Utah Mine Owner Makes Google News Comment
The owner of the Utah coal mine where six miners are missing has used the new Google News comment feature to respond to news coverage. Robert E. Murray posted the following comment to at least nine stories:
Comment from Robert E. Murray regarding trapped miners - 18 hours ago
August 22, 2007 - We are totally focused on the recovery of these miners and in administering to the welfare of their families.
The trauma from this natural disaster has been great for many, but we will not be deterred, and we will not leave this mountain until we achieve a resolution to this tragedy.
Unfortunately, at 6:30 p.m., MDT, on August 16, more seismic activity jeopardized our underground rescue team. Living at the Mine, we were among the first underground to arrive to help rescue these additional miners. We pulled them out promptly and administered to them, but, very unfortunately, three (3) men eventually died, with six (6) men recovering from their injuries.
Our efforts in digging and recovering have left me such that I cannot be a good spokesman to the public media on behalf of our efforts to rescue the original six (6) miners. Also, we are addressing the losses of the additional families. Our employees are totally important to me.
Sincerely,
Murray Energy Corporation
Robert E. Murray
Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer
Google began offering comment functionality earlier this month to people covered in a news story, rolling it out first in the U.S. as an experiment. Google confirms the identity of the person making a comment but does not edit it, reserving the right to reject "hate speech, calls to violence, or offensive language."
Dealing with a Newborn's Group B Strep Diagnosis
My three-day-old newborn niece has been battling a bacterial infection since she was 12 hours old. They confirmed a preliminary diagnosis of Group B Strep yesterday and have her in the hospital's neonatal ICU while she's treated with the antibiotic Penicillin G.
She's had some setbacks, but the last 24 hours have gone well.
As you can imagine, we're fishing for information on what can be done to help her beat the infection and fully recover. I've found a Group B Strep mailing list on Yahoo, but I wanted to reach out here as well in case anyone reading Workbench has gone through a similar situation. If anyone can offer any insight, it would be appreciated.
Big Encyclopedia is Watching You
On July 11, Wikipedia accused me of censoring right-wingers on the Drudge Retort:
Cadenhead actively supports liberal causes by removing rightwing commentary he disapproves of, and bans some posters to his sites because they are too effective in discrediting liberal correspondents. Naturally these efforts are rationalized as necessary for political correctness.
Wikipedia changed its mind four hours later, but the claim has found its way to the all-seeing Eye on Winer, where McD makes this comment:
I personally think that removing [t]he lines about Roger Cadenhead's controversial editing does us all a disservice. And it gives the appearance of a conspiracy to silence critics when there's a legitimate issue worth discussing. What editorial rights does the host of the forum have over words displayed on their site?
I've tried to justify the way I moderate the Retort before, but I don't think you can ever win that argument to the satisfaction of your critics. I try to run one of the only liberal news sites that welcomes conservatives and libertarians, because echo chambers like Daily Kos and MyDD are boring. I would not use the banhammer on somebody for being insufficiently liberal; I feel it's my duty to help these unfortunates see the light.
Please don't take that last comment seriously. I kid because I care.
Conservative Calls for Bush to Name Himself 'President for Life'
On Aug. 3, a writer for Family Security Matters, a national security group associated with a conservative think tank, argued that President Bush should appoint himself "president for life" and "empty Iraq of Arabs and repopulate the country with Americans."
He wasn't kidding.
I fished out the full commentary from the Google cache for Watching the Watchers.
Before you dismiss the piece as a rant of a fringe group, Family Security Matters has a board that includes a former CIA director, talk show hosts Laura Ingraham and Monica Crowley, and a bunch of big Republicans fundraisers. The group recently disappeared the article and everything else by Philip Atkinson from its web site.
Computer Solves Rubik's Cube in 26 Moves
This morning, Guardian reporter Alexandra Topping covers a record-breaking computer solution to Rubik's Cube:
It is the holy grail for puzzle-lovers around the world. A task that has thwarted the greatest minds for generations. But the ultimate solution to the Rubik's cube may be within grasp.
A supercomputer has been working without pause to provide conclusive evidence that the cube can be returned to its original state in no more than 26 moves.
The computer took 63 hours to provide the proof, which goes one better than the previous best solution.
The computer worked 63 hours without pause? It didn't even take a Minesweeper break?
The Ghost of Michael Arrington Past
There's some fun stuff in TechCrunch publisher Michael Arrington's old personal blog, which he published for eight months in 2005 before becoming the Ron Popeil of Web 2.0.
A Nov. 12, 2005, entry in which he raises a little capital:
Selling my copy of The Search by John Battelle. $10 obo.
An Aug. 1, 2005, post declaring that he has deleted his PayPal account and would no longer be selling items on EBay:
I broke up with PayPal today, using their handy 12-step account termination procedure. I won't go into the details, but they abused me to the point where I simply could not do business with them any longer. The core issue wasn't that big of a deal, but their customer service at first ignored me for weeks, then re-defined "condescension" to a near Platonian perfection. Sadly, this means my ebay purchases and sales have ceased
An Oct. 8, 2005, item giddy over TechCrunch being named one of the top 100 tech blogs by CNET:
I found out last night when I got home from a conference and was totally excited and overwhelmed. I'm extremely happy about this.
Today, Arrington frequently rages against CNET, once writing that it represents "everything that we bloggers are trying to kill." (Speak for yourself, dude: The only thing I'm trying to kill is the designated hitter.)
Arrington tells interviewers his goal is to beat CNET, which even by his claim of $200,000 monthly revenue is a lofty goal. CNET's a publicly traded media corporation with a market cap of $1.1 billion and $387 million in revenue last year. By comparison, Arrington fielded an offer to buy TechCrunch for $8.5 million, according to Wired.
Jerome Armstrong Settles SEC Stock-Tout Suit
I filed a story this morning on Watching the Watchers about blogger Jerome Armstrong settling his stock-tout suit with the SEC:
Influential liberal blogger Jerome Armstrong, the founder of MyDD and an originator of the netroots movement, has agreed to pay $29,000 in fines and penalties to settle a 2003 SEC suit accusing him of touting a stock on Internet message boards without disclosing his financial interest in the company.
Some of my fellow liberals threw me under the bus for digging into the allegations last year, but it's the kind of ethical transgression we'd be all too happy to expose against someone with an "R" next to his name. Shilling stocks without disclosing your interest in the companies is a big deal.
The Twenty First Century Democrats, a group that gave Armstrong the Wellstone Award for Political Organizing in April, appear to agree. The group has removed all references to Armstrong from its web site, including his photo and the announcement of his award, which was cached by Google July 20.
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