They say this right on their Health Care blog in a post with the cutesy title, “Does negative press make you Sicko?“. Google is pitching that the health care industry buy ads from them whenever someone searches for “Sicko” or “Michael Moore, ” ads which will counter the message of Sicko.

Just so there’s no misunderstanding about which side Google is on

Moore’s film portrays the industry as money and marketing driven, and fails to show healthcare’s interest in patient well-being and care.

So all you health care advertisers, go spend your money at Google, combating the evil Michael Moore. We’ll have no criticizing of American health care.

This reminds of radical organizer Saul Alinsky’s dictum. “Pick a target and freeze it. The rats will crawl out to defend them, then you’ll know who your real enemy is.”

Update: Google is now doing damage control, with the author of the post doing an aw shucks, that was my personal opinion, not Google’s. However it sure reads like a non-apology apology to me.

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That would be the record companies, who through their unendingly greedy and short-sighted policies, litigated when they should have innovated, and thus presided over the disintegration of their own business model.

The great irony, of course, is that just when a handful of companies managed to dominate the world, they also managed, through hubris and greed, to destroy the industry that they had managed to dominate. We are about to see some serious “creative destruction” in the recording world.

They have no one to blame but themselves. The real winner here will be Apple.

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Former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray on the recent London car bombs, inquires as to why police haven’t released video footage of the driver.

I am increasingly puzzled as to why police haven’t released CCTV footage of the driver of the vehicle fleeing the scene. The whole Piccadilly area is swamped by CCTV coverage. Normally, you would expect this released, so the public can help with the manhunt. That happened with the 21/7 incidents. It did not happen with Jean Charles De Menezes, of course, because the CCTV footage disproved the police story that De Menezes vaulted the barriers and sprinted through the station.

It does now appear that these were indeed not suicide bombs, and were not professionally made.

While saying it could have been done by Islamic terrorists (albeit homegrown and inept), Murray also say anyone could have done it and that many have a vested financial interest in continuing the wars and phony terror alerts.

I am not saying it was Aegis or BAE. I am saying don’t be one-eyed about the possibilities. Look at the list of amazing things in London above. Do I really believe that there are wealthy people in London who would stage this sort of thing to protect or further their financial interests? Yes, I do.

I am also saying that I have first hand experience of the fact that governments lie about who plants bombs.

Lenin’s Tomb on the obvious incompetence of those responsible for the car bombs.

I suppose some nitwit will ask the question: “ah, but would you want them to be competent?” You’re asking me to glorify terrorism? Sorry to disappoint, darlings, but what I’d actually like to happen is for those who currently imagine that murdering a few dozen bystanding Brits will stop our gluttonous military machine in its tracks, to pull their heads out of their arses and get a clue. The only answer to this grave state of perpetual crisis being forced on us is to assemble the broadest possible coalition of the willing against the empire and its spear-carriers.

Well put indeed. The way to end the occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan is by building a coalition of millions that will force the empires to stop their murderous bloodlust for oil. It can be done. It must be done.

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Iran imports 40% of their gasoline at $2 a gallon, then sells to the public at a highly subsidized 34 cents a gallon, up 25% in a month. The price hike combined with newly imposed mandatory rationing has led to two nights of rioting, with gas stations being burned and state-run agencies being attacked.

The problem is not that Iran lacks oil, but that it lacks refinery capability. Their government is, genuinely I’d say, nervous that countries they import oil from could choose to stop selling it to them. If so, the government could “collapse.”

So, the rationing is a preemptive strike to cut consumption. With a government this heavy-handed or desperate, the neocons don’t have to do much but just nudge the process along. This assumes that if the current government falls, that whoever replaces it will be friendly to the US, a doubtful assumption indeed. A more likely consequence would be another semi-failed state like Iraq.

And check out Joe Hartley’s insightful comments about this in our previous post on the topic.

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