obama

One of the more topical discussions in Steve Jobs' biography addresses Apple's tendency to "employ" a disproportionately large number of workers in China. And that strategy has been fodder for debates on national news networks like CNN because of stubbornly high levels of unemployment in the U.S.

Let's start with some recent statements by luminaries as politically diverse as Jim Hoffa, International Brotherhood of Teamsters President, Donald Trump, and CNN's Piers Morgan.

Here's what Hoffa said in a segment entitled "Fixing the Jobs Crisis" with CNN's Candy Crowley on September … Read more

The father of the iPod creates a cool home thermostat, the Obama campaign joins Tumblr, and Netflix reports its first drop in customers in nearly two years--and it's a doozy.

Links from Tuesday's episode of Loaded:

President Barack Obama's campaign yesterday opened up its first Tumblr account to help get the word out about their candidate.

"We'd like this Tumblr to be a huge collaborative storytelling effort--a place for people across the country to share what's going on in our respective corners of it and how we're getting involved in this campaign to keep making it better," the campaign wrote its first post on the page.

Currently, the Tumblr page has three posts, including an image of the campaign's Ohio offices and an excerpt from the President's address … Read more

A few days ago, a conservative attorney named Leo Donofrio noticed something extremely odd about the U.S. Supreme Court opinions published on the Web site of Justia.com, a legal information startup.

The opinions weren't accurate. Donofrio, of East Brunswick, N.J., discovered that citations to a 1875 case defining a "natural-born citizen"--a phrase that has special resonance in discussions about President Obama's eligibility for the office--had been quietly removed before the 2008 elections.

Donofrio, who in 2009 tried to convince the Supreme Court that President-elect Obama was ineligible for office, quickly published his … Read more

Steve Jobs met with President Obama a few times and gave him ideas for how to generate jobs in the U.S., according to his biographer, Walter Isaacson.

Jobs also told Isaacson that Obama needed a management style more like his own, which could be both mean and manipulative. They clashed over how best to attract and retain talented overseas engineers. And even though Jobs had supported Obama's candidacy, he also warned Obama that he would be a one-term president.

Some people simply won't read Walter Isaacson's biography of Steve Jobs because it has 656 pages, meaning it requires strong fingers--and nerves--in order to make it through the whole thing.

So with various media organizations obtaining copies by Wikileaky, Watergate-like subterfuge, I thought I'd create a little scorecard to tabulate all of the tiffs, digs, revelations, affronts and full-frontal stabbings that have dripped out so far.

Each of them I have given a score: The "What A Surprise" score. A score of 1 means that surely most sentient beings expected this. A 10 means that … Read more

President Obama called the approval of free-trade agreements with Colombia, Panama, and South Korea this week "a major win for American workers."

What he didn't add is that the deals, which were given final approval on Wednesday by the U.S. Congress, are also a major win for the motion picture industry and other large U.S. copyright holders. Other portions specify that consumers can have their choice of computer software, but "subject to the needs of law enforcement."

You won't find this highlighted on the administration's Web site (really, Web sites), but … Read more

President Obama and a trio of House Republicans are visiting Silicon Valley today to highlight their competing proposals for boosting the U.S. economy.

Advisers had promised that Obama's town-hall style event organized by LinkedIn would address questions about jobs, the economy, and "how to move the country forward." It turns out Obama's answers amounted to a single recommendation: pass his proposed legislation known as the American Jobs Act (PDF), which includes a mix of additional government spending, temporary tax breaks, and permanent additional taxes that would take effect 16 months from now.

For their part, … Read more

Netflix rocks our world with the news that they're splitting up into two separate companies: Netflix for streaming and embedded media delivery, and Qwikster (yeah, seriously) for DVD delivery. Best part? Two Websites, two accounts, two queues! What's not to love? Also, Google Wallet and AT&T LTE arrive, Molly tees off on the Droid X again, and be warned, mateys: we do talk like pirates.