Features

In a day and age full of unmitigated ill-doings, it's nice to see a small, determined, almost under-capitalized company stand up for doing the right thing.  I'm talking of course about Google, Inc., the world's favorite scrappy little search engine and non-doer of evil.  Well, for a given value of evil.  It's a crying shame that earlier this year, the lil' search engine that could found itself under attack for business practices that on the surface appeared greedy, treasonous, and more corrupt than Jack Abramoff's address book. 

The heart of all the kerfuffle was Google's willingness to censor search results that the Chinese government felt its citizens would want to see.  You'd think we'd be on that list, but apparently IRREVERENT is such a good example of the undesirable consequences of unfettered speech that viewing us is actually encouraged.  Well that's not so bad really, I mean it's not like they sold out a journalist who was too critical of the government like those rotten bastards at Yahoo!, but I'm sure when they do it'll all be in the best interests of the Chinese citizenry.

Keeping the above average Chinese prole* properly protected from White Devil propaganda is great fun for the kids at the Goog, but that's as nothing compared to the public relations judo they got to practice on the Department of Justice.  In a case of "my Kung Fu is greater than your Gong-fu," Google lawyers told the DOJ that they really weren't comfortable helping them put child molesters behind bars.  "We'll keep the Chinese safe from distressing images of Democracy^TM," they said, "but we'd advise American kids that it's a dangerous world out there and they should be careful." Brilliant!  

Now Suntori warns that I'm dangerously on the verge of irritating the Great Indexer.  "I would warn you Mercer-san against referring to any part of Google, Inc. as unscrupulous, corrupt, pervaricating, self-righteous, cynical bastards whose only desire is to peer into people's data files in order to blackmail them or sell them out to investigatory entities.  Is it not written, in my new book Mr. Suntori Dances the Koan Koan, 'If a site drops on the 'net and isn't seen does it exist?'"  That crazy guy.  Personally, I have to admire Google's long-term strategy here.  I mean the US has at max about 300 million eyeballs that can have AdSense jammed through the iris.  But the Chinese!  Jesus fucking Christ, just thinking about all that revenue clicking on the ads at the bottom of this page gets me harder than OpenLotus4U.com.**

Unfortunately the Alpha Geeks that run the Internet^TM are going to undo Google's efforts to avoid doing evil in China.  As a consequence of turning the Web^TM into a little nerdy wet dream of advanced technology, where every device with a power button can connect to any other***, the Cybernauts are going to give us a whole new standard called IPv6.  Holy unintended consequences Batman!

IPv6, as Al "King of the Internet" Gore can tell you, will allow every single person on the planet to have his own unique address on the Net.  That means that one of the key protections to Net anonymity,  network address translation (NAT), is about to go poof.  I won't bore you with details because they're not as exciting as advanced depreciation on taxable capital expenditures required for compliance with environmental regulation for non political entities incorporated under rule 645 (c) of the Internal Revenue Code****, but NAT allows several computers to share one Internet address.  That means law enforcement has to spend an extra 15 minutes tracking down who's working from what computer.  That's no fun.  What is fun is dragging the ne'er-do-wells to justice without all the pesky need to launch lawsuits.  Just pick up a warrant to search the offending websites for ISP's and let the round up begin.  Yipee ki yay mother fucker.

"Where's the money in all of this?," I hear you ask.  Well as usual it rests with the lawyers.  I'm often asked why I go to the expense of keeping my legal samurai, Mr. Suntori, on an exclusive retainer.  "Wouldn't be cheaper to use a lawyer on a more tactical basis?" they ask.  Well the short answer is "No." The long answer is, "What are you fucking nuts? Writing Satire^TM in this day and age is like juggling with chainsaws, only when you tell people not to juggle with chainsaws, chainsaw manufacturers sue you for suggesting that their product might be dangerous."  The value of my legal samurai lies in his ability to keep me out of trouble as much as his skill in the courtroom.  Suntori doesn't come cheaply however; it takes tons of scratch to keep him in top sake swilling form what with all the whores and all.  Fortunately I have my shares in a new small, scrappy, start-up search engine to keep me warm.  They call themselves Goddle and they provide search services to Afghanis converting to Christianity in Afghanistan.  No worries about criminal activity there eh?

---

*China is a nation of over a billion people.  Currently only about 110 million have Internet access.  Yep, that's right, Google rolled over for "potential" eyeballs.  Good on ya mates!

**In the interests of full disclosure I should point out that IRREVERNT receives a small amount of money from Google's AdSense.  We'd like that to be a large amount of money so get clicking fuckers.  Scott's Call of Duty and Dewar's habit ain't cheap.  [Incredibly, infinitesimally small. - Ed.]

***Kids!  Be the first on your block to connect your cell phone, your computer, and your girl's vibrating panties online.  Hooray!

****Which, when taken with the credit for expansion of community development resources under rule 345(a) and the partial deduction for interest income earned from investment in faith-based initiatives to help the working poor find Jeeeaysus, can lead to substantial tax savings.