Snopes founders doing journalists' job

Mark Glaser in OJR has a Q&A with the founders of leading Internet hoax busters Snopes.com. David and Barbara Mikkelson's site got a big boost after 9/11, and their success at unmasking the lie about hunters shooting naked women in the Las Vegas desert (Hunting for Bambi) has now made them even more well known. Excerpt:

MG: So what made you think "Hunting for Bambi" was a hoax?

DM: Part of it is that we start off with the thought that extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Our approach is going to be that something outrageous is going to be a hoax. But that's unfortunately not what a lot of people in the media do. They say, "This is real, and we'll see if there's proof it isn't."

MG: So you start off with the assumption that everything's a hoax until proven real?

DM: In a general sense. I can't say that applies to everything. We start out by saying, is there anything that proves this to be true. Absolutely the worst approach you can take -- and unfortunately the approach that most people in the media take -- is simply to contact the hoaxer and ask, "Are you on the level?" No one will put the time and effort into perpetrating a hoax simply to say, "Oh, you got me." Simply by approaching him, you've both alerted him that you're on his trail, and you quite possibly have given him clues as to what people might be looking for to verify that it's phony and will give him ideas on how to improve the hoax. ...

Reporters should take a page from their playbook. I wish the Chicago Tribune had interviewed them for its story on Bambi and Internet hoaxes, which I wrote about on Monday.

Could a hacker steal the '04 election?

Paul Boutin in Slate asks: Could a hacker steal next year's election?

CopyPaste: another helpful app

The other day Dan G. wrote about CopyPaste from Script Software, an application that's apparently been kicking around since the mid'-90s but one that I'd never heard of. (Howard R. pointed him to the software.)

Twenty-two years ago, when I moved to California for a newspaper editing position, we had macro memory keys on our low-tech VDT keyboards that let you copy characters, sentences or commands to about three dozen different keys.

So it has always amazed me at how incredibly limited the Windows operating system is in this regard -- keystrokes that lets you select, copy and paste, but only one item at a time.

CopyPaste frees you from those limitations. I've just been using it for the past 24 hours, but already I can see how handy it will come in. You can copy and paste on up to 99 different sets of keys -- plus other goodies under the hood that I haven't inspected yet.

It's cross-platform, so I'll be downloading it for my Mac as well as my PC. Cost: $20.

Free phone calls

John C. Dvorak in PC magazine tackles free phone calls, aka voice over IP. Buzz tells me I ought to look into it, given all the time I spend on the phone. Excerpt:

Anyone who would use Vonage in a hotel has long since stopped using the hotel phone anyway. Most people use mobile phones when they travel. Even with the priciest roaming charges, mobile calling is cheaper than the horrid hotel phone rates. Only dummies use hotel phones.

I wonder what the Park South folks would think if they knew people could completely bypass the hotel's phone for all calls. I'm certain that both telco executives and hoteliers are going to be passing this column around with notes of concern scribbled in the margin. But smart hotel operators will see this as an opportunity. I'm a regular at the Park South because of the T1 connection. What's more important than a regular customer? ...

Keyword searches of PBS video

Lots of good stuff, per usual, on Gary Price's Resource Shelf, including this:

More and more spoken word material is becoming searchable. The Public Broadcasting Service not only offers television programming throughout the U.S. but also has a website that provides additional resources for each program. Included on the PBS site are several databases of archived video. Every word spoken in these video segments can be searched by keyword. Simply enter your terms, use some of the limiting options, and click search. Once you the material that interests you, click and watch the section of the program where your search terms are spoken or the entire segment. You'll need a RealAudio/Video player. That's it! There is no charge to access and use these tools. These databases were created using voice recognition technology, no human intervention. Next to every entry on a results page you can also read a text transcript of the video segment. ...

• PBS NewsHour Video Search
Search segments of the program beginning in February, 2002.

• Washington Week Video Archive
This archive dates back to July 21, 2000.

Scoop your own newscasts on the Web

Lots of good stuff in Lost Remote:

• A Cory Bergman essay:

Start scooping your own newscasts on the web. The Internet won't make more money than TV anytime soon, but the extra cash will mean more TV reporters and photographers will get to keep their jobs.

• Get your ESPN cell phone

Walt Disney Co. is in early talks with several wireless telephone companies over plans to offer cell phones under the entertainment companyís various brand names, including ESPN, The Wall Street Journal reports.

• Slate gets into radio

• Merrill Brown, former editor of MSNBC.com, will leave Real Networks.

Blogs have a place on news sites

Steve Outing's latest in E&P: Blogs Have a Place on News Web Sites.

It's hard to believe this fundamental point still needs to be hammered home, but such is the way of the newspaper publishing world.

Steve tackles both blogs and moblogs in his column. Excerpt:

Last year, I wrote a column for Editor & Publisher Online suggesting that many reporters, correspondents, editors, and columnists at newspapers should produce Weblogs. I stand by that advice, but these days I place equal importance on non-staff members producing the content for blogs at news companies.

Weblogs present a wonderful opportunity to get the voices of the public onto your site. An area that's ripe to capitalize on is digital photographs taken by members of the public -- AKA witnesses to news. This, I am convinced, is going to be a huge trend in the next couple of years.

A handful of media companies have already experimented with the concept. BBC News Online solicited digital photos from people attending anti-war rallies prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq. The Dallas Morning News Web site collected images of space shuttle Columbia debris that had fallen to earth.

My advice is for news companies to set up a standard repository of public images and publicize how to submit photos (e-mail a specific address either from a photo phone or conventional e-mail). Then, the next time a tornado or hurricane rolls through, or a plane crashes in a populated area, a stream of witness images will pour in, ready to be filtered for publication. This concept can be deployed on any manner of public event or happening: a participatory event (say, a local marathon); an appearance by a presidential candidate; a Hollywood filming taking place in your town; etc.

Having a digital-camera-toting public at your disposal is, of course, the result of the popularity not only of digital cameras, but also picture cell-phones. It's the latter that's really exciting, and that will change the face of photojournalism. ...

Tom Daschle to begin a blog

Sioux Falls Argus Leader:

Tom Daschle is coming soon to a blog near you.

The Senate minority leader and South Dakota Democrat will post a daily diary on his official Web site as he drives around the state next month during Congress' annual August recess, he said Wednesday. The diary is modeled on the growing phenomenon of the online journals known as Weblogs, or blogs for short.

"At the end of the day, wherever I am, I can just type up some thoughts and tell stories about things that happened," Daschle said. "I'm always up for trying something new." ...

The first posting in Daschle's blog - which will be called "Travels with Tom" and will be linked to the front of his official Senate Web site - should go up Thursday [presumably today], spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said.

Um, no mention in the newspaper about what the blog address is.

Thanks to kpaul for the pointer.

Consumer groups ready financial privacy initiative

Here's a California voter initiative done right: Backers of a financial privacy initiative say they've collected enough signatures to qualify it for the ballot. But in a surprise move, they promised to hold the signatures for three weeks to give state lawmakers a final chance to hammer out a bill instead.

Newpaper sites struggle to reach the young

In OJR: Newspaper Web Sites Struggle to Attract Younger Readers. Surveys show that about half of 20 to 29 year olds read the newspaper every day in 1972; by 1998, just 20 percent of twenty somethings read the paper every day.

Travel photo finds a print home

An editor at National Geographic Adventure Magazine spotted this photo of Chacala, Mexico, on the Web. Tonight I signed a contract for the magazine to use it in its October issue. Cool.

Fan Fiction: Fan's Right or Copyright Nightmare?

I had missed this on Kuro5hin until today: Fan Fiction: Fan's Right or Copyright Nightmare? (Not sure what's up with Kuro5hin taking a long time to render tonight.)

The Five Days of TypePad

We're on day 3 of the Five Days of TypePad.

More on Cat's adventure

Susan Mernit, ever the enterprising sort, tracked down the topless pix of the alluring Cat Schwartz, who had a Photoshop cropping problem the other day but isn't mortified by it all.

10 best no-cost PC tools

PC World names this year's collection of the ten best no-cost tools delivers PC speed and safety. One of them is ActiveWords. Congrats, Buzz.

RedPaper: Another experiment in participatory journalism

Wired News:

A host of court documents in the Kobe Bryant sexual assault case are available online from a collaborative publication created by ordinary citizens.

For $2 a pop, all the public documents filed in the case against the Los Angeles Lakers basketball star can be downloaded from the RedPaper, a 3-week-old collaborative website written by "citizen reporters." ...

The RedPaper is testing the market for specialist information, ordered and paid for over the Web using a micropayment system, which long has been touted as an essential component of online publishing.

"(The RedPaper) is a combination of eBay and The New York Times," said founder and editor Mike Gaynor. "You don't have to have something valuable in your garage. You just have to have something valuable in your head."

Backed by software giant Adobe Systems, the RedPaper is an experimental market for information, allowing anyone to publish and sell their writing, be it recipes for muffins or hard-to-get court documents.

The site has about 600 registered users, who have published several hundred articles on the site, including favorite drink recipes, car maintenance instructions, poetry and short fiction. ...

Flash winning out over substance

Mark Glaser in OJR: A report finds that many award-winning Web sites are impressing judges with flashy layout rather than with the quality of their reporting and editing.

Bad radio news for Merle

Los Angeles Times: Merle Haggard, whose new song, "That's the News," criticizes big media, is unlikely to get his music played on commercial radio, says a Los Angeles Times editorial.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

A closer look at Yahoo! News

Chris Sherman of SearchEngineWatch.com takes a closer look at Yahoo! News.

File sharing wars, cont.

The latest on the file sharing wars:

CNN: Secret Networks Protect Music Swappers, featuring Justin Frankel's Waste, a popular private file sharing network.

USA Today: Music Swap Threats Not a Deterrent, Say Users.

Guardian UK: Legal downloads won't make up for drop in CD sales, record labels told.

TheInquirer.net: RIAA Will Take 2191.78 Years to Sue Everyone

Photographing the famous, unclothed

NY Times: Photographing the Famous, Even Those of an X-Rated World. The Times' Arts section takes an intriguing look at an upcoming book -- "XXX: 30 Portraits of Porn Stars" -- that will include arty nude shots of adult film stars, including reigning queen Jenna Jameson. Photographer Timothy Greenfield-Sanders discusses his art: "They're energized, and they feel more in control. I was very inhibited myself. After shooting a few of them, I don't feel uncomfortable, because they're not uncomfortable. They talk about sex so openly. At first I was shocked, but you go with the flow."

NYT to name an ombudsman

The New York Times said today it will name a "public editor" to be a readers' representative.

Good news -- something they should have done 20 years ago.

Bush wants to prevent gay marriage

NY Times: President Bush said today that federal government lawyers are working on legislation that would define marriage as a union between a man and woman.

Yee-haw! We got ourselves a wedge issue!

Once again our nation owes a debt of gratitude to a president who's a uniter, not a divider.

Industry needs to grow online music

The San Jose Merc's Dawn C. Chmielewski reports from the Plug.IN digital music conference in New York: Industry key to growth of online music, exec says.

The other dimensions of Howard Dean

In Wednesday's New York Times, the national media are beginning to pay attention to the candidacy of Howard Dean and his emergence from the pack: Defying Labels Left or Right, Dean's '04 Run Makes Gains. Excerpt:

... In Vermont, whose political center of gravity lands left of the nation's, one of the secrets to Dr. Dean's success was keeping the most liberal politicians in check.

Over 11 years, he restrained spending growth to turn a large budget deficit into a surplus, cut taxes, forced many on welfare to go to work, abandoned a sweeping approach to health-care reform in favor of more incremental measures, antagonized environmentalists, won the top rating from the National Rifle Association and consistently embraced business interests.

Overall, the article concludes, "Dr. Dean's presidential pitch is more pragmatic than ideological. He is less George McGovern than John McCain, less Eugene McCarthy than Jimmy Carter."

In other words, he's a more complex man than the one-dimensional populist being portrayed in the media today.

A more photogenic blog

I've added a photo of me to the top of the blog there (the backdrop is our backyard grape vine). Why the pic? To combat a problem us initial people frequently face: Are we of the male or female persuasion?

For some odd psycho-linguistic reason, I've received about 20 emails from people over the past year who think my name is Jessica. Something about "JD" and "Lasica" morphing into a Jessica.

For the record, it's the New & Old Testament-friendly Joseph Daniel.

Pirates of the Internet

Steven Levy in this week's Newsweek: Pirates of the Internet. A proposed bill says if you share a single tune with your pals online -- as millions do every day -- you are a felon. Penalty: up to five years in jail. Excerpt:

My guess is that the vast majority of those 60 million file sharers would never steal a physical object from the store. In a mixture of self-interest and rebellion theyíve taken the measure of the record industryís karma (overpriced CDs, a history of ripping off artists), noted that stealing files isnít like stealing stuff (maybe theyíll buy a disc later) and concluded that file-sharing isnít that bad.

Start-up launches `digital newsstand'

From today's Mercury News:

Louis Borders is best known for starting two companies: the hugely successful bookstore chain that bears his name, and Webvan, the dot-com grocer that went belly-up in spectacular fashion.

Now, Borders is getting back into the game. On Monday, he launched KeepMedia, a Redwood Shores start-up that serves as a ``digital newsstand,'' offering subscribers access to archives of more than 140 magazines and several newspapers for a flat monthly rate of $4.95.

Unless they come up with more than this -- say, content tied to tablet PCs -- I don't see the compelling business proposition that will prompt people to pony up $5 a month, given the notoriously tough sell of online subscriptions for magazine and news content.

Universal Music defends DRM, P2P litigation

Internet.com:

NEW YORK -- Larry Kenswil, the president of Universal Music Group's (UMG) eLabs unit, is defending the recording industry's decision to use Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology alongside a litigation strategy to stamp out music piracy, arguing that the survival of the industry was dependent on copyright protection initiatives.

In a lively keynote presentation at the Jupiter Plug.IN Conference & Expo here Tuesday, Kenswil slammed pundits who have been "trying to dictate how to reinvent the music business" by encouraging the theft of copyrighted works.

"We are battling a nasty infection of image-itis. The tobacco company can kill us. The package food companies can clog our arteries. The oil companies can provoke wars. But, apparently, there's no industry more despicable than the music industry. We are hated just because we refuse to acknowledge the public's God-given rights to steal music," said Kenswil, referring to the piracy epidemic that online file-sharing represents to the music industry. ...

Arianna gets ready to run

Editor David Talbot has a report in today's Salon: At a meeting of Hollywood and progressive supporters in her West L.A. home, Arianna Huffington gets ready to run for governor. Her goal: Take Sacramento and shake Washington.

It's not official yet, but she's off and running. That was the message at Arianna Huffington's home in posh Brentwood, Calif., on Sunday afternoon, where several dozen political activists and advisors gathered to hear the author and Salon columnist make her case for jumping into the race to recall California Gov. Gray Davis. The only thing that would keep Huffington out of what is shaping up as an electoral free-for-all would be the sudden entry of a major Democratic rival to Davis -- and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the only likely such 800-pound gorilla, is still rejecting entreaties to rescue the party from the rapidly melting Davis.

Great news.

More on the file-sharing wars

SF Gate: Advice to Avoid Copyright Litigation

... "We won't win any popularity contests. We don't really care what people think, except we want them to know that it (file-sharing) is illegal," [RIAA spokeswoman Amy] Weiss said. "It's unpopular, it's not pretty, but it's the right thing to do for all the people involved in the music industry."

BBC News: File-Sharers Fight Legal Moves

RIAA picks a political veteran as new CEO

Katie Dean of Wired News has the story on the music recording industry's selection of a new CEO: Mitch Bainwol, former chief of staff to Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, will take the reins in September.

The voting rights struggle of the digital age

My friend Kim Alexander of the California Voter Foundation has a new commentary up called The Voting Rights Struggle of Our Time. She participated in a study of electronic voting security.

The biggest problem with computerized voting systems is that they are not transparent. Some who think we don't need a paper trail tend to portray those of us who insist we do as paranoid conspiracy theorists. But any reasonable person who takes a moment to think about it quickly understands why it's not a good idea to trust 100 percent computerized, paperless voting systems run on secret software.

On a similar note, John Schwartz in the NY Times had this the other day: Computer voting is open to easy fraud, experts say.

And Don Hazen, editor of AlterNet, has this: A voting and democracy primer.

'Day to Day' debuts this week

Slate founding editor Michael Kinsley is among the first guests on the new public radio show Day to Day, co-produced by Slate and NPR News, debuting this week.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

One last byline for Vincent Canby

Now that's one prolific writer: The New York Times's front-page obituary of Bob Hope carries the byline of Vincent Canby, a Times writer who has been dead himself since 2000.

Thanks to IWantMedia for the pointer.

Music customers: Out of U.S., out of luck

The NY Times picked up on the problems with portability of iTunes Music Store tunes outside of the U.S.: Out of the U.S. and Out of Luck to Download Music Legally. Here's the likely culprit:

... Before a song can be distributed online, the labels must first clear two sets of copyrights ó those for the sound recordings and those for the songwriter's publishing rights. American music labels have in many cases licensed those rights overseas to different companies ó agreements that sometimes must be negotiated one artist at a time to regain international digital rights. And since copyright laws in other nations can vary from those in the United States, those discussions also must often take place country by country. ...

Forget Arnold, Meet Georgy

So Arnold isn't running in the California governor recall election, but Georgy is. Dang, she's even got a blog! And an out-of-the-ordinary online guestbook. And the Washington Post's Howie Kurtz is a fan.

Debunking Internet hoaxes and scams

I'm quoted in today's Chicago Tribune in Maureen Ryan's article, Did you hear the one about men hunting women with paintballs? Lead:

The story had sex, violence and, well, more sex. In other words, the "Hunting for Bambi" controversy was a dream come true for the news media and outraged commentators. Too bad it was a scam.

Because this is as much a story about the recurring phenomenon of Internet hoaxes as it is about the Bambi incident, here are some observations I sent along to the Tribune's reporter:

A week doesn't go by that a relative or friend doesn't send me an e-mail saying they had 'heard this on the Internet' and wondered if it was true. I finally put up a Web page to steer people to hoax-debunking sites that size up rumors that spread on the Net like an unchecked virus. For better or worse (and it's clearly both), the Internet has become another news medium. And we're still flummoxed about what and who we should trust online.

I'm always amazed at the credulity of people who tend to believe something just because they read it on the Internet. We need to fine-tune our BS meters by expressing skepticism each time we come across a far-out story from an unverified source. Over time, the Internet helps us develop reputation filters and circles of trust to help us filter out the nonsense.

Newspapers and television newscasts seem to be abdicating their traditional role of verifying the accuracy and truthfulness of certain stories, and that role has been taken over by a new breed of Web sites that specialize in debunking Internet hoaxes.

For a story like Hunting for Bambi, a story editor at a newspaper or TV station tends to see it as a soft-news feature, a story about what a wacky world we live. They won't commit the resources to tracking down its truthfulness because it's too good to pass up and they don't believe the subject matter warrants serious treatment.

But for Snopes, Urban Legends and other hoax-buster sites, they're in the business of tracking down the credibility of this story. In the years to come, they'll play an increasingly important role in the media landscape.

Some last thoughts:

Two weeks after 9/11, my niece received an email from a friend's aunt's boyfriend, calling for a nationwide boycott of Dunkin Donuts. The basis? The supposed existence of a video showing the Arab owners of a Dunkin Donuts franchise in Lyndhurst, N.J., cheering the attack on the World Trade Center, a supposed sighting of the owner of a Dunkin Donuts store in Cedar Grove, N.J., burning the American flag, and a customer who allegedly saw a U.S. flag on the floor covered with Arabic writing in a Dunkin Donuts store in Little Falls, N.J. I told my niece the stories were obvious fabrications at a time when terrorist jitters and a hint of xenophobia were in the air.

In this age of lightning-speed hoaxes, I'd like to see newspapers and magazines publish a recurring 'reality check' column. Report on the rumors floating around cyberspace, their genesis, and their level of truthfulness or fabrication.

Later: Ken reminds us to Check Your Hoax-o-Meter.

First chapters of new books

The New York Times: First Chapters page delivers opening pages of hundreds of fiction and non-fiction books. I've been advocating this for a long time.

This is a good start, though I can't understand why publishers are squeamish about delivering what they promise. This excerpt from Wired: A Romance, for example, offers only the first four grafs.

Thanks to Susan H. for the pointer.

The Press: Time for a New Era?

I'm not quite sure what the Jayson Blair scandal has to do with "objectivity" -- does subjectivity somehow equal fabrication? -- but former Wall Street Journal editor Robert Bartley has an opinion piece that I generally agree with: Major media should stop wearing "objectivity" on their sleeves. Still, I wish Bartley's essay outlined a philosophy to replace the flamed-out wreckage of objectivity. Certainly fairness and balance -- rather than subjectivity and shallow partisanship -- should be among the principles undergirding the traditional news media's core precepts.

AOL 9.0: A year too late?

Susan Mernit asks: Did AOL 9.0 come out a year too late?

Interactive innovations in journalism

Just got word of this:

Batten Award Finalists Pioneer Novel Interactions

COLLEGE PARK, MD ñ Five newsroom initiatives that used technology in innovative ways to involve people in the news have been selected as the first finalists in the new Batten Awards for Innovations in Journalism.

The $10,000 winner and two $2,500 runners-up will be announced Sept. 15 at the Batten Awards Symposium in Washington, D.C., according to Jan Schaffer, director of J-LAB: The Institute for Interactive Journalism, the University of Maryland center that sponsors the awards. The symposium will showcase the winnersí efforts and other journalism innovations around the country.

ìThese newsrooms have really risen to the challenge of doing good, fundamental storytelling in fresh, exciting ways,î said Bryan Monroe, chairman of the Batten Awards Advisory Board and Knight Ridder assistant vice president/ news. ìThey should serve as models for other newsrooms, big and small, showing that all it takes to create innovative journalism is a great idea, a bit of time, and, most of all, the will and the leadership to make great things happen.î

Visit www.j-lab.org to view these finalists and other notable entries: :

ï Minnesota Public Radioís ìBudget Balancer,î a 19-page Web game that challenged users to fix the stateís $4.2 billion deficit by cutting programs and raising taxes without spending too much political capital; 7,000 visitors submitted 11,000 budgets.

ï The Chicago Tribuneís ìWhen Evil Struck America,î a CD-ROM time capsule distributed to more than 1 million subscribers on the first anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, World Trade Center attacks. Interactive and easy to navigate, it boosted single-day street sales of the newspaper by 100,000.

ï The San Francisco Chronicleís ìTwo Centsî project, a ìvirtual man-on-the-streetî effort involving a database of more than 1,450 ìfield correspondents,î residents who contribute and react to articles, opinion pieces and a standing op-ed column.

ï MSNBC.comís ìThe Big Picture,î a sophisticated series of in-depth guided tours on three subjects ñ Iraq, the 2002 elections, and the Oscars ñ that integrated video, audio, text, interactive polls and games into playful, yet informative, multimedia packages intended to give the big-picture overview on the topics.

ï VillageSoup.com for its community media Web sites that are delivering homespun news and information to three Maine towns, along with interactive virtual tours and e-mails of scenic postcards.

NYT front pages on file

Ryan posts the secret to digging up digital images of the New York Times's print front pages going back 18 months.

The Road to Babylon

From the August issue of Harper's magazine: The Road to Babylon: Searching for targets in Iraq, by Lewis H. Lapham.

War inspires dueling decks

This was a fun piece from yesterday's Merc on dueling playing card decks with polar political views of the war in Iraq. A Catholic school teacher in San Jose has sold 10,000 decks of her "Operation Hidden Agenda'' playing cards.

A Texas recall?

Hmm. Is there any way for Texans to recall Gov. Rick Perry and the other jokers who are trying to gerrymander Texas' Congressional districts?

Back to business

Both the Monterey Aquarium and Capitola were great fun. Finally getting my summer tan. (Here's a beach scene from last summer.) Thanks for the birthday wishes. Now back to journalism business.

File-sharers show anger, remorse

Amy Harmon in today's Times: Subpoenas Sent to File-Sharers Prompt Anger and Remorse.

Birthday dinner in Monterey

My wife, 4-year-old and I are heading out the door now to Monterey. Bobby has never seen such an amazing aquarium before.

It's my birthday today, so we'll be dining in Pacific Grove and spending Monday in Capitola. Not bad.

California smackdown: Arnold vs. Arianna?

Sheila asked for my 2 cents about the weirdness gripping the California political scene these days. Here's what I emailed her:

This is not politics as usual. If Arnold Schwarzenegger ran in a GOP primary, he would be facing the usual scrutiny by the Republican right wing over his straying from the party line on social issues like abortion and gun control. But Republicans here are absolutely apoplectic about Gray Davis. (Itís strange: Democrats have no love for him because heís an empty suit with no core values ñ a pro-death penalty opportunist who has never granted a pardon, who supports three strikes, who builds more prisons, and who canít be counted on to support progressive causes.)

In such an environment, the GOP will turn to anyone they think has the best shot at toppling Davis. They know Issa has no chance of winning, so they may turn to the best alternative. Given the collapsed time frame, Arnold has the name recognition and may have a legitimate chance. Although a majority of Californians polled say heís not qualified to be governor, the likely winner (if the recall is successful) may come away with only 25% or 30% of the vote, in an election when only 25% or 30% of eligible voters may turn out.

The most formidable candidate entering the race would be former LA mayor Richard Riordan ñ who should have been Davisí opponent last November, had Davis not meddled in the GOP primary. Riordanís perceived as a moderate, and heíd be the favorite to succeed to Davis if Davis is booted out.

Itís hard to say if an Arianna Huffington candidacy would grain traction. Sheís on the right side of most issues Californians care about. If Democrats, Greens and independents coalesce around her as the progressive candidate, she could have a shot.

By the way, we could care less if the national media are enthralled with an Arnold vs. Arianna street fight or not. (The NY Times' Maureen Dowd weighs in today from 3,000 miles away.) Weíll have to live with this governor for the next three years, long after the recall election fades from the national spotlight.

'Wired': The Coolest Magazine on the Planet

The Sunday NY Times books section reviews ''Wired: A Romance,'' a book by one of the magazine's contributing editors, Gary Wolf. Excerpt:

''Wired: A Romance'' is less a love story than a theological autopsy of a religion that flourished and went away in less than a decade. Things happened quickly for Wired -- remember ''Internet time''? At its height in the mid-90's, Wired could be found in the lobbies of venture capitalists, on the light tables of designers, underneath the coffee cups of computer geeks and in the middle of the only conversation that seemed to matter. It was, briefly, the coolest magazine on the planet.

Draft Arianna for guv

Here's an excerpt from an email I just sent to MoveOn.org:

I would like to request that the leadership of MoveOn poll its members who live in California to vote on whether to urge Arianna Huffington to enter the race in the recall election for California governor.

Such a poll would be straightforward:

Regardless of whether you favor or oppose the recall of California Gov. Gray Davis, voters on Oct. 7 will be asked to vote on a slate of replacement candidates. Would you favor voting for:

- No replacement candidate, banking on Gov. Davis' victory in the recall.

- Arianna Huffington to run on a progressive platform.

- Green Party candidate Peter Camejo.

- Another candidate. (Who?)

It's a longshot, but if Arianna enters the race and no big-name Democrats do, California could wind up with a better governor.

Later: Just read a story that informs us that Bay Area activists have formed a group called Runariannarun.com.

Lance nearing tour win

After today, it looks as though Lance Armstrong will win the Tour de France.

Meanwhile, the Times looks at the Wired Tour de France.

Open Source Gets Down To Business

Technology Review: Open Source Gets Down To Business. Robert Lefkowitz has an MIT degree in engineering and a track record as a Wall Street IT director. Now he's trying to push open source software from the dominion of alpha geeks into the corporate mainstream.

How to Tell if the RIAA Wants You

I interviewed Fred von Lohmann again last night at the Illegal Art event at Oakland's Black Box, and he mentioned the new database-driven site created by the Electronic Freedom Foundation to help file traders find out whether they've been issued a subpoena from the Recording Industry Association of America. Wired News has the story.

Bush by the numbers

A friend just sent this fact sheet:

$5,600,000,000,000
Budget surplus when President Bush took office
(Office of Management and Budget, 2001)

$1,900,000,000,000
Bush deficiet over the next five years
(Office of Management and Budget, 2003)

3,100,000
Jobs lost since Bush took office
(Bureau of Labor Statistics)

83,000
Monthly job loss since Bush took office
(Department of Labor)

3 out of 5
Number of unemployed Americans who live in Senate seats up in 2004
(Bureau of Labor Statistics/DSCC release)

$1,000,000,000
Weekly cost of Iraq campaign to U.S. taxpayers
(Department of Defense, 2003)

1,000,000
Number OF US Military personnel not receiving child tax relief checks
(Children's Defense Fund)

250,000
Number of children who have a parent on active duty
(Children's Defense Fund)

10
Number of nuclear devices North Korea is expected to have by year's end
(William Perry, former Secretary of Defense)

8%
Percent of non-US troops serving in Iraq
(Department of Defense, 2003)

War, peace and Nieman Reports

Jeff Jarvis has a followup to his one-sided war of words with the editor of Nieman Reports. Based on that red flag, I was wary about turning in my article last night. But it turned out that today I had a very amicable and cordial editing experience with her. Was she scared straight by Jeff, or did Jeff just have a bad experience? I suspect the latter, but perhaps we'll never know.

I'll post my article when it's closer to the magazine's publication date.

No lock on the door at digital home

Internet.com: No Lock on the Door at Digital Home. According to a Jupiter Research Home Networking Report, one-third of broadband users are interested in installing a home network to listen to music files on a home stereo.