Pribek

Heh, heh…I just “Googled” Google. It turns out that they are pretty well optimized.

Then, I did a Google news search using the keyword “Google” and I found an interesting piece from yesterday’s N.Y. Times.

Did Google use its network of online services to silence critics of Barack Obama? That was the question buzzing on a corner of the blogosphere over the last few days, after several anti-Obama bloggers were unable to update their sites, which are hosted on Google’s Blogger service.

The bloggers in question, most of them supporters of Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and all of them opposed to Senator Obama, received a notice from Google last week saying that their sites had been identified as potential “spam” blogs. “You will not be able to publish posts to your blog until we review your site and confirm that it is not a spam blog,” the Google e-mail read.

Some are saying that the Blogger “flag” feature has been manipulated by Obama supporters. Here’s what Google says about the “flag” feature on the Blogger site.

The Flag button isn’t censorship and it can’t be manipulated by angry mobs. Political dissent? Incendiary opinions? Just plain crazy? Bring it on.

Google blames anti-spam filters.

“It appears that our anti-spam filters caused some Blogger accounts to be blocked from creating new posts,” Google spokesman Adam Kovacevich said in a statement. “While we are still investigating, we believe this may have been caused by mass spam e-mails mentioning the ‘Just Say No Deal’ network of blogs, which in turn caused our system to classify the blog addresses mentioned in the e-mails as spam.

It’s all curious. Either the system is being manipulated by a group of people or, the software designed to stop groups of people from manipulating the system is targeting a group of people.

Either way, it points to a sort of inadvertent censorship. Does that make any sense?

It might but, doesn’t it seem more likely that the Obama supporters gamed the system? If the anti-spam filter was that good at locating blogs that are mentioned in spam emails, it seems like a lot of the crap over at Blogger would be shut down, not just anti-Obama blogs.

Another possibility, that isn’t mentioned in the Times piece would be, somebody or group of people at Google has targeted blogs that they don’t like. Why couldn’t this be agenda driven?

Google is becoming all things to all people. Google controls the flow of content. And, that includes news and opinion. The web, the blogs in particular, have become a sort of disorganized, sometimes very effective watchdog group that scrutinizes all mainstream media. But, how does this watchdog keep an eye on the big dog that controls the flow of traffic?

Have you heard this deal about Dunkin’ Donuts pulling an ad because, in it Rachel Ray was wearing a scarf that some people say is a political statement?

Here is what we are talking about.

From Fox News.

The coffee and baked goods chain said the ad that began appearing online May 7 was pulled over the past weekend because “the possibility of misperception detracted from its original intention to promote our iced coffee.”

The “possibility of misperception”; some say that the scarf looks like a “kaffiyeh”.

Here’s how the Merriam-Webster defines kaffiyeh in their online dictionary.

kaffiyeh

: an Arab headdress consisting of a square of cloth folded to form a triangle and held on by a cord

So, what Rachel is sporting above; kaffiyeh or not a kaffiyeh?

If it is a kaffiyeh then, that’s bad according to Michelle Malkin.

The kaffiyeh, Malkin wrote in a column posted online last Friday, “has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad. Popularized by Yasser Arafat and a regular adornment of Muslim terrorists appearing in beheading and hostage-taking videos, the apparel has been mainstreamed by both ignorant (and not-so-ignorant) fashion designers, celebrities, and left-wing icons.”

I’ve seen Rachel Ray cooking stuff on T.V. She always seems cheerful and interested in food. I would never have made the connection to Yasser Arafat. Thanks for that Michelle Malkin.

A statement issued by Canton, Mass.-based Dunkin’ Brands Inc., however, said the scarf had a paisley design, and was selected by a stylist for the advertising shoot.

“Absolutely no symbolism was intended,” the company said.

So, Dunkin’ pulled the ad and Michelle Malkin and presumably the rest of the people who possibly perceived or misperceived are happy.

Malkin, in a posting following up on last week’s column, said of Dunkin’s decision to pull the ad, “It’s refreshing to see an American company show sensitivity to the concerns of Americans opposed to Islamic jihad and its apologists.”

See, I have a hard time with the notion that Ray, drinking a cup of coffee, trying to sell some coffee, is trying to align herself with this guy and his beliefs.

This whole thing, it seems a little silly and unimportant in the Grand Scheme.

Actually, it’s not so benign. It’s a form of censorship based on symbolism. A group of people have decided that a clothing object symbolizes a set of beliefs. So, anybody who wears that clothing object, is now subject to repercussion.

An object of clothing isn’t a symbol until someone decides it is. It’s designed to be clothing.

Maybe Michelle Malkin has some inside beef with Rachel Ray. Maybe, she’s run into Rachel Ray at a goat cheese party and, through personal conversation, has surmised that Ray sympathizes with the murderous Palestinian jihad and, that she must be stopped.

It doesn’t add up.

If you decide that an article of clothing “has come to symbolize murderous Palestinian jihad” then, you are doing two things. You are empowering that piece of clothing to be a symbol for people who do actually believe that and, at the same time, running a witch hunt on people who are wearing the piece of clothing to serve a function and don’t follow that belief.

I got to thinking about this today. Here is a quote from Ray Manzerek about the film Oliver Stone made about his former band The Doors.

It was ridiculous. It was like a movie about an alcoholic. If you want to see a movie about a drunk go see The Doors movie. Oliver Stone did a terrible job, but it sure was wild. It was a wild movie, and a lot of people liked the wildness of the movie, it’s wild, but it’s not psychedelic. It was not about Jim Morrison. It was about Jimbo Morrison, the drunk. God, where was the sensitive poet and the funny guy. The guy that I knew was not on that screen. That was not my friend. I don’t know who that guy was.

That quote has been edited to hopefully make the point that Ray didn’t like the movie. I didn’t hear that particular interview but, I do remember hearing all three surviving members of the band say similar and even stronger words during a KSHE radio interview shortly before the release. I can honestly say that what those guys said is at least partially a factor in why I have never seen the movie. They used their credibility as band members to influence me to exercise my choice to not be a consumer.

Now, I have been hearing a lot of talk about this A.B.C. movie “The Path to 9/11″. Bill and Hilary Clinton, Sandy Berger, and a host of others including one of the actors, Harvey Keitel, have issued statements regarding that the film portrays members of the Clinton administration in a bad light. They have also sent correspondence to Disney president Robert Iger urging him to not show the movie. A.B.C. has supposedly altered the content of at least one scene and is considering pulling the film altogether.

I am hearing the word censorship thrown around so, I looked it up.

Main Entry: cen-sor
Function: transitive verb
: to examine (as a publication or film) in order to suppress or delete any contents considered objectionable

Merriam-Webster’s Dictionary of Law, © 1996 Merriam-Webster, Inc

Being from a law dictionary I presume that this definition would hold up I court. Could be wrong about that.

By my interpretation of this definition, the Clintons and others are censoring this film. At the very least, they want to delete some of the contents. They would be satisfied if they suppressed it.

Here is what a lot of people miss. This is not a First Amendment, free speech issue. It does not become a free speech issue until the government is doing the censoring. There is a difference between free speech and censorship.

The fact that these people have obvious political clout might make some uncomfortable. A misuse of that power might be interpreted as governmental censorship. That would have to be proven. I don’t think that is what is going on.

See, in the case of the Doors movie, I heard what Ray and the guys said and formed my own decision. It was also based on other Oliver Stone movies and a general cheesiness factor.

A.B.C. has said that “The Path to 9/11″ is a fictional account based on the 9/11 report, not a documentary. Hillary Clinton has said that the subject matter is too important and should not be fictionalized. That is where I have a problem with this whole thing. The writer has every right in the world to fictionalize any subject. I should have the right to form my own opinion of his work.

This is not a first amendment issue or government censorship but, it is censorship make no mistake.