Search for America: A Presidential Campaign Website Review

I visited the web sites of the top nine Presidential candidates left in the race...

Bill Richardson just dropped out.

Okay. I visited the web sites of the top eight Presidential candidates left in the race to see which of them allowed users to search their sites. First thing I noticed: they all have a blue background. Except John McCain's web site, which has a black background, because he's a maverick.

I resisted the temptation of fully reviewing each candidate's web site. While there is great appeal in spending several hours analyzing each site's layout, color scheme, organization, and pictures of Muslims holding AK-47s (advantage: Rudy!) so I could to create a comprehensive review that would gather, all in one place, a bunch of crap almost no one cares about, I decided to focus on just one aspect.

Does McBama-Hillarudy-Ronbee's web site have a search bar?

Yes, the gold standard achievement in the “I Barely Give a Shit” class. Did they bother to insert an extremely useful function that is on almost every other web page on the Internet? Let's find out.

As a comparison point, I picked a random web page on the Internet: “Pancake City.” Does “Pancake City” have a search bar? Yes, it does. Is it near the top of the page and easy to find? Yes.

Pancake City is the front runner. In response to the site's new status, I have disabled comments and will stop taking questions from the press. I will resume friendly relations with the press once my poll numbers slip, as they have in the past 437 elections when a candidate surged in popularity and became overly cautious and guarded out of fear of screwing it all up.

Democrats

Hillary Clinton: No search bar.

Barack Obama: Dude, you gave a detailed technology speech at Google and then fielded questions from the employees. WHERE IS THE SEARCH BAR?

John Edwards: Search bar, but at the bottom of the page. Clearly labeled. (2^nd place)

Republicans

Rudy Giuliani: I would like to point out that I hate writing about Rudy Giuliani, because I can never remember how to spell his name. I end up having to type something like “Giulaniuani” in Google and hope it recognizes who I am searching for. No search bar.

Mitt Romney: Search bar! Top of the page! The only major candidate to have a search bar near the top of his or her web page. This is True Strength for America's Future. (1^st place)

John McCain: Search bar at the bottom of the page. A real maverick would have put it sideways. (3^rd place)

Mike Huckabee: Mike Hucka-be better putting a search bar on his web page soon. No search bar.

Ron Paul: Ronbots, what happened? The web page is snazzy, attractive, and well-designed. Except no search bar. What am I going to do when I'm drunk and looking for a plan to privatize roads?

I'm leaving Fred Thompson out. That guy is phoning it in more than Leno on most nights. Instead of campaigning 12 hours a day, he's pulling up near prospective voters in his red pickup truck, yelling “Hey, I'm Fred!” and then speeding off to his limo parked around the corner.

Here's the big question: Is the lack of a search bar on these lavishly-funded, professionally-designed web pages an oversight, or were they deliberately left out for some nefarious yet stupid reason, like wanting to control how their visitors access information? Is search too "off message" for most campaigns?

Google Trends

Hey, lazy reporters!

Need evidence to support the conclusion you had before you started writing your political horse race piece? Visit Google Trends. It tracks search engine traffic and news references for popular words and phrases.

Google Trends is flexible enough to accommodate a wide-variety of pre-conceived ideas. Isn't it a shame how people care more about celebrities than politicians? Just search for "Paris Hilton, Hillary Clinton." Oops! Hillary got more news references. Better revise the search: "Paris Hilton, Senator Brownback." There we go!

Hey, how does a goat fare against the three main Democratic presidential candidates? Hoo hoo hoo! Politics is silly.

Google Trends is also useful when planning the news cycle during the slow summer months. Should we go with Summer of the Shark, or Summer of the Monkey? Let's check with America first.

Keyword Project

For the past several days, I've been going through every post I have written, over 1,350, and adding keywords to each post. I also fixed dozens of links and deleted about 50 extraneous posts.

I am 99% finished. I've been adding the keywords in reverse chronological order, so I'm at the first handful of posts I wrote four years ago. The indexing system was created on the fly so it is inconsistent and not as good as if I had the time to plan it out, but I think it will serve some use.

One of my first posts four years ago was a link to this video, We Drink Ritalin. Not only does the original link work (trust me, this is amazing by itself), but the video is still very funny.

I disabled the RSS feed before I started, so either you will get one new post after I restore the feed, or 1,300.

Google Book Search

Google tends not to herald the launch or development of its projects, perhaps because of their great number. Word of a project is spread like a paper boat, placed on a slow-moving stream and allowed to drift where it may.

Google Book Search's development has reached a point where it is being noticed by tech blogs, and in turn people like me. GBS is a mix of Amazon's book search and The Gutenberg Project, the online repository of non-copyrighted literature, along with a few neat features of its own.

Searching for a subject or phrase brings up a list of relevant books as one would expect. If the work is copyrighted, you can usually read several to dozens of pages of the book, search within it, and other typical activities. It is similar to Amazon's book search feature, although a little more accessible. One neat feature is that you can view passages the book cites that other books have cited too.

If the work is in the public domain, then you can read the entire book, download a PDF of it, and also select passages to easily share with others (if you have a Blogger account). You can share the text or an image of the page. After reading a brief account of Cortez's conquest of Montezuma and the Aztec, I took a stab at seeing what I could find.

The History of Mexico and Its Wars: Comprising an Account of the Aztec ... By John Frost: ""

After you find a book, there is a nifty "Find it in a library" link along with links to booksellers.

There is also a "My Library" section that I haven't played with, but looks like a way to save book titles you have or want.

GBS could potentially be a wonderful research tool, and also a frustrating reminder of how having information accessible doesn't mean it will be easy to find.

For all of the wonders of Google, I believe search technology is still rudimentary and only does 10% of what it could do. The perfect search engine wouldn't be a search engine. It would be an answer engine. You could type any question in it, however complex, and get an answer if the information to answer the question exists.

Current search technology is focused on quantity, not quality. If you type, "State bird South Carolina" you get over 2 million results. Why? It's a simple question with only one answer (Great Carolina Wren). Why isn't the answer the first result?

If you ask a slightly harder question, like "What was the first state to have a state bird?" or a tough one like "What was the original motivation for creating a state bird?" good luck finding a decent answer, or even knowing the best way to phrase your query.

I like Google. Projects like Google Book Search and Google Maps show the company's unparalleled ability to gather and index information. But it also makes me frustrated knowing that what I want is out there, somewhere, but I just can't find it.

There's Going To Be a Lot More Men Coming Out of the Closet Soon

This is why I love Google. The Department of Defense recently put a notice on its web site requesting volunteers for their local draft boards. I shit you not. Ignored by the major press, the page has been making the rounds around the web and has understandably created some consternation. (Salon has a good piece of this.) Enough of a consternation, it seems, that the DoD removed the page from its site. Oops! File Not Found!

That is, unless you search for the page in Google's cache.

If you would like to apply for your local draft board, visit here. I already applied. If you're between 18 and 25, let me know. I'll put in a few good words for you.

Those words will be "DERANGED FLAT-FOOTED LUNATIC."

What did Dennis Miller say about Rush Limbaugh?

Three ways to find this out:

1. Google search, hope you get lucky.

2. Buy Dennis Miller's books, skim through them until you find what you are looking for.

3. Search for 'Dennis Miller Rush Limbaugh" on Amazon.com. Because they made 120,000 of their books fully searchable.

I know I gush sometimes, but this is awesome. It's the equivalent for LexisNexis for books, except you don't have to pay hundreds of dollars to use it. You can find out how many books cite FDR's "You have nothing to fear..." quote or reference Hitler and Ghandi on the same page. Amazon lets you view two pages before and two pages after the reference. If you wanted to go through the trouble, you could read a chapter or two of a book by entering a new search every few pages.

Amazon, you rock. I haven't been this excited about a new search tool in a long time.

Too Much Time on my Hands

In an attempt to test the bounds of knowledge on the Internet, I tried to find a photo of Hitler eating a baby. I was unsuccessful. But I did find an essay by high school creationists Kimmi and Kerri ("Hitler believes in evolution!") and a photo of Hitler's arms finally having enough and trying to overthrow him via a beatdown.

The Turning Test, yet to be passed by a computer, is often cited as a way to determine if a machine or network has human-like intelligence. I propose a different method: the Hitler-Eating-a-Baby Test. If you can say, "Computer, give me a picture of Hitler eating a baby," and the computer produces one, then it's one smart-ass computer.

Especially if Hitler's eyes are crossed.

MSN

MSN Search -- More Useful Everyday. Each day, it becomes more useful, until January 21, 2005, when it nears infinite usefulness, collapsing onto itself and sparking a quantum singularity that rips a hole in the space-time continuum and sucks every planet, star, teddy bear, serial killer, emu, argument, ex-lover, and your little puppy too in the diameter of a straw. And as our tendons snap from our bones, and the last thoughts of man flee like flies, perhaps a few will rest their minds on the suddenly wry humor in Microsoft's other slogan:

Where Are You Going Today?

Search Engine Fun

Dear person who found this site searching for "who+told+you+you+could+eat+my+cookies":

Arnold, Gray Davis told me I could eat your cookies. And guess what? Davis just passed a 47% cookie tax...on high-faluting, fancy cookies. HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA. Because of you, he's a man with nothing left to use. Tomorrow: 117% increase on car models with 'mm' in its name. Bummer, huh? Also, if you compare tax dollars to cookies beforehand, this would make a great line in a debate: "I have one thing to say to Gray Davis. Who told you you could eat my cookies?"

Dear people who found this site searching for "mo+rocca+pictures", "pictures+of+mo+rocca", and "mo+rocca+gay":

1. I don't know if he's gay. Really. I don't. I checked the guidebook. He's not listed.

2. Are you sure you're not looking for porn star Mo Cocca?

3. Well, OK then. If you're going to come here anyway, you might as well get what you're looking for.



Dear people(!) who found this site searching for "poop+on+a+pancake":

I can't believe I'm doing this.

Welcome, Misled Google Searchers

Anyone want to explain to me why someone, nay, multiple people, would search for "sexy pancake"?

Insta-Content

Search terms people are using to find this site:

white wings pancake
le bling bling de eminem
how to make your own erotic cakes
pictures of me having sex with the horse
karl frinkle
elephant with a pancake on it's head
why eat boogers
do you have free picture of person that are gay and there are singer
i need a wig and two new thumbs
infinity symbol bumper stickers
email addresses for jojo
bling bling for the wrist
pancakes of brazil

Karl Frinkle I get. But le bling bling de eminem?

Get out of our school, Grease Monkey!

"The dean of students at Paul VI Catholic High School in Fairfax County resigned this week after his name and photo were discovered on sexually suggestive Web sites devoted to leather, motorcycles and heterosexuality." (Washington Post article)

Oops. I mean homosexuality. Although I'm sure that doesn't make a difference. This article also contains the Quote of the Week:

School officials said the Web sites were discovered by a Paul VI alumnus who was doing research for a college assignment on vegetarians.

"In the course of his research, a Web site came up of people who promote wearing leather," Shovlain said. "One of the people depicted was Mr. Santora."

Last week, at the dorm room of the Paul VI alumnus...

'Vegetarians vegetables'...55,100 hits! Damn it. 'Vegetarians hate meat'...7,770! I have to turn this in an hour. What else do vegetarians hate? Think Paul LVII, think. That's it! Leather! Vegetarians hate leather. But just to be safe: 'Vegetarians leather cock sucking'

Ignore This Post

"Jason Walther sure is a sexy beast" said Fred Flair, head of the Internation Committee on Sexiness.

...
(This is for the search engines. It's a small step towards my dream of being able to tell people, "If you want to find me on the Internet, search for sexy beast." There are currently 87,900 hits for ‘sexy beast’ on Google. Current beast factor: Prepubescent slug.)