I Am Very Tall

You've got to hand it to conservatives. They really know how to take initiative when people don't agree with them. These initiatives, depending on your perspective, can either be revelatory or completely hysterical.

The latest and greatest comes in the form of the Conservapedia, the conservative response to the "increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American" bias of Wikipedia - which is apparently "six times more liberal than the American public." I am incredibly curious as to how you quantify liberalism.

In order to justify its existence, Conservapedia cites a "growing list of examples" that purport to show Wikipedia's clear liberal bias. These include the following:

4. Wikipedia's entry on abortion reads like a brochure for the abortion industry.
5. Initially a Wikipedia admin named "Nearly Headless Nick" deleted, without explaining his decision, an entry about Conservapedia... Wikipedia's entry is filled with obvious bias, numerous errors, out-of-date citations, and self-serving false statements.
9. Wikipedia often uses foreign spelling of words, even though most English-speaking users are American. Within entries British spellings appear in the silliest of places, even when the topic is American. Conservapedia favors American spellings of words.
15. Wikipedia claims about 1.5 million articles, but what it does not say is that a large number of those articles have zero educational value. For example, Wikipedia has 1075 separate articles about "Moby" and "song". Many hundreds of thousands of Wikipedia articles -- perhaps over half its website -- are about music, Hollywood, and other topics beneath a regular encyclopedia. This reflects a bias towards popular gossip rather than helpful or enlightening information.

If you are wondering about the educational value that you might find in a Conservapedia article, take a look at this discussion of the kangaroo's origins:

"According to the origins model used by creation scientists, modern kangaroos, like all modern animals, originated in the Middle East^[1] and are the descendants of the two founding members of the modern kangaroo baramin that were taken aboard Noah's Ark prior to the Great Flood. It has not yet been determined by baraminologists whether kangaroos form a holobaramin with the wallaby, tree-kangaroo, wallaroo, pademelon and quokka, or if all these species are in fact apobaraminic or polybaraminic.

Also according to creation science, after the Flood, kangaroos bred from the Ark passengers migrated to Australia. There is debate whether this migration happened over land^[2] -- as Australia was still for a time connected to the Middle East before the supercontinent of Pangea broke apart^[3] -- or if they rafted on mats of vegetation torn up by the receding flood waters^[2]. A recent theory is that the Kangaroos floated on corks rather than vegetation^[2]. Evidence for this theory was produced in the late 18th century during early exploration of central Australia when a large cache of cork was found near modern day Woolumbinda in south western Queensland. The lack of oak trees, from where cork is obtained, throughout the entire continent further reinforces this theory. Early settlers and explorers alike quickly used the cork to create the fly proof hats associated with the area."

Their article on Fox News is also interesting:

"Fox News was started in 1996 in response to the other cable news channels which all had obvious liberal biases. Because of this, Rupert Murdoch decided to start a real new channel which would tell the truth. The success of Fox news over every other news channel is because it is fair and balanced. ^[1] It has many people on it who work to spread truth such as Sean Hannity who is a great American. ^[2]. Fox News is best because instead of just telling you what to think, they only report the news unbiased and then allow the viewer to decide. ^[3].

In 2005 the White House selected Tony Snow from Fox News to be the new White House press secretary which was a great honor for Fox because it showed how well it was presenting the real truth instead of the fake liberal version. ^[4]"

I could go on. But really, the best thing to do is to go over there and read a few articles for yourself.

For a good write-up of Conservapedia, check out jonswift.

[Link via arstechnica]