I just finished conducting a simple experiment that produced some pretty interesting results, in my opinion. I typed the name of my website (southern prose) into the Google search engine and checked the results. As expected, three of the first four search results were "me" -- either a link to an article, the website homepage, or the author bio page. Enclosing the search criteria in quotation marks didn't appear to have any impact on the results. No smile for the mug shot, Jussie? Then I began repeating the experiment, while doing my best to apply the scientific method. I added the name of my friend and guest contributor Frank Boccia to the search criteria, noting that the results only changed slightly when quotation marks were used around "southern prose". Instead of the top three results matching my website, Google now found four unique articles. A slight improvement. Over a number of iterations, the search results were fairly consistent...as I'd think of another subject or guest contributor at www.southernprose.com and modify the search criteria, at least one article from my website matching the criteria would inevitably show in the search results, as my queries correctly matched and located articles about Rose Kopp, P. Z. Myers and Hector Avalos and consistently listed them in the top two matches. When I substituted the name of the world's most hysterical climate alarmist, Google even found an old article about hate crimes that wasn't even about Al Gore, but merely made a brief reference to him. And when I added famed atheist Richard Dawkins to the search … [Read more...]
Jussie Smollett’s hate crime
I'm not a big fan of the term "hate crime" because the definition of one is vague and nebulous at best, obfuscating and confusing at worst. The term "hate crime" suggests that certain crimes should be judged and punished more harshly depending on the motive of the perpetrator. Jussie Smollett Theoretically, the criminal act is considered worse if racism, homophobia, or some other prejudice is the primary motive. But is that really true? Even if it is true, why should it matter? Let's say person "A" murders person "B" in some heinous manner, let's say by nailing them to a tree--is the crime really worse if the perpetrator and victim are of different races or have different sexual preferences? Personally, I wouldn't really care too much one way or the other even if the perpetrator and victim were different species. I'd care that a living creature had been nailed to a tree for no justifiable reason. In my opinion, there is something seriously wrong with a human being who would torture an animal or a person and take pleasure from watching them suffer. Someone that evil shouldn't be allowed to live. Jussie Smollett hates President Donald Trump so much that he paid two black men $3,500 (unfortunately for him paid by check, leaving a paper trail) to "attack" him with bleach, claiming they were Trump supporters shouting "Make America Great Again" and racist, homophobic slurs. His t-shirt says it all, doesn't it? Smollett caused the city of Chicago to waste hundreds of thousands of dollars paying the police to waste hundreds of man-hours investigating a … [Read more...]
