The curious case of Climategate and auto-suggest

Harold Ambler on Talking About The Weather has discovered something curious about the Climategate scandal and goings on at Google. He noticed that when the row first broke, the Google auto suggest feature would kindly fill in the word climategate as soon as you typed the first few letters into the search box.

This no longer happens. Indeed, as you can see from the images below, even if you type the whole phrase in you get no hints - instead getting something about "climate guatemala" (which doesn't even match the letter sequence!) - and yet the query yields 30,000,000 hits.














As Ambler points out, this curious anomaly only appears to afflict the phrase "climategate". Ambler has been in contact with Google who have assured him that there has been no policy decision to suppress the scandal - I'm not convinced.

Indeed, following on from the leaked CRU emails, this adds even more fuel to the Anthropogenic Global Warming conspiracy theory which is unfolding before our eyes. We can now see that the conspiracy does not just include various politicised scientists and environmental groups, but major media organisations as well - and not just the BBC either!

Cameron supporting violence?

I've managed to catch up a little bit with the events outside parliament yesterday when a group calling itself "Unite Against Fascism" disrupted a BNP press conference. Not only did they disrupt the BNP with an illegal protest, but they also used violence to do so - throwing eggs, kicking cars and hitting out with their placards.

I've listened to a couple of interviews with protesters who were there and they didn't seem to think the violence was unjustified and were entirely unconcerned about the suppression of free speech. Not only that, but it appears this group are supported by the Labour Party, the Tory Party and the Lib Dems and funded with taxpayers money!

The Labour Party have a long association with groups prepared to use violence to pursue their goals - they're called "trade unions" - but as far as I'm aware, this is something new for the Tory party. How can Cameron justify supporting a group who are prepared break the law and use violence to obtain their ends?

I would urge any Tory supporter out there to call on Cameron to disassociate himself and his party from this bunch of violent thugs.

Above the law

I've been out most of the night enjoying some local hospitality so I missed the news, but apparently the BNP held a press conference outside the Houses of Parliament which was disrupted by a protest from a group calling itself "Unite Against Fascism" (obviously, they don't do irony).

What amazes me is that this group were apparently waving placards and chanting - which is fair enough as that is what protesters do - but I thought there was a law prohibiting protests within a certain radius of parliament?

As anyone knows, the Houses of Parliament is protected by a number of armed, uniformed police officers as well as a fair few of plain clothes milling about. It should not have been possible for this group to get anywhere near the Houses of Parliament with their placards - and on having done so they should have been arrested immediately.

The fact that they did get to protest where they did and that nobody tried to stop them tells me an awful lot about that protest - i.e. it must have been condoned by somebody in authority who feels they have the power to usurp the law.

That is more scary than any BNP press conference.

I hate the lionization of Che, but it's wrong to ban his image

Whenever I see the iconic image of Che Guevara displayed on some t-shirt I always feel a bit of anger which is usually overwhelmed by a wave of pity for the wearer. Anger because of the fact they are carrying a symbol of genocidal authoritarianism on their chest and pity because they are obviously too dumb to realise it.

But even though it makes me ever so slightly angry and is clearly something which no right minded person would want to associate themselves with, I don't agree with the idea of banning it - or any other symbols related to authoritarianism.

The iconic image of Che Guevara found adorning students' walls and t-shirts across the world could be banned in Poland under a government proposal to outlaw materials that incite "fascism and totalitarian systems".

As someone who believes in real freedom of speech I believe it is wrong to suppress anybody from holding or expressing freely held beliefs and views - regardless of how repugnant they may be to others. Of course it should not be permissible for someone to openly advocate violence or, indeed incite others to violence - and there are laws to prevent that* - but that is not the same as this.

One of the benefits of living in a liberal (traditional - not progressive) democracy is also one of its biggest drawbacks - the right to say and think things which others might find objectionable. We've already seen moves in this country to curtail that such as restrictions on what you can and can not say about people of a different race or sexual orientation - that is the path that leads to authoritarianism and should be resisted by all people who genuinely believe in true liberal democracy and genuine freedom of thought and expression.

It is generally the reflex of the very systems that these moves seek to ban that are being applied here - Nazism was built on crushing any view which did not fit its own particular narrow world view and communism was the same.

So even though I find the sight of Che Guevara splashed across the chest of some dumb idiot objectionable, I will defend their right to wear it.

* Laws which seem to be ignored or rarely applied when it comes to Islam.