May 31, 2019--Googling

I take Google and Googling for granted.

I've heard some of the criticism and think I agree it can be a corporate bully. But I do not know enough about the claim, from say Elizabeth Warren, that it is a search engine monopoly and should be broken up in much the same way AT&T was broken up, Google says, in 1984. Perhaps it should be, maybe not. I'm not sure about what's at issue and what would be the public benefit if it were required to disaggregate. 

But more than anything I know I would have difficulty living without it. 

Take Wednesday for example, the morning Robert Mueller, who the New York Times referred to as the Sphinx of Washington, finally spoke directly to the public about his investigation and its findings.

Talking about it afterwards, Rona and I disagreed about what Mueller said or didn't say about the Department of Justice's policy that sitting presidents are immune from federal prosecution. I thought he did not state this explicitly in his report and that Wednesday was the first time he did so.

Rona said she remembered that he dealt with this in his report and the other morning merely reiterated it.

We went back and forth about this for five or ten minutes until Rona said, "Let's Google it." Which she proceeded to do.

I suggested that if she did so it would likely be found in the introduction to the second volume of the report where Mueller dealt with claims that Trump obstructed justice.

One, two, three, with Google's help, in much less than a minute Rona found the quote in the introduction and was reading the germane passage where he, nice going Rona, explicitly stated that he did not charge Trump with obstruction because, as a sitting president, federal guidelines do not allow the special counsel to do so.

A point for Rona who has a better memory than I, and more than just a point for Google which built this powerful system that is an essential tool for accessing so much of the world's accumulated knowledge.