"In Mrs. Palin, Mr. Obama faces a political phenomenon who has altered the election's dynamics. Americans have rarely seen someone who immediately connects with large numbers of voters at such a visceral level. Mrs. Palin may be the first vice presidential candidate since Lyndon B. Johnson to change an election's outcome. If Mr. Obama keeps attacking her, the odds of Gov. Palin becoming Vice President Palin increase significantly." - Russellreno
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Agreed. The Democrats lose the election if it becomes about Sarah Palin, rather than the economy, Iraq, energy, education, and constitutional freedoms. - Chris Baskind
Should've pointed out that the piece was by Karl Rove. 'Nuff said. - steplow is Steve
This viewpoint, even if it was written by Karl Rove, resonates with me. - Robert Scoble
Holy crap. Karl Rove can make up his own reality and spread it via WSJ. Squillions of businessfolks are going to read this and remember it and tell their friends. I'm glad WSJ puts in the sidebar and footnote that reveal Rove's political leanings. - Daniel J. Pritchett
But he's right. Palin cannot become the subject of this election. The subject is that GOP junta has run the country like a banana republic for eight years, and now says the next four would be different if we return them to the White House. - Chris Baskind
I agree Robert - the campaign has completely changed, she may be president in 4 years, keep that in mind - Jason Kintzler
@AlexScoble No you can't ~wags tongue~ ;) - Peter Simard
Love the Obama quote about how him running for president counts as experience points that qualify him for President. By that logic, Al Sharpton is qualified. - Mark Jaquith
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Love him or hate him Rove's political acumen is unparalleled. - Peter Simard
Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't Obama running against McCain? - Jeff P. Henderson
With Palin on the GOP ticket,the experience question is moot. Enough. - Chris Reed
Yeah, she's the most experienced of all of them - Peter Simard
OK, lets here some discussion about issues from the candidates now. - Jeff P. Henderson
Jeff, you wouldn't think it, the way he's been going after her specifically. - Mark Jaquith
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I'm not going to honor Karl Rove by responding line by line to his drivel. Either party can write articles like that, they never give a full picture. Maybe it just comes down to values for me, ie., I don't share hers, although perhaps the Undecideds do. - Marko Bon
Consider the source. Karl Rove. Obama hasn't been going after Palin. Rove wants him to. - Mark Logan
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I can't believe I just wasted my time reading this propaganda. I further can't believe the Wall Street Journal chose to publish it. - Carlton Northern
It's evident that Palin was selected to counter Obama. GOP musta figured folks might not vote for McCain, but they will vote for Palin. Definitlely cynical. Possibly successful. - MikeAmundsen
I agree with Rove on this. Obama just needs to stay clear of Palin. - Russellreno
It is interesting to see how peoples views are clouded by preconceived political ideas. - Zach Scott
I'm not surprised that the WSJ printed it. They are just catering to their customers, most of whom are conservative. - Alex "Maverick" Scoble
@Zach Your preconceived notions about people's views is interesting. - Mattb4rd
WSJ = Ruport Murdoch = Fox News = Karl Rove's Boss - Darrell Bell
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Enough is enough! Less political garbage - more debate on issues. I'll start - do you believe in trickle down economics? - AJ Kohn
yep, Palin is the 'red meat' for Dems. Palin is cast as the 'victim' that the left-wing media abuses, that the liberals denegrate, and the democrats don't understand. great story for running a campaign. and the Dems have a hard time keeping away from it. like others said, Palin is not the election issue. the GOP/McCain is. any press on Palin is press *not* covering GOP/McCain. Dems need to figure out how to make her a non-issue. - MikeAmundsen
@alex It's obviously just an opinion piece. Don't be too scared of opinion. :) - Mattb4rd
Karl Rove should talk about failure of Bush Admin instead of Obama - imran
It's funny how an inexperienced Democrat can be a "change agent" but an inexperienced Republican is a "bad Disney movie". :| - John Denver
You're right @AlexScoble, Yes We Can! - Paula Moore
No, it's a fact that trickle down economics hasn't worked for the bulk of Americans. It results in the rich getting richer at a faster rate than anyone else. It doesn't pull us up all equally. - Alex "Maverick" Scoble
"I hate him, therefore he's wrong" is a logical fallacy. Democrats ignore Karl Rove at their peril; he is an absolute political genius. A stinking, slimy weasel, but a political genius nonetheless. - Glen Campbell
it's true, if this becomes about Palin, we Dems are screwed. But Obama and Biden *have* been talking about issues. The Repubs can't win on issues, so they take random quotes out of context and try to refocus it on Palin. Look at what they did with "lipstick on a pig." The media is complicit in this. - Victor Ganata
I think Rove makes some good points here. The question is, why is he giving free advice to the enemy? My thought: he's trying to reverse psychologize the Obama ticket into taking on Palin. It's win-win for him; if they take his advice, he can claim victory, if they don't McCain might win. - John
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@AlexScoble, is it a fact? I credit much of the economic boom of the '90s to Reagan's economic policies. Reagan let the rich keep their money and, no, it didn't do much for everyone else at the time. However, there were no good investment opportunities in the '80s, so the rich horded their cash. Then, when the WWW (and other technology-related industries) took off in the '90s, the rich invested and everyone else benefited. - J. McConnell
Good thing that Obama and Biden are totally doing the grassroots thing. The media generally fails to provide substantive coverage of what they're doing, and what they're doing is really resonating with a lot of people. Anecdotally, everyone I know is voting for Obama, and i'm in freakin' San Diego, certainly one of the most conservative cities in the country. People really aren't as stupid as the Republicans and the media want you to believe. When you're getting screwed hard enough, you pay attention. - Victor Ganata
The thing I find most interesting is that Karl Rove once helped determine policy from the inside the Bush Administration. Now Mr. Rove works in media now. He gets to help to form and shape public opinion now. The WSJ and Fox News are his platforms for doing so. Am I the only one that finds scary? He has managed to cover all of the bases for promoting his school of thought. - Darrell Bell
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They've got Palin doing all the PR gigs, have hardly seen McCain in the past week. The Democrats need to (and I want them to) play smart. - Chris Dahl
Yeah, those reps aren't as stupid as we thought, eh? Of course it was the only viable opportunity and seems to be working. so far. - Alex von Halem
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I agree with Alex on trickle down economics. The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever, in part because of this practice. And at it base you need to think about it this way. If you were to give WalMart a tax-break, would they increase employee wages? - AJ Kohn
Alex, have you ever considered that the rich may be rich because they are smarter and make good decisions? Stupid broke people, if given a lot of money, will soon be broke again. "Life is hard. It's harder when you're stupid" - John Wayne - Mattb4rd
But...um...he's NOT running against Palin. Are the mass electorate really that stupid? - Steve
LOL that's laughable Matt...there are plenty of stupid people with money. You don't necessarily need intelligence to make money. To think that you do is laughable, just as it's laughable to assume that you need intelligence to get a degree. If our problem with poverty was as easy as that it would have been fixed long ago. - Alex "Maverick" Scoble
The hype usually wears off 30 days after the convention. - Bob
@AJ Kohn, I'm not disagreeing that trickle down economics might not work, I'm wondering aloud if it should be considered a "fact" that it doesn't work. In your example, I don't think it's fair to ask if Walmart would increase employee wages if given a task break. The fair question is, given a tax break, would Walmart invest that money in a way that benefits the many more than if the government had taken it in taxes? - J. McConnell
Alex: Laugh this off too, if you will: Socialism has failed every time is has been tried. - Mattb4rd
I dunno, Europe seems to be doing OK, doesn't it? I mean, they're currency is certainly stronger than ours is right now. - Victor Ganata
I think Rove may be wrong on two points here. First, Obama hasn't been devoting significant time on attacks on Palin. Second, the contention that Palin is popular may not be true. Her negative poll numbers are higher than her positives. Her appeal may prove to be narrow and short-lived. - Mark Logan
"At a press availability in Monroe, Mich., Barack Obama said: "Back off these kinds of stories."
"I have said before and I will repeat again: People's families are off limits," Obama said. "And people's children are especially off-limits. This shouldn't be part of our politics. It has no relevance to Gov. Palin's performance as a governor or her potential performance as a vice president. So I would strongly urge people to back off these kinds of stories. You know my mother had me when she was 18, and how a family deals with issues and teenage children, that shouldn’t be a topic of our politics."" - sergiooo
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this where I take exception not with the attacks, they should not be allowed, however this exactly a topic very dear to a large part of America right now - Fred Grott
Obama continues: "I am offended by that statement. There is no evidence at all that any of this involved us," he said. "Our people were not involved in any way in this, and they will not be. And if I thought there was somebody in my campaign who was involved in something like that, they would be fired." Makes me wish the bloggers DID work for him, and are now fired. - Josh Haley
Sergioo: sorry to repost but we gotta get this item into major circulation. In fact, I suggest that everybody here who has "liked" this item reshares it in their own feeds (Twitter, FF, delicious and elsewhere). - mel maverick mcbride
Mel: everyone who is subscribed to you sees everything you like. There's no need to reshare this. - Mark Trapp
I believe that the campaigns themselves will honor this. But how do you control the independent groups? Tell them that you hate them so much that they stop targeting your opponent and start targeting you? - Ontario Emperor
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MelMcBride , I agree completely :) Not bothered at all. Everyone should Digg it or push it, whatever they do. - sergiooo
Unfortunately, this is a noble idea that's virtually impossible to put in practice. The candidate himself can try to follow the rule, but the independent groups won't. And besides, at crunch time, every goes... - Rob Teixeira
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Great to see Obama resisting petty ad hominem attacks that plague US politics. - Adam Bohannon
People's families are off limits, I agree. But this why you keep your religious BS and family values crap off limits. - PC Easy
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I've been watching the page get continually updated throughout the morning. When the name was first leaked, there was not a whole lot of info there. Now, the article is about three times as long as it was this morning. - Nathaniel Payne
Agree, it is amazing how the article has been growing.... - Bindu Reddy
"She and her father would sometimes wake at 3 a.m. to hunt moose before school" - j1m
this should make Karl Rovites happy: "The fired police chief eventually sued Palin on the grounds that he was fired because he supported the campaign of Palin's opponent, but his suit was eventually dismissed when the judge ruled that Palin had the right under state law to fire city employees, even for political reasons" - Ruth Ferguson
Can we really afford a vice president who might miss that critical 3 a.m. phone call because she's out hunting moose? - Jim Norris
Really very sad. I saw his last lecture and was very impressed. Always hoped, he would get through this... - Matthias Schwenk
So sad - he gave one of the great speeches of all time and in such an unassuming, selfless way. I'm glad his kids will at least have that to treasure. - JMaultasch
An inspiration to many. He will be missed - Tim Finucane
One of the finest. Some people are great a reminding us how to live, mainly by example. He was one of them. His web page doesn't seem to be loading..does anyone see where we can leave thoughts for his family and friends? - Loren Heiny
A real loss. I never met him (obviously) but I know of him through the eyes of those who did. - Soulhuntre
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Fuck. fuckfuckfuckfuck. Randy was one of my favorite HCI teachers at CMU, and I'm so glad that his 'Last Lecture' got the world-wide attention that it did. I can't imagine being as brave as him in this place, and he fought off the cancer for about 6 months longer than the 4 months his doctors gave him. Even though I've known this was coming for months it's still really hard. - Kevin Fox
I keep putting off the book, which is ironically exactly the opposite of what I should be doing: moving forward and living life instead of treading water and letting life happen. Peace to you, Randy. - Kevin C. Tofel
I'm very sad but will always be inspired by the way he spent his last several months. - Dimitrios Diamantaras
I was a huge fan of Randy's; his work will live on far longer than this in the lives of those he influenced. - Aaron Krug
Inspirational. Will be watching his video many times throughout my life. Brave, wise man... - Hao Chen
What better way to go than knowing that you made every day count and that you touched the lives of so many people around the world! Even though his departure is a huge loss, we are blessed with the inspiration he leaves us with! - Gabriel Biguria
We knew this day would come but it's still sad just the same. The way the man approached his death, is an inspiration. My prayers are with him and his family today. - Peter Simard
He understood life and therefore death. He was attached to what was important in life, not to life itself. He was proof of the fact that scientists and engineers are the most spiritual of people. My thoughts are with his family - I hope they know how many are thinking of them today. - Metta (Kamath)
death is overdramatised, it is the coolest thing that will ever happen to anybody, and is the culmination of everything embodiment was about - Gregory Lent
Explanation: "In January 2007, people from Perth, Australia gathered on a local beach to watch a sky light up with delights near and far. Nearby, fireworks exploded as part of Australia Day celebrations. On the far right, lightning from a thunderstorm flashed in the distance. Near the image center, though, seen through clouds, was the most unusual sight of all: Comet McNaught. The photogenic comet was so bright that it even remained visible though the din of Earthly flashes. Comet McNaught has now returned to the outer Solar System and is now only visible with a large telescope. The above image is actually a three photograph panorama digitally processed to reduce red reflections from the exploding firework." - Andrew Baron
Wow, 153 people 'liked this" so far and almost 30 comments. - Andrew Baron
Absolutely incredible shot! Then again some of the best shots on the web come from NASA, National Geographic, Discovery and, of course, Hawk :) - Charlie Anzman
Not to be too cynical but that shot seems to good to be true -- I wonder if there is more processing going on than the text seems to admit. - Brian Sullivan
I'm going to side with Brian here. What is right: Comet McNaught was that bright in WA (I use to live there), but I checked my attempted pics, they predate this by over a week. I'm sure the comet was only that bright for less than a week. Second, the main Australia Day fireworks occur in Perth City...which isn't near a beach . Maybe it's Leighton Beach with Fremantle to the left...but it doesn't seem right. I did check the weather records though, there was a storm that night, and it's in the right direction - Duncan Riley
I do hope it is real though...and I forgot how wonderful the environment there is - Duncan Riley
Duncan, last year both Fremantle and I believe Hillarys held their own fireworks for Australia Day. I myself was trying to guess the location this morning. Being a regular on Leighton beach though it doesn't look familiar so I was thinking it may have been taken to the north of Hillarys. It also made me very nostalgic for Perth :) - Penny
At 302 likes, the #1 most liked post of all time on FriendFeed. Antti Kemppainen Photography - Here's Antti's original picture http://jkemppainen.com/antti/i... Antti's e-mail is kemppaisantti@gmail.com, and you can scroll through Antti's other photos. - Mitchell Tsai
If there were an earthquake in SF, Twitter would probably go down then, too. Right now, no eqrthquake here, so what's Twitter's excuse today? ;-) - Cathryn Hrudicka
They should atleast put a note on blog.twitter.com (it seems to be running on blogger.com) to let people know it is down. - Atul Arora
oh sorry Steve, to interrupt your precious feed with our "chatter". thought the comment link was for comments. my bad. - rambn
friendfeed should buy twitter show them uptime :) - Jay Martinez
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no earthquake, just Belgium that is spliting .... no... just kidding :-) - Damien Van Achter
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FriendFeed would take over. So would Jaiku and Pownce. - Robert Scoble
It's probably due to the heat. It's so damn hot in the bay area today :( Milk would be a bad choice. - ClunkClunk
I would agree with Scoble. But if Twitter is becoming so critical, why not put servers on the East Coast and In AZ just to cover all bases? - Mike Wills
@scoble Hey what happened to Jaiku? Didnt Google buy them? I never hear anyone mention it. I get adds on other sites but not Jaiku. - Britney Mason
I'm not sure that boycotting a free service would accomplish much. - Dana Franks
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I want to participate in that event, blogged it a few minutes ago. tired of twitter's appaling level of service. - Richard Azia
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Dana, at my blog you can see a bunch of the conversation we've all been having about Twit-Out http://jerseysuburbia.com Some might disagree, but a bunch of us think it's worth a try. - Andrew Dobrow
is Twhirl down too? Ah well, time for me to return to reality *shudders* - Iain Baker
I bet it does. Matter of fact, we've already got a great discussion going surrounding it. A boycott doesn't always have to "make change", it can simply spark several discussions around the topic. http://friendfeed.com/e/6a155c... My goal is to learn from the twit-out, and share that knowledge with everyone who cares. - Bwana McCall
OMG - I have hives - I am going through twitter withdrawls - Maxine Appleby
I am so badly addicted to twitter I cannot stop checking it ... need twitter now ... - Robert B. Morshe
Oh look my Twit-Out followers are back! Friendfeed for FTW! (poor twitter bird fell out of the tree again -ouch!) - Susan Beebe
Jeff, I wish there would be a Captain Quint scene (played by Robert Shaw) in which he shows up and promises to scale Twitter for the outrageous sum of $10,000. "For that you get the head, the tail, the whole damn thing." - Karim
I think this is the first time I've blinked today... glad Twhirl has FriendFeed support - Josh
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@Karim - and Cap'n Quint is joined by Cap'n Kirk (Scotty. I need. Twitter. Now!) and Cap'n Crunch ... who's just on hand to offer sugary goodness to take the edge off this whole damn thing. - Jeff Crites
haha... I actually started reading a book in the interim... how spoilet we are to Twitter - Gilbert Corrales
There is no news and free debate without noise, Robert, don't block. - Prokofy Neva
Yeah, FF rocks... but not from my phone! Where's mobile for FriendFeed? - Mark Arend
How do we get people to stay? How do we keep people blogging? That's the problem I want to solve. - Ginger Makela
So far my clique has remained intact. There are only a handful of bloggers I've connected with, mostly because my blog doesn't really fall into any specific niche. It's just what I feel like writing about that day, or mostly what I feel like sharing with whoever passes by. - Michael Beck
The burnout in tech blogging is high. No days off. High pressure. - Cyndy
I imagine a giant fire hose where a giant mass of reader heads are flowing out like marbles. Louis Gray has this fire hose in his hand and points it at your site with an evil grin on his face. I should make this a comic, but I can't really draw :( I need more coffee. - Bwana McCall
It's fun to read something like this, but what do you mean? And what does that look like as far as impact for your blog? - Louis Gray
Louis, you have taken over as the one people look to when they want new stuff. After your 5 bloggers for May post my RSS item usage on Feedburner doubled and subscribers are increasing steadily so thank you. - Colin Walker
Colin, that's great to hear. I'm glad you're getting success. And it's not because of me. It's because you're a good writer and blogger. If I can help expose more people like you doing a great job, then I'm happy. It's what I like doing. - Louis Gray
Louis you are like Will Smith (Hitch) but for Bloggers! - Joe Dawson
I've recently jumped on the Louis Gray bandwagon, and its been a fun ride so far. I can see why there's all this positive energy around any mentions of LG! - Shafqat
Seriously, in two days my subscriber count has increased 25%. Not bad at all. - Rob Diana
Louis Gray got me onto FriendFeed and my life has never been the same since. - Robert Scoble
So, now it is finally closer to features parity with del.icio.us, could be useful to start a conversation in FriendFeed faster, when the reported problems will be gone. - Alberto Saavedra
via Alert Thingy
I wish the comments would come into FriendFeed. Also, why am I seeing TONS of duplication? Plus, why is FriendFeed not putting all similar items into one cluster? This stuff all sucks. - Robert Scoble
Robert this stuff takes a bit to sort out. Between FF and Reader I expect them to have it sorted out about 10x faster than most companies. Give them a little time. - Jason Shellen
Robert: thanks for the feedback. You are not alone in your complaint, and we are working on ways to group similar items. - Bret Taylor
duplication has been one of the few problems with FF - the way I understand it is that it's a pretty hard problem to solve, because every single FF user sees a different version of the site, depending on who your friends are - so you would have to generate a new cluster for every user every time they reload the page. But I have faith in the FF team that they will sort this out over time. - Frederic
Scoble, relax. These guys are launching early and often. I think what they have accomplished in the short time they have been working on this is pretty sweet. Google Reader put out a new feature today and you expect FF to have it fully integrated already? I am confident it will happen eventually. Just take a deep breath in the meantime. :) - Christopher Sacca
Saaca this feature is VERY poorly implemented. But, I'll revisit after they fix the bugs. It's pretty clear they should test this with major users before releasing. I'm the #1 Google Reader user in the world (according to Google). Why didn't they have me in to test these features before releasing? Just to ship fast? Why, is FriendFeed taking too much market share? - Robert Scoble
Robert, the Google Reader team is strong, but small. They do a lot of testing internally, as you can imagine. I think them opening up new features to people like you and me goes against their corporate ethos, but as individuals, they would like to, I bet. - Louis Gray
I think traditional RSS readers (Google Reader included) will eventually face a simple problem: offerings such as FF will begin to attract the mainstream audience (thanks to the social aspect and overall friendlier feel and apparent ease of use) - and by doing that eliminate their need to experiment with RSS and other buzzword technologies, something that RSS reader products/services have long hoped for. - Aviv
