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THE 2008 ZEITGEIST….According to Google, here are the search terms that increased the most since 2007. Pretty weird group, isn’t it?

Obama and Palin? No surprise there. David Cook? He’s the latest American Idol winner, so no surprise there either.

Beijing 2008, Facebook, and iPhone? I wouldn’t have guessed them, but OK. Makes sense.

But Fox News? YouTube? Those seem like they would have been massively popular well before 2008. What happened?

And ATT? Huh? I assume this is a search for AT&T, the telecommunications giant. Why on earth did they suddenly get trainloads of Google fu?

And finally, there’s Surf The Channel, clearly a Zeitgeist choice designed solely to make me feel old. I’ve never heard of it. Googling it, I find that it’s a “website for TV enthusiasts. We go out into the internet, find the shows we love on other sites and then list them here on our paqes.” And it is the tenth fastest growing Google search in the United States. We are all doomed.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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