Read about it at Boing Boing.

Via Reformed Chicks Blabbing.

Previous:  The beast belches and grumbles in its sleep

At FT.com:

Eric Schmidt, Google’s chief executive, said gathering more personal data was a key way for Google to expand and the company believes that is the logical extension of its stated mission to organise the world’s information.

Asked how Google might look in five years’ time, Mr Schmidt said: “We are very early in the total information we have within Google. The algorithms will get better and we will get better at personalisation.

“The goal is to enable Google users to be able to ask the question such as ‘What shall I do tomorrow?’ and ‘What job shall I take?’ ”

The race to accumulate the most comprehensive database of individual information has become the new battleground for search engines as it will allow the industry to offer far more personalised advertisements. These are the holy grail for the search industry, as such advertising would command higher rates.

Mr Schmidt told journalists in London: “We cannot even answer the most basic questions because we don’t know enough about you. That is the most important aspect of Google’s expansion.”

The last line gets the Ambiguous Quote of the Day Award:  "Mr Schmidt said this year that the company was working on technology to reduce [privacy] concerns."

Such as a socket at the base of the skull, I suppose.

Via Claire Wolfe.

Check the list.  If you aren't yet, you will be soon.


Join the club.

At (of course) FOXNews.com:

Several activists have called for him to be purged from the Republican Party (given what the GOP stands for these days, perhaps that's not such a bad idea). One former staffer declared Paul an "embarrassment" and announced he'd challenge Paul for his seat in Congress.

This is all patently absurd. Actually, it's offensive. No one knows precisely what morbid formula inspired the Sept. 11 attacks. Most likely, it was some mix of U.S. foreign policy exacerbating radical Islamists' already deep-seeded contempt for Western values.

But to suggest that we shouldn't even consider that our actions overseas might have unintended consequences is, frankly, just ignorant. And to attempt to silence anyone who says otherwise as outside the bounds of civilized debate is doubly ignorant.

If you get stung by a hornet, it makes sense to see if there's a hornets' nest near your home and, if there is, to exterminate it. It doesn't make sense to forge out looking for hornets' nests anywhere you can find them, smacking them with sticks. You're bound to get stung again.

It also makes sense to see if there's something you're doing that's attracting hornets, like perhaps storing perfume by a window. None of this suggests you deserved to be stung; it only means you're rationally looking at what caused you to be stung in the first place and trying to prevent it from happening again.

Those who find Rep. Paul's foreign policy vision fringe-like or crazy would do well to read what other libertarian non-interventionists were saying before the Iraq war began. They were remarkably prescient. Some even predicted a Sept. 11-like attack years before it happened. For example:

— The Cato Institute's Gene Healy: "After our quick victory, and after the "Arab street" fails to rise, you're going to hear a lot of self-congratulation from the hawks. But the fallout from this war is likely to be long-term, in the form of a protracted and messy occupation, and an enhanced terrorist recruitment base."

— Ted Galen Carpenter, also of Cato: "The inevitable U.S. military victory would not be the end of America's troubles in Iraq. Indeed, it would mark the start of a new round of headaches. Ousting Saddam would make Washington responsible for Iraq's political future and entangle the United States in an endless nation-building mission beset by intractable problems."

Gotta add the closing statement of the article:  "The people who were wrong were rewarded. And they go right on mocking the people who were right."

'Twas ever thus.

Here:  Domestic Terrorist T-Shirt.

Via War On Guns.

I've been reading Malkin for a long time because I considered her a decent source of information, even if she did seem a little too shrilly Republican.

But listen, her recent remark about the "libertarian fever swamp of the blogosphere" was just too much.  Her derisive, dismissive context was exactly the kind of tactic used so often by the mainstream media that she decries so often.  What sad irony that she doesn't even realize she has jumped the shark and become one of them.

Like the rest of the MSM, she attacks Ron Paul because he isn't one of the media darlings, and she has lumped everyone with a distrust of government into the lunatic fringe camp.  And as far as I know, she hasn't made a peep about the Guiliani/Fox News conflicts of interest.

I'll be honest.  I'm going to continue reading Malkin's blog regularly because I still value the information she distributes.  But for now at least, she's gone from my public blogroll.  I realize that this won't make a whit's difference in the grand scheme of things--I'm doing it anyway.

And just to make sure everyone knows where I stand, there's a new graphic at top right which will be linked to this post as soon as I post it and can see the permalink.  If anyone wants to snag it, feel free.  If anyone wants to take the idea and make a better graphic, feel free again.  I used the cottonmouth because it's a sort of swamp snake and I thought this picture had a nice Gadsden tone.