Rest in peace, miserable failure

Source.

Up until late last month, you could search for "miserable failure" on Google and turn up the White House's official page on Bush as the first result. This is thanks to a practice called Google bombing.

But now the bomb's a dud.

The New York Times reported on the 29th of last month:

Now a favored online tactic to mock the president — altering the Google search engine so the words “miserable failure” lead to President Bush’s home page at the White House — has been neutralized.

Google announced on Thursday on its official blog that “by improving our analysis of the link structure of the Web” such mischief would instead “typically return commentary, discussions, and articles” about the tactic itself.

Indeed, a search on Saturday of “miserable failure” on Google leads to a now-outdated BBC News article from 2003 about the “miserable failure” search, rather than the previous first result, President Bush’s portal at whitehouse.gov/president.

Well, it was fun while it lasted, I suppose.

But one thing I don't understand is what Matt Cutts, the head of Google's Webspam team, said about the matter:

Over time, we’ve seen more people assume that they are Google’s opinion, or that Google has hand-coded the results for these Google-bombed queries. That’s not true, and it seemed like it was worth trying to correct that misperception.

What? Why would people think such a thing? That makes as much sense as claiming that the media has an overt liberal bias. But then, a lot of people seem to believe it does, so who knows.

Another thing I don't understand is this:

Despite the changes by Google, some other Google bombs are still operative. A search for “French military victories” still produces a first result that says, “Your search — French military victories — did not match any documents.” Click there and your find a mockup of a Google search page asking the question “Did you mean: French military defeats.”

So not only did they accommodate themselves for people who don't take the time to think things through, but they also were inconsistent in neutralizing Google bombs?

George Johnston, the organizer of the "miserable failure" bomb, said that he:

considered Google’s decision politically motivated, even if was not done by hand, and noted that the company had agreed to censor results in China. “I believe them that they tweaked the algorithm, but it is such weasel words,” he said. “The fact that some Google bombs still work makes me think they have a blacklist essentially of ways of tweaking results.”

He hasn’t given up the fight, he said, and remains unhappy with Google’s tweak. “They say they fixed it. I think they broke it,” he said.

I can see his point of view. However, I think I'll personally be able to live without this particular Google bomb. Google's efforts may have been at best annoyingly haphazard, but right now there are more important things to worry about.

New Jersey gays can now civil unionate

As of today, New Jersey is the third US state to permit same-sex civil unions with all the rights and responsibilities of marriage. All civil unions and marriages between homosexual couples obtained in other states or nations are now eligible for recognition as civil unions, and civil union licenses are granted to them automatically. New Jersey state Senator Loretta Weinberg, a prime sponsor of the law, calls this a "big, giant step forward".

I call it a punch in the face.

Wanna know why?

It reinforces some negative ideas concerning same-sex couples and marriage. It reinforces the idea that gay people are somehow different from straight people, that the love between two men or two women is somehow different, that the union between them is somehow undeserving of being called a marriage. They have the same rights and responsibilities, but it's not called a marriage; it's called a civil union. They can't get married, but they can get civil unioned-- united, unionized, whatever the fuck the word might be.

It's precisely the sort of injustice we did away with for blacks and other minorities about forty years ago, which we called "separate but equal". We did away with it because we had realized — but have since forgotten, apparently — that separate is not equal.

Imagine a woman wants to go to a university and earn a diploma, but they refuse her one after she goes through all the required coursework and earns the necessary marks. The reason? Diplomas are for men. Why? Because traditionally, only men are educated.

Understandably, women would fight to have their education recognized as being the same as men's.

Now imagine that a man and a woman both go to a university and enroll in the same course program. They take the same courses, they get the same grades, and in the end the man receives a diploma for his hard work, while the woman receives a certificate, which is now equivalent to a diploma and which women can now receive. Both the diploma and the certificate mean the same thing and have the same benefits, but the woman cannot receive a diploma because it's only for men. Instead she's given a certificate.

Why? If they both mean the same thing, then why does the woman only deserve a certificate? What's so different about her? What's so inferior about her? Why should you have a penis and testicles to get a diploma? What about the fact that she has breasts and a vagina makes her unworthy of a diploma?

If both civil unions and marriages mean the same thing, why do gays only get to civil unionate, unionize, unionify? Why should the fact that both people in the couple have a penis, or both have a vagina, have any bearing on whether or not they receive a marriage license, on whether or not they are worthy of one?

Some supporters of same-sex civil unions mean well. They see it as one step closer to marital equality. They're happy that New Jersey homosexuals can now have their love recognized by the government in some way. And I can see and understand their train of thought.

But I wonder if they realize what this implies to the American people. To them, seeing gay couples being told they can have all the benefits of marriage but can't have their union called a marriage reinforces the widespread meme that gay people are inferior to straight people. Of course, because it's so subtle, the American people don't realize this, nor do they realize that this is effectively a step backwards, not forwards.

I wonder if same-sex civil union supporters realize what this means to the people who don't support marital equality. To them, simply having the same rights and responsibilities that straight couples enjoy should be good enough for gays. To them, if gays keep asking for the ability to marry, then they're being ungrateful pricks. Just like they would consider the women who continue to push for diplomas for both sexes a bunch of ungrateful broads.

I wonder if same-sex civil union supporters realize this is a punch in the faces of homosexuals everywhere, plain and simple.

— Athelwulf

The ongoing erosion of the freedom of speech

Now, I am not homophobic; I have a few friends, several of them very close and dear to me, who are gay or lesbian, and I get along with them just fine. I am writing about this bit, because the freedom of opinion (freedom as a whole) is very near to my heart. I am a strong advocate to it. (Hence, this and my personal blog.)

***

My definition of a free society is a society where it is safe to be unpopular. ~Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.

It seems that NBA star Tim Hardaway , is wrong in his opinion.

He said (In response to a question concerning 'what if' there was a fellow player who was gay),

"First of all, I wouldn't want him on my team...And second of all, if he was on my team, I would, you know, really distance myself from him because, uh, I don't think that is right. I don't think he should be in the locker room while we are in the locker room."

Now, don't get me wrong, I disagree with Mr. Hardaway's comments.

However, are we to live in a society where we (the people of this society) cannot stand/tolerate opinions that are not "politically correct," and differ from mainstream opinion?

Okay, So he doesn't like gays, so what? It's his opinion, and he has the right to express it. (See: 1st Amendment, Bill of Rights. )

These same people who bash mr. Hardaway for being intolerant, are themselves being intolerant - of mr. Hardaway's opinion/belief.

I can bet you that there are hundreds of thousands of people in the United States of America, who share his sentiments, albeit most are forced into silence by our societal/national set of "right and wrong."

For years, we as a society have drifted further and further into the grasps of the monster called Political Correctness.

What next, we rid our nation of the freedom of thought, and shackle ourselves to a collective mind? Will we bind ourselves to what is inoffensive?(Said with absolute sarcasm, albeit being serious.) Is there no room for dissention?

Wait, lets not stop there, why not


Again I state the following: Are we to live in a PC "police state," held together by fear of being labelled as hateful, intolerant, etc...?

"To know what you prefer instead of humbly saying Amen to what the world tells you you ought to prefer, is to have kept your soul alive. " ~Rober Louis Stevenson

Personally, I say no, and while I respect all opinions, as Voltaire said:

"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it."

Time and tide will tell whether we drift towards true, strong freedom of opinion/expression, or an egg shell.