Radio Interview with Peter Boyles

I got a chance to discuss Philip Atkinson's Bush should be president for life commentary Wednesday on the Peter Boyles Show, a talk radio program that's huge in Colorado. As a former Denver resident, I had to fight the urge to do shoutouts to my old coworkers at Zing Systems (failed interactive TV company) and DiveIn (failed city portal site).

To get it out of my system, word to Jonathan Bourne, Phil Weinstock, Don Wrege, Lev Lawrence, Stefanie Lerner, Meg Cardamone, Andrew Borakove and Jeff Pinkner! Let's do lunch at Tattered Cover! Phil's buying!

I tried to prepare for the interview, but Boyles quickly shot that to hell with questions I wasn't expecting, such as what do you think of President Bush and who is going to be the next president?

My answers, edited to make me sound more coherent than I did at 7 a.m. Mountain time:

We're in a tough position under President Bush because he refuses to recognize when it's time to change course. A true test of leadership is knowing when things are going in the wrong direction. Nearly a year has passed since the report of the Iraq Study Group, which was set up to give Bush constructive advice in the most sympathetic way possible. We're still stuck in Iraq.

Hillary Clinton will be the next president of the United States. I'm troubled by the Bush-Clinton-Bush-Clinton pattern, but I don't see her losing with the lead she's built over Barack Obama and John Edwards. I told Boyles that Edwards will be her running mate, but it might be wishful thinking on my part. I like how he's made poverty a focus of his campaign. Despite my prediction, I gave small donations to Edwards and Obama, and neither will let me forget it. Every few days there's another make-or-break fundraising milestone that has to be reached. And Obama keeps hinting that I might get invited to dinner.

I didn't say this on the air, but my big concern with Clinton is that we'll get eight years of triangulation -- poll-tested solutions that keep her approval rating up without taking chances on hard solutions. The next president will inherit the Iraq war, global warming, illegal immigration, millions of retiring boomers and an Al Qaeda that's a strong today as it was in 2001. This is no time to make incremental improvements and declare victory.

I couldn't anticipate the reception I'd get from Boyles, whose show is touted for being "neither left nor right." He's a vocal critic of U.S. immigration policy and supporter of labor unions who broke stories on Ted Haggard and the JonBenet Ramsey murder in Boulder. In our conversation he sounded like a fan of the hell-raising, freewheeling world of blogs, telling me that he's a reader of the Drudge Retort, Drudge Report, LittleGreenFootballs and other sites across the political spectrum.

Politics · Radio · 2007/08/25 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

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."

Google · Journalism · 2007/08/23 · 4 COMMENTS · Link

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.

Health · 2007/08/21 · 3 COMMENTS · Link

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.

Wikipedia · Politics · 2007/08/21 · 33 COMMENTS · Link

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.

Politics · 2007/08/20 · 21 COMMENTS · Link

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?

Journalism · 2007/08/17 · 1 COMMENT · Link

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.

Business · 2007/08/13 · 1 COMMENT · Link

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