Very interesting. This would be great to apply to regular media as well. This is one of the most polarizing elections in terms of biased news reporting.. - Monty
This could not be more true. This is exactly what is happening with our mortgages. Additionally, Abu Dhabi's SWF investment into CitiGroup was a very curious move that will most likely be the first of many high profile investments into American companies. - Monty
No it would have been shredded worse than this one is. The media bias against Republicans is a myth. It is far to the right rather than the left. - Brad Nickel
Are you kidding? Bill O'Reilly would had done something inappropriate in his pants adding up the experience numbers and the who baby fiasco (fiascos?) would have wound up on the Inquirer with questions on whether Barack was the father. - Stupid Emoo (aka Tina)
No, it would be seen as it is now - a confusing, overly manipulative one. - Steve Isaacs
I think there would be a lot of Obama fanboys defending him if he had. - Lindsey Smith
Obama hired himself someone more experienced than himself. McCain hired someone with far less experience than himself. I know what I think of bosses who hire that way. I usually try to get away, and fast. - Robert Scoble
Elections are rarely about fanboys, the hard base (though with this pick, it is becoming so). It's about the grey area voters. - Michael W. May
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Uh, no. Because on the issues that matter they differ almost 100%. - AJ Kohn
I agree Michael, I was just agreeing with the OP. I do think ultimately though he would have went down in flames the way McCain is. - Lindsey Smith
Sorry to disappoint, Ontario, but I wouldn't be happy if Obama had selected Palin. I agree with Robert. - Nathaniel Payne
Following Robert's logic though McCain would have to pick Methuselah - Brian Sullivan
*nod* I understood, Lindsey, I just had to put the coherent thought down whilst I had it ;) - Michael W. May
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yes it would have been hailed as bold new choice, a new directoion outside of typical washington especially by the same people who are posting such negative posts about palin now. - Jonathan Jesse
I think a better analogy would be if he had selected Deval Patrick, first term governor of MA. Patrick had no prior political experience when he was elected. And they are philosophical soul mates after all. That choice would have had the Obamatrons shouting 'forward thinking, original, fresh' yadda yadda yadda. - Peter Simard
Jonathan: can you pass me the bong? Thanks. - Robert Scoble
ooohhhhh . . . Obamatrons. I'll have to remember that :) And yes . . . i'm a democrat. - Lindsey Smith
The same problem with Palin would still exist and the issues that picking Biden were meant to solve would still exist. Besides there are plenty of women in the Republican Party that were far more qualified. Came with far better credentials. - Paul
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If Obama had picked a VP who was a Christian fundamentalist, a creationist, a book banner, a secessionist, someone with an unmarried pregnant teenage daughter, and someone who thought the Iraq War was a holy mission ordained by God, everyone would have thought he had lost his mind. Is everyone here fully aware of just how crazy Sarah Palin's beliefs are? - Sean McBride
I love the smell of Republican desperation in the morning.... All these terrified posters and politicians are freaking. Gigs up boys and girls. Bye bye bye... - Brad Nickel
Sean: you seem to think that Sarah's beliefs are out of touch with much of America. I guarantee you they are NOT. To lots of people in America she is just like them. We aren't going to win this one by calling them all crazy. That'll just encourage them. - Robert Scoble
Robert, the war is joined. The Republicans' only chance is a religious war and that began with the Palin pick and last night. It will get bloody. They are cornered. Also, a majority of Americans support progressive values, we just have to make sure they get off their asses and vote. - Brad Nickel
What I can't figure out: why would anyone who supports religious censorship, book banning, oppressive theocracy and similar policies advocated by Sarah Palin and her fellow fundy cult members be attracted to Friendfeed and the Internet? - Sean McBride
Sean, I would assume that Ontario's question assume that Obama would pick the liberal/progressive equivilent to Palin. Which is why I think basic criticism that is beng applied to Palin would still be their as well as the criticisms that are already there of Obama. - Paul
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Sean: there are plenty of fundamentalist Christians here. They might not self identify, but they are here. Back to my Berlin experience, many of those who did the same thing in Germany were educated. Who burned the books in Berlin? College students. - Robert Scoble
Robert -- to pick just one issue: a large majority of Americans think the Iraq War was a huge mistake. They don't believe it was a holy mission ordained by God. Once they realize what Sarah Palin has really said, and what she really thinks about a host of issues, they are going to be appalled. Most Americans don't share the beliefs of religious fundamentalists and extremists who hate basic American values as defined in the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. - Sean McBride
Also, it says something of Obama's judgment that he *didn't* select a leftist mirror-image of Palin. - steplow is Steve
+1 Sean. I am really trying not to engage in political kerfuffle on the social webs but Palin is nuts. - Marci Maleski
Robert: if there are religious fundamentalists here on Friendfeed, apparently they don't have the guts to defend their beliefs in fair and open debate. They must be stealth fundies. In any case, my bet is that most Americans will back away from Sarah Palin once they realize just how extreme her beliefs are. - Sean McBride
If he had passed over Hillary Clinton (the way McCain passed over Kay Bailey Hutchison, Condi Rice, Olympia Snow, and more) to pick a woman so vastly inferior as a candidate, there is NO WAY either side would have seen it as a bold choice. They would have thought he'd lost his marbles. - Cheryl Rice
Cheryl Rice you hit the nail right on the head! - Paul
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I'm probably what you would call a religious fundamentalist, or at least a social conservative, and I do have the guts to defend my beliefs in fair and open debate, but I don't really feel like wasting my time. I'm not likely to change many minds, or my own, and I just don't feel like its worth saying much about this election. It's all a lot of hot air anyway. I doubt much is going to change because no one has sufficient majority in congress or enough of a mandate from the general populace. - Justin Long
I will say that while I appreciate many of her views I do wish McCain had picked someone with a bit more experience. On the other hand, doesn't she have more executive experience than Biden, McCain OR Obama? - Justin Long
Justin, She was the mayor of a town of about 9000, Alaska if were a county in the U.S. would be the 86th largest. Shes been governor for about a year and a half. If your were looking for executive experience Condi Rice or Christine Todd Whitman would have have filled that bill far better. - Paul
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Left leaning people are going to say no to this. Right leaning people are going to say yes to this. Nice litmus test! - Mike Lewis
Justin Long: You are a creationist? You believe in censoring books that disagree with your religious views? You believe that the Iraq War was a holy mission ordained by God? You want to throw out the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights? - Sean McBride
selecting somebody under investigation for corruption is always bold. but it's a poor choice, no matter who picked her. - eric mortensen
And if he wanted to make a bold choice with executive experience he could gone Carly Fiorina. - Paul
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@Paul: You're missing one bit of experience that Palin has that Fiorina lacks: Palin has won elections. Palin has won elections BIG. The attacks on Palin demonstrate that the Obama campaign is scared of her. - Rob Sterling
Absolutely. Double standards all over the place. - Stephen Shores
@Brian Sullivan - Was Methuselah an option? - leigh himel
@Sean: Can you point me to material that shows Palin's book banning and Iraq War is a holy mission ordained by God? Both are truly frightening and if this is her viewpoint I'll be even more disappointed than I already am. - AJ Kohn
AJ -- if you do a search on my feed for "palin," pointers to the Iraq War and book banning material should turn up near the top of the results. Let me know if you have trouble finding the links, and I will repost them in this thread. - Sean McBride
Seeing them both. I want to know more about the specific books she wanted banned. Though pressuring the librarian to quit if she didn't fully support shows further evidence of her abuse of power. There's a good chance it's from this list: http://www.ala.org/ala/oif/ban... - AJ Kohn
AJ - I would love to see the specific books too. What's not in dispute: she has a proven history of abusing power for questionable reasons. The "God" rhetoric with regard to the Iraq War fits the George W. Bush template to a tee. - Sean McBride
Better question: did Obama consider anyone who only had less than 2 years of holding a major office? - Dan Ciruli
Peter Simard - I agree that Deval Patrick would have been a better comparison. - Ontario Emperor
Sean, Robert, et al - don't assume that censorship is confined to the far right. There are many people who are not of the far right that would prefer that certain words be removed from the public conversation. Agreed? - Ontario Emperor
Similarly with book banning. Movements to ban books are free of political limitations. This point was made forcefully to me in a graduation address (not mine) given by a Samuel Clemens professor of literature. - Ontario Emperor
Ontario -- Sarah Palin threatened to fire a librarian as part of a campaign to ban books that she found offensive to her religious sensibilities. Perhaps some Democrats have engaged in similar activities, and who have reached the level of being a VP nominee. Can you name any? I can't. Face it: religious fundamentalists and extremists have taken over the Republican Party and destroyed it. - Sean McBride
Sean, I was going to note Al Gore's ties to the PMRC, but that was a bipartisan effort, not just confined to the Democrats. Also, this was private censorship rather than government-imposed censorship, which is pretty much the same thing, but still different. I explore this in my recent post at the http://mrontemp.blogspot.com/2... URL, which also looks at this thread, the Risley thingie, Jesse Jackson, and Michael Scanlon. I'm allowed to observe; I went to Mulhouse. - Ontario Emperor
Ontario - The PMRC called not for censorship of books at libraries (especially odious), but for putting warning labels on albums with adult language (not a policy I support). http://tinyurl.com/gt9hk Not censorship - big difference. There really is no equivalent to Sarah Palin on the left. - Sean McBride
Ontario -- interesting essay on your blog, which I just read. Generally I am a free speech absolutist. But I certainly respect those who speak out and condemn hate speech, especially genocidal hate speech. Should private groups have a right to organize boycotts against practitioners of hate speech? Probably. But answering hate speech with reasonable speech is much more effective than any kind of censorship, in my opinion. Robert Scoble is certainly free to block anyone he chooses for whatever reason -- that doesn't remotely approach censorship. - Sean McBride
Bush will say tonight: “We live in a dangerous world,” Bush says in remarks prepared for delivery to delegates by satellite from the White House. “And we need a president who understands the lessons of September 11, 2001: that to protect America, we must stay on the offense, stop attacks before they happen, and not wait to be hit again. The man we need is John McCain.” - Jason Goldberg
Bush: “When the debates have ended and all the ads have run and it is time to vote, Americans will look closely at the judgment, the experience, and the policies of the candidates — and they will cast their ballots for the McCain-Palin ticket,” Bush says. - Jason Goldberg
Wow the excerpts are full of WTFs ...like I said, these guys are so good at doublespeak they can convince the American people that a turd is a heavenly nugget of gelato - Glenn Batuyong
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Bush: "Last year, John McCain’s independence and character helped change history. The Democrats had taken control of Congress and were threatening to cut off funds for our troops. In the face of calls for retreat, I ordered a surge of forces into Iraq. Many in Congress said it had no chance of working. Yet one senator above all had faith in our troops and the importance of their mission — and that was John McCain. Some told him that his early and consistent call for more troops would put his presidential campaign at risk. He told them he would rather lose an election than see his country lose a war. That is the kind of courage and vision we need in our next commander-in-chief. - Jason Goldberg
In sum, it looks like Bush is going to paint the picture of a nation at war that needs a protector not a risky change. Expect that to be a theme going forward from the Repubs. Also, there are heavy rumors today that the Palin media mess has Republicans licking their chops to go after Obama. - Jason Goldberg
If we're forever at war then any future 9/11s aren't terrorist attacks, they're just battles. - Kevin Fox
Umm... "War is Peace..." I have to kill myself now. The next two pieces are hitting a little close to home. - Cyrus Lendvay
This is the "mommy" vs "daddy" problem (highlighted in a West Wing episode I recently rewatched): if the nation is at war, it needs a protector, a father-figure - voters usually vote Republican. If the nation is at peace, it needs a nurturer, a mother-figure... voters usually vote Democratic. What happens when we are neither at full blown war or full blown peace? Many voters still measure any war against WW2 as a "full war"...? - Justin Long
Permanent war for permanent dictatorship. The neocons have big plans to keep American troops bogged down in the Middle East forever. They're writing the script for Bush, McCain and the entire Republican Party. - Sean McBride
At this moment, for example, in 1984 (if it was 1984), Oceania was at war with Eurasia and in alliance with Eastasia. In no public or private utterance was it ever admitted that the three powers had at any time been grouped along different lines. Actually, as Winston well knew, it was only four years since Oceania had been at war with Eastasia and in alliance with Eurasia. But that was merely a piece of furtive knowledge which he happened to possess because his memory was not satisfactorily under control. Officially the change of partners had never happened. Oceania was at war with Eurasia: therefore Oceania had always been at war with Eurasia. The enemy of the moment always represented absolute evil, and it followed that any past or future agreement with him was impossible. --George Orwell, 1984 - Robert Stribley
Sorry left coasters! "West Coast viewers will continue to see NBC's swim coverage of the Beijing Olympics on a three-hour delay, even if Michael Phelps is in position on the final day to break Mark Spitz's record of seven gold medals at a single Olympics." - Steve Rubel
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"As far as the battle between Smith and O'Sullivan, I think it's over. Unless O'Sullivan completely face-plants against the Packers Saturday night at the Candle, he'll probably start the season." - Bryan Clark
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After completing a dive, competitors swim to a ladder, climb out of the pool and head immediately to a bank of showers that sit adjacent to the diving boards.Divers shower in between each dive to keep their muscles warm after getting out of the pool. The temperature of the pool water and the air are usually different - Mahdi Ebrahimi
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"Early stage venture firm Y Combinator, which has funded over a 102 young startups, has “open sourced” the legal documents that they provide to their startups to use as they seek additional funding. The documents were created with their law firm, Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati" - Paul Buchheit
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Paul Graham is doing a terrific job. FEw days ago, for thr first time, they published a document showing what kind of startup ideas they particularly look for, and now this!!! Cool. - Hayk Hakobyan
There is a lot riding on Martz's "system" being successful for the Niners. I am still not 100% convinced that this system can overcome some of the shortcomings in the QB and receiver positions. - Monty
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I'm still holding my breath that Alex can get his act together and really win the QB competition. If he can't, or if he is simply the best of the worst, it could be another long season. - Bryan Clark
I agree. This is clearly Alex's position to lose (given the economics of his contract). The hope was probably that Alex would out perform and "win" the starting position making the decision much easier. In workouts, Alex is clearly the better qb. However, he has yet to do this.. - Monty
I am curious to see how this plays out. It will get interesting IF JT actually has a good outing. He he doesn't, then that really does not change much. - Monty
@Monty, I would love to help you manage this room. Could you add me as an administrator? - Bryan Clark
""Whoa, no, no, no, no," Martz said. "We are not monitoring anything right now. We're just practicin' right now. We haven't even found the right pieces yet. Once we find the right pieces and then get our starting offense together then we can talk about where we are."" - Bryan Clark
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PLEASE get Vernon involved in the offense. - Monty
The ultimate FriendFeed client is the URL, it isn't as needy as Twitter is, and doesn't need a client to make it more usable (at the moment). - Steve Isaacs
Perhaps FriendFeed doesn't need a client to make it more useful, but it is certainly needed to make it more accessible (for me anyways). Also, thanks for favoriting this, Louis. Also, thanks for commenting at Performancing and adding me as a friend on FriendFeed! - James Mowery
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that missing hide feature is indeed a good point. really messes up ff in twhirl. - Martin Spindler
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Above all else, I don't understand why FriendFeed and Twhirl have not agreed on the display of comments. Why on earth do they have the order of comments different on each one? Personally, I like the reverse chronological order in Twhirl, but when I visit the FF site, it always takes a moment to adjust seeing the older comments first. Regardless, consistency would be appreciated throughout most first and third-party applications. :D - James Mowery
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I like using FF on the web.. tried twhirl and it sucks... I agree with @Steve - why do we even need a client? - andy brudtkuhl
Andy: I would ask if you believe that Twitter is as useful without a client? If your answer was no... either you don't use Twitter or you are a madman! :D - James Mowery
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"Client" doesn't necessarily mean a desktop app. I do, however, see a need for alternative web interfaces. IMO, the successful third-party FF apps will be improved and advanced web clients. - Aviv
Yeah, I agree with Aviv. Especially with smartphones coming in their prime with the likes of the Apple iPhone, I see greater importance being put on third-parties. Who knows what could be created to utilize FriendFeed's functionality? I don't think we've even seen the true potential of third-party developers come out yet with FriendFeed. - James Mowery
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One area of opportunity for a FF client would be w/a native iPhone app. While the FF iPhone interface is fairly good, but an app could introduce some additional functionality (i.e. improved filtering). - Monty
James, I think the Twitter concept itself makes it that much more suitable for 3rd party desktop clients, pretty much in the same way that we have IM clients. I think FF is fundamentally different, especially usability-wise (ie. we comment, we check back for replies, there are rooms, different types of content being shared - from images to Twitter-like messages). Unlike Twitter - and IM for that matter, it'll be difficult for desktop apps to keep the users engaged in the FF experience for a long period of time. It works for Twitter - messages in, messages out. But FF requires the user to pay more attention and interact with the system in ways that I think are bound to be inefficient if using a simplified desktop app. - Aviv
James, while FF's current API implementation is great, I don't think we will see serious alternatives to the FF web client until FF lets developers hook into the constant stream of updates (XMPP is all the rage, it seems). It's still possible to aggregate FF data, but at this stage I think it's the main reason for the lack of rich FF clients. - Aviv
Aviv, while I agree, you just can never know. I wasn't specifically talking about desktop clients with this discussion. I think that web-based applications could be developed to better harness the FriendFeed data. For example, I'd love to see a more in-depth view of the activity that takes place on my FriendFeed account (somewhat like Socialistics for Facebook) or have a third-party develop a site that could allow you to aggregate different content types into one single feed for FriendFeed, or perhaps something like a third-party application that could notify you whenever your name or brand is mentioned on FriendFeed (like summize). - James Mowery
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I'd love to see a live activity heat-map of some sort that can display the relative activity happening throughout the world on FriendFeed. A simple map with color signifying the amount of activity that has taken place within the past hour, day, week, month, and year would be an excellent application. It could be made more useful, but even having something just like that would be astounding to check out. Stuff like that is what I'm interested in. - James Mowery
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I think a mobile client would be great... But I don't think we need another client for the desktop... @James I only prefer using a Twitter client because it pushes the updates to me - andy brudtkuhl
Andy, I also only prefer Twhirl because it gets the updates to me. When I want to share content from the web, I much rather prefer using the FF bookmarklet. I also use the FF web interface when attempting to catch up on information that I have missed. - James Mowery
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I like Twhirl, but not for FF - I would give a client that did all of this a try. - Leslie Poston
No client needed for FriendFeed. FriendFeed is the first service where I feel I don't need a local app. - Rutger Blom
