538 hit a number of the primary results right on the head while MSM traded jokes about the volatility of polling numbers. Blue maps on 538 always make me smile! - Shellee
That map shouldn't scare anyone...it's means that progress is ahead...as opposed to another 4 years of regression. - AlexScoble(Robert'sBro)
I hope it means progress is ahead. There's still an awful lot of red. Nice to see hope shining through in Jesusland though. - Chris Messina
I'm enjoying looking through the polls and such - interesting to find out who's polling what, and what that means in the bigger picture. I like the simulation run graph better :-) Its all those 'big land, small population' states that are scary on that map. - Justin Hart
Love that site. Note: more red on map, but more dense states tend to be blue. - Mike Reynolds
I'm moving to Montana -- it's neither blue nor red. - Sprague D
"Let me be as clear as possible," Obama said. "I think people's families are off-limits, 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 governor or her potential performance as a vice president." - MG Siegler via Bookmarklet
Admire that approach, wish more were like it - Sally Church
Class, yes. If the unlikely story that she lied about her pregnancy is true, it becomes a part of our politics, unfortunately, as it shows her level of integrity. - Erica Baker
Palin's views on reproductive rights, marriage, contraception, single parenthood, and what is considered "legitimate" and "shameful" therein could soon become a matter of law - so if her family is off-limits, ours certainly won't be. Just something to keep in mind! - joneilortiz
Didn't Obama say he wouldn't want his daughters to 'pay for a mistake with a baby?' That's not making them off limits, that's using their reproductive rights for his own agenda - just like Palin. - Marianne Lenox
joneilortiz , there are 3 branches of America's government. Mrs. Palin will serve in a subordinate position in the executive branch. For her views to become a matter of law, even if she were to become President, would literally require an act of Congress and the Judicial branch would have to uphold it. ie, it aint gonna happen. - Mattb4rd
-1 joneilortiz. Presidents, and especially vice presidents, do not create laws. They can bring proposals to Congress but it's up to Congress, with a current Democratic majority, mind you, to actually create the laws. Just something to keep in mind. - Akiva Moskovitz
I hate everything the man stands for, and yet I believe him when he makes this request. - Trevor Carpenter
If, after the last 8 years especially, you don't think the Executive Branch has tremendous effect on what becomes law - Supreme Court justices are appointed, don't forget - then you are simply misinformed. Abortion rights and accessibility, for instance, have been whittled down through all sorts of measures that work in and around legislative action. Federal funding of faith-based programs, which effect reproductive rights tremendously, have of late been the work of the Executive Branch. - joneilortiz
@Mattb4rd: didn't you hear that the VP is no longer considered part of the executive branch? - Jim Norris
@Jim Norris: No, I haven't heard that one. What's the punchline? - Mattb4rd
joneilortiz, that's a different issue all together and a very important one. You're never really voting for a president, you're voting for the Chief Justices he appoints. However, even they do not make law; they interpret it. It's just, uh, as of late, they've been making quite a miserable job of it. - Akiva Moskovitz
@Jim Oh, that's right! lol @Akiva Ya, totally. Hopefully we'll get to a place where the executive branch doesn't have their hands in all the books! - joneilortiz
Very classy. The fact is, its none of our business. Even if the crazy, cruel stories going about were true, I could not fault a mother for protecting her family. - Jody C
@Mattb4rd/Akiva, don't be silly. The very purpose of running someone as Vice/President is so that their views become law. 'Become,' you will note, as a rather broad term. The constitutional details you refer to are of little relevance to any White House whose party has a bunch of people in Congress. - j1m
@Jody, but I could fault her for lying about it to the public and press. (Assuming she did, not saying she did.) It's also a matter of judgment. The choices she supposedly made tell a lot about her character. Lying is lying, whether it's to protect your daughter or to keep your wife from knowing you got a BJ. - Jeff P. Henderson
Here's an article from an Anchorage paper: http://www.newsminer.com/news/... keep in mind that no one knew she was pregnant until March, when she announced she was 7 months pregnant. - faboo mama
Jim, what documentation? her timing in terms of travel, pregnancy etc are all public record. - Duncan Riley
there's no documentation, but there's allegation: http://bit.ly/1mC5DB - judge for yourself but remember not to jump to conclusions. - ~C4Chaos
May not be relevant as SHE may not have been pregnant. There is significant circumstantial evidence that the baby may in fact belong to her 16yo daughter. See here for an interesting take on this http://www.dailykos.com/storyo... - Jeff P. Henderson
Ugh. Again, all based on anecdotal evidence and photographs. How would you feel if this was Michelle Obama we were talking about? Get a grip. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Mark, looking at the evidence you've got to say that it's at least highly strange. Seriously, look at the pics of her at 7mths - Duncan Riley
Anecdotal evidence or not, it is still highly strange if you look at the pics. - Rahsheen(isSoAwesome)
in all fairness the photo which includes the daughter where she seems pregant was supposedely taken in 2006 according to digitaljournal. Don't know that anything is official. If the campaign would simply deal with this, then ppl might focus on the real issue of the abuse of power charge. - Ruth Ferguson
actually McCain already has been dealing dirt to Michelle Obama. The real story here is, McCain's surprise VP choice was made without doing a background check. So much for his "experience"... more like an example of senility! - Steve Follmer via twhirl
Nothing stated on this thread is a provable fact, including Steve's little potshot at the end. Photos of other highly strange things? Bigfoot in a freezer, the chronology of Britney Spears' supposedly fake to real to fake to real boobs, and the loch ness monster. All this does is devolve the whole political process to the tabloids. If that's the type of politics you want, you're welcome to them. I thought the goal was informed and factual debate, though. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Mark- That's the point - we're trying to be informed. Not misinformed. - Steve Isaacs
I find it immensely ironic to hear republicans cry about provable facts, and about dirty campaigns! Bush and Reagan have yet to admit to one provable fact in 16 years of governance. mccain's mudslinging campaign is hardly an example of informed and factual debate. here's a provable fact: no fortune 500 companies go out an hire 72 year old CEOs, and try to sell them to their shareholders as "experienced". Running the free world takes a little more energy than mccain will ever have, even with his little energizer bunny cheerleader VP. - Steve Follmer via twhirl
FYI. there are photos of Palin while pregnant. the photo time stamps are questionable but easy to explain, as i've noted on this thread - http://bit.ly/1mC5DB - i have no interest in spreading ugly rumors but i'm interested at getting to the truth. for your convenience, here's the link to the Flickr thread - http://bit.ly/2VxB9F - ~C4Chaos
I find it immensely asinine you assume that I'm a republican, Steve. I'm sick of it from both sides - I'm not a fan of the Obama is a Muslim conspiracy theories either, but I put up with that crap too. This is on that level. -400 to Steve and -30 to Lindsey for applauding him, since we're playing on this "Who's Line.." scoring system. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
no need to talk partisan politics. stick to the issue (rumor) at hand. here's another interesting take - http://bit.ly/3n1QTo - "There is quite the way-beyond-a-buzz happening on the internet over allegations that Trig Palin is not Todd and Sarah's child, but belongs to Bristol Palin and an unknown father. That's not how I've been hearing it for the last few months at all. As a matter-of-fact, I've been hearing that Trig is very much Todd and Sarah's child while Bristol Palin is actually pregnant NOW." - ~C4Chaos
I applauded him for the comment about Bush and Reagan not admitting to provable fact. Not about whether he assumed you were Republican - Lindsey Smith
if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck its a duck. for example the ad-hominem attacks, instead of dealing with the issues I raised, this is right out of the republican playbook. - Steve Follmer via twhirl
@Lindsey. You didn't specify. Your meaningless point assignment remains the same because, well, it's meaningless. As for you Steve, I think you need to go check a dictionary on ad hominem. I don't care about your issues, and I don't care who started it. *If* I were a republican, do I control the "Republican playbook" as you put it? Can I control other republicans? No. My original statement stands - this is all stupid and sleazy muckraking, not informed or intelligent debate. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
Here's something in response to your comment (and in response to Lindsey's applause): Reagan is dead, you dopes. He can't admit to anything. That's a provable fact. I'm taking another few hundred imaginary points away for that one. - Mark "Rizzn" Hopkins
meh . . . it's late. I'm not here to start a fight, especially when I said nothing to you. All my conversations on here are civil and for the most part well thought out. I liked this because it was funny. I "applauded" Steve because he pointed out something important. I don't care how many points you take from me . . - Lindsey Smith
Good grief, it seems obvious at this point. If those photographs were taken at the time it's said they were taken, then Palin lied, and the baby is her daughter's, not hers. That may be understandable from a human standpoint... no, forget that line of reasoning. The tabloid nature of this story is ENTIRELY Palin's fault, and the cultural/political culture of Alaska. She lied. She covered up. AND obviously McCain did not vet her. Who would want this mess on their ticket? Only a very reckless man. - Rick Powell
OK now that Palin has said her daughter is currently 5 months pregant, I think we can consider this rumor closed. - Ruth Ferguson
The map is funny (though the outcome for the baby was not). The fact that this poor 17 year old girl is going to become a target in all this political mess also is not. Palin scares me. - Abby Martin
lohang: no, not really :) I stripped a lot out when I was working on the design, and just never bothered to add it back. I'll add it back in there this weekend. I'm going to look into facebook connect integration as well. The more ways people can login the better. Thanks for the praise! - Gabe Ragland
Great site. Truly impressive. Note that Evan recently insisted that a identica clone share back the modified source code in accordance with the license. - Andy C
@Andy C: Ok i'll add a link to my source code. Do you know where I can find more info about the laconica software use requirements? Couldn't find anything about it on the wiki. - Gabe Ragland
@Gabe: I think it suffices to include a pointer to the modified source (having removed sensitive password info) - http://is.gd/1e6O - Andy C
@Gabe, first: nice job. Second: there's a COPYING file in the distribution. You must share all source code for a public site. Second: you built it with LACONICA, not with IDENTICA. One's the software, the other's the site. Please don't mix them up when you're talking to other people. Finally: please sign up for our dev mailing list. - Evan Prodromou
@Evan, sorry about calling it identica. I noticed the mistake a bit after I posted but there were already comments... I just added a link to my source code and info about the license in my site's footer. Thanks for making this great piece of software! - Gabe Ragland
I'd like to to start allowing users from other laconica instances to follow imgfave users, but I haven't been able to wrap my brain around the whole federation thing (and http://openmicroblogging.org seems to be down). If anyone could give me an overview of how that would work that would be great! - Gabe Ragland
Really well done! A simple design, and a great new idea built off laconica! - roel
I didn't catch the implications of a dedicated Track on identi.ca, Steve. But I don't think Evan would do anything to damage the community. Track across federated servers is key. I wouldn't be interested in using laconi.ca if I were creating yet another silo. - Leo Laporte
I wouldn't think otherwise but want to be clear that we need to keep XMPP open to foster development on this platform. Very glad you're in the game. - Steve Gillmor
1. Threaded responses 2. Real time updates 3. embeddable video and images, must I go on? - Mona N.
and.. being able to talk to Leo.. before the rest of his army shows up. heh - Daynah
Mona, it really deserves the praise from you, just checked it out. Interesting if we will finally decide to actually migrate instead of playing with it for a week. - Svetlana Gladkova
Hum...kinda like a tumblr/twitter/friendfeed combo? - leigh himel
I haz it ,, and Im following your bacon trails - fotographic
So I played wit it and it's much like pownce to me. You can add photos and videos. But this has autoupdate so as you start to read something the page refreshes and it slides away. Also I have to click a link to see what comments people have made on a link. I will grant you it's better than twitter but not that much better. Still as long as you all add you feeds back here then we can all play where we want. - John Cooper
@hao thaks for the bookmarklet ,, work nicely - fotographic
http://rejaw.com/scobleizer but I'm not there, FriendFeed is still my favorite community. I'm getting bored with new social things. We're headed to Berlin next week to get a look at the latest in Consumer Electronics. Toys we can't afford due to crappy economy. Oh well. Maybe I should rejaw. :-) - Robert Scoble
If the comments at 37Signals were threaded, they could have an option to hide all replies to the trolls. It'd be a great noise suppression tool. - Michael Nielsen
Is saying something negative the same thing as being a troll? - Nicholas Molnar
Looks like it's just slapped on the comment by whoever does the moderating (according to http://www.37signals.com/svn/a...) - it doesn't seem to be a per-user flag. That comment is the first one, so it doesn't demote it, and in fact it sort of draws my eye to the content. If I were a troll, it would be a badge of honor. - ⓞnor
I think it would be even more clever if the troll comments were hidden by default (for everybody but the troll). - Gabe Schaffer
@Michael: Sounds a bit like Digg. Frankly, it always surprises me to find unthreaded comment systems. Usenet was threaded way back when, after all. - Christopher Granade
The lack of threading is by design these days, usually. Not threading makes it hard for flamewars to persist because the back-and-forth responses get diluted by all the other comments on the article. - Mr. Gunn
I guess I understand that it's by design, a la 140 character limits and whatnot. I just don't agree with it for a lot of sites. Go look at threads on Pharyngula and try to follow the action. It's infuriating. - Christopher Granade
Can someone make a video like this about Trolls? Do not feed the Trolls! LMAO - Igor The Troll
What I want to see is a giant cigarette come and attack the next Asshole I see flick a lit cigarette butt out the window on the freeway! - Jeff P. Henderson
"Obama told House Democrats on Tuesday that as president he would order his attorney general to scour White House executive orders and expunge any that "trample on liberty," several lawmakers said." - newsjunk.com
Please and thank you. We need a reboot. - Chris Baskind
At least he says the right things now and then, Cory. We've lived through almost 8 years of dumb actions by the present administration. - Chris Baskind
Obama won't be an end-all-be-all President. He won't fulfill all his promises or our hopes. I am confident, however, he'll slide us heavily back onto the path where such hopes aren't considered silly non-starters. Remember, all he's promising is change -- not paradise. ;-) - Jim Stanger
when will Congress go back and repreal all the failed laws on the books? - Robert Hafer
Robert: this is why I argue any new law should only go on the books when 2 are removed. - LPH
We're a nation of laws. LOTS of laws. ;-) - Chris Baskind
Obama is the last great hope for your country. - Chris Luckhardt
a sure lock to a loss is jumping to a conclusion before he is in power. (1) angers voters (2) if he has legal issues why wait? Obama just failed..., but why change a pattern of a week of losses? ten point jump by McCain in ONE WEEK! - Noah David Simon
"It explains too the strong desire among the McCain camp to get Mr. Obama on stage for debates soon. There's a feeling Mr. Obama is still climbing the foreign-policy learning curve. And they see mileage in his issuing a few more gut reactions." - Wall Street Journal http://del.icio.us/simonstudio... - Noah David Simon
Is Senator Obama still campaigning? From the sounds of things, you would think he is all ready elected. I always hated the assumptive close in sales. - Jason Lovett
Yeah, because he was so good at following through on his promise to protect liberty with the FISA vote. Oh, wait...umm...never mind. - Andrew Leyden
To be fair, since he doesn't have much of an actual record to run on, future promises are all he can offer. His influence int he Chicago area has been a horror show of failed projects and his Fisa vote shows a dedication to expediency. Isn't the slogan now "Change that works for him"? - Soulhuntre via twhirl
@LPH - that is a great idea! Kill two laws for every new one born. Brilliant :) - Soulhuntre
Undoing the mess that Bush 43 and the neocons have made will require tremendous energy and effort. Getting rid of all the anti-democratic and anti-constitutional executive orders and legislation that were implemented after 9/11 is absolutely necessary if we are not going to slide into Nazi-style totalitarianism in the United States. - Sean McBride
