TO: Stephen Green
RE: Why...

...am I reminded of Terry Gilliam's masterpiece, Brazil?

I'm wondering if Google has a Department of Information Retrieval?

Or do they leave that to the Chicoms?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Link be busted.

Yeah, the link is screwed, just go to www.texasroast.com

While folks are getting steamed at Google, don't look now, but MSFT is sticking its toes into the same morass - this time specifically dealing with blog content.

Thanks for the heads-up. I have already placed an order for Texas coffee! I will return for more! I wish more companies (hello Microsoft) would do the same.

TO: lawhawk
RE: So...

"While folks are getting steamed at Google, don't look now, but MSFT is sticking its toes into the same morass - this time specifically dealing with blog content." -- lawhawk

...when are you gonna get a Mac?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Same Same.
Met Too.
Ditto.

I got a form letter
after I told them a few things.

Only I'm not a blogfather yet.

I suspect they're getting a lot more email in complaints than they ever got in questions. Might explain the delay in getting a real human to answer.

Stephen,

I am not really with you in this one. Not that I think that this Google censoring the net for the Chinese is a great thing. But then what's the alternative?

Is the alternative that the Chinese gov't would block Google? Then would the Chinese population win? No. Would we (in the sense of information sharing) win? No. I think this Google censoring is a necessary evil.

If I were Google, then I would sign this "contract" with the Chinese government, but I would ensure that the google.cn engine would be full with holes (like mispelling, capitalization), and people with a little finesse would still get the info they need. And we in the West should shut the hell up when we find any such hole. Once one such hole is publicized, then Google will need to close it. However, if they are "hidden", then the Chinese can take advantage of it for a while. We need to let the Chinese to find those holes, and we shouldn't force Google close them so fast by announcing it "how coughing clever we are by finding those holes".

However, there is one aspect where I *HOPE* that Google didn't agree. They should not, under any circumstances, log the addresses where the query came from. Then the Chinese Gov't cannot twist their arms for the info.

Also, Google should declare that they are providing technology to the masses and not info to the police. Remember when Yahoo (I hope I am correct) gave out the info about a Chinese blogger who got imprisoned. That's unacceptable.

If Google does these things, censor but have holes, and as an official policy they don't give out info to the Chinese authorities, then I can live with this. Remember, information wants to be free. By agreeing with this censorship, Google opened some cracks. Now it is up to the Chinese people to enlarge these cracks into gaping holes.

This is one of those lose-lose decisions. Google did the least bad thing.

Vilmos

TO: Vilmos
RE: The Alternative

"But then what's the alternative?

Is the alternative that the Chinese gov't would block Google? Then would the Chinese population win? No. Would we (in the sense of information sharing) win? No. I think this Google censoring is a necessary evil." -- Vilmos

For all intents and purposes, the Chicoms ARE blocking Google. All the Google they don't like.

Do the Chinese people win? No.

Do we win? If Google told the Chicoms that they could go fly a kite? Yes.

How would we win? Well, the Chicoms would have to build something to suit their purposes from the ground up. It would be worse than Google. Furthermore, as Google advanced, it would always be ahead of whatever the Chicoms could field; hopefully.

We'd also have maintained our core values.

As it is in THIS case, we've shed our core values.

Regards,

Chuck(le)
[You cannot hold to the important things if you are not holding to the lesser ones.]

P.S. If you're willing to sell your soul on this, I can well imagine what you'd do when it came time to be counted for on something REALLY important.

Why not stop using Google?

I've changed my homepage to yahoo.com and don't use Google anymore. Their search engine is not THAT much better.

Does Yahoo censor? Yes, they do; but that's not really the point is it? By not using Google, I'm hurting Google. If everyone stopped using Google, Yahoo and Microsoft would get the message really, really quickly.

Google stock today is at $401.78. The owners of Google should be the ones who "feel the pain" of their management's decisions. It is the owners who direct the management.

I'd like to see Google stock back at $85.00, where it began.

There's only one way to do that and that is to dry up Google's hits.

Delink Google. Stop using their software. Close your Gmail account. Uninstall their toolbar. Refuse to view their videos.

Vote with your clicks.

I promise never to use Google search engine again and I have actually never used Google Ads. I also promise, if ever offered a job by Google, I will show them a metaphoric middle finger (maybe even a literal one), inspite of the free gourment lunches. Also, if any Chinese asks me to censor something, I will tell them to shove it up where the sun dont shine.

Now all of you please sign up to order whatever product that I will be selling online, shortly (Once I figure out a good scam!).

Sorry about the sarcastic tone - but I just don't get this 'let's try and make a point against Google since they have this bulls eye painted on them - while other corporations (e.g Mudroch's Fox News) do essentially the same thing' (see my comment in this thread:
http://www.vodkapundit.com/mt/mt-comments.cgi?entry_id=8492 )

I don't find a difference between this and the hypocritical liberal shrilling against Walmart etc.

And Mr. Chuck(le) - please do invest the money that took out of Google stocks in my future nameless venture for reasons mentioned above.

Note - I have nothing against the Texasroast guy - he has a conviction and he is standing by it - I salute him for that. But does that mean that I should buy my coffee purely driven by ideology ? How is it different from the liberal hippies who go out of their way to buy organic stuff - or as in some cases to avoid Starbucks (to make a point against corporations) and go to the local place ?

To Chuck Pelto:

You entirely missed my point.

Vilmos

TO: Vilmos
RE: Your Point?

"You entirely missed my point." -- Vilmos

Kindly rephrase it. And a bit more succinctly, please.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: BigBrother
RE: Investments

"And Mr. Chuck(le) - please do invest the money that took out of Google stocks in my future nameless venture for reasons mentioned above." -- BigBrother

It's already reinvested. However, if your venture shows promise, maybe the guys who manage my monies will do that thing, as the money has been moved from big company stocks to the more adventerous small company stocks.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

"Don't be unnecessarily evil."

Nice motto, huh?

TO: Natalie
RE: Yeah....

""Don't be unnecessarily evil."" -- Natalie

"Unnecessarily" being determined by how much money is in it.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

Google weighed their options:

1) Compromise with Chinese, let Chinese citizens use their engine.

or

2) Chinese get no google.

(1) seems "less evil" to me. I see a lot of silly "boycot" talk being bandied around- are you boycotting the other internet search engines that have similar deals worked out with China? You come off sounding like naive children. Also, note that Google did get the following concession from China, which I believe is a big deal:

Google has negotiated the right to disclose, at the bottom of its Chinese search results, whether information has been withheld -- a disclosure that may prompt users to repeat their search using google.com instead of google.cn. Of course, the second search might be frustrated by Cisco's routers. But disclosing censorship is half the battle. If people know they are being brainwashed, then they are not being brainwashed.

From:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/01/29/AR2006012900708.html?sub=AR

TO: tshog
RE: Others?

"...are you boycotting the other internet search engines that have similar deals worked out with China?" -- tshog

Who are they?

Regards,

Chuck(le)

TO: tshog
RE: What a Pile of Merde

"If people know they are being brainwashed, then they are not being brainwashed." -- tshog

It's not 'brainwashing', tshog.

Brainwashing is turning a human being into a Pavlovian dog through repeated application of various forms of psychological pressure; positive or negative.

Withholding the truth from someone is something completely different.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

P.S. If you don't know what you're talking-about/up-against, you're going to a gun-fight armed with a banahna.

Where's the Sergeant Major, when you REALLY need him?

I'd like to order some coffee, (I guzzle the stuff)but he requires you to damn near shut down your firewall to even _browse_ his webpage.

Sorry, but honesty does not get over stupidity.

Chuck(le):

The 3 major search engines all do it. Here's a blurb:

"The briefing Wednesday was led by Representative Tim Ryan, who said the censorship involved preventing Chinese citizens from seeing websites not supported by the government. Both Google and Microsoft have admitted to engaging in censorship.

Yahoo has allegedly provided online information to the Chinese government that led to a Chinese journalist going to jail.

There are also claims Cisco has assisted the government in tracking down cyber-dissidents."

from: http://www.macworld.co.uk/news/index.cfm?NewsID=13762&Page=1&pagePos=3

Note that even Cisco has helped the Chinese gov't in their censorship. Do you know what routers *your* packets are going through??

Use of the term 'brainwashing' was not mine. It was just part of the blurb I quoted from the previous article. The point I was trying to make was that Google had scored a major concession by making the Chinese gov't allow them to say when information is being censored.

TO: tshog
RE: What Part of English...

...are you having problems with.

"Yahoo has allegedly provided online information to the Chinese government that led to a Chinese journalist going to jail." -- tshog

This is HARDLY what anyone would call 'censorship'. Nor is it like selling ones soul to the chicoms for money.

Governments, like people, can use uncensored information online.

"There are also claims Cisco has assisted the government in tracking down cyber-dissidents." -- tshog

Furthermore, I'm well aware that Cisco, like Microsoft and Google, have sold their soul to the chicoms.

You've got a lot to learn, compadre.

Recommend you start now.

Regards,

Chuck(le)

P.S. As if I cared....

"Do you know what routers *your* packets are going through??" -- tshog

I hang my face out here every day.

Want to know what I think? Do a search, using whatever search engine you prefer, on my name. I'm all over the web like a bad rash. And I don't care what people think of my opinions.

I don't hide behind a nom des blogs, like other people I'm famliar with around here. I've nothing to be (1) ashamed of or (2) afraid of.

[One of the blessings of virtue is a distain of death.]

Chuck(le)

I don't think you understood my point regarding "packets". You seem to be quick to shout down Google and go along with boycotting their site, yet you have no problem using Cisco's routers (a company you claim has 'sold their soul to the chicoms') to access this interweb we love.

In other words, you ideological zeal is tempered when you want to get online to fire off pretentious and snarky weblog comments.

TO: tshog
RE: Packets?

"I don't think you understood my point regarding "packets"." -- tshog

We donn need no stenking 'packets'.

"you have no problem using Cisco's routers" -- tshog

Au contraire, mon frere.

I dropped my Cisco router like a hot potato, YEARS ago.

If others with to use them, all I can say is, "You stupid f---." Just like I say that to everyone using Microsoft products. And Google.

As for me and MY house, we'll follow a better way. [Some wag over 3000 years ago.]

Regards,

Chuck(le)
P.S. I think you're 'projecting' when you accuse me of 'not understanding'.

Chuck(le):

You don't "drop your" Cisco router. Tier 1, 2, and 3 ISPs use them to power the backbones of this internet that we use. You have very little control over how your packets are routed.

Try this, open a terminal window and type "traceroute www.vodkapundit.com". Next, you should contact the owners of every router along the path (probably about 20 steps, depending on where you live) and make sure they use routers that were built by companies that you approve of. ;-)

Ignorance is bliss, isn't it?

TO: tshog
RE: More Problems w/English

"You don't "drop your" Cisco router. Tier 1, 2, and 3 ISPs use them to power the backbones of this internet that we use. You have very little control over how your packets are routed." -- tshog

I recommend you re-read my previous post on this matter.

My previous ISP sent me a Cisco router to use with their service.

It died. I replaced it with something else.

You savvy?

Now, again re-read my previous post. And consider what I said regarding what other people choose to use.

You savvy?

Regards,

Chuck(le)