Monday, January 23, 2006

[1832 - Edouard Manet, artist of impressionist movement, born in Paris, France]

[1899 - Humphrey Bogart, Academy Award-winning actor, born in New York City]

[1910 - Django Reinhardt, Gypsy jazz guitarist, born in Belgium]

[1964 - Poll Tax abolished - Twenty-Fourth Amendment ratified by South Dakota]

Three Cheers for Google

1. Thank you Google for expanding the possible horizons of this web site. Your superb search engine has given me the power to research any subject that I care to write about. Research and study that would take me days to perform in a library using traditional methods and tools is now performed in a matter of minutes on my own desktop.

2. Thank you Google for your example as a corporate entity. You have demonstrated that a couple of bright guys can still start a hugely successful enterprise in a garage or a basement and build it into a dominant global presence without engaging in predatory business practices or situational ethics. In the process, you managed to treat each one of us who comes to you like an adult. You never asked how much money we had, why we were searching for the information that was requested, or what we intended to do with it.

3. Thank you Google for defending my precious right to privacy. Instead of rolling over when the Attorney General went on a fishing expedition and sought to obtain private data in vast quantities from you and other Internet service providers, you refused to comply with the subpoena on principle. In so doing you have helped keep the electronic frontier free of government surveillance and control. Big Brother will have to wait another year.

William's Whimsical Words:

Perhaps the Attorney General should spend more time reducing violent crime and fewer of our taxpayer dollars in search of pornography.

BACK to Winter 2005 - 2006

to Almanack Main Page