Archive for June 12th, 2008
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
Muslim = Smear?
The Barack Obama campaign today highlighted its efforts to “fight the smears” that rise up during the course of a national campaign, like those propagated by the Swift Boat Veterans for “Truth” against John Kerry during the 2004 campaign.
Now I’m an unabashed supporter of Barack Obama’s campaign, but I do think his staff needs to be careful when they identify the comment “Barack Obama is a Muslim” as a smear.
It’s certainly an untruth, but there are 1.5 billion people worldwide who might object to the implications of the word “smear.”
I understand the campaign’s concern over this untruth, with 54 percent of Americans in a 2006 poll saying they wouldn’t vote for a Muslim for president. Nonetheless, this might be one of those cases where it’s best to stick with the old Christian ideal of turning the other cheek.
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Why I’m Voting Republican
Despite all I have said here on this blog about the great Senator from Illinois, I found this video on YouTube today that perfectly captures why I’m voting Republican this November.
Just kidding. 
Thursday, June 12th, 2008
All My Life Are Belong to Google
So for one reason or another, Google is running ran super slow right now for a period of time tonight with ping response rates at 3-4 times that of other major search engines.
The slowdown isn’t affecting all of Google’s properties — YouTube and Gmail are still running well — but is causing trouble with Reader, Search and Blogger.
During this time, I really began to realize how much I rely on Google for my daily Web life.
Despite knowing about the issue, I found myself repeatedly entering random words into Safari’s search box trying to move between sites. I couldn’t remember more than a handful of the 300+ blogs and news sites I read on a daily basis via RSS.
I felt cut off from the world, despite 99.9% of Web sites I might otherwise visit working perfectly well.
Just one more reminder that the name of the game on the Web is still search, despite all the hype over social networking, Web 2.0 and other technologies that steal our attention from time to time.
Alas, before I could even finish writing this post, Google’s webmonkeys had search up and running once again. Thanks guys!
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