Desultory Thoughts

I’ve always said that in order to be successful at something, you don’t need to know your stuff.  You just need to know how to Google it.  In 1999 I took a part-time job in a company’s surplus warehouse.  Bored with logging serial numbers and testing PC’s for Y2K compliance, I decided to branch out.  I offered to cover for the company’s tech support staff during meetings and lunches.  I barely knew enough to boot to a floppy and run a small Norton utility that checked for Y2K compliance.  But I like challenges, so I often found myself manning the help desk for an organization of about 3,000 users.  I didn’t have a clue.  But I had the Internet and a little engine called Google.

I credit Google with helping me work my way to a full-time tech support/network administrator job at that company. 

But Google’s recent antics have left a bitter taste in my mouth.  In defense of its principles of freedom and privacy, Google refused to provide anonymous search information to the Justice Department (a simple survey that inferior search engines like yahoo readily complied with).  But after snubbing the U.S. government on matters of principle, Google bent over and grabbed its ankles for the Chinese government.  They agreed to censor their Chinese service to eliminate any online information that communist government deemed inappropriate for its people.

The agreement outraged many American users, some vowing never to use Google again.  Michelle Malkin hosted a Chinese Google Protest Logo Album (which includes the one that leads this post).  Some of them are pretty hilarious.

Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page justified the censorship agreement, saying that some informational freedom in China was better than no informational freedom in China (translation: some money from China is better than no money from China).

But AP reports yesterday that Brin acknowledges that his company “compromised its principles” by caving to the Red Chinese:

WASHINGTON - Google Inc. co-founder Sergey Brin acknowledged Tuesday the dominant Internet company has compromised its principles by accommodating Chinese censorship demands. He said Google is wrestling to make the deal work before deciding whether to reverse course.

Google’s China-approved Web service omits politically sensitive information that might be retrieved during Internet searches, such as details about the 1989 suppression of political unrest in Tiananmen Square. Its agreement with China has provoked considerable criticism from human rights groups.

“Perhaps now the principled approach makes more sense,” Brin said.

Good!  The boycotters can start using Google again now, right?  Not so fast.  The article concludes:

Brin said Google is trying to improve its censored search service, Google.cn, before deciding whether to reverse course.

Ok, so we admit we compromised our principles, but let’s see if we can make it work before pulling the plug.  That’s like confessing that you’re having an affair, but only going back to your wife if things don’t work out with your mistress.  Apparently Brin thinks a partial apology about China is better than no apology about China.  Google believes in principle, but only as a last resort.

“You can’t run away from trouble- there ain’t no place that far.” Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, chief of Al-Qaeda In Iraq (or as James Taranto says Democrats call it- ‘al Qaeda Which Has Nothing to Do With Iraq in Iraq Which Has Nothing to Do With al Qaeda’) has been promoted to the rank of martyr after our boys facilitated his meeting with Allah around 6:15 PM Wednesday evening.

AP Reports (reluctantly):

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaida leader in Iraq who waged a bloody campaign of suicide bombings and beheadings of hostages, has been killed in a precision airstrike, U.S. and Iraqi officials said Thursday. It was a long-sought victory in the war in Iraq.

Al-Zarqawi and seven aides, including spiritual adviser Sheik Abdul Rahman, were killed Wednesday evening in a remote area 30 miles northeast of Baghdad in the volatile province of Diyala, just east of the provincial capital of Baqouba, officials said.

“Al-Zarqawi was eliminated,” Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said.

“Those who disrupt the course of life, like al-Zarqawi, will have a tragic end,” al-Maliki said. He also warned those who would follow the militant’s lead that “whenever there is a new al-Zarqawi, we will kill him.”

Tell us, oh great sheik- how are you liking those 72 virgins?