Publication 2600 compiled a Google Blacklist of search queries people won’t find computed via Google Instant. Google said it’s due to an autocomplete system that needs work. – Google chalked up a so-called blacklist of search terms
people found banned when using the new Google Instant predictive search technology
to an autocomplete system the company is continuing to refine.
Publication 2600
compiled the list of words that won’t surface when users search for them usin…
Congress reconsiders America’s official position on the Armenian genocide
TWO questions faced an American congressional panel on Thursday March 5th as it considered the mass killings of Armenians during and after the first world war by forces of the Ottoman Empire. First, was it genocide? The historical debate is as hot, and unsettled, as ever. Armenians continue to insist that it was the first genocide of the twentieth century, while Turks call the killings merely part of the chaos of the break-up of empire.
But the second question on the minds of congressmen in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the House of Representatives was more urgent. What is more important, fidelity to history or concern for the present? The vote took place as warming relations between Turkey and Armenia have cooled again and those between Turkey and America are under increasing strain over Iran, Israel and other affairs in the region. Turkish diplomats and politicians gave warning before the vote that the consequences would be felt across the range of issues of shared concern to the two countries. In the end the panel narrowly decided against pragmatism and chose to set straight the historical records. A resolution recognising the killings as genocide was sent to the House by a vote of 23 to 22. …
A planned visit by the Dalai Lama to Taiwan upsets China
IF THERE has been one dominant theme of Ma Ying-jeou’s 15-month tenure as president of Taiwan, it is the effort to improve relations with China. And it has borne fruit. Commercial, financial and travel ties are perhaps better than they have ever been since the end of the Chinese civil war in 1949 left Taiwan as, de facto, an independent country.
After eight years of worsening relations under President Chen Shui-bian of the Democratic Progressive Party (DPP), now the main opposition, even a Taiwan-China summit has become conceivable. Now that Mr Ma is also chairman of the ruling Nationalist party, the Kuomintang, or KMT, such a meeting could be held with Hu Jintao not as China’s president, but as the head of its Communist Party. …
