This also fixed my problem with the futex_wait and ioctl einvar problems.
I snagged the 8.25.18-x86_64 drivers,
unpacked the install.bin:
sh ati-driver-installer-8.25.18-x86_64.run --extract /tmp/ati_8.25.18

and moved the elf32 lib into my ge home:
cp /tmp/ati_8.25.18/arch/x86_64/usr/X11R6/lib/libGL.so.1.2 /home/xxxx/bin/google-earth_4.0.2091

Also, i was having a problem with some missing libraries that ge wasn't erroring out on and that were buried in an strace. Using xtrace made the errors much more apparent.

If you need or care, here is the general setup on this box:
Gentoo GNU/Linux - Intel(R) Pentium(R) D CPU 3.40GHz - ATI X600(x86_64 v8.30.3)
Portage 2.1.1-r1 (default-linux/amd64/2006.1, gcc-4.1.1, glibc-2.4-r4, 2.6.18-gentoo-r1 x86_64)
xorg7.1 - e17_oct16 cvs co - xfce 4.2.3