What if Obama’s Health Care Plan’s Most Dangerous Enemy Was… Twitter? | Hacker News Reader

What if Obama’s Health Care Plan’s Most Dangerous Enemy Was… Twitter?

trueslant.com

I can't comment on the content of the article yet, because I'm still struggling to read it. What strikes me as astonishing is how badly it's written so far:

Not altogether surprising I suppose given the recession, a new Latina justice who made a mildly offensive gaff early on, and a brave attempt at universal (a word which does not mean "socialist") health care.

This sentence no verb. And if that's not enough, the very next sentence mentions "Obama fanatacs". Yes, petty as it might seem, I am complaining about spelling and grammar. When I'm reading, things like that distract me. If you're addressing a wide audience, please be responsible enough to ensure a certain level of quality. I know that it becomes a non-trivial effort once you're past the 140-character limit, but think of it as an entry barrier for the medium ;)

You'd think that tight editing would come naturally after writing within the strictures of the twitter status box.

Think of it as (lambda xs . "[This is n]ot altogether surprising[,] I suppose, given" xs).

Yes if the twittering masses just left the elite alone they will surely take care of us since we cannot take care of ourselves.

This summer has felt like the summer before an election year.

Nonsense. The last thing any politician wants to do in an election cycle is to talk about policy.

Maybe, just maybe, this statement is not about the politicians. Maybe the comparison has to do with the part where there is arguing on the streets between "the sides" of the healthcare and stimulus debates. It could be about a certain charged tension one feels because you can't look anywhere without someone trying to convince you that "$issue is (good|bad)". Maybe its the blowhards on tv are raging about how unfair the other side is being, in a way that rivals election shennanigans. Heck the politicians are double-speaking about policy just the same as always, so I'm not even sure what your retort means.

But you are probably right, that comment was about the politicians themselves. Only politicians can make it feel like election season.

Maybe, just maybe, my comment was meant to be taken lightly.

That's what smileys are for. :)

But that ruins the joke for people who get that it's a joke.

Conclusion: plain text sucks. :/

Agreed. If you had been here, i would have picked up on the body language/intonation cues that it was a joke. But keyboards don't got that :(

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