It began with an innocuous-sounding yet chilling form letter from Google to Lee, e-mailed on Feb. 8:
"We periodically review news sources, particularly following user complaints, to ensure Google News offers a high quality experience for our users," it said. "When we reviewed your site we've found that we can no longer include it in Google News."
As soon as he read it, Lee immediately suspected one thing: That someone at the UNDP had pressured Google into "de-listing" him from Google News — essentially preventing Inner City Press from being classified on Google News as a legitimate news source and from having its stories pop up when someone conducts a Google News search.
Over the last couple of years, Lee has proved to be a constant — and controversial — thorn in the U.N.'s side.
Though his writing is clunky, his methods unorthodox (and often highly annoying) and his news judgment sometimes more than a little off the mark, Lee has hit his share of bullseyes and became an outlet for whistleblowers inside the U.N.
Of course, Charles Johnson at Little Green Footballs has previously been disappeared for shining too bright a light on Islam. And Google's protection of leftist cesspools like Moveon.org, and its censorship of wrong thinking conservatives has contributed to my boycott. And who could fail to note that Google ignores Veterans Day and Memorial Day when it puts up special graphics, but remembers Muslim holidays and even gets nostalgic about the Evil Empire.
I'd move my blog from Blogger, it I were computer savvy enough to pull it off as seamlessly as the Blogfather did.
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