Google-ability

Most facts today are googleable. I would like to say that I invented the term. It came to me, at least, from no outside source. However, I just googled it, and the term itself is googleable. There are 10,000 hits for it.

A new entrant in the internet knowledge sweeps is Bing.com. It's the Microsoft competition's attempt to carve out a niche in the market. When I put in my name they give me more hits, but the hits are not quite as accurate. You also find odd things. Someone put up a video called Kirby Olson is Gay, which is meant to make fun of me, I guess. It just has a dark shadowy individual bobbing back and forth.

And if you search through images, you get different ones. It's a handy new resource, but I don't like the term, Bing-a-ble. But maybe in time, I will.

Can you Bing that?

Are some facts going to be Bing-a-ble, and others, Google-a-ble? Will each have its strengths? It remains to be seen.

Since school started I haven't been using the net quite as often. I do maintenance on my blog and visit a few other blogs, but I don't have time for deep research as I did over the summer. At one point this summer I read through portions of the Obamacare bill. Now I understand that there are three or four other versions floating about. I haven't got time to search for it, or to read three 1100-page documents, or to compare the versions.

It strikes me as a game of three-card monte. Which is which? It would be nice if someone competent and objective could boil the bill down to ten pages. But I don't trust anyone's spin. The Constitution of the US isn't 1100 pages in length. Particular phrases in the Constitution such as the commerce clause cause all kinds of headaches, and they were at least trying to be precise. I think on the other hand the current administration likes to be as vague as possible, so as to allow for all kinds of wiggle room. Are we losing the ability to be concise, or are we trying to sneak in provisions under a welter of obtuse verbiage?

When I ask my colleagues what is the health plan about? Are you for it? They have no idea. My students have no idea. No one seems to really know what's in the bill, or which bill is even THE BILL. The whole thing is vague. And I thank the tea parties for at least standing up and demanding clarity and accountability.

I thank the young videographers for going after ACORN and knocking out their 8 billion dollar monopoly on vote garnering and much else. What a coup!

Meanwhile, the government just called another monopoly. This time I think it was on student loans.

Cars, banks, student loans, healthcare. Gobble, gobble, gobble. The first bird is the eagle, not the turkey. We must be vigilant, someone said. "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance" -- I think it was Jefferson. I should google who said it, but don't have the time.