Google on the Left, Google (not) on the Right, Google on the Firing Line!

Where do you get your news? If you answer “the internet,” then my next question is “how do you get the news?” If you use an RSS feed for regular updates to sites you’ve bookmarked, that’s one thing. But what if you want to get the latest on a specific topic, say “radical Islam?” Chances are you’d search the news aggregators, such as Yahoo News or Google News. That’s what most of us do. But if you search Google News, you may not get what you’re looking for, or you may only get what Google News wants you to see. At the moment, Google News does not want you to see what’s posted at The New Media Journal, The Jawa Report, or PHXnews.com. And there may be more. Why? Because, according to Google, these sites contain hate speech. Is it hate speech, or is it something else?

In the case of Google, there is some evidence that its employees lean strongly to the left. According to a February 2005 USA Today article on the subject: “As it claws for greater power, the Democratic Party has found a newly rich ally in one of the fastest-growing U.S. companies: Google.” The article stated that of the over $200,000 Google employees gave to federal candidates in 2004, “98% went to Democrats, the biggest share among top tech donors.” And, with a largely successful public stock offering making “scores of millionaires among [Google’s] 3,000 workers,” “Democrats now have a potentially potent source of cash as they fight to retake the White House and Congress.”

Potentially more telling, a May 15 “Washington Prowler” piece at The American Spectator disclosed a link between Google and the ultra-left wing MoveOn.org:

Google has become the single largest private corporate underwriter of MoveOn. According to sources in the Democrat National Committee, MoveOn has received more than $1 million from Google and its lobbyists in Washington to create grassroots support for the Internet regulation legislation [“Net Neutrality”]. Some of that money has gone to an online petition drive and a letter-writing campaign, but the majority of that money is being used to fund their activities against Republicans out in the states.

Beyond this, Google appears intimately tied to former vice president and potential 2008 Democratic presidential candidate Al Gore.

Newsbusters has more, a lot more. Read the whole thing here. In the recent past I have noticed when I was looking for what bloggers were saying on a specific topic (using Google’s Blog Search, not News Search) that Google seemed to favor Left-wing blogs. By “favor” I mean the first two or three pages of hits were all Lefty blogs, and I knew there were posts on the subject at one or more of the conservative blogs I read. Sometimes, the conservative posts I knew existed couldn’t be found at all, no matter how deep you went into the Google search results. I have since changed my search habits to include Yahoo! Search, Ask, and Answers. Riehl World View, a site I linked as recently as this past Sunday, has been removed from Google (see Dan’s comments here). Outside the Beltway has more, as does Wizbang. This ain’t just paranoia; even the Left is commenting on this subject. As the old saying goes “You’re not paranoid when the bastards are really out to get ya!”

Identity theft risk. In the WaPo. This broke yesterday afternoon. The Air Force Association was kind enough to send me an e-mail message within minutes of this hitting “the wire.” I’ve never touched the VA, nor has the VA touched me, so I think I’m OK. But 26 million other American vets may not be so lucky.

Peter Wehner, writing in Opinion Journal, has a good piece on the Left’s Iraq war myths.

Iraqis can participate in three historic elections, pass the most liberal constitution in the Arab world, and form a unity government despite terrorist attacks and provocations. Yet for some critics of the president, these are minor matters. Like swallows to Capistrano, they keep returning to the same allegations--the president misled the country in order to justify the Iraq war; his administration pressured intelligence agencies to bias their judgments; Saddam Hussein turned out to be no threat since he didn't possess weapons of mass destruction; and helping democracy take root in the Middle East was a postwar rationalization. The problem with these charges is that they are false and can be shown to be so--and yet people continue to believe, and spread, them. Let me examine each in turn…

And he takes those myths down quite convincingly. Read it all here.

Hockey, briefly. The Eastern Conference Finals are now tied. Carolina won convincingly last night, solving the Sabres brilliant rookie goalie Ryan Miller in a 4-3 victory. If you just looked at the score, you’d think the game was close. Not so. Carolina dominated throughout the game, and although Buffalo rallied late in the third period, it wasn’t enough. I mentioned in a previous post that Barry Melrose thinks Carolina will win Lord Stanley’s Cup. I’m not so sure. Buffalo is tough, and if they do go down, they will go down fighting. I think this series is too close to call. By the way…I’m rooting for Buffalo, due to my previous geographic connection to the area (I lived in Rochester, NY for four years) and its team. It would be good to see the Sabres win The Cup. Tonight we’re in Edmonton, where (hopefully) Anaheim will play with urgency. They better. Otherwise the Western Finals will be over in short order.

Apropos of nothing…Today’s the day Bonnie and Clyde bought the farm.