Planet Abell

Does a politician on the campaign trail have any expectation of privacy? It's almost a silly question. But some pretty smart politicos have behaved as if there is more than one answer: Michael Steele is learning this, but unsuccessful Virginia Senatorial candidate George Allen and former British Prime Minister Gordon Brown learned it the hard way. Now California gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown seems to be shocked shocked that there's video recording going on here. Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog

The directed acquittal of Lori Drew is the only sensible disposition of a depressingly sad case in which the suicide of a 13-year-old girl was linked to the bad behavior of a grown woman, the mother herself to a teenage daughter. Drew could be ostracized, she can be sued for damages in a civil proceeding, she can become a pariah. I would not like to know her. I am not a lawyer, but for the state to deny her liberty for lying when she created an account on a social network would be excessive and chilling and imperil hundreds of thousands of people who, while doing the TOS version of jaywalking, set themselves up for selective prosecution if some chain of evidence or events can associate them to someone else’s tragedy. ( Continue reading on Epicenter )

WHITE PLAINS, NY — The BMW Mini E is a solid little electric ride that provides a comfortable, effortless driving experience with all of the usual small-car perks, plus an ultra cheap operating cost and a carbon footprint approaching zero. But as a $50,000 two-seater with no head-turning quotient, the pitch for this first cousin of the Mini Cooper won’t be so much to our inner rock star as our inner Al Gore. Tooling around a busy interstate and the city streets of White Plains, it is easy to forget this is a pure electric vehicle, and something of a prototype at that: There are only about 450 Mini E’s on the road, driven by an unusually generous band of volunteer beta testers who pay $850 a month for the privilege of helping BMW work out the kinks before the car’s anticipated launch in 2012. They have no dibs on their cars and will not be allowed to buy them when the lease ends. All maintenance, and car insurance, is paid by BMW. And, of course, nobody pays for the gas. ( Continue rea...

A couple of years before I was axed at Reuters in a reorganization putsch our very savvy Editor in Chief was asked a long question at one of those town-hall-like meetings with the staff I can't imagine any senior manager looks forward to. The gist was, what do we have to be happy about, what with all the cuts and lack of optimism. His answer was brief: "Be happy you have a job." The questioner (one of my direct reports) and I, and our four other colleagues didn't appreciate how much we should have taken that particular advice to heart. After all, we were the golden children whose product had unbelievable margins well after the internet news contraction: we were the innovators, the go-to trusted team. It can happen to anybody. It's happening now, again, in Silicon V/Alley, as VCs keep their powder dry in an industry where nurturing the possible is still a lengthy and expensive proposition. We are keeping track of this, in a horse-race sort of way, with the wired.c...

A lot of propaganda is thrown around in ugly proxy wars, most of which can be safely ignored. Some of us can't afford to avert our eyes, and every once in a while we see some genuine comedy in them thar missives, like today's SEC filing by Yahoo. Read the entire Epicenter Blog post here .

I t could just be the latest prank within a prank that Fake Steve Jobs specialized in but this has the ring of truth: Fake Steve Jobs -- aka, Dan Lyons -- is "sailing away." Read the entire Epicenter Blog post here .

T he depressed newspaper industry is old news of course but Alan Mutter, who blogs at Reflections of a Newsosaur, noticed a depressing pattern in the last report of "short" market activity: there were some pretty big bets that newspaper stocks would go down. Read the entire Epicenter Blog post here .

In a bid for stability over reinvention NBC has tapped former nightly news anchor Tom Brokaw to take over hosting duties for "Meet the Press," the Sunday public affairs program whose long-time moderator, Tim Russert, died unexpectedly 10 days ago. NBC said Brokaw would moderate MTP through the 2008 presidential election. The choice of gravitas over what might otherwise be seen as an attempt to attract another -- or at least an additional -- demographic is significant because NBC has an unusually deep bench of seasoned on-air political interviewers and commentators who ply their chair-bound trade nightly on MSNBC -- unlike any of the other networks, who do not have cable counterparts. Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog.

Y ou know you wish you could quit Yahoo. But how can you put your feelings into words in a way that would make Stewart Butterfield proud? You can't. But Wired contributor Mat Honan -- the man behind Barack Obama is your new bicycle -- is here to help with the "Yahoo Resigner."  Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog

T he long-awaited blog by Carl Icahn went live sometime yesterday, but there isn't a single word about Yahoo from the man who would control it. Huh? Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog

T he AP probably had no idea it would create such a firestorm in the blogging community by telling the (aptly named) Drudge Retort to remove seven headlines and story briefs from its site. Media commentator Jeff Jarvis tried to mediate, and then lost his temper. Michael Arrington urged a boycott of the AP (wonder how that went over at AP member the Washington Post). The AP says it plans to meet with the Media Bloggers Association this week to find a way through this thicket. I'm sure this skirmish over links and intellectual property will sort itself out after the requisite level of shouting, breast-beating, and expressions of indignation. And nothing important will have been resolved. Let's turn this flame war into a teaching moment. Continue reading on wired.com's Epicenter blog