Open Threads

Are google-bombs going to kill google? Thanks for the heads up from the FU Clan.

Popular search site Google is being exploited by some net users to mount protests and play jokes on their friends.
The users have found a way to “bomb” Google to improve the rankings of particular webpages, and ensure a site is near the top of the results for particular search phrases.

Before now Google’s method of ranking webpages was thought to make it largely immune to the tactics that many businesses use to improve their position in web searches.

Some fear it is only a matter of time before businesses start using the bombing tactic to influence their standing in search results.

Are google-bombs going to killPost + Comments

A copy of the proposed Canadian tariff on blank media discussed by Steve Den Beste the other day can be found here. If you have not been following this, go read Steve at the USS Clueless, then check the PDF file for the gory proposal.

A copy of the proposedPost + Comments

Rod Dreher reports in Andrew Sullivan’s Gay Problem-And mine. that their could be an enormous, public, internecine struggle within the Catholic Church in the neart future:

I draw those dire conclusions not on “hearsay,” as Sullivan says, but on reporting and years of conversations with priests, who have told me more than I wish I knew about what it was really like in their seminaries. It will be interesting to see how Sullivan will react to author Michael S. Rose’s forthcoming Goodbye! Good Men, which is the first book I’m aware of to systematically compile these stories from the seminaries, and to name names.

I’ve just finished an early copy, and what it documents is absolutely astonishing, and cannot be ignored except by those who do not want to see. This bombshell book reveals a seminary underworld in which homosexual promiscuity and sexual harassment is rampant, in which straight men are marginalized and demoralized, and seminarians who support the Church’s teaching on sexuality and the priesthood are persecuted, even to the point of being sent off, Soviet-style for psychological evaluations. Many of these guys are rejected from entering the seminaries, expelled, or driven by depression to leave.

This will get uglier.

Rod Dreher reports in AndrewPost + Comments

Most interesting item in the Opinion Journal today was the snub of Arafat by the Russians:

Sergei Mironov, the speaker of the Federation Council, said that he decided not to meet with Arafat on Tuesday because “terrorist actions in Afghanistan, Chechnya and Israel have common roots, primarily financial,” the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

Mironov announced his decision after meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon late Monday. He said that the Israeli side viewed his decision as a show of support in the war against terror.

“Israeli colleagues see it as a reflection of joint understanding that terrorism must be fought,” Mironov said Tuesday on Russian RTR state television. “There is no such thing as good terrorism.”

Most interesting item in thePost + Comments

You sometimes doubt yourself – who you are and what you can do. You’re a curious person, with questions and concerns about the world. You go along with the crowd and aim to please others to your best ability. But when you finally discover what you’re really capable of, you can do some serious ass kickin’! You’re fast and furious, and you will always stick up for what you believe, and those who you care for. Not only that, but you’re charming and charismatic, so you get along with people well, and others often look up to you.

Yet another one of these quizzes, via Ipse Dixit.

You sometimes doubt yourselfPost + Comments

Before everyone feels the need to email me about this, let me make clear that I think Andrea Yates is guilty. My problem is with the law. I think she is guilty, but I also think she is clearly INSANE. Her guilt should be duly noted, and then she should spend the rest of her life in a mental facility. I do not think a lifetime in jail/the death penalty or freedom via insanity defense are the only options that should be available.

As I stated at Protein Wisdom, I think it is as morally indefensible to execute an insane individual as it is to execute a mentally reatrded individual.

Before everyone feels the needPost + Comments

Why can’t they just GO AWAY?

Roger Clinton Said to Be Deeply Tied to Pardons– House reform panel says ex-president encouraged his brother

With President Clinton’s encouragement, his half-brother, Roger, collected hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby on behalf of as many as 13 people seeking presidential pardons and other favors, a key congressional panel has found.

This characterization goes far beyond what Roger Clinton has acknowledged about his activities in seeking presidential pardons and suggests that he was much more deeply involved than previously known.

Read the whole thing if you must. I am sure this report from the right-wing LA Times will be used as evidence that Republicans and Conservatives just can’t get over the Clintons. And yes, I know that the committee is headed by a Republican.

Why can’t they just GOPost + Comments