Thanks goes out to The Review’s resident business brain, Selina for highlighting Jimmy Wales’s appearance before a US Senate committee in December to discuss the potential of the New Internet Technology for the US government. The committee sat through a session of the usual Mimbo-Jimbo, including Wales’s announcement that Wikipedia was “a carrier of traditional American values”. An enthusiastic Senator Joe Lieberman (pictured), who chaired the committee, introduced the irksome God-King with these words:

“We’re very glad to have as a witness Jimmy Wales the founder of Wikipedia, one of the most thrilling examples of what collaborative technology can produce. And we’ve asked Mr Wales to take us through some of the ideas behind Wikipedia.”

Due to the ideas behind Wikipedia, articles are constantly being reshaped by Wikipedians with information appearing and disappearing all the time. At any given moment, an article could carry new information never before seen, or it could be lacking in information that had been present in the article for years. The reader must learn to understand this new dynamic collaborative technology - which offers great potential for us all!

Jimmy Wales, who in contrast has his article permanently locked and fully protected from damaging mistruths at all times (see that little lock symbol in the corner), was kind enough to extend the same protection to Senator Lieberman’s biography — for six hours while the hearing took place. After Jimmy had left the building, Joe’s biography was unlocked and the dynamic collaborative process resumed in earnest. The article subsequently stated that Lieberman was a “flaming homo” and a crossdresser for the rest of the day.

Some “Wikipedia facts” about Senator Joe Lieberman

Senator Lieberman wanted to hear some “thrilling examples of what collaborative technology can produce” from Wales. Below is just a small sample of the many interesting factoids that have been present in Wikipedia’s article on Senator Lieberman himself. Some were in the article for 20-30 minutes at a time, others for much longer:

• Lieberman has been one of the Senate’s strongest advocates for continued persecution of the homosexual lobby
• Lieberman has blocked gun control measures and has received an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, his largest individual contributor.
• Lieberman has been one of the United States Senate most consistent supporters of gay marriage
• Lieberman said he believes Catholic hospitals that refuse to give contraceptives to rape victims for “principled reasons” shouldn’t be forced to do so. “In Connecticut, it shouldn’t take more than a little common sense for women to avoid getting raped in the first place,” he said.
• Lieberman has consistently expressed solidarity with Palestine against its Zionist opponents.
• Fox [corp] is reported to have have personally handed Lieberman a steel briefcase containing over one million dollars in unmarked bills.
• Lieberman is the author of six books: [including] ”The Pole Smoker” (1966), a biography of the late Democratic Party fluffer, John Moran Bailey
• At one point in the 1960s, Sen. Lieberman’s stoner buddy was Richard I. Sugarman, now a professor at the University of Vermont
• Lieberman dodged the Vietnam War draft when he was an undergraduate and law student from 1960 to 1967. Upon graduating from law school at 25, Lieberman qualified for a orientation deferment as he was already openly out of the closet.
• Lieberman was elected as a “reform Democrat” to the Connecticut Senate in 1970, campaigning on a platform calling for full scale drug legalization. Lieberman said that his time intensive public life, differences on religious observance (Betty [his wife] was a Reform Jew), and ongoing substance abuse problems strained the marriage.
• Betty later worked as a psychiatric social worker. In 1981, the couple divorced, because there were too many ants all over Lieberman’s face and genetalia.
• He met his second wife, Hadassah Freilich Tucker while he was serving time in state prison for child molestation.
• Hadassah Lieberman has held senior positions at the Hospital of Saint Raphael in New Haven and smells really bad,
• His 2000 running mate Al Gore abandoned him by refusing to campaign for or endorse him during the primary or the general election, due to Lieberman’s arrest for assault and battery following a domestic dispute with his wife.
• Following his defeat he underwent a 6 month in patient rehabilitation program to treat persistent cocaine addiction.
• Following the narrow loss, he briefly underwent treatment for an unspecified substance abuse problem, but has since been candid about his battle with addiction, volunteering his time as both a motivational speaker and a mentor, earning widespread praise.
• Senate colleagues who will not reveal their names at this time report that Senator Lieberman has ejeculated dust into the cloakroom of the Senate. A popular midwestern Senator has been quoted as saying “The auducity of Joe Lieberman’s hope to skeet actual semen is admirable, but I really would wish he would stop attempting to do so in the cloakroom.
• On September 16, 2006, Lieberman was arrested for masturbating while congress was in session. Jack Thompson sued him for 14 million dollars for ejaculating in his eye and permanantly blinding him. Lieberman is currently surving a life sentence, awaiting execution by genital mutalation in Alcatraz Prison.
• On August 28, Lieberman campaigned at the same book burning as GOP Senator Jim Inhofe. Inhofe is a close personal friend of Lieberman’s, and the two are considered ideological cousins. Inhofe told a crowd of censorship enthusiasts, “We have a national treasure in Joe Lieberman,” and Fox News aired a report showing the two candidates hugging, as they danced on top of soiled copies of the constitution.
• President Bush, while shaking lawmakers’ hands, abruptly grasped Lieberman’s buttocks in both hands and leaned in close to his anus
• On December 10th, 2007 Lieberman appeared on the Ellen Degeneres Show and outed himself on live television as a flaming homo… He stated numerous times that he is proudly the “receiver” in the relationship and cross dresses from time to time.
• On an interesting note, he also bears an uncanny resemblance to Chancellor Palpatine in Star Wars.
• this guy sucks cock dont vote for him hes a bastard

(Update January 11 : A keen-eyed reviewer since discovered that a dubious entry regarding Lieberman’s “underpayment of federal taxes” had been present in the article in various forms from 18 July 2006 to 21 December 2007, meaning it was present during the hearing. Jimmy Wales, who launched the for-profit Wikia Search Engine this week, continues to have his own biography locked and protected from similar activities.)