Another corporate coward

Not only is Google defending its practice of censoring Web material for the Chinese government, its CEO, Eric Schmidt, refuses to say whether the search engine would also supply personal information on its Internet users to authorities.

"I'd rather not answer a hypothetical question," he said.

Translated: sure we would. Bad news for Chinese political prisoners such as journalist Shi Tao, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for passing on a government censorship order through his Yahoo e-mail account. Yahoo supplied that information to the government, and now it appears Google will do the same.

Check out this wet, sloppy kiss Schmidt planted on the dictatorial regime:

"We look at the rise of China, the investment and the smart people and we are in awe of what has occurred here," Schmidt said.

"And we salute the government, key leaders in the industry and all of you who have made the rise of the Internet in China such a tremendous accomplishment."