The Bush Administration and Google; Festivus

It was reported yesterday that the Bush Administration has 'requested' , er 'urged' Google to turn over 1million search results, so that the Administration cane 'prove' how easily searchers can find child pornography on the net. Google, for its part, is resisting, citing privacy concerns. I support Google here as I don't trust the Adminsitration with its snooping. It wants to know what people are searching for. If the Bushies want to know how easy it is to find child pornography on the web, then let some of the White House staffers do a few searches on their own time and hopefully not on the taxpayer's dime.

I think there is more at work here than meets the eye. The administration wants to know what the 'rest of us' is searching for. Why do they need to know this in a free society? Let them do what private industry does in these circumstances - mail out a survey and let people volunteer this information.

Knowing this Administration, and it has shown time and again that it cannot be trusted, the goal is probably to search out and harass critics of both its foreign and domestic policies and then search them out and punish them via the IRS or other means.

Again, let the Bushies find information the way we have to find it. Go look for yourselves. Thank you, Google for standing up for the privacy of American citizens. The Bush Administration is scary. Go read Sinclair Lewis' "It Can't Happen Here" the rise of an American dictator.

On a more positive note, NASA yesterday launched its latest probe, the New Horizon spacecraft on a journey to our furthest solar neighbor, Pluto. Although considered a race car by earlier spacecraft standards, it will still take 9 years to reach Pluto with a flyby around 2015. Let's hope theat the grand piano sized probe makes it intact. I also read the other day of the discovery of a 10th planet, tentatively called 'Xena" after the TV Warrioress, although the official name will be decided in Paris later. Has anyone else heard this?

For afficiandos of the TV show Seinfeld, I heard from the Red Bar Radio Podcast that there is a book out called Festivus: The Holiday for the Rest of Us by Alan Selkin. In it, he claims that Festivus pre-dates the show and that some of the activities associated with the holiday include an 'airing of grievances' rallying around a tall aluminum pole and 'feats of strength' which usually occurs after the airing of grievances, in which you telll your friends just what you think of them. The feats of strength could include wrestling, arem-wrestling or thumb wrestling. selkin reports that there are a number of Festivus celebrations and his book includes a Foreword by the Santa Claus of Festivus himself, Jerry Stiller and includes comments by the twi extras in the show, the guy who played Krueger and the other one, whose only line was "I'm a man" at the OTB.

Check it out at Festivusbook.com or at Amazon.com.