Top stories for the week of September 1 - 5, 2008

It was all Palin, all the time this week for bloggers, whether they were talking about politics, parenting, or anything in between. And what's not to like (if you're a tabloid) about a hockey-mom veep-candidate who loves religion, oil exploration, guns, her pregnant teenage daughter, and her son who leaves for Iraq on September 11? It's every American story rolled into one extra-strength package (well, most American's don't care about hockey). "The Palin family has become the Spears family of Alaska," exults the dishy Dlisted, celebrating Gov. Palin's four-cover grand slam. But in reality it's so much more nuanced. "Sarah Palin's story is my story."

And it's the story of millions of other American women who are working hard to live their various dreams," Cassy Fiano (Smokin' Hot Commentary) writes. Talking Points Memo suggests "the McCain campaign has almost singlehandedly made Sarah Palin's daughter a central figure in the Republican convention," distracting America with tabloid fodder while the media wants to ask about policies and politics. At Politico.com, Roger Simon apologizes (er, facetiously) for the media's temerity in questioning Palin's qualifications to be the USA's #2: "We should have stuck to the warm, human interest stuff like how she likes mooseburgers and hit an important free throw at her high school basketball tournament even though she had a stress fracture."

 Meanwhile, the convention speech Wednesday night went well, huh? The Astute Blogger says "Sarah Palin was so fantastic that if I was a foreign leader, then I'd be very worried." And that was just the blog-post headline. RedState reports Palin's teleprompter choked during her a ddress, so the poised Guv winged it: "Contrast this to Barack Obama who, when last his teleprompter malfunctioned, was left stuttering before a crowd... Sarah Palin. Winner." Meanwhile, in a multi-part series called "Saradise Lost," Progressive Alaska fact checks the speech.

It's surprising we have the energy to get worked up about anything else. Thank goodness for Google's new browser, Chrome. The fretting started when bloggers discovered the software's onerous and hostile end-user license agreement. As Tap the Hive exposed, Chrome users supposedly granted Google "a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to...any Content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services." So your Gmail messages end up in a searchable database somewhere? "This has all come to light with the release of Chrome, but Google's user-hostile EULA has been around for much longer," noted A Better Geek. But by the time some clever artistes modified Google's cute Chrome-tastic comic to reflect the bad EULA, Google already was saying Whoops, how did that get in there? Now the EULA says: You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in Content which you submit, post or display. "A lot less scary isn't it?" concludes SEO Horror. "Issue resolved, next! Who says Google is making us stupid? Suspicions remain, though, about how often Chrome communicates with the corporate mothership (via Matt Cutts) and how your searches are tracked (via Beyond Binary).

Man, what a week! It'll sure be nice to wrap it up by watching Britney Spears open the 2008 Video Music Awards on Sunday, in what MTV Buzzworthy says "may be just the beginning of her total transformation (again?) after a chaotic, drama-filled year." To bring this crazy spinning world full-circle, it appears that Britney's sister Jamie Lynn Spears, whom PopEater says is fine with being "the second most famous unwed pregnant teen," has sent a baby gift to Bristol Palin, with a note that said "Dear Bristol, Hang in there! XXOO, Jamie Lynn Spears." (Never mind that The Superficial and others quickly reported it wasn't true.) Hey, hang in there, everyone.