Germany Backs Out of Worst Idea Ever

Germany has come to its senses and pulled out of a research project to build a European search engine that will compete with Google (hee!). The French remain committed to the search engine that is to be named "Quaero", which apparently translates literally as "I seek" in Latin, but is better defined as "boondoggle".

The project which was initially expected to cost between 1 to 2 billion Euros, and therefore likely to cost between 10-12 billion Euros before it gets off the ground, will take an innovative approach to search. Like traditional search engines, it will allow users to type their query into a web based search box. However, rather than instantaneously returning a list web pages or "hits" (which we can all agree is a decidedly Anglo-America approach to search), a committee of French intellectuals and civil servants fresh out of ENA will determine the best source for a particular piece of information and send it to the user by mail.

Link via Passport