The personal and political blog of Kaimi Wenger

 
They're at it Again

Those crazy kids over at the New York Times are, as Mickey Kaus points out, once again pushing harmful substances. Don't they know better than this?

Methinks there may be behind-the-scenes changes going on to the search engine. To wit, on Tuesday when I posted that the Times had discontinued use of all sponsored links, I was reasonably sure they had done so. How was I sure? After looking at searches for "ephedra" and "Master's golf," I ran a search for "airline tickets" -- the best search I could think of to troll for sponsored links -- and got no resulting sponsored links.

But now there are sponsored links everywhere. Searches for nearly every topic except "ephedra" results in those little blue boxes. The most logical conclusion is that the Times implemented a two-stage strategy: First, they pulled all sponsored links until Google could filter out ephedra links. Then, they reinstituted sponsored links, with the new filter in place. Of course, the obvious problem with that strategy is that new items crop up which should be added to the filter (i.e., steroids). There are probably other unpleasant items being hawked on the Times web page as well. I just ran some more searches and didn't get any results for "cigarette," "ammunition," or "Nazi memorabilia" (that one pulled up a few generic memorabilia stores), but I did get sponsored links for Viagra, as well as a sponsored link to gambling.

At this point, it appears the ball is once again in the Times' court, to either (1) impose better filters, (2) do away with sponsored links, or (3) accept the modicum of tarnish that comes from being a direct conduit to on-line vendors of steroids, viagra, and gambling.

Update: I got back to my computer, and I didn't save the image of a search for "airline tickets" with no ads. I did save the Masters image. Compare the search from Tuesday (no sponsored links) with a search performed today (sponsored links).
posted by Kaimi at 11:54 AM

 
A Little More Spring Cleaning

My bio on this blog hasn't been updated for a while, in part because it has been on a page from my web site, rather than a blog post, making it not as easy to update (one consequence of not investing in any decent web-editing software is the need to FTP all changes in).

In an effort to remedy this, I have now edited my very first post on this site (previously containing the word "testing"), and turned it into my bio. (Presumably this will show up soon; blogger's archives have been quirky today, again). What this means is that the bio can be updated more frequently (horray!).

In other spring cleaning news, I added a few more sites to the blog roll. And, that's all for now.

Update: Hmm, the edit to the early post doesn't seem to be working. Maybe I'll just put a bio here, and update it later.
posted by Kaimi at 6:49 AM

 
Is this really necessary?

Blogger archive error is acting up again. This is yet another dummy post. When I have a free moment, I'm going to have to look into movable type, which has been highly recommended by some other bloggers.
posted by Kaimi at 1:21 PM

 
The Power of Blogging

After 900 visits to this site yesterday (by far a record for me, and over 600 more today so far), mentions by Kaus and Reynolds, and the story being picked up by Kurtz at the rival Washington Post, the tale of New York Times advertising for ephedra has come to its expected close. A search performed today shows that the Times has ended the use of "sponsored links" for ephedra. (In fact, they appear to have ended the use of all sponsored links, period. That seems reasonable, given the potential difficulty of policing search topics). Kudos to the sometimes-criticized Times for taking prompt action to avoid appearing to endorse a harmful product.
posted by Kaimi at 1:04 PM

 
Kaus Thought He Was Joking, But . . .

Mickey Kaus linked this blog's recent ephedra post, and (originally) ended his link with the wisecrack "At least they didn't advertise, you know, something really awful like a trip to The Masters!" It appears that he spoke too soon. I just searching the NYT for "Masters Golf" and ended up getting . . . . (drumroll) . . . . an ad for trips to the Masters!

Advantage: NYT Search Engine!
posted by Kaimi at 12:56 AM