One of my favorite tricks for spell-checking a word with two popular spellings is to put both versions in Google and see which one comes back as more popular (like with “adviser” and “advisor”, both of which mean “one who advises”). It’s a “wisdom of the crowd” sort of thing, and it’s sometimes useful in minor matters of taste and sensibility.
In today’s experiment, keep in mind that Obama has been in office for 5 months. George W. Bush held the office for 96 months:
I’m not going to say that this comparison has any use or meaning. Rather, like a documentary by Michael Moore, I’m going to hang a contextless fact out there and hope that it encourages people to jump to conclusions.
Meanwhile, I’m gonna sit here feeling cruelly and delightfully smug.
Oh, and just to be a scurrilous wag, I’ll point out that Obama’s name isn’t hyperlinked by Google because the man lacks definition.
Keep in mind that “wisdom of the crowd” is a relative concept, seeing that 52% of the crowd are idiots who voted for Obama in the first place.
Sometimes it’s more correct to not follow the herd…which needs to be thinned out anyway.
Google will not hyper link the name of Teh One because they are liberal, and won’t show a pucture of Him with a bucket in His head.
Clearly then, the dictionary is racist and is holding the black man down.
‘Jump to Conclusions’? I love that product.
Looks like Google fixed their little oversight. Bush’s results are still similar at 4,070,000. Obama? All the way down the memory hole to 2,820,000.
Bush = http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&safe=off&q=bush+weakness&aq=f&oq=bush+weakness&aqi=&aq=f&oq=&aqi=&fp=eqQtyfPVHK8
Obama = http://www.google.com/webhp?hl=en#hl=en&safe=off&q=obama+weakness&aq=f&oq=bush+weakness&aqi=&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g2&fp=eqQtyfPVHK8
Can’t have The Most Sooper Dooper President ever, ever, ever, look weak next to the Eeeeevil and Stoopid Bush.
/Sarc where needed, obviously
I’ll point out that Bush is a far more common name, and has other meanings than as a name, so the numbers are even more one-sided
Doesn’t one need testicles to be a man? You’re giving him too much credit, Harvey.
Somebody’s watching your blog. As of 2pm central time, obama’s down to 3 mil and bush is slightly up.
I would expect the same kind of results with the words, ‘useless,& ‘ineffectual’ after each name.
Andrew – 2:30 CDT Obama is at 2,820,000 and Bush is at 4,070,000. WTF?
Still, if Obama were as strong as Bush, you’d expect his number to be around 1/19th of Bush’s based on time in office alone – about 212,000.
Well, more importantly, “Obama communist” pulled up 5,860,000 responses, while “Bush communist” pulled up less than half at 2,560,000
“Obama coward” just pulled up 1,070,000, while “Bush coward” pulled up only 168,000 responses.
“wisdom of the crowd” like NunyaB said the 52% of the crowd are idiots. I can’t follow a crowd of morons like that. It’s much better not following along with the herd.
1,730,000 for “Obama Weaknesses” and 1,350,000 for “Bush Weaknesses”. So Bush apparently had less flaws to speak of.
Alas, google has already ‘fixed’ this – number of hits on ‘Obama weakness’ now down to only 2.8 million. Also, the link to Bush links to answer.com bio on Bush the younger – searching same on ‘Bush Leaf’ and ‘bush chlorophyll’ still get you the bush 43 bio.
He who follows the herd cannot avoid stepping in …it.
And remember that when you Google for Bush, you’re also including results for Bush Sr., Jeb, and the actual topiary, whereas there’s only one thing that can be Obama.
Re #14
So Obama’s more of a craven girlyman coward than Dubya, Jeb, their dad, and numerous shrubberies combined?
@Ron: They haven’t fixed everything — bush+weak gets 7,000,000; obama+weak gets 16,000,000.
As for the contextless fact analysis, that was one of my main observations watching an ACLU lawyer speak to Chicago Mensa one time (right after the Gingrich revolution). He kept tossing out independent facts with no second fact tossed out to give context, just long tangents of speculation that began with, “now why do you suppose that is?” Knowing a number of them, it was obvious that even one additional fact would destroy all that speculation. And even two points do not a trend make.