Ploofle

The original entry was about how Yahoo! had banned users from using the word “Allah” in screennames, but not words like “Hitler”, “Jesus”, etc., ad nauseum. Then, after negative publicity, they “reversed” the ban. Original link is here and shenanigans ensued with people then wondering if they’re now required to have the word Allah, given the phrasing….

But this choice reader comment made me laugh (sadly):

Yahoo Reverses Allah Ban

I think I’ve finally snapped from all the loonie news lately. My first thought was: “What!? Now you are required to have ‘Allah’ in your name? That’s even worse!”

–MarkusQ

And before you give me grief, in just the last few weeks:

• Hundreds of people have killed each other over a bunch of cartoons.
• The vice president of the US shot someone
• Bell South wants to charge Google for using its bandwidth when Bell South’s customers use Google’s services for free and already pay Bell South for the privilege.
• We are engaged in a huge debate, not over the fact that the control of our nation’s ports has been turned over to foreign governments in the first place, but rather over the fact that it may be racist to suggest that a nation that funded Bin Ladin, passed sensitive information to him, had top level meetings with him, recognized the Taliban, and was home to two of the 9/11 hijackers might not be trustworthy
• People have been caught distributing free software in accordance with the license, and had their CDs seized to protect the rights of the Authors who gave them permission in the first place

Tags: praxis