Monitoring "Bad" Internet Sites without Boosting their Google Ranking

Given the concerns I raised in the previous post about boosting the ranking of Holocaust denial [and other racist and/or antisemitic sites] if you go and look at them, I received the following suggestion from an Internet savvy person:

You expressed concern about raising the site's Google ranking by linking to it. There are a couple of ways to avoid doing that. First is the rel="nofollow" tag:

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-spam.html

If you don't want to mess with HTML, you can simply use www.tinyURL.com to generate an indirect link to the website in question. this technique has the added bonus over the "nofollow" tag of preventing the owner of the site from telling where any additional traffic is being referred from as well as preventing Google from viewing your use of the link as an incoming link that adds to the website's Google ranking.

Holocaust Denial on the Internet

Edited June 5: 2: 17 p.m.

Though I don't usually call attention to Holocaust denial sites, I recently came across a site one which exemplifies deniers' attempts to parade themselves as legitimate academics. It would be easy for a student... and maybe even some professors to be bamboozled by this ad.

I put it here as a cautionary note.

Addendum:
A number of people have pointed out that if we send people to the site it will only raise its Google profile. Therefore I would urge you NOT to go to it.

But what you can do is contact Career Builders[ jennifer.grasz@careerbuilder.com] and tell them they are supporting such a site. Urge them to drop their advertising from it.

Profile of Anthony Julius

My UK lawyer, Anthony Julius, was profiled by the Times of London. It's well worth reading.

Father Pfleger Blames Everyone But Himself

In an interview with the Chicago Sun Times Father Pfleger dug himself in a bit deeper. He explained that he thought the church's video system was down and there was no live streaming of his talk and, therefore, he felt freer to say what he wished:

"They told me it was down," ....Their live streaming had been down all day, and they didn't know whether it was back up. . . . I regret the dramatization that I was naive enough to believe was just going to be kept among that church."

Excuse me, that made it OK to engage in racism and sexism??? Because you did not think anyone would see....

Then, once again avoiding the opportunity to say "What I did was terrible," he, not surprisingly blames America.

"This is a dangerous time in America, the freest country in the world," Pfleger says, "where you have to whisper your thoughts."

This guy still does not seem to get it.

Antisemitism in the UK: The Academic Union [UCU] is Back at it Again

The union of academics and professors in the UK, the UCU, which last year tried to initiate a boycott of Israeli academics but was prevented from doing so by its own lawyers which told it that it was illegal, is trying to do the same thing again but in a trickier mode.

On May 28th it pas Motion 25 which called for a number of boycott initiatives. Anthony Julius, my solicitor and someone who has done a tremendous amount to fight UK antisemitism, is representing a number of members of the UCU who consider Motion 25 to be both a boycott motion and to be antisemitic.

His excellent [no surprise here], reasoned [ditto], and well argued [ditto] letter to the UCU can be found here.

Anyone who is concerned about this issue and who doesn't understand why these actions by groups such as the UCU are not just virulently anti-Israel but actually antisemitic should read this letter.

Flash from Ahmadinejad: Israel is Doomed and Zionists Behind Food Shortages..

[edited 7:20 a.m.]

Prior to leaving for the UN Food Conference in Rome Iranian President Ahmadinejad said that Israel was doomed with or without Iranian action. He predicted that Israel be wiped away. See the video here.

Last year when Ahmadinejad said Israel should be wiped off the face of the map, a number of people insisted that that was not what he said, despite the fact that the home page of the Iranian president had that quote up on it.

Now at the UN conference in Rome he has said that in would be in the interests of Western Europe if Israel did not exist and he has blamed the food crisis on Zionists.

Quite a guy.

Hillary Clinton and the Negative Reviews of Sex and the City: The Same Failure to Understand

So this weekend I joined 10s of 1000 of other women and went to see Sex and the City. I have been on the phone talking to women who went and hearing their assessment and what they heard around them in the threatre.

While everyone had something they might not have liked -- an outfit, a scenario, etc. -- the general consensus was positive. Some are talking about going to see it again. Others said it felt like "visiting with old friends." Yet others said the whole thing is a fantasy, except for the strength of the relationship: that's real. The reason that they know it's real is that they have friends like that.

Let's be honest. Most men don't have friends like that. They may have sports or poker buddies but they don't have friends who understand them to the depths of their hearts.

Yet the reviews have been mixed. Some have been by women. But it's the reviews by men which have been particularly mean and snippy. They miss the point. For an example read John Podhoretz in the print edition of the Weekly Standard.

Now here is the Clinton connection. Just as men don't get the essence of friendship. The men just don't get how mad so many women are about the treatment meted out to Hillary Clinton. The comments about her whining, her shrillness, her pantsuits, her ankles, her voice, her laugh.... None of the things we have heard about male candidates. Does anyone know how Obama, McCain, or any of the other close to a dozen men laugh? What their ankles look like?

And here too the male commentators don't get it. Maybe the connection is a bit of a stretch but it just seems real to me.

We used to say "We've come a long way." I am really beginning to wonder.