular Wireless and I am free to get a new phone (along with a new contract) and perhaps a new provider. I’ve used a Sony Ericsson T616 for the past two years. It’s an OK phone, but I never seem to hear it ring, and the display is completely unusable outdoors.

Service from Cingular has been fine.

Of course, in the past two years, many phones cooler than the one I have became available. I’m particularly intrigued by the Motorola RAZR V3c. It’s smaller than my current phone, has a nicer camera built in, and offers a few other features that my phone does not. Unfortunately, Cingular only offers the older RAZR, which has a lesser camera and display. The newer RAZR is available from Verizon and from Alltel. Verizon sucks because they apparently put their own lame software on the phone and intentionally cripple Bluetooth. Alltel does not.

Also, a general comment on mobile phones. When I originally got my T610, I was in the market for a smart phone. I thought I’d be installing software, snapping pictures, surfing the Web, and generally living the mobile lifestyle. As it turns out, the two key features for me are the ability to make and receive calls and the ability to receive text messages. I use the phone mostly to talk to coworkers and to receive text alerts from servers. Everything else is secondary. I did take a few pictures with the phone, but not enough to get excited about, and I occasionally used it to retrieve sports scores, but that’s about it.

One feature that I do find indispensable is syncing up the phone with the computer via Bluetooth. I finally have a laptop that supports Bluetooth, and the ability to manage the list of phone numbers on my phone from my computer is deliriously wonderful. Everybody else probably already knew this, but it has been a revelation to me.

Anyway, I have two questions for readers. Is the RAZR V3c really the best reasonably affordable mobile phone right now? Will I regret dumping Cingular for Alltel? (Also, is the RAZR V3c significantly better than the Nokia 6102?)

Update: In answer to my own last question, the RAZR V3c has a nicer camera and is significantly thinner. Also, the Nokia 6102 doesn’t support Bluetooth.

Veteran technology writer Andrew Leonard is working on a new project at Salon, a weblog on globalization called How The World Works. He’s just getting started, but I guarantee that it will wind up being a must-read, and that it will be often linked from this site. This is the first time in awhile that I’ve really been excited by something Salon is doing. How The World Works doesn’t seem to have an RSS feed yet, hopefully that will be corrected.

Update: The RSS feed has appeared here.

Slate’s Jacob Weisberg calls out the Bush administration for its reliance on propaganda. This is something I had intended to write about, but he says everything I wanted to say, so just read the article.

Update: Also in Slate, an article explaining how the government plans to execute prisoners based on confessions obtained through torture because “enemy combatants” because we believe that the Constitution is only for Americans. I guess the upside is that we can look forward to some propaganda that will convince us that this is a proper expression of American values.