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When You Bring up the Antichrist...

6:01 AM, November 20, 2008 | Comments (38)
For this week's magazine, Lisa Miller wrote her Belief Watch column about people who think Barack Obama is the Antichrist. Her piece focused largely on Todd Strandberg, the editor and founder of Raptureready.com , a site that Strandberg refers to as the...

Who Is This? Where Am I?

7:40 PM, October 17, 2008 | Comments (4)

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Posted Tuesday, November 18, 2008 3:25 PM

Should Obama Keep his Blackberry?

Kurt Soller
That's the fascinating question posed today by Jonathan Alter. His take is that "Obama must keep that trusty PDA he has come to depend on, despite bogus 'security' demands that he give it up." So far, the story has shot to the top of our most-read list, causing many of you to weigh on either side with some new viewpoints.

First, the pros: "Being in touch through modern technology is what made us elect him. He is in touch with us and everything we do and what we go through. He GETS IT. My dear President Elect, keep THE BLACKBERRY! Stay in touch with us," writes one reader, echoed by another who says that "the argument against the BlackBerry is ridiculous and symptomatic of the fetish Americans have for being technologically illiterate. Or, more frightening still, indicative of the same belief that our own CEO (ahem, President), should be deprived of the skills, tools and technology that every other executive has." There's some more simple reasoning out there, as many of you suggest Obama probably won't replace the mythical red phone with a gray PDA, no less "discussing national security secrets on his blackberry, for gosh sakes."

But what about all these supposed security risks? "Not a bad idea [to keep it] but there is the issue of forged messages and security flaws in the blackberry OS itself that can pose a threat," wrote one commenter. "If he continues to use a blackberry he should be very aware, if not not educated, on the security flaws such a device has." Others fretted over that fact that BlackBerry is technically a Canadian brand (you know, in case we ever go to war with our neighboring country) or that the GPS might give away secret locations of our commander-in-chief. "He may need to switch to a more secure device," argues one reader. "But he should not be isolated, accessible only through filters."

And as some of your brought up, there may be an even larger question looming out there: "I think the real question is not 'Should he get rid of his BlackBerry?'," wrote one reader, before concluding:

"Why doesn't he have an iPhone?"
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