Brown Whitman Debate: Jerry Brown Beats Meg Whitman

If you're a Californian with over 20 years in the state, you don't have to pay much attention to the video replays to know that Jerry Brown was light years ahead of Meg Whitman in Tuesday's debate.

Simply put, Meg Whitman came off as a policy wonk with bad hair, whereas Jerry Brown appeared as an experienced elected official who knows how California works.

Take the exchange on the California Budget. Whitman talked about ideas, as in when she said that she would start the budget process earlier. But Brown talked specific actions beyond a start date.

Jerry said that he would have each legislator go through their budget and look for areas to cut. In short, former Governor Brown is more comfortable talking about how to make the California government work than Meg Whitman is.

On the subject of Illegal Immigration Meg Whitman's problem of not understanding the system of California operation comes up again. Brown favors a path to legalization, whereas Meg Whitman does not.

But then Meg says something confusing. She says that she doesn't favor a path to legalization, but then says we all know illegal aliens are here "for the jobs." So making them legal allows them to get a job; not doing so just perpetuates the cycle of deportation and return to America.

There are other examples, but the overall result is Jerry Brown is more comfortable with himself and with dealing with California's problems. Let's face it. Meg Whitman hasn't done that. But the Former eBay CEO has another problem: her appearance.

Someone has to say this, so it might as well be this blogger: Meg Whitman's hair looked awful. It seemed frayed and her eyes looked tired.  Meg has looked better before and it could be the rigors of the campaign have caught up to her.  A pair of glasses would have made a big difference in Whitman's appearance for the debate.  One commenter wrote that Whitman looked like "Hagatha."

Whatever the case, Meg Whitman could benefit from a good makeover. In fact, so can the State of California. The perception here is Jerry Brown - who doesn't need a makeover and one can argue already got one while he was Mayor of Oakland - is better for the job of California Governor than Meg Whitman.

S3706 on Senate Calendar for Sept 29th?

According to a tweet by @StabenowPress this afternoon Senator Stabenow's bill, #S3706, The Americans Want to Work Act, will be on the Senate floor tomorrow. More info: http://bit.ly/bvf2oU

Check out the tweet for yourself: https://twitter.com/StabenowPress

99ers are all encouraged to contact the following all day tomorrow and until this bill passes:

The retiring Senator Voinovich may be just what the 99er Nation has been praying for and all unemployed Americans are urged to contact his offices in mass this week. http://voinovich.senate.gov/

Washington D.C. Phone: 202-224-3353


Cincinnati, OH
 phone: (513) 684-3265 fax: (513) 684-3269

Cleveland, OH
 phone: (216) 522-7095 fax: 522-7097

Columbus, OH 
phone: (614) 469-6697 fax: 469-7733

Nelsonville, OH 
phone: (740) 441-6410 fax: (740) 753-3551

Toledo, OH 
phone: (419) 259-3895 fax: (419) 259-3899

Another possible ally in the fight to pass our Tier 5 bill could be Senator George LeMieux of Florida.
Washington, DC Phone: (202) 224-3041, Toll free: (866) 630-7106 Fax: (202) 228-5171

The two Senators from the great state of Maine may also be receptive to helping the unemployed “exhaustees” get this bill passed or at least stop a filibuster threat.

Senator Olympia J. Snowe:
Washington, DC Phone: (202) 224-5344 Toll Free: (800) 432-1599 Fax: (202) 224-1946

Senator Susan Collins
Washington, DC Phone: (202) 224-2523 Fax: (202) 224-2693

Call the White House comments line to demand the same. White House Comments Line 202-456-1111 Comment line is only open 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM Monday thru Friday EST. ***REMIND the President that this is an emergency and WE the people (middle class then - impoverished now) voted him in office. Now he needs to speak up for us and do whatever he can to assure our Tier 5 becomes law NOW!

More contacts: (Some my be duplicated)

Congressional Toll free Switchboard: 1-866-220-0044

Senator Harry Reid 202-224-3542 REID FAX 202-224-7327

Reno office:Tel 775-686-5750 Fax 775-686-5757

Reid Staffers:

Rodell_mollineau@reid.senate.gov,

Danica_daneshforouz@reid.senate.gov,

Mike_esposito@reid.senate.gov,

Mary_conelly@reid.senate.gov,

Gary_myrick@reid.senate.gov,

Robin_mccain@reid.senate.gov,

jim_manley@reid.senate.gov

SCHUMER MAIN NUMBER 202-224-6542

SCHUMER FAX NUMBER 202-228-3027

Schumer Staffers:


Mike_lynch@schumer.senate.gov,

Abbie_sorrendino@schumer.senate.gov,

Katie_beirne@schumer.senate.gov,

brian_fallon@schumer.senate.gov,

Alex_levy@schumer.senate.gov,

STABENOW MAIN NUMBER 202-224-4822

STABENOW FAX # 202-228-0325

Stabenow Staffer Matt Williams 202-360-5014  matt’s cellular number

Stabenow Staffer Ilana Levinson 202-228-3674 Ilana direct number

Other Stabenow staffers:


Amanda_renteria@stabenow.senate.gov,

Kim_love@stabenow.senate.gov,

Anne_stanski@stabenow.senate.gov,

ALSO: Stabenow's back office line: (202) 224 - 1437 Call them now. Call them often. Tell them you are from 99er press.

Here are additional Republicans we want to contact in mass now:
Senator Richard Shelby, 202-224-5744 Legislative Director Laura Friedel  laura_friedel@shelby.senate.gov
Senator George LeMieux, 202-224-3041 Legislative Director  Michael Zehr  (no email for Michael, email instead) ken_lundberg@lemieux.senate.gov
Senator John Ensign, 202-224-3041 Legislative Director Pam Thiesse  pam_thiessen@ensign.senate.gov
Senator Kit Bond, 202-224-5741 Legislative Director Kara Smith kara_smith@bond.senate.gov
Senator Susan Collins, 202-224-2523 Legislative Director Rob Epplin  Rob_epplin@collins.senate.gov
Senator  Scott Brown, 202-224-4543 
Steven Schrage – Chief of Staff  (I cannot release his email. Have no other staffer emails to offer)
Senator Olympia Snowe, 202-224-5344
 Legislative Director Ron Le Francois ron_lefrancois@snowe.senate.gov

A complete list of legislators can be found at: 
http://joblessunite.yolasite.com/legislators-list.php  

These are the most up to date contacts I have, so if any of them has changed their email due to the heavy traffic in our past campaigns, the emails may be returned.

Incumbent too timid to debate in MN District 2

According to the campaign spokesman of former MN State Representative Shelley Madore, currently running for Congress in Minnesota's Second District, they received a formal response Monday from GOP incumbent Congressman John Kline (R-MN) rejecting an opportunity to debate her in front of a live audience in the Second Congressional District at any time that was convenient to him.

"Only 12% of voters believe most members of Congress are more interested in helping people than in helping their own careers. Seventy-six percent (76%) say most in Congress put their own careers first. Skepticism has remained this high since October."

From Congressional Performance

Rasmussen Reports

In a year when incumbents are on shaky ground, Kline is keeping his head down. "It saddens me that the voters of this district will have one 25-minute radio interview just one week before the election as their only opportunity to evaluate our ability to best represent them in Washington," said Madore discussing the incumbent's reluctance to make time to appear before district voters. Kline's voting record is more conservative than Michelle Bachmann (MN-6), and his district gets back less than half the federal taxes they pay now that Kline's anti-earmark ideology has painted him into a corner when it comes to helping his constituents.

"Rep. John Kline has been in office for eight years; he seems to take for granted that his seat is secure despite the 18% public approval rating for members of Congress. I believe the voters of this district have had enough of elitist Washington politics.

I have appeared at FarmFest and the Goodhue County Veterans candidate forums and will participate in two Transportation Alliance candidate forums in the next two weeks, all of which John Kline has refused to attend. In his response, John Kline cited his conversations with voters at community events over the summer. I have spent the last nine months listening to voters' concerns about jobs, health care, transportation and education funding. These are serious times and demand a serious candidate willing to work for your vote."

Former Minnesota Representative Shelley Madore

Madore's campaign has reportedly conveyed an additional offer made Monday by the Burnsville Chamber of Commerce to host a debate, seeking an opportunity for voters to compare and contrast the two candidates and their records in a setting where the public can see and judge both.

According to Rasmussen incumbents are in trouble, and Kline's lack of initiative for projects within the district while he continues to vote for earmarks inserted by other members of his party leaves him open to questions from the voters. His record of voting against funding for veterans has led some to accuse him of supporting war without supporting the warriors. Madore's 35 Cent Tour has successfully explained to Minnesotans that not all earmarks are pork, and at least one survey suggests swing voters (those who report they have not stuck strictly to one party in the past) believe Kline needed to do more than repeat talking points if he wanted to represent them in Congress again - and I'm inclined to believe them.

Thomas Hayes is a political strategist, entrepreneur, and journalist currently working for the Madore for Congress campaign in Minnesota's Second Congressional District. He contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community, and helped the Madore campaign to a convincing upset victory in the August primary.

TechCrunch Disrupt SF: Sara Lacy Eats The Panelists

This blogger watched the TechCrunch Disrupt SF "Women In Tech Panel" from Gate 73 while waiting to board the flight to Denver then to Atlanta. In fact, this post is being written as I wait standby. The tweets preceded what was on the USTREAM broadcast:

EmilysHere - why is sarah lacy so angry? #tcdisrupt
10 minutes ago via web

sue_anne - Had high hopes for #womenintech panel. Unfortunately moderator set a bad tone and it turned in to a snarkfest. #tcdisrupt

emilyjo - RT @tenaciouscb: Renaming "Women in Tech" to "You shut up. No, you shut up." #tcdisrupt <--watching online...exhausting!

Those Twitter tweets sum up what part of the panel I saw here at the gate. In fact, when the livestream was first activated, Sara's angry voice lit up a good 20-foot square area of the gate. Volume down on the computer.

First, let's get this out of the way. Sara's awesome. She's done a lot for herself in carving a good niche in tech journalism. She's a friend. Well, we'll see after this little crit, but for now, yes.

To watch her just go out and eat the panelists was disappointing. Presented with an effort to show Women In Tech getting along, Sara revealed just why there's a problem after all: infighting.

In other words, the old problem demonstrated at times when a minority of people in any group faces discrimination - one person saying "I'm OK," and the other saying "I'm not." The the two fight rather than seek agreement.

Well, I've got my ticket. On to Denver.

And wishing I were backstage to see the aftermath of this war.

Sara, don't hurt em.

Google Blogger Needs Stop Auto-Removing Blogs; Making Mistakes

There are millions of blogs hosted by Google's Blogger division and under the "blogspot.com" domain. Many people use their blogs as the basis for their business activities. So, it should come as no surprise that the same people are shocked to learn their blogs are deleted because they're called "spam blogs" when in point of constant fact they're not.

Recently, this happened to a friend of mine, who's blog this blogger set up on Blogger.com, extolling the virtues of using the service and how she could base her fitness business there and generate revenue. So when Blogger took her blog down as spam, presumably because she posts maybe twice a month, she went ballistic on Google, Blogger, and me.

She called and just started crying and yelling: "Google's doing this! They run everything! It's not right! I'll go broke! You've got to do something because you got me into this. Why did they do this? I have the right to blog when I want to!

Basically, I tried to explain that one needed to update their blog so it didn't look like a website. She didn't care. "So fucking what! That's bullshit! It's my blog. I can blog when I want." And more crying.

Basically, she's right; she can blog when she wants to and Google has to stop acting like God. Regardless of the Terms of Service, which most people don't read, Google and Blogger do by their words make you the user think the blog is your blog. After all, the search for "Blogger.com" reads "Blogger: create your free blog."

Really, given what they can do, they should call it "their blog" because the Terms of Service state they can remove it for any reason. That's mean and unnecessary legal language that should be jettisoned immediately.

That language should change. It implies that Google Blogger can decide "We don't like that you're writing militant black stuff," not tell you that, and take your blog down. Now what militant black stuff is differs from person to person, so that would be a mistake. But you get the point.

My Friend Gets Her Blog Back

After a few hours Google Blogger did restore my friend's blog. But really that should not have happened. Google Blogger should be in the business of helping people maintain their online businesses, not scaring the crap out of them just because they can.

This economy is too bad for too many people to allow that policy of auto-removing spam blogs to stand. Google Blogger must get rid of it, and sooner rather than later.

Google Blogger has the potential to change the world just by making it easier to blog, but also by letting bloggers know it stands with them and will not yank their content just because some Blogger autobot was drunk with power.

TechCrunch Disrupt SF: AOL Close To Buying TechCrunch. Movie?

TechCrunch, the Tech blog started by former lawyer Michael Arrington, is reportedly the center of a deal to be purchased by AOL.

If so, the deal, expected to be announced at TechCrunch Disrupt SF, is a major sign of the growing power and value of blogs.

PerezHilton.com was recently valued at $20 million, and was at $48 million.  From that, and given TechCrunch revenue generation of about $3 million, a fair estimate for purchase is about $30 million.

Michael started TechCrunch in 2005 and has skillfully grown it to where it is today, known not just for covering the Tech industry, but and at times for better, sometimes worse, influencing it.

Michael's best move was in bringing in Heather Harde as CEO. Her presence has served to add stability and legitimacy to the organization around the blog. The conferences have dramatically improve in terms of presentation and sponsor visibility.

Though it all, Michael has managed to maintain a sense of humor:



According to Gigaom, the terms of the deal have not been announced. AOL CEO Tim Armstrong, who was at TechCrunch Disrupt New York City, is expected to appear at TechCrunch Disrupt SF this week, and that, reportedly, is when the deal will be announced.

Congratulations to Michael, Heather, and the staff at TechCrunch. This blogger's waiting for the movie.

Wonder what it would be called?

Arianna Huffington Called "Quintessential Opportunist" By BitterGate Blogger

Arianna Huffington 

The Huffington Post's controversial policy of refusing to pay bloggers has created its first high profile critic: Mayhill Fowler. In a blistering blog post, Fowler calls Huffington Post Founder Arianna Huffington the quintessential opportunist for, from Fowler's perspective, using her and generating web traffic, ad revenue, and publicity from Mayhill's work.

If you don't remember her name, Mayhill Fowler's the person behind the Obama "BitterGate" scandal. During the 2008 Presidential Primary Campaign, then-Senator Barack Obama appeared at a fund-raiser at the Pacific Heights district of San Francisco on a bright, sunny, April 6th Sunday day.

Mayhill was there and took a tape recorder that was hidden from view of the campaign staff. If they saw it, staffers would have certainly kicker her out of the mansion as she not only wasn't supposed to record Obama, she wasn't even supposed to be in the building as she was banned from the campaign.  Yes, before BitterGate.

BitterGate's Mayhill Fowler 

Fowler recorded Obama making this now-famous statement:

So it's not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Her recording led to this blog post in the April 11th, 2008 Huffington Post, and a giant firestorm of negative publicity that was a nightmare for Obama For America.

Harder still for the campaign to take, as this blogger has explained before, Fowler wasn't even supposed to be in the room when Barack made that statement. Mayhill had already crafted a reputation for quoting people without notes, only to have someone complain they were misquoted in one of her blog posts where she was overly critical of everything the Obama campaign did.

Mayhill tried to present herself as an Obams supporter, and some have quoted her and her husband's campaign contributions level as "maxing out" at $2,300 for the primary as proof. But this blogger knew better as Fowler was consistently aiming to report negative news about Obama for America and positive news about then-Senator Hillary Clinton's campaign.  

How did I know this?  Because I was the first Huff Post blogger assigned by staff to work with Mayhill as we both lived in Oakland, California at the time.  I took note of her anti-Obama blogs entries and backed away from working with her as I was and still am pro-Obama.

But Mayhill hit her targtet. Her BitterGate story has been referenced over 9,000 times online and many times on television. And for a time, it threatened to derail the Obama For President effort.

Eventually, Barack Obama overcame BitterGate, and everything else, to become president.

Mayhill Fowler Becomes Famous But Remains Unpaid

Regardless of what Mayhill claims in her blog post, she was highly sought after for appearances on radio and on panels.  This, over the time where The Huffington Post was taking major shit for Fowler's actions.  What she did was the supposed to be the stuff of Fox News, not the liberal Huff Post.

Many who experienced Mayhill's anti-Obama work weren't happy with that episode.

Still, Fowler continued to blog and take trips to political events, all paid out of her own pocket.  In her blog post complaining about the stories she pitched and The Huffington Post's refusal to monetarily support her desire to do them, Mayhill still doesn't get that many people still hold a grudge against her for BitterGate.  A lot of those people have relationships with Arianna Huffington.

So when Arianna told Mayhill the Huff Post didn't have a budget to fund her requests, even as they were paying Sam Stein, what she meant was she didn't have money for someone viewed as an enemy of the Obama campaign.

What Mayhill doesn't seems to have learned is that forming relationships and protecting them is a lot more important than issuing the blog post that's a campaign torpedo.  So, The Huffington Post figured they would just let her go and do her thing now that the campaign is over and Obama won.   The Huff Post wins because they're not paying her or encouraging her.  Thus, they're not liable for whatever she does.

Mayhill's Right: The Huff Post Model Sucks

For all of her faults, Mayhill's correct when she blogs that "The Huffington Post business model is to provide a platform for 6,000 opinionators to hold forth. Point of view is cheap." There are ways to cause bloggers to be paid. The Huffington Post, and some other newssites, are operating under the wrong business model. At Zennie62.com we cause bloggers to be paid and some have made as much as $60 per day for very little work.

But where Mayhill's wrong is in writing as if The Huffington Post was going to, at some point, pay her.

There was never a plan for that and a number of people didn't want it.

Segway Owner Dies Driving His Own Segway Off A Cliff

To learn that the Segway Owner dies because he piloted his Segway off a cliff is as much sad as it is strange.

One would think Jimi Heselden, the creator of the Segway Personal Transporter, would have known how to pilot his own vehicle to avoid such a development. Apparently not.

According to The Associated Press:

A witness had reported seeing a man fall Sunday over a 30-foot (9-meter) drop into the river near the village of Boston Spa, 140 miles (225 kilometers) north of London.


There's not much information on how this happened, and reportedly there's a lot of lack of information on how to drive the Segway and a number of YouTube videos showing people falling off of it:



Meanwhile, RIP Jimi Heselden.

TechCrunch Disrupt SF Women In Tech Panel: @digitalsista's view

The second blog post in this space about Tuesday's TechCrunch Disrupt SF 2010 "Women In Tech" panel started a conversation. Indeed, one that's more valuable than for AngelGate.

The post, TechCrunch Disrupt SF Women In Tech Panel - Where's The Black Girl?, called for the need for all to embrace the objective of diversity if we're really going to "change the ratio" of women and people of color at tech conferences like TechCrunch Disrupt SF

Two observers brought a blog post by Shireen Mitchell aka @digitalsista (pictured at left) to this blogger's attention.   Called "a tale of two challenges at tech conferences," it's a great and intimate view of how Shireen, recognized as one of the " 2010 Top Women to Watch" in Tech (and note, in all of Tech, not just the black wing), was left out of a panel at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit called "Women and Entrepreneurship," even though the other panelists lobbied to have her on it.

Lisa Stone of BlogHer was even willing to give up her seat to Shireen just to have a diverse panel.

Wait. Couldn't they have just added an extra chair?

At any rate, Shireen then notes she was, as they say, "cool with it" until a panel started called "The Open Media Revolution Is Over: Are we Better Off?" and with, as Shireen reports:

Michael Arrington, Tech Crunch, Robert Scoble, Scobleizer, Quentin Hardy, Forbes, Josh Tyrangiel, Bloomberg Businessweek and Chamillionaire, rapper moderated by AlwaysOn's own Tony Perkins.

Shireen correctly observes that Chamillionaire is an entertainer and his own Twitter page explains that he's "Bio Platinum & grammy award winning recording artist. Tech conference tourist. Professional sports trash talker. Knowledge seeker. Boss."

When the irony of having a non-techie on a panel was brought up to colleague Erika Alexander, Erika observed that one can be a "tech-entertainer." While Shireen says that's a good point, I disagree. In this case there's no evidence that Chamillionaire is a person who's established his own tech start up like, say, Sports Business Simulations. Had he done so, he would qualify as a "tech-entertainer."

At TechCrunch Disrupt SF, the one black entrepreneur who should be on someone's panel is MC Hammer, who was the founder of a startup called DanceJam that he later sold and reportedly for a profit.   MC Hammer is a true tech-entertainer.

In fact, he's, well, uh, OK, the entertainment headliner at TechCrunch Disrupt SF.

Michael Arrington. Man, put that dude on a panel.  Will ya?

Ed Schultz confirms S3706 will get Senate attention this week

Ed Schultz confirms S3706 will get Senate attention this week. Today on his radio show, Ed Schultz ended the weekend speculation over whether the Stabenow story was in-fact true and what prompted him (Ed) to make that call to the Michigan Senator last Friday, on behalf of the 99er Nation.

Ed has expressed a great deal of concern over the impact disenfranchised voters, like the 99er NOVOs would have on the midterm elections. Last week, Ed announced on the radio his determination to change the minds of those who had planned to sit out this election, unless the Americans Want to Work Act was brought to the Senate floor.

On today’s show, Schultz gave his rendition of how the process may play out this week. He confirmed that Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) did commit to bring S3706 to the floor for a vigorous debate and a possible voice vote. He also acknowledged the distinct possibility that the Republicans will likely block such a vote. Ed did add that there was a possibility that a few Republican Senators may help override such filibustering techniques, but that is anyone’s guess. No telling what the Republicans might do.

Ed said he was not sure if this was going to be enough to change the minds of the 99er NOVO movement, but it is a step in the right direction.

After hearing this radio dialog, the San Diego Unemployment Examiner contacted Rob C. to confirm his intention was to indeed dissolve the 99er NOVO movement, once the bill gets to the Senate floor. “All we want is a fighting chance to survive,” Rob explained. “Ed has done his part, Stabenow should do her part and then we will keep our promise to take all the energy of the NOVOs and put it toward a Democratic win in November. There may be those in the NOVO movement who disagree with doing so, but that is the beauty of living in America. We all have the right to choose for ourselves and then act accordingly, but the great majority of the NOVOs are on board with this decision.”

At the close of his radio show today, Ed Schultz announced that he will have 99er information tonight on his MSNBC show that you do not want to miss.

TechCrunch Disrupt SF Women In Tech Panel - Where's The Black Girl?

On Tuesday, TechCrunch Disrupt SF will host a panel that is provocative not just by its title, but by the panelists. It is simply called "Women in Tech" and consists of, according to the agenda, Lauren Leto (Bnter), Leila Chirayath Janah(Samasource), Sara Chipps (Girl Developer IT), Cyan Banister (Zivity), Rachel Sklar (Mediaite.com), Michelle Greer (SimpleSpeak Media).

Now, the idea behind the panel, this blogger assumes, is to talk about the lack of women in tech. It's a subject my friend Mediaite Editor-At-Large Rachel Sklar has really placed a laser focus on of late, starting a blog called "Changing The Ratio" and poking at TechCrunch Founder and Editor Michael Arrington for forming an event in TechCrunch Disrupt she feels is not inclusive of women.

Rachel's efforts have landed her a well-deserved invitation to be on the panel that meets on Tuesday morning.

So, I wondered, who's on the panel, other than Rachel? The answer, several white girls and one of apparent Indian (Asian) decent.

Where's the black and the Latino women?

The point is, talk about diversity should not stop at one group of people, because that method of thinking doesn't help solve the overall problem. Moreover, the discussion becomes "white male centric" - in other words, "Why aren't we as (white) women in this group of people we perceive as mostly white male?"

Even with the increasing diversity of men in tech as evident by the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Hackathon, the idea is that it's still a white guy's game. But the people who complain about this don't seem to realize they're excluding others themselves. So what we get are panels on Women in Tech, Blacks in Tech (at SXSW), and so on, but no discussion of how to really alter this picture before us.

The problem is there's a lack of understanding of the need to think in a racially and sexually diverse way. It's not enough to just have a panel of, frankly, hot almost all-white women (was that Michael's doing?) talking about the issue, but to ask is that panel itself diverse? The answer is no.

So are we really solving the problem, or talking around it?

We're talking around it.

Diversity-think must be in the DNA of a group or culture, period. It's all about making everyone feel that they're included in a discussion, in other words that you're thinking about them. What we forget is that everyone want to be heard. They want to know if you're affirming their value by paying attention to them. There's nothing wrong with that and it's human nature to want that.

The overall problem is many people feel they must make groups that are exclusive if only to give value to themselves. Or to take it a step beyond that, to make themselves feel better about who they are at the expense of others. Thus, some, like Michael, will say "It's not the fault of men" that there aren't a lot of women in tech.

If you think about what Arrington's saying in depth, it's an ugly gatekeeper mentality: "I'm the person who has helped to set the bar for who gets in and it's that you must have a good idea or product. It's not that your female or black or whatever."

Bullshit.

The first order of business is to admit our biases. The second order of business is to speak frankly, which works back to the first order.

A friend of mine in Oakland politics and legal circles, a mentor who's white, said it best long ago: white people don't like to be considered racist (or for that matter sexist). It's a fear. So sometimes we may replace that idea with some other manufactured issue about a person of color."

So, while the real problem may be that while the man has an issue that's racist or sexist, it may be covered by another assertion that effectively works to shift the blame to the victim: thus we have Michael's idea that it's the fault of women that there aren't a lot of women in tech.

Changing The Ratio Means Changing Ourselves

You can't change society without changing how people think. For example, the "Women In Tech" panel should be more racially diverse than it is. Then it means the very people raising that issue of sexism aren't themselves racist.

(And here, an aside. To be racist or sexist is to put down a person because of their race or sex. It's not being aware of race or racial divisions or sex and issues of sexism. People who claim one's being racist or sexist by talking about race and sex are just playing a nutty game.  The end result is to stop you from pointing out the problem.)

If the TechCrunch Disrupt SF Women In Tech Panel that meets on Tuesday doesn't talk about the need for everyone to think in a diverse way, then the panel's a failure.

Also, Michael Arrington himself should moderate the panel. If he doesn't, it means he's running away from an issue he's made himself part of and in a way signaling that the whole panel's not really one to be taken seriously.  

Here's hoping he doesn't do that.

Bruce Gradkowski Not Outstanding In Raiders Loss

Oakland Raiders Quarterback Bruce Gradkowski was 17-of-34 passes for 255 yards with for touchdown and one interception agains the Arizona Cardinals. The Raiders lost in part because of three missed field goals, but given their distance, we have to ask why the offense didn't get closer?

In other words, the replacement for Jason Campbell completed just 50 percent of his passes. Moreover, Gradkowski's ugly sidearm throwing habit is back, and this corner wonders just what is the Raiders Coaching Staff is doing with the QB, as he had this problem in the 2009 season.

That form, shown in the photo, causes Bruce to throw off his back foot and places his downfield throws wildly off target.

For example, the long pass to Darrius Heyward-Bey that resulted in a pass interference call was that sidearm throw. Because of Bruce's form, the pass didn't fall where it should have, just outside of Bey's body for the route he was running. Instead, the ball's flight was such that it looked like a prayer aimed for the receiver. The pass was overthrown. The penalty came because the ball looked like it could have been caught, even if it took a circus catch to do it.

That didn't happen.

The bottom line is Gradkowski needs work. There was little in his play to suggest that he alone made the difference. The Raiders had to rely on field goals too often because they were not able to get to within the red zone. Otherwise, such field goals are a chip shot.

The Raiders lost. And here some the Texans.