Her dreams of heading up the World Bank dashed, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, the architect of one of the worst tech mergers in history, has turned her attention to California politics. After months of speculation, she officially announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate today.
Add Melissa Hathaway to the list of cybersecurity experts who don’t want the job of White House cybersecurity czar. Hathaway, a former Bush administration official who led President Obama’s recent 60-day review of the federal government’s cybersecurity efforts, was thought to be a leading contender for the position. But according to The Wall Street Journal, she asked not to be considered for that post about two weeks ago, citing personal reasons. And now she’s resigned her current post as well.
In a move that most likely would not have been made without the recent efforts of Ashton Kutcher and Oprah Winfrey, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom announced his candidacy for the California Governor’s seat this morning via Twitter.
Obama appointee Vivek Kundra’s new job as chief information officer has gotten off to an inauspicious start. After just a week on the job, Kundra is taking a leave of absence following an FBI raid on the District office he previously led. Yusuf Acar, a D.C. government official who previously worked for Kundra, was arrested on bribery charges this week.
At long last it’s official: President Obama on Tuesday afternoon nominated Julius Genachowski as chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, confirming an appointment that was widely viewed as inevitable.
If Google thought CEO Eric Schmidt’s role as an informal adviser to Barack Obama or the inaugural gala it hosted for the new president in January might curry favor with his administration, it was wrong. Certainly, Obama’s choice of Christine A. Varney as head of the Justice Department’s antitrust division suggests the administration may already be concerned with Google’s domineering presence in the market for Internet search advertising.
The week just passed melded Inauguration week and the first week of earnings reports into one giant package filled with exuberance and resignation. Conventional wisdom says to start with the bad news and end with the good news, but that’s not how it went down: It started high with the momentum and promise of change embodied by Barack Obama’s inauguration as the 44th President of the United States and ended low with some heavy hitters feeling the pain of the downturn.
How’s this for “Change”? President-elect Barack Obama named four former Clinton administration officials to leadership posts in the Justice Department Wednesday, among them Tom Perrelli–favored counsel of the Recording Industry Association of America.
Not true, the President-elect uses an iPod.”
– An Obama spokesman makes quick work of the Zunegate scandal
Another week, another five work days into a recession. There were a few distractions along the way, of course. From Jerry Yang and Mark Cuban to Obama Girl and Guns N’ Roses, the week’s events were enough to keep more than a few bloggers busy–at least there was something to write about other than pending economic doom.
Half a billion dollars. That’s what Barack Obama raised online in his 21-month campaign for the presidency. Astonishing, considering total donations for the president-elect’s campaign were around $660 million.
It was an eventful week–a new President-elect, Yahoo still playing the field with no takers, and the hovering recession beginning to hit a little harder, a little closer to home. It was hard to keep the storylines straight, so let’s approach it thematically.
Election 2008
Whether or not those voting machines malfunctioned or miscounted votes, Barack Obama became the 44th President of the United States, much to the chagrin of comedians like Tina Fey and Amy Poehler, who–since the beginning of the McCain/Palin partnership–were handed once-in-a-lifetime material. Between the brilliant Saturday Night Live parody sketches of (and by) both Palin and McCain, and Obama’s victory speech, the other big winner (by a mile) was YouTube.
The short list of candidates for President Elect Barack Obama’s cabinet-level CTO may be quite a bit shorter than Washington insiders claim. In the run-up to Tuesday’s election, Vint Cerf, Google’s chief Internet evangelist, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, Google CEO Eric Schmidt, Princeton professor Ed Felten and Amazon CEO Jeffrey Bezos were among the names of those who might be considered for the job. But it’s beginning to look more and more like the Obama camp already has someone in mind for the position: Julius Genachowski.
John Paczkowski has been poking fun at the tech industry and the personalities that drive it since 1997. From 1999 to 2007, he wrote the award-winning tech news Web log Good Morning Silicon Valley for the San Jose Mercury News, Silicon Valley's daily newspaper. Read more »
Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.
12:58 AM: Breakfast: Two schools of fish from Tokyo Bay. Calories: 782,000. How I was feeling when I ate this: confused, irradiated, hating my size.
11:37 AM: Exercise: “Taxi Stomp” (alternating legs, for 30 blocks). Calories burned: 148,900,183.
1983. The Beatles announce their first tour in thirteen years, but likewise announce that Michael Jackson will be going on tour with them as a one gigantic mega-concert event.
Best video mashup ever.
A Facebook Memorial
Wow.
Worth it for the Rickrolling photo alone.
Excellent.
Flughumor!
… you vacuous, toffee-nosed, malodorous perverts
Stephen Fry and zoologist Mark Carwardine meet the kakapo — a fat, flightless and very randy rare parrot.
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