Bill Gates Newspeak

This is either hilarious or depressing (depending on your view of the social glass at the halfway point as 'full' or 'empty'). In the aftermath of MSN censoring a blogger at the behest of the Chinese government and Google following suit, Uncle Bill gums some Orwellian Newspeak at the World Economic Forum

Reporters Without Borders has called China the "world champion" of internet censorship. The press freedom organisation has claimed that China's so-called "Great Firewall", a sophisticated filter used to block sites, is largely powered by technology bought from American hardware companies.

However, Mr Gates argued today that freedom of information is available in China, despite sites discussing issues such as Tiananmen Square and Taiwan being blocked.

What is boils down to of course is both internet giants seeing the same thing everyone else does when they turn the other cheek to China's wretched track record on human rights- billions of customers in an untapped market.

Which leads them to make oddly circular proclimations like "censorship is good because it allows free exchange of ideas" in an effort to defend the indefensible.

Gates and the Google cats seem to be using the same kool-aid supplier as the White House.