Sarah Palin Pleads for Calm Two Days After Saying That Obama Wants to Create a "Death Panel"

Sarah Palin on her Facebook page last Friday:

The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s “death panel” so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their “level of productivity in society,” whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil.

Sarah Palin on her Facebook page yesterday (emphasis mine):

There are many disturbing details in the current bill that Washington is trying to rush through Congress, but we must stick to a discussion of the issues and not get sidetracked by tactics that can be accused of leading to intimidation or harassment. Such tactics diminish our nation’s civil discourse which we need now more than ever because the fine print in this outrageous health care proposal must be understood clearly and not get lost in conscientious voters’ passion to want to make elected officials hear what we are saying. Let’s not give the proponents of nationalized health care any reason to criticize us.

The woman who once accused Obama of "palling around with terrorists" and who is now claiming that Obama wants to create a "death panel" that is "downright evil" is (only two days later) pleading for calm and rational discourse? How can anyone take anything that she says seriously?

To Tweet or Not to Tweet...

It appears that Twitter has become the latest Facebook, or so people are telling me. Celebrities and even politicians have signed up for the service and "tweet" about all kinds of interesting (or meaningless) topics.

I, for one, have yet to see the value in signing up for a Twitter account. It just seems like something that would consume more of my time than it would really be worth in the end. The concept seems like a hybrid between texting and Facebook and while I enjoy both of these individual means of communicating, I am not sure that I need to have a Twitter feed. Maybe I just don't care enough about what my friends are eating for breakfast or what their latest inside joke is (that I won't understand anyway).

Much to my surprise, I found that there is a little debate about this exact topic that has been taking place on the internets. John Cole somewhat agrees that there may be little value in Twitter, but I hope that I don't come off quite as crotchty as he does in his post. (Damn these kids and their new-fangled technology!)

Jay Ackroyd on the other hand, thinks that those in the beltway media using Twitter is a good thing because it often drills down to their real, unfiltered feelings on issues (Often emphasizing how messed up the beltway media mentality can be).

So perhaps I can begin to see that there may be some value to this after all. Like all of these social media tools, there will always be elements that one may find or not find valuable, but for my own purposes I still think that I may sit on the sidelines and watch for the near future. I am not quite sold as of yet.

After all, Glenn Greenwald and Andrew Sullivan both point to how fun just watching can actually be. They both bring up the value of Christopher Walken's Twitter feed. Even if you find zero value in Twitter, you must admit that his feed is highly entertaining and pretty hilarious.