Voice activated computers exist.
If McCain is so handicapped that he can't comb his own hair or tie his shoes, couldn't something be done to help him, as it is with other disabled people?

If?

Please, go on.

Yes, read your own link.

No, I am asking you what you think. Is he 'making up' his handicap?

Funny how things change. A week ago Obama was fighting to show he had enough experience, his attacks on Palin's experience having backfired, revealing his own weakness in that realm. So now the Obama camp wants to make this about typing skills.

Just thing about the last 200 years or so, I don't see that computer literacy is a necessary trait for the president of this country, or any other.

I can just see Obama and Putin emailing each other on their happy little Macs. At 3am.

Bob, I'm not sure that we shouldn't take this as a truly serious charge. It could lead to the discovery of other things disqualifying McCain for the presidency. For example, can he text? And how fly is his MySpace page? Does he use the Genius ability of iTunes 8?

Enquiring minds want to know. Oh. Sorry. Old Gray Lady minds want to know.

Not only can he text, but does he use a pansy qwerty blackberry/iphone type or is he adept at predictive text, like itap or T9? These things are gravely important.

I'm about to read Anathem by Neal Stephenson. I think it relates in some ways to this little issue. So many confuse technology with knowledge and entertainment. Our classrooms are wired, practically every home has internet, libraries are becoming internet cafes. Yet most students graduate with less knowledge of the basics of grammar and math than their grandparents did in their youth. Though they do read and write prodigiously, if you consider their collective IM and text messages.

I'm pretty close to at least trying to do what a growing number of folks are doing: turn off the TV, disconnecting the internet and spending a year reading only good books and a few select periodicals, I'll probably stick with the WSJ and The Economist, maybe get a subscription to National Review. I'll still have to use email and some internet at work, which will make it hard to remain sober at home.

You might consider a subscription to The Spectator. It's the best-written magazine I know, and I subscribe to, or have subscribed to, NR, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard. The New Criterion and The London Review of Books are both good but harder reading--you might find it good not to have the television for some of the articles require you to sit, read, and think. And read some more. An article can be a hook for a true think-piece.

The problem that I have with the addictive internet is that it's a computer which allows me to do a textual search. In college I used a dictionary, and I used it until I had Bill Buckley's vocabulary, and Rex Stout's too, in the Nero Wolfe stories. And I learned the words at the top of the page. These days our learning is much more eclectic. There are fan sites for every possible interest. But if I need, for example, to use the phrase "Reformation," I resort to Wikipedia and find out enough, I hope, not to be an utter fool in using it. But that doesn't mean that I know what came before or what came after.

"There are fan sites for every possible interest."

Yes, and this is one thing I love about the web, yet it's what makes it fail in so many ways. Even wikipedia pages, more often than not, are fan sites, sometimes of wikipedia itself. I've seen informative pages grow less informative there because someone decided it didn't meet the wikipedia standards, and factually correct information gets removed, INCLUDING THE REFERENCES.

The web is in many ways not making connections for people. For many it is akin to looking through a photo loupe while admiring a mosaic. You end up focusing on broken shards.

See what McCain's missing when he refuses to join us in the 21st Century?
I have a lot of trouble believing that a rich man such as he is does not know about voice-activated computers. Can he use a mouse? Could he grasp a stick and use it to tap the keys on a keyboard? Or is he just making excuses because "grandpa" just can't seem to get the hang of those newfangled machines?

"Grandpa" used to be entrusted with high-tech, multi-million dollar fighter aircraft. Each of these aircraft had state-of-the-art flight control systems, avionics, armament fire control systems, and electronic countermeasure systems.

And let me go ahead and type out your next comment for you:

"Well, I have heard that he must not have been very good at all that or he wouldn't have been shot down."

I even made sure to use the more passive "I have heard" that you so often use to provide yourself some sort of plausibility that you aren't, technically, calling a decorated war veteran a coward who is faking disabilities brought on by torture....all because he can't figure out AOL.

Please notice that it doesn't work when I try it, either.

What you don't understand anon.2 is the differnece between what one can do and what one must do. If you don't have to use a computer why would you submit yourself to a voice-activated computers? Clearly, McCain does not need to use a computer, so he doesn't.

Perhaps we ought to wonder if McCain is really up for the job. If he can't use a computer, could he answer an important question like "Boxers or briefs"?

Of course McCain lost five U.S. Navy aircraft. The first one was in Corpus Christi Bay as he was practicing landings. In the second he flew too low over the Iberian Peninsula, and took out some power lines, losing the plane. The third he was flying a trainer plane solo to Philadelphia and claimed that mechanical problems caused the crash. The fourth really was an accident, and while he was in the cockpit, the plane was destroyed on the flight deck and was not his fault. The fifth plane was hit by a surface-to-air missile -- that's the only one we usually hear about.
McCain had 20 hours in combat and got 28 medals. Many men in the Vietnam War faced greater danger, lived through greater suffering, and had hundreds of hours of combat, yet they did not receive 28 medals.

As a man ages, his mental capacity decreases, that's a known fact of biology. Most older statesmen can cover up this fact by surrounding themselves with younger, more savvy advisors.

McCain was knocked unconscious in at least three of those plane crashes and would consequently have had head injuries that would certainly add to mental confusion at 72. (Notice what happens to old prizefighters.)

But to suggest that because he was such a capable pilot he must be hiding incredible intelligence --now that is a claim that invites scrutiny. He graduated near the very bottom of his class at the Naval Academy, and he crashed at least two of those extremely valuable airplanes out of incompetance.

Maybe he just can't figure the Internet out.

Yes, it is just you.

My point was that if he can pilot high-tech aircraft through combat missions and carrier operations he can figure out Google mail.

Also to consider. McCain's campaign was big into the internet eight years ago in 2000. (Ref here).

And you can throw in his time as the Chairman of the Senate Telecommunications Subcommittee while you are at it.

Isn't this yet another case where McCain has has actual public policy level experience with telecommunications issues going back a long way and Barack Obama has...what?...an ad that says he "gets" the internet.

So I am asking you, what evidence do you have that Barack Obama "has figured out" the internet to a greater extent than McCain either as far as personal use and, more importantly, concerning public policy? Or to a greater extent than Sarah Palin? Or Bristol Palin?

What are Obama's bonifides in this area? Evidence that The One "gets it" other than that his fanboy base tend to have, like, totally rad MySpace pages, like?

We have all been witness to more than one comment where you are eager to tear down a decorated war veteran as a coward, a fakir, an incompetent, and a mental deficient...which is all pathetically easy and natural for you.

Now is the hard part. The evidence that Barry O, The One, knows the internet beyond using e-mail. What have you?

We know that he [The One] has chastised all of us provincials for not taking the time to learn at least two languages that he hasn't bothered learning himself. Are you going to add HTML/CSS to that list for him? Because he damned sure isn't writing any code himself either.

I do have to concede the point that, on average, mental acuity decreases over time. With some this happens sooner than with others. Some people shows signs of early Alzheimer's in their forties.

Say, did you see where Obama has begun using a teleprompter during his campaign stops now?

Hmmmmmmmm.

Maybe the royalty owners for the word, "Uh" have upped their rates.

But then maaaaaaybeeeee he is losing his memory.

Maybe the Chosen One is losing his memory. But maybe he's merely a construct. Since he's never had a real challenge--there, I've said it--we have no idea how he'll react when he does have one. And the president will have them.

McCain has had lots of challenges and has acted on them, an in general quite well.

The presidency is too big for all on-the-job experience.

I wonder how Ahmadinejad will react during his State visit to the White House, when Obama has teleprompters set up in every room?

Do you remember Republican Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska who famously said, "Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Why? Because it got tangled up in a big ball with all these things going on the Internet."
Then, "They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material."
This was a Republican from Alaska.
I want to hear McCain describe the Internet to us.
How does it work, John?

No I don't remember what Ted Stevens said about the internet. Nor do I remember what Steve Jobs said or Bill Gates. I do remember Al Gore saying he more or less was responsible for it's existence.

Come on, Bob, you don't remember the famous comment, "The Internet is a series of tubes?"

The "Al Gore said he invented the Internet" rumor was long ago disproved (check out Snopes.com, the website that debunks rumors.)
What he said was that when he was in Congress, he helped pass initiatives that fostered the development of the Internet. This was part of an interview with Wolf Blitzer on March 9, 1999 on CNN.

The evil thing about rumors is that they are used to influence unthinking people, those who accept all statements as true and will not look them up to verify the claim.

Congressmen rightfully take credit for their actions to foster beneficial programs, and what Gore said was no different from what any Senator might say.

As I said, Al Gore more or less claims he was responsible for its existence. You agree. So does Snopes.

As for what Ted Stevens thinks or says, I couldn't care less.

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