[LINK] Juilan Assange's Google-fame compared to prime ministers & other folk

Robin Whittle rw at firstpr.com.au
Thu Dec 9 13:47:37 AEDT 2010


Here's an update to some of these Google search page counts, 34 hours
later, after Julian Assange's arrest.

>   33,000,000    "Julian Assange"
   124,000,000

   213,000,000    Assange

Where are all these pages?  That's a huge number.  Only 100k or so are
on Facebook and Twitter.  Looking at the initial pages, I guess these
are mainly blog sites, discussion forums and professional news media
sites.

>  426,000,000    Wikileaks  
   534,000,000    Wikileaks

>   36,500,000    Wikileaks banks
    80,600,000    (This is obviously a hot item.)

>   15,900,000    Wikileaks Iraq
    17,700,000

>   38,700,000    Wikileaks cables
    42,000,000

>      762,000    Wikileaks censorship
     1,010,000

    15,200,000    Wikileaks freedom


>    1,410,000    "Julia Gillard"  2010 -
     1,950,000

>    1,360,000    "Kevin Rudd"     2007 - 2010
     9,720,000    (Obviously anomalous, since without
                   the quotes, the two words Kevin and
                   Rudd gives 1,910,000.)


>    1,920,000    "John Howard"    1996 - 2007 (includes multiple people)
     1,860,000


>   67,500,000    "Hillary Clinton"
    21,000,000

>   63,700,000    "Barack Obama"
    63,300,000


   634,000,000    Obama

   178,000,000    Obama Wikileaks

     1,910,000    "Daniel Ellsberg"

       223,000    "Daniel Ellsberg"  "Julian Assange"


Thanks Kim for posting about the press release by Daniel Ellsberg and
colleagues:

  http://www.ellsberg.net/archive/public-accuracy-press-release

which is a contrast with:

  Why Julian Assange Is No Daniel Ellsberg
  http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/12/07/opinion/main7124354.shtml

Clearly they are different people, with different backgrounds, skills
and connections.  But I think it is highly significant that Daniel
Ellsberg fully supports Julian Assange and Wikileaks.

It is probably early days for Wikileaks.  It will be interesting to
see what comes out about the big banks in the USA, who have now been
shown (including by testimony before congressional committees) to have
systematically defrauded investors with their mortgage backed
securities over the last 5 or so years.  Firstly by generally not
including the actual mortgages in the mortgage backed securities and
secondly be portraying them to investors as being more secure than the
banks knew they really were.  (See http://www.market-ticker.org for
references.)

This isn't the only cause of the financial crisis in the USA, but it
was a big part of blowing the housing bubble.  The fact that George
Bush and now Barack Obama bailed out these banks - which they probably
shouldn't have anyway (if these frauds did not occur) means, I think,
that the Obama government and many members of congress will in the
future be known as having sailed the Good Ship USA directly onto the
rocks.  I think that will overshadow whatever good things they may be
remembered for.

There's apparently a bunch of big bank files to be released.  I think
it is likely that people in the banks will release more information to
Wikileaks.  So my guess is that Wikileaks will play a crucial role in
uncovering some of the fraud which was and remains an important part
of the crisis.

 - Robin



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