initial confusion

[calimac]

I'm not sure I want to keep up my web site that lists data about U.S. Senators, including their full names. It's such a nuisance collecting that information on new senators. Take Dick Blumenthal of Connecticut. On just one Google search result page, I've found him listed as Richard D. Blumenthal, Richard M. Blumenthal, Richard S. Blumenthal, Richard T. Blumenthal, Richard J. Blumenthal, and Richard A. Blumenthal. And yes, they're all referring to the right guy.

Comments

[lynn-maudlin.livejournal.com]

Is this daunting or just annoying?

[steepholm.livejournal.com]

If these are aliases, they're very inept!

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Hmm... a quick Google search on "Richard Blumenthal" turns up one reference to "Richard M. Blumenthal" (on Wikipedia) and a page or two (all I looked at) of NMI listings.

"Richard M. Blumenthal" finds a whole page of sources, including his Facebook page.

Searching for "Richard D. Blumenthal" turns up one legitimate reference from Life Magazine in 1969, which may not be the same guy. The the next is in a stupid comment to an NMI article. The rest (two pages worth) are some variant of "Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)".

"Richard T. Blumenthal" garners more interesting results. The NYTimes has him this way in one 1999 article, A

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Hmm... a quick Google search on "Richard Blumenthal" turns up one reference to "Richard M. Blumenthal" (on Wikipedia) and a page or two (all I looked at) of NMI listings.

"Richard M. Blumenthal" finds a whole page of sources, including his Facebook page.

Searching for "Richard D. Blumenthal" turns up one legitimate reference from <a href="http://www.life.com/image/50539769">Life Magazine</a> in 1969, which may not be the same guy. The <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/richard-blumenthal-lied-about-vietnam-service-2010-5">the next</a> is in a stupid comment to an NMI article. The rest (two pages worth) are some variant of "Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)".

"Richard T. Blumenthal" garners more interesting results. <a href="http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F04E5DB123CF934A2575AC0A96F958260&fta=y">The NYTimes</a> has him this way in one 1999 article, A <a href="http://www.123people.com/s/robin+barnes"123people"> search takes you to the NYTimes article (and opens up an ad window even though I have pop-ups blocked, which is why I don't ever use 123people). Even Fox "News" just leaves him NMI.

"Richard J. Blumenthal" finds a <a href="http://www.catawbariverkeeper.org/our-work/wal-mart">Wal-mart reference to him in a blog</a>, with no other links.

So while there is some confusion amongst the confused, the "M" seems to be the legit variant.

(I guess I needed the break from other projects.)

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

Mostly he is NMI; I made a search that eliminated those. When you looked for the specific names, did you try the phrases within quotes?

One - just one - example of each:

Richard D. Blumenthal, Harvard Crimson (and yes, by the way, the Life Magazine reference ("Asst. to Daniel Moynihan Head of Nixon's Urban Affairs Council Richard D. Blumenthal") is the right guy, according to his own website bio: "Early in his career, Dick served as aide to Senator Daniel P. Moynihan when Mr. Moynihan was Assistant to President Richard Nixon")

Richard M. Blumenthal, Facebook - but it's a public page, not his personal page, with info taken from Wikipedia

Richard S. Blumenthal, U.S. District Court

Richard T. Blumenthal, New York Times

Richard J. Blumenthal, Catawba Riverkeeper Foundation

Richard A. Blumenthal, from a PR firm

True, some of these are less likely than others, but I'd take each of the first four as authoritative if it were the only one that showed up, with "M." the least certain of the four.

It might be worth noting that when Obama was first elected a senator, I found that the most authoritative sources said his name was Barack A. Obama. Only the presence of contradictory Google sources kept me from accepting that.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

Aarg. Sorry about the bad html, and now it's too late to fix it.

The searches were of the quotes I said. And yes, the internet can spread misinformation as fast as information. I tried to look at the .gov senate site, but he's not a senator yet and he wasn't listed. I figure, perhaps optimistically, that the government dots their t's. The US District Court document is a counter example.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

If you searched for the quoted "Richard D. Blumenthal", you wouldn't get "some variant of "Richard Blumenthal (D-CT)" as you said you did. This is important, because the "D-CT" version vastly outnumbers the middle initial version, easily burying it.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

My Google-Fu is being weird today.

Try 1: As suspected, putting quotes around the entire Google search means Google ignores the literal, and when I page back and forth they disappear. In any event, the quotes didn't make a difference, and the top and only literal is the Moynahan picture.

Try 2: The quotes stuck, even in Google, and the results were different than without. Only a page and a half of results. Got some angry blogger, the Moynahan picture, a 2010 Harvard Crimson editorial, some CT Senate votes, and a presumably unrelated biomed person. So yeah, I'd have to concur that CT, Life and Crimson cites are enough to throw doubt into the works.

Even thought the Crimson editorial uses a Wikipedia Commons picture, and Wiki has the M. Someone else's Google-Fu isn't so hot either. But who's?

[rwl.livejournal.com]

You've confirmed the existence of five different parallel universes.