Memorial Day in Sugar Land where DeLay was up to his asinine ways

[muse]

I went to our Memorial Day Celebration at Sugar Land Town Square this morning expecting the speaker to be Mayor David Wallace (one of the candidates for DeLay's congressional seat, by the way). But, no, the surprise keynote was Tom DeLay!

His message was totally inappropriate, in my opinion. Nothing about honoring our military who have given their lives in service to our country. No, it was all about the war in Iraq and how it is a war of ideology, a war on Islamic fundamentalism. He really seemed to make the point that we would be there forever. It was just awful.

I blogged about it here - with photos: http://muse-musings.blogspot.com/2006/05/delay-hijacks-sugar-land-memorial-day.html

Please, please, please go and see the photo of Shelley Sekula Gibbs (another candidate for DeLay's spot on the ballot) in the pink outfit. Not.To.Be.Missed. Why was she on the podium? She's not even an elected official in Sugar Land OR Fort Bend County. She's a Houston City Council member. Harris County. What a stunt.

There were other Republican candidates for DeLay's seat there in the crowd - Charlie Howard and Robert Talton (along with David Wallace who was part of the ceremony). All of them swarmed around Nick Lampson at the end wanting to say hello and shake his hand. I was there with Nick hanging around with him the whole time. I really thought I was there just to be supportive of Nick and soak in some Memorial Day observance. Not a chance in the politically charged world of the Fort Bend side of TX-22 where DeLay has created chaos within the Republican Party.

Fun times!

[tbyg52]

1. Sort of related--Lampson

I don't have enough activity to start a topic yet, so I'm hoping this is a good one to piggyback on...

I seldom remember a URL or remember to bookmark, so I just Googled Nick Lampson. I saved a screen shot, which I can't seem to post here, but here's the URL to see for yourself (unless of course whoever did it has undone it, which is why I saved a screen shot):
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=nick+lampson&btnG=Google+Search

The third thing down the Google search is his Wikipedia entry, which is not surprising, but the snippet of text under the title is from *way* down in the Wikipedia acticle (the ninth paragraph of a 14-paragraph article), and just "happens" to be the text of a smear billboard:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nick_Lampson

I only know enough to know *something* is going on, but not how. Hoping someone smarter than me sees this.

[Lisa0825]

2. Sounds like a google-bomb.

Someone out there is linking that phrase to that url so it will get google hits.

[tbyg52]

3. Question re google bomb

So how do "they" do that, and how do "we" undo it?

[Lisa0825]

4. I don't think it can be un-done...

at least not that I know. The only thing I could think of is to compete with other google bombs to push their links down in the list.

Here is a good description of how it works:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_bomb

[tbyg52]

5. Not quite Google bomb...?

From what I read so far (thanks for the link), it looks like Google bombs' purpose is to move a page up or down in the rankings, or to have a page show up when you search for a certain term that is not related to what you are actually searching for.

What's happening on the Lampson Google is that when I search for simply "Nick Lampson," I get a perfectly logical result (Wikipedia entry near the top), but the text displayed with the result is an inflammatory phrase from the middle of the article, not the first few words at the top of the article. How would one influence what text was displayed from a plain-vanilla search?

[Lisa0825]

6. There are variations on google bombs.

For instance, a true google bomb actually related to using multiple domains to get a certain result. People started using the same term for using links to certain phrases. I would bet you that even though it is the text in the description, it has to do with a variation on google-bombing. Someone influenced google to pick that not-so-random clip. It may be that that clip was posted in many blogs with the wiki link, for example, so google "thinks" that must be the most relevant part of the article.

[NoPasaran]

7. Famous Google Bombs

santorum
miserable failure
french military victories

[tbyg52]

8. It's fixed!

I emailed the Lampson campaign and put a comment on the Wikipedia entry, and I guess one of them knew how to undo it. Good thing I saved a screen shot, so I don't think I'm going crazy.... ;-> (It's not the best quality, but you can make out the words if you squint.)