MANILA, Philippines — Watching an impeachment court’s proceedings, I think, can seriously damage our collective respect for the position that the person being tried occupies.

Prosecutors’ revelations about the accused’s refusal or failure to be upfront about his financial transactions, bank savings, and real estate properties and investments help create a public image not quite flattering for the person concerned. Unfortunately, public perception of the government position the accused occupies also suffers a lot.

Not that government positions and those who occupy them have had the best of public images for some time now.

Still, this corner hopes and prays that once the trial had run its course, and everything had subsided its way back to “normalcy,” everybody and everything concerned would have a blank slate to start with. And maybe this time, everybody would do it right.

Anti-Good-Samaritan?

Police in Edmonton, Alberta, have warned the city’s residents to watch out for a man who has this very socially backward habit of running away with the mobile phones of people he tricked into loaning him, a “stranger in need.”

The bast…, er, man, based on police reports and witness statements, approaches people, asking to use their mobile phones to call a tow truck for his car he claims has broken down. The suc…, er, the good Samaritan, after loaning his or her mobile phone to the bast…, er, man, sees the mobile phone disappear with the bast…, er, man who is now running as fast as he can, away from the suc…, er, the good Samaritan.

Still, Edmonton residents should consider themselves lucky. Here on these islands, criminals shoot hapless people dead for their mobile phones.

Google Wiser

Google recently announced plans to retool its search engine to do more than recognize words online searchers use for their queries. With “semantic” features and capabilities added to the search engine, Google will be able to understand the meaning of search phrases and questions, and in the process, return better-quality results.

Hmm. Google search plus in action?

ISPs to Spies?

The Recording Industry Association of America’s antipiracy deal with the largest Internet service providers in the United States, signed in June last year, gets to be implemented on July 12, 2012. As part of the deal, the ISPs will monitor their respective online traffic, with emphasis on snooping for pirated content being transmitted or shared online.

Of course, the monitoring system will focus mainly and especially on torrent or peer-to-peer networks.

Under the system, an ISP will send one or two notices to copyright-challenged customers, informing them they are violating copyright laws. If the violation continues, the ISP will send a different kind of warning, which requires an acknowledgment receipt and a promise from the customers that they will cease and desist from doing piracy.

A mitigation alert follows.

That’s all for the meantime, folks. Join me again next time as we keep on watching IT.