Althouse: "Your search - 'sarah palin' - did not match any documents."

September 30, 2008

"Your search - 'sarah palin' - did not match any documents."

Ha ha.

66 comments:

john said...: Maybe it's because they are proper nouns.; 9/30/08, 9:50 PM
Anonymous said...: Ah, it's the Google index from January, 2001.

Other searches:

"barack obama" 671 results.
"joe biden" 3240 results.
"john mccain" 158,000 results.

Interesting.

"ann althouse" 60 results.; 9/30/08, 9:55 PM
j said...: Ann: Immaturity does not make you appear younger.; 9/30/08, 9:57 PM
miller said...: I think I know why.

Bush did it.

Bush wins, people dim.; 9/30/08, 9:58 PM
Peter V. Bella said...: Ahhhhhhhhhhh,
A post without the liars DTL, Alpha, and Michael. What a wonderful thing.; 9/30/08, 9:58 PM
Unknown said...: Vain bastard I am, I googled my name. It's a pretty common one. I'm on the first page in 2008 Google, but not 2001 Google... I've come a long way baby :); 9/30/08, 10:03 PM
George M. Spencer said...: Miley Cyrus...4 matches

Zac Efron...no matches.

78 for "Jonas Brothers," but that's a taxidermist.

What exactly is the point you are trying to make?

These people come and go.; 9/30/08, 10:26 PM
Palladian said...: My name gets more hits than Sarah Palin!; 9/30/08, 10:32 PM
Anonymous said...: Pussy gets over three million hits.

There are some things that make us all the same. You. Me. Them. Everybody. Everybody.; 9/30/08, 10:38 PM
Palladian said...: Results 1 - 7 of about 7 for "september 11th, 2001"; 9/30/08, 11:04 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: John McCain POW gives you a taste of the nasty attacks against him from his current staff and allies.

Dude's been pretty twisted up in the political system.; 9/30/08, 11:06 PM
AlphaLiberal said...: Then there's this about a funny confrontation of Fred Phelps I just stumbled upon. Made me laugh.; 9/30/08, 11:07 PM
Palladian said...: Fred Phelps is so 2001.; 9/30/08, 11:08 PM
Palladian said...: Sub-Prime Mortgage, which leads to some gems:

Washington Mutual Inc. (NYSE: WM) has expanded in the sub-prime mortgage lending
market by acquiring Long Beach Financial Corp.

Fannie-Mae Goes "Sub-Prime"

Of growing concern is the sub-prime mortgage market that provides loan options to consumers with credit ratings that rank below the credit industry’s A-paper, or most favorable, credit classification.

Can I turn my sub prime mortgage into something better in a year or two?

TheStreet.com: Why Would Anybody Invest in a Sub-Prime Lender?; 9/30/08, 11:16 PM
KLDAVIS said...: Some other items I found interesting:

"Osama Bin Laden"

01/2001: 44,400
09/2008: 11,500,000

"Weapons of Mass Destruction"

01/2001: 126,000
09/2008: 6,090,000

"Strategery"

01/2001: 718
09/2008: 187,000

"Facebook"

01/2001: 1,810
09/2008: 585,000,000

"Myspace"

01/2001: 71,200
09/2008: 859,000,000; 9/30/08, 11:21 PM
KLDAVIS said...: iPod

01/2001: 1,300
09/2008: 423,000,000

Blog

01/2001: 76,400
09/2008: 3,240,000,000 (wow); 9/30/08, 11:24 PM
Mark Daniels said...: This was interesting.

It demonstrates how quickly things change.; 9/30/08, 11:52 PM
Efrain said...: try Sarah Palin Alaska.; 10/1/08, 12:08 AM
Daryl said...: Try ("Barack Obama" and "Ayers"). You will see that this was not just some guy in his neighborhood. The two helped each other out all the time back then. Obama pushed some pro-crime legislation, and Ayers was there to pimp his book. And Michelle was there, too!

November 4, 1997 Press Contact: Julia Morse
(773) 702-8359
morse@uchicago.edu

Should a child ever be called a “super predator?”
A panel at the University of Chicago debates the merits of the juvenile justice system

Children who kill are called “super predators,” “people with no conscience,” “feral pre-social beings"–and “adults.”

William Ayers, author of A Kind and Just Parent: The Children of Juvenile Court(Beacon Press, 1997), says “We should call a child a child. A 13-year-old who picks up a gun isn’t suddenly an adult. We have to ask other questions: How did he get the gun? Where did it come from?”

Ayers, who spent a year observing the Cook County Temporary Juvenile Detention Center in Chicago, is one of four panelists who will speak on juvenile justice at 6 p.m. Thursday, Nov. 20, in the C-Shop of the Reynolds Club, 5706 S. University Ave.

The panel, which marks the 100th anniversary of the juvenile justice system in the United States, is part of the Community Service Center’s monthly discussion series on issues affecting the city of Chicago.

The event is free and open to the public.

Ayers will be joined by Illinois State Sen. Barack Obama, Senior Lecturer in the University of Chicago Law School, who is working to block proposed legislation that would throw more juvenile offenders into the adult system; Randolph Stone, Director of the Mandel Legal Aid Clinic at the University of Chicago; Alex Correa, a reformed juvenile offender who spent 7 years in Cook County Temporary Detention Center; Frank Tobin, a former priest and teacher in the Detention Center who helped Correa; and Willy Baldwin, who grew up in public housing and is currently a teacher in the Detention Center.

The juvenile justice system was founded by Chicago reformer Jane Addams, who advocated the establishment of a separate court system for children which would act like a “kind and just parent” for children in crisis.

One hundred years later, the system is “overcrowded, under-funded, over-centralized and racist,” Ayers said.

Michelle Obama, Associate Dean of Student Services and Director of the University of Chicago Community Service Center, hopes bringing issues like this to campus will open a dialogue between members of the University community and the broader community.

“We know that issues like juvenile justice impact each of us who live in the city of Chicago. This panel gives community members and students a chance to hear about the juvenile justice system not only on a theoretical level, but from the people who have experienced it.”; 10/1/08, 12:17 AM
Unknown said...: So much for Sarah Palin being just as experienced, if not more than Obama.; 10/1/08, 12:28 AM
Maxine Weiss said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 10/1/08, 12:55 AM
Anonymous said...: Efrain said...try Sarah Palin Alaska.

They don't serve that in any restaurant here in Pennsylvania.

"It was so Wasilla." Sarah Palin, Wasilla mayor, after officiating at a wedding at the local Wal-Mart store.

Maxine Weiss said...Slapdown--a catfight between Ifill and Palin :
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zafLsAtp_Q
How to take down some nappy-haired black chick. I'll go after Gwen Ifill, myself if I have to.

Not surprising. If the White folks in the media are in the tank for Obama then what do you expect from blacks?

VP DEBATE MODERATOR RELEASING 'AGE OF OBAMA' BOOK ON INAUGURATION DAY

Gwen Ifill sheds 'new light on the impact of Barack Obama's stunning presidential campaign'...; 10/1/08, 1:11 AM
dave™© said...: Gosh, Blithering Misogynist Idiot must be very, very proud of the Klan types she's got posting here.

You're really moving up in the world, lady!; 10/1/08, 1:14 AM
Maxine Weiss said...: This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.; 10/1/08, 1:25 AM
john marzan said...: try todd palin. sarah heath. jeremiah wright. tony rezko. bill ayers.; 10/1/08, 1:29 AM
blake said...: Unlike McG, my name dominates the first page of the old index, and now I'm hardly to be found.

A different sort of progress.; 10/1/08, 2:27 AM
vbspurs said...: 60 results for "Ann Althouse"??

I got:

Results 1 - 10 of about 2,390 for ann althouse.

Cheers,
Victoria; 10/1/08, 3:27 AM
vbspurs said...: I hope they really get her good--this black Ifill chick.

Just so first-timers who don't realise this nutjob traffics in "performance art" commentary, please note that this person's comments do not in any way reflect my opinions, at least.

I'm sure that's true of everyone else, but I can only talk for myself.

(Largely because my ventriloquist dummy is at the cleaners); 10/1/08, 3:29 AM
Brian said...: There's some kind of glitch in the indexing. I entered the search - Palin Alaska - and after some references to the Monty Python actor Michael Palin many Sarah Palin hits come up.

What's peculiar is that many of these hits include her full name "Sarah Palin," yet that sequence is not picked up by 2001 Google.

http://www.google.com/search2001/search?q=palin+alaska&hl=en&btnG=Search; 10/1/08, 5:52 AM
KCFleming said...: "Soon you will have forgotten everything, and everyone will have forgotten you."

Marcus Aurelius
Meditations, Book Seven, 21; 10/1/08, 6:34 AM
Anonymous said...: (Largely because my ventriloquist dummy is at the cleaners)

Oh sure. You post a comment that's all nicey-nicey, then have to end it with a zinger about David Axelrod.

Couldn't resist, could you?; 10/1/08, 6:47 AM
Tom Tucker said...: There is one under "Barack Obama" "Bill Ayers," but the document is no longer available...

http://www.google.com/search2001/search?q=%22barack+obama%22+%22bill+ayers%22&hl=en&btnG=Search; 10/1/08, 7:18 AM
Spread Eagle said...: So much for Sarah Palin being just as experienced, if not more than Obama.

Good and positive experience.; 10/1/08, 7:18 AM
Fred4Pres said...: "Results 1 - 10 of about 18,500,000 for sarah palin. (0.03 seconds)"

"Results 1 - 10 of about 895,000 for joe biden. (0.18 seconds)"

"Results 1 - 10 of about 63,600,000 for barack obama. (0.10 seconds)"

"Results 1 - 10 of about 48,400,000 for john mccain. (0.13 seconds)"

If you are going on Google hits alone it looks like Biden is the biggest loser.; 10/1/08, 7:21 AM
vbspurs said...: OT:

More creepy singing to Obama, this time by French kids...

Obama Jacques?

I think what makes this the most troubling of all, is that they are on top of the Pont Alexandre III bridge in Paris, with masks over their faces, so not only are they singing to Obama, but THEY ARE OBAMA.

Cheers,
Victoria; 10/1/08, 7:24 AM
Fred4Pres said...: pogo--that sly Marcus Auerlius, a lot of folks still remember him.

But talk about conflicts, can Gwen Ifill legitimately do this debate with out at least acknowledging her biases before the debate starts? This would be like having Hugh Hewitt moderate a debate if Mitt Romney was one of the Veep choices.; 10/1/08, 7:29 AM
KCFleming said...: "that sly Marcus Auerlius, a lot of folks still remember him."

His wisdom remains through the words he left behind.

But I think the man himself is largely forgotten, unless one is only one's written words.

There are a but a small handful of people who even achieve this small bit of immortality.

I myself will be dust and scraps of paper soon enough.; 10/1/08, 7:34 AM
MadisonMan said...: My homepage was #1 10 years ago. Now it's #2, and #1 is a quote of mine from Channel 15 here in town.; 10/1/08, 7:40 AM
MadisonMan said...: I guess I should have said: If I google my name at the start of my last comment...; 10/1/08, 7:41 AM
Anonymous said...: Instapundit has a post on the debate and the moderator's conflict of interests. Follow the links for the good stuff.

Good morning to all!; 10/1/08, 7:47 AM
mandrewa said...: This is a lie, you know. The idea that one could have entered
"sarah palin" into google in 2001 and got nothing back is a
lie. Even if Sarah Palin, the current alaskan governer, was totally
off the radar back then (which isn't true by the way), there would
have been hundreds of other hits on all the other Sarah Palins of the
United States, who despite the fact that they were never really items
of news are still on the internet. From the moment that google was
first popular, one could always enter the names of almost any person
and get back hits even if it was only references to some other person
of the name.

This is exactly, after all, one of the common things that people
search for when they try out a new indexing service, ie. putting
in their own name.

So what is happening here is that google has taken their search
index from 2001 and specifically deleted what would have the
result of searching for "sarah palin" and then staged this farce
today.

I have no doubt that if called on it, they are going to claim
it's all a joke.; 10/1/08, 7:48 AM
The Drill SGT said...: AA,

you think maybe Google screwed with the index on purpose?

How else do you explain that if you search for (Wasilla mayor) (no quotes or paras), you get lots of stories that clearly featured Sarah Palin by name. First on the list:

Wasilla mayor requests more money for policeIn an ordinance introduced at Monday night's meeting of the Wasilla City Council
, Mayor Sarah Palin requested $109349 to hire two additional police officers ...
http://www.frontiersman.com/news/stories/00121503n.html

and

Anchorage Daily News - Hemp backers can't move mayorShe drove to Wasilla hoping to convince Mayor Sarah Palin that she was wrong to
introduce a city council resolution opposing Proposition 5, ...
http://www.adn.com/elex/story/0,3109,207133,00.html

so did they delete rows from their index on purpose?; 10/1/08, 7:48 AM
The Drill SGT said...: mandrewa said...
This is a lie, you know.

yeah, what he said a second faster :); 10/1/08, 7:50 AM
The Drill SGT said...: So the old media is biased and clearly the new media is biased. what is next?

Google deleting rows on offshore oil drilling?

or repointing the McCain 2008 queries to the DNC?

saving query habits of potential SCOTUS nominees?

tracking ip addresses to conservative blogs?

this sort of thing could be scary if you carry them to extremes. But then, they already do this sort of stuff for the CHICOMS

Google is NOT your Friend; 10/1/08, 7:56 AM
Unknown said...: Not buying the evil conspiracy here, sorry. Come on. Do you really think they took that much trouble to dink with their 2001 index for a couple of cheap laughs on a blog?

Google has never been a straight text index. It selects and ranks pages based on backlinks. So for instance, MadisonMan's home page was #1 in 2001 because, apparently, quite a few people linked to him.; 10/1/08, 8:04 AM
rhhardin said...: The action was on usenet in 2001.; 10/1/08, 8:18 AM
reader_iam said...: DaveTM: That was Maxine, a once-commenter, now provocateur who posts stuff in attempts to aggravate Althouse or make her look bad or her commenters look bad. But then, I suspect you already know that. While there are some here who are a little too darn free with their racial references on occasion, it's rare, rare, rare to find comments like Maxine's, and they're generally done on purpose, for effect. That doesn't excuse it, but it does put it in perspective and, no, it doesn't reflect on the vast majority of us who have precisely zero control over what other's do or say here.; 10/1/08, 8:22 AM
KCFleming said...: Google once promised not to be evil.

Then they worked with the Chinese communists, altering their search engines for evil people.

Would Google do this in the US?
Is the MSM in the tank for Obama?
Does a bear shit in the woods?
Does the sun rise in the east?
Does Joe Biden have hair plugs?

A brave new world, this one.
I, for one, welcome our new overlords.; 10/1/08, 8:24 AM
MInTheGap said...: My real name gets 4 hits. Maybe I can run for VP next time, since right now I'm only 32 and don't qualify.; 10/1/08, 8:24 AM
Der Hahn said...: I don't think they necessarily had to dink with their index.

Tweak the URL in your address bar for what would logically be other yearly archives (i.e. change search2001 to search2002, search2003, etc) and you get a bunch of 404 error pages. It's also highly unlikely that a search limiter like year would turn up in the directive portion of the URL rather than as a parameter the way you can specify 'site:' in a Google search.

Dogpile search 'google archive' and you can find this blurb ... Sep 3, 2006 ... Garett Rogers discovered a couple of newly registered Google-domains, like Google-Archive.com or ArchiveSearchGoogle.com, which may hint at...

No page shows up in the search for 'google archive' or in the Google search pages proper that creates a URL like the one above.

I'd say some pranksters at Google scammed a page with server side code that will return a 'no hits' display for any combination of 'sarah palin' but otherwise functions correctly for the year 2001.; 10/1/08, 8:26 AM
Unknown said...: Yeah. All so a few blog commenters can have a few laughs, eh?; 10/1/08, 8:34 AM
VariableSpin said...: If you search Wasilla Alaska Mayor you find many pages with her name on them.

I guess Google's search algorithms weren't as good back then?; 10/1/08, 8:39 AM
KCFleming said...: "Yeah. All so a few blog commenters can have a few laughs, eh?"

Every member of the Party does what he can. It is his duty.

What can Google do?
Disinformation.

Does it matter?
It's a little thing, this. To be laughed off. A smirk. But it's like the little lies a husband tells his wife. They add up, enlarge, and become something over time. It's a path they have chosen. Soon enough "Don't be evil" becomes "Be evil" and you yourself cannot tell the difference.

Little things matter.
Random acts become a pattern, becomes a habit, and finally becomes character.; 10/1/08, 8:46 AM
Der Hahn said...: If it's on Google it must be true!; 10/1/08, 8:49 AM
The Drill SGT said...: mcg said...
Yeah. All so a few blog commenters can have a few laughs, eh?

The point Pogo and I are making is that they are known to do this sort of thing for the Chinese government to curry favor and market share. Why not do it for "a historic election"

They know what to do to their server search tools, they have done it there, why would they NOT do it here? ethics? Morals?

If you are willing to work for the CHICOMS to abuse human rights, what WON'T you do?; 10/1/08, 8:54 AM
VariableSpin said...: Latest Sarah Palin scandal: She misspells common cooking ingredient!; 10/1/08, 8:55 AM
The Drill SGT said...: mcg,

let me be clear, I'm not saying this is a huge deal, and it may be that I am expecting too much from Google's indexing.

However, Google DOES tamper with their search engines for political purposes elsewhere. They are not a benign operation.; 10/1/08, 9:05 AM
Unknown said...: Guys, it would be one thing to suggest that Google is tampering with their current results to benefit the election.

But this is an archive from 2001, for goodness sakes. Nobody but a chunk of Alaskans knew who Sarah Palin was. And Google's not putting this archive out there for anything but the amusement of a few geeks.; 10/1/08, 9:56 AM
KCFleming said...: "But this is an archive from 2001"

Is it?
How do you know?
Why do you trust them?

That's my point, really. I do not trust any major news source anymore. I do not trust Google because of their complicity with a communist government in ferreting out dissidents for arrest.

So why should I trust anything they put out. It's not a dispassionate disinterested search aggregator anymore. It's tainted.

Might not be a big deal to you, but it ought to be, the fact that you cannot even trust a seemingly benign search engine not to fuck with things for nefarious purposes.; 10/1/08, 10:08 AM
blake said...: Pogo: "Soon you will have forgotten everything, and everyone will have forgotten you." Marcus Aurelius

Fred4Pres: pogo--that sly Marcus Auerlius, a lot of folks still remember him.

Yeah, but who remembers the person he was writing to? He didn't say "...everyone will have forgotten ME"....; 10/1/08, 11:41 AM
Michael McNeil said...: Since the issue of Bill Ayers has been raised, it's important to realize that he by no means is an ex-radical, as Chicago Mayor Richard Daley made it seem in a statement praising Ayers earlier this year:

“I also know Bill Ayers. He worked with me in shaping our now nationally-renowned school reform program. He is a nationally recognized distinguished professor of education at the University of Illinois/Chicago and a valued member of the Chicago community.

“I don't condone what he did 40 years ago but I remember that period well. It was a difficult time, but those days are long over. I believe we have too many challenges in Chicago and our country to keep refighting 40-year-old battles.”

All one must do, however, is go to Ayers' own web site (note first of all the emblem at the top of the page), where Ayers proudly displays the speech he delivered in Venezuela less than two years ago, in November 2006, addressing Hugo Chavez. As he said at that time:

“Amamos la revolucion Bolivariana!

“This is my fourth visit to Venezuela, each time at the invitation of my comrade and friend Luis Bonilla, a brilliant educator and inspiring fighter for justice. Luis has taught me a great deal about the Bolivarian Revolution and about the profound educational reforms underway here in Venezuela under the leadership of President Chavez. We share the belief that education is the motor-force of revolution, and I've come to appreciate Luis as a major asset in both the Venezuelan and the international struggle — I look forward to seeing how he and all of you continue to overcome the failings of capitalist education as you seek to create something truly new and deeply humane. […]

“‘We can't have education without revolution. We have tried peace education for 1,900 years and it has failed. Let us try revolution and see what it will do now.’

“I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position — and from that day until this I've thought of myself as a teacher, but I've also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice. After all, the fundamental message of the teacher is this: you can change your life — whoever you are, wherever you've been, whatever you've done, another world is possible. As students and teachers begin to see themselves as linked to one another, as tied to history and capable of collective action, the fundamental message of teaching shifts slightly, and becomes broader, more generous: we must change ourselves as we come together to change the world. Teaching invites transformations, it urges revolutions small and large. La educacion es revolucion!”

Ayers also suggested at his creepy blog just a few days ago that McCain's briefly suspending campaigning as a result of the financial meltdown was a likely presage to “suspending” the election itself. Right.; 10/1/08, 12:02 PM
Unknown said...: Pogo,

You're seriously treading into Troofer territory IMO, but at least you're still miles away from Cynthia McKinney.

How do I know the archive is from 2001? Because that's how old the links are. Like I said, I'm a vain bastard, so I went through and explored many of the things I knew were present then that are not (or are substantially different) now. What I find is entirely consistent with 2001.

Now that doesn't mean it isn't an altered version of the 2001 archive, per se. But come on. I don't have to assume Google's benevolence to dismiss this conspiracy theory; but I do assume their basic competence. What makes no sense here is why they would bother to mess with this 2001 archive specifically for that purpose. If they have nefarious intent I frankly expect them to use it in far more productive ways, like shaping their Google News source list to bias lefty publications. Which they do.

If I Google "Barack Obama" now, with quotes, I get 82 million hits; for "Sarah Palin", 1.75 million. That seems reasonable whether they shape the results or not. Now in 2001, he gets 671, but she gets zero. He was a state senator already, and had far more constituents. He was making far more news (but keep in mind Google News wasn't in existence yet so they weren't actively seeking out news sources.) And yet he still got only 671 hits from over 1.3 billion pages! That's buried in the noise.

So yes, I think notions that they tweaked these web pages for nefarious political ends is kooky. And if they did do it, it's just dumb.; 10/1/08, 1:53 PM
Unknown said...: Sorry, Sarah Palin gets 17.5 million hits now, not 1.75 million.; 10/1/08, 1:53 PM
The Drill SGT said...: mcg said...So yes, I think notions that they tweaked these web pages for nefarious political ends is kooky. And if they did do it, it's just dumb.

I think both pogo and I are willing to concede that this might just be coincidence or a technical indexing issue and not a grand conspiracy, whoever:

They have admitted to tinkering with their servers for nefarious political purposes other places, they just have NOT admitted doing it in the US.

Arguably people have been "disappeared" because of Google China actions.; 10/1/08, 2:24 PM
KCFleming said...: "So yes, I think notions that they tweaked these web pages for nefarious political ends is kooky."

I plead agnostic. I do NOT say they are guilty.

My point is, as Drill SGT tries to clarify for me (because some days I am unable to make a clear point):

Because Google has done this for a regime acknowledged to have killed 50 million of its own people in the past 50 years, I no longer trust them.

Did they do it?
I wouldn't put it past them.
I don't know, and I do not trust them to tell me the truth.
I am going to spend zero time thinking about this any further, but I no longer have faith in Google results as unbiased.

That's the point. They have lost trust. And you should be skeptical of what they do from now on.; 10/1/08, 2:32 PM
Unknown said...: Guys, I get your point. I even agree with it, insofar agree Google has committed grave injustice in cooperating with China. But evil people don't sit around doing stupid things that nobody is going to notice but a couple of random bloggers. I expect my evil people to be more productive with their evil time.; 10/1/08, 10:04 PM