For cheif executive officers and other top executives, the days of millions of dollars in salary and bonuses are over.

President Obama announced a salary cap of $500,000 for top executives at companies receiving finds from the bailout package Wednesday after calling the companies’ decision to award nearly $20 billion in bonuses when the American economy is faltering “shameful.”

“If the taxpayers are helping you, then you have certain responsibilities to not be living high on the hog,” Mr. Obama said Tuesday, in an interview with “NBC Nightly News.”

The top executives from Bank of America, Citigroup, and General Motors all made far more than $500,000 in recent years.

Kenneth D. Lewis, the chief executive of Bank of America, took home more than $20 million in 2007. Of that, $5.75 million was in salary and bonuses, according to an article by The New York Times. Vikram Pandit, who became chief executive of Citigroup in December of 2007 and previously held other senior positions at the bank, made $3.1 million, as well as Richard Wagoner of G.M. who earned a salary of $1.6 million but $14.4 million overall in stock, options and other non-cash benefits according to the same article.

“This is a reasonable approach,” Obama said when describing the restrictions in an interview with CNN on Tuesday.

“It’s not a government takeover. Private enterprise will still be taking place, but people will be accountable and responsible and that’s what we have to restore in the financial system in general.”

On a day that two of his top cabinet choices were backing out of their respective positions, President Obama was no where to be found in the White House by early afternoon.Obama’s chief performance officer Nancy Killefer called it quits early this morning after questions about her tax returns had started to become more of a problem and Tom Daschle, Obama’s health and human services nominee, pulled out hours later after concerns about some unpaid taxes came under-fire on Capitol Hill.

While his press secretary answered question after question about those noteworthy and controversial events, the most powerful man in the world was answering questions like “who are the president’s superheroes?” from a class of second graders. He and the First Lady decided to pay an unannounced visit to  Capital City Public Charter School in northwest Washington.

As suspicious as his disappearance sounds, Mr. Obama said that he was away from the White House to raise support for his economic stimulus package, which a good chunk of the potential spending going towards education.

“We’re very proud of what’s been accomplished at this school and we want to make sure that we’re duplicating that success all across the country,” he said in an interview with The New York Times. “So nothing is going to be more important than this. And the recovery and reinvestment act that we’ve put forward will provide billions of dollars to build schools and help with school construction.”

(Photo courtesy of The New York Times)

Legoland in California has modified their Washington D.C. landscape to capture what the inauguration of President-elect Barack Obama will look like. Hundreds of thousands of those tiny bricks have been fastened together to construct every facet of the upcoming ceremony.

Peeking through the trees.

An enormous turnout, as expected. The crowd awaits President-elect Obama's arrival.

Former President George W. Bush falls asleep next to his wife before the ceremony begins.

The S.F. Boys and Girls Choir with Aretha Franklin, John Williams, Itzhak Perlman and Yo-Yo Ma.

From left to right: Sen. Fienstien (front chair), Rick Warren (also seated), Joe Biden and his wife, Michelle Obama and the kids, former Pres. George H.W. Bush and Barbara. Barack Obama is center front with Chief Justice John Roberts. Behind him are the Bush twins along with Laura, President Bush, and Dick Cheney. Left of the Cheneys and sitting down are Hillary and former Pres. Clinton.

Thousands of Lego-people wait to see Lego-Barack Obama officially become the 44th President of the Lego-United States.

Legobama is sworn in.

The Legobama family looks on as Barack becomes the first black president.

Putting the finishing touches on the display.

The inauguration will be tomorrow, January 20th, 2009. It will be on virtually every television channel and internet site. Make sure to tune in so one day you can tell your kids that you saw history as it happened.

A.Martin

First things first, what makes businesses profitable is the fact that companies pay their marketing teams tons of money to make their product or service appeal to the public more than the competitor’s, even if it isn’t actually better at all. If they were not able to do that, the best overall product would be known and we as the consumer would pay hefty for it.

That being said, this petition argues for something they call “net neutrality” where they could forbid internet service providers from favoring their content or services over another provider’s. How does that make sense? What if someone told Skippy that they could not try and convince their costumer base that their peanut butter was indeed better than Peter Pan?

That is exactly what they are calling for, but I do not agree with it. The petition says that ISPs should not be able to prefer anything of their own over another provider’s, but isn’t all provider’s services available on the internet anyway? If you don’t like what you’re being shown on a website, you can visit another site. In fact, if you don’t like what you’re seeing on your current ISP, you have the ability to switch your service to another one; not as quickly as you can switch sites, but you get the idea.

Critics characterized net neutrality regulation as “a solution in search of a problem”, arguing that broadband service providers have no plans to block content or degrade network performance. If it could be proved that private ISPs were blocking content, applications, or anything else from their users because it originated from a competitor then I would be all for the idea. However, no cases have been proved.

Bob Kahn, Internet Protocol’s co-inventor, is against the idea of “net neutrality” saying that “nothing interesting can happen inside the net” if it passes. If we want internet innovation to spread in the future, a net neutrality goal is not something worth pursuing.

The idea of ”net neutrality” is a good one, in theory. In real life, you need competition to keep prices low for the consumer and to breed innovation within the dynamic, in this case ISPs. If one cannot prefer their content over another, then consumers would not be aware of what else is out there. And eventually, there wouldn’t be anything else out there.

A. Martin

Like all other things in today’s world, businesses are effected significantly by the internet. The change in the trends of business sparked by the internet is commonly referred to as Web 2.0. Tim O’Reilly defines web 2.0 as “the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as a platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform.”

The internet has revolutionized the way companies conduct their everyday operations. The internet’s structure allows for businesses to advertise to a larger audience, all the while pin-pointing the population that they’re trying to reach. Advertising was once heavily found in newspapers, then on television, and now on the internet. Companies can advertise their product or service to an audience that would have interest in it, similar to the way toy companies advertise their products during SpongeBob SquarePants instead of, say, Law and Order: Criminal Intent. The internet has allowed for businesses to market to people based on their likes, dislikes, needs, and their location.

 Anyone can start a business using the internet, given that there is a demand for a specific product or service. Does anyone even remember how we got mail before e-mail, before the days of AOL, Hotmail, or Juno?  Or how they shopped before ebay was created? Or how they did research for a paper or project before Wikipedia or search engines like Google and Yahoo! were created? Or how they stayed entertained before YouTube put millions of videos at their fingertips?  Some of these companies are now significant influences in America’s economy and they were started in your neighbor’s garage. If you can afford to advertise your company on a Google, a Yahoo!, or an AOL, your business could explode over night. Thanks be to the internet.

The area of internet businesses that will see the most change in the years to come will be social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook. These sites have made it free and easy for users to stay in touch with friends and families across the street and across the world. Advertising on these sites alone accounted for 72%  of all online advertising revenue in 2007.  Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg predicts revenue to be almost $350 million in 2008. However, MySpace is predicted to outdue them and net close to $750 million.

With so much money coming into social networking sites, what changes could be made to make them even more profitable? Mary Hodder, founder of Dabble.com, says to look for companies to try to compete by giving users more control over their information. “The changes may seem subtle but I think we’ll see companies now, like Facebook, who try to be everything to you: your bank account for info, your identity, your tools for publishing, and your bar/restaurant for socializing, having to give up some of those roles or hold them less powerfully.” It seems highly unlikely that these sites will volunteerily give up their power.

However, as the co-founder of Citizen Agency and Citizen Space Tara Hunt believes, interacting and empowering the customer more will lead to bigger profits down the road. “In former days of marketing,” she said, ”companies delivered messages and goods and customers were meant to consume them. Not so much any longer.” The less you control and spread the message, she argues, the more the audience will listen to it.

As wi-fi devices become so small that they can fit into our pocket, advertisements from businesses will also be carried around with you. The possibilities of business innovation through the use of the internet are endless. Since we are interacting with other people in this way instead of by telephone, the internet has become the dial-tone of the 21st century. Does anyone even remember one of these things?

A. Martin

President-elect Barack Obama’s appointment of the first ever Chief Technology Officer will be as significant an appointee as the Sec. of State or Attorney General were, if not more so. As the internet becomes even more vital to our every day life than it already is, the CTO will be in charge of making sure operations run smoothly and new innovations are reached that can help our nation’s needs and technological goals.

A CTO of a corporation is responsible for “the transformation of capital- be it monetary, intellectual, or political- into technology in furtherance of the company’s objectives.” But what exactly will the objectives of Obama’s administation, and subsequently our nation as a whole, be for the internet in the future?

As this petition cites, our goals should be to “commit to providing affordable high-speed wireless Internet access nationwide, along with protecting and expanding unlicensed spectrum for public use, and make the Internet a reliable part of our infrastructure so that it delivers on its next phase, transforming how we do business, learn, play, participate in our democracy, stay secure, and govern.”  The petition also calls for an Internet Innovation and Investment Fund which would help in reaching these goals and whatever goals are agreed upon within the administration.

One of the most important goals the CTO should work to reach is extending the arm of the internet to every segment of our population. I know if you are able to read this, the thought that people in this country remain disconnected from the internet sounds ridiculous. But the problem remains. According to a study performed by the Pew Internet and American Life Project conducted in 2004, 68 percent of suburban communities are connected, but that percentage drops to 62 in urban communities and drops even further in rural communities where the percentage of citizens online is only 56 percent. The goal of providing affordable high-speed wireless access cannot be obtained until we have 100 percent of citizens connected nationwide, regardless of locality.

However, the demand for internet connection is so high that the capacity itself may not be able to handle it. According to the Nemertes Research Group, by 2012 the strain on the internet’s infrastructure, coming from more users getting online, will cause internet brownouts. The infrastructure simply cannot accodmodate this overflooding.

“We still project demand to exceed capacity at the access layer of the Internet by 2012, and the situation is slightly worse than we originally projected in North America,” said Dr. Mike Jude, senior analyst, Nemertes Research. 

The financial requirement predicted to be needed to bridge this gap in the United States alone is estimated at about $55 million, globally at $137 million. The petition I am refuting is calling for a minimal budget of $20 billion for the Internet Innovation and Investment Fund, but I’m afraid that that figure is far below what is needed to even get started.   

The connection rate in other countries is far below the dismal numbers of the United States, however. According to data presented by ITU in 2002, Portugal and Spain had online rates of less than 20 percent, Turkey and Mexico rates of less than 10 percent. I believe that a goal of the first CTO of the federal government should be to raise the world’s connection rates, because innovation can be developed in every corner of society, not just in the United States.

A. Martin

Security on the internet will be a major concern for our country in the 21st century. Our networks need to be secured, our databases need to be backed up and restored is necessary, and we need a team of highly skilled technology workers that can, in an emergency, recover and maintain all of what we have lost. However, since all of this is going to cost a great deal of money, it is important to ask what level of protection we actually need.

The United States has an organization already in place that can take care of some basic needs, the National Technology Corps.

“The National Technology Corps is a private effort created with the assistance of the White House. The mission of the Tech Corps is to recruit, place, and support volunteers from the technology community who advise and assist schools in the introduction and integration of new technologies into the educational system. Volunteers provide assistance with local planning, technical support and advice, staff training, mentoring, and classroom interactions.”

Though important, the National Tech. Corps can only solve basic IT problems. The organization is not designed to be utilized in the case of a terrorist attack on our servers and networks, if that should ever happen. What this petition is suggesting, right or wrong, is creating a National Guard of technology soldiers that can be deployed in an emergency to do battle with their knowledge of hyperscript, html,  bandwidth, metabrowsers, modems, byte-bonding, viruses, trojans, cookies, and broadband semantics in order to recover our information back from whatever internet-pirates have threatened it. Is this truly going to be a problem for us in the future? I for one don’t have the foresight or intuition to predict what concerns lie ahead as we enter the Information Age. Good thing the federal government does.

The Citizen Corps National Emergency Technology Guard Pilot Program, abbreviated as NET Guard, was started in the 2008 fiscal year to provide expertise to local communities in preparing for, responding to and recovering for incidents that cause damage to their information systems and communications infrastructure. “The NET Guard Program is envisioned as a means to provide emergency, temporary reconstitution of IT and communications systems, or installation of emergency, temporary IT and communications systems, primarily for governmental entities and private non-profit entities performing essential services.” Four pilot programs have been started, each with $80,000 of funding until the end of September 2009. After the programs’ performances are evaluated, the Federal Emergency Management Agency will further develop them and their administrations for use in the future.

Will these pilot programs become staples for the protection and preservation of our internet freedom in the future? Time will tell if they are either necessary or even enough of a precaution to take. President-elect Barack Obama has announced that he will appoint the first ever Chief Technology Officer to his cabinet, so much of these questions and concerns will fall into the appointee’s area of expertise. It will be his or her job to predict and prevent problems we will have in the future, as well as staying one step ahead of the competition concerning further innovation of our internet experience.

A. Martin

The advent of the internethas allowed users to become more connected than ever before; connected with family and friends as well as connected with people with the same interests as you in every corner of the world. But the biggest advantage of being connected, especially in a representative democracy system that is our government, is the ability to get connected with our elected officials.

Getting involved in the political process is easier than ever before due to the internet. People can connect, mobilize, and cause action. People can join a movement, volunteer some of their time, and actually bring about change in the world they live in. It happened over the last year when people came together through the internet in support of Barack Obama’s bid for the presidency, and it’s been happening for years.

In 1998 the Department of Agriculture (USDA) launched the National Organic Program to set regulations on organic food. Over the internet alone, they received over 277,000 comments about a variety of topics. When the Roadless Area Conservation Initiative was started in 1999, the Dept. of the Interior and the Forest Service received 90,000 emails to go along with over a million letters.

The federal government wanted to diffuse this innovation throughout their operations, so in 2002 they launched Regulations.gov with the tagline “your choice in Federal decision making.” As of January 2008, over 90 percent of the federal government’s regulatory information is accessible through the site.

President-elect Barack Obama has promised“a new level of transparency, accountability, and participation for American citizens” when he takes office but actual details as to how he plans to do this are still quite vague. There has been speculation about a site that would give the public a dollar-by-dollar look at how their tax money is being spent by the government, but nothing is set in stone as of yet. This Google-for-Government will involve improving the transparency and access to the vast oceans of government data, in part, by moving this data into universally accessible formats. Before all this is done, the citizens of this nation need to understand and value the privilege that increases connectedness gives us.

“I haven’t contacted an elected official personally,” says Kaitlin Kennedy, a 7th semester accounting major at the University of Connecticut.  ”But since the internet makes it so simple to do so, I have peace of mind. I know that if I needed to voice my opinion about something, it would only be a click away.” 

If you want to learn more and become active in the Save Darfur Coalition, all you need is a computer with internet connection. If you want to connect with Barack Obamaand tell him how you envision the future of America, all you need is a computer with internetconnection. If you want to protest against Prop. 8, all you need is a computer with internet connection.

The internet has become so imperative to our every day life, so vital to our democracy and the well being of our nation, that it is hard to remember how we ever got along without it.

A. Martin

As we move towards the Information Age of our nation’s history, it becomes increasingly important to ensure that all citizens have access to the internet. Maybe even more imperative is to ensure that every child has access to the internet, even if their family cannot afford a computer for their home. According to a study conducted in 2004 by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, only 44% of households whose annual income is less than $30,000 a year are online. That is unacceptable in the country that invented the internet.

I thought back on my days in high school and recalled very few times that I had access to the internet duringa typical school day. I remember our computer lab which was a room no bigger than a typical classroom filled with Gateway PC’s that were either outdated or broken and outdated (my high school has since updated to some better equipment). I might have been lucky to get online once a week if I had a project or assignment that required me to do so. When other students reflected upon their internet accessibility in high school, I found that my experience was quite typical.

I set up a group on Facebook that allowed users to join and answer a few questions I had. How often did you have access to the internet during high school? What kind of assignments did you have that required the internet to complete? Did high school properly prepare you for internet use in the future?

Most of the people I talked to only had access to the internet when they had a project or a research paper to do. Even in those cases, they were lucky to get online for an hour each day. Nearly everyone I talked to thought that high school had not done a sufficient job in preparing them to use the internet in college or in the workforce.

I e-mailed my high school English teacher, Ms. Isabel Nunes. She told me that on average a student will spend an hour online each week, but in some cases the amount of time is much higher or none at all. It really depends on how much the student values the experience he or she can gain from connected to the web. Other factors affect how often a student can get online during school: disciplinary problems, curriculum demands, and meetings with clubs or sports teams.

David Dziezynski, a junior at Albertus Magnus majoring in communications, graduated high school with me. When I asked him if our years at Wilby had prepared him to use the internet in college he said that most of his knowledge of the web came from “personal experience outside the classroom.” We can fail our children no longer.

President-elect Barack Obama sees the importance of having our children connected to the internet regularly if we are to strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world. When he propsed the largest public works project since the development of our interstate highway system earlier this week, he adressed this issue head on.

 “As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online.”

The propsed public works project is aimed at repairing our roads and highways as well as bridge construction projects, but much of it will be directed at improving technology. The government would pay for new computers in schools, new medical technology in hospitals and doctors’ offices, and a nationwide push to bring broadband to parts of the country that cannot yet access the Internet at high speeds.

The world’s economy will be even more reliant on the internet in the coming years. If the United States wishes to be one of the big players in the economy in the future it is absolutely crucial that we get every child connected and keep them connected.

A. Martin

One of the most important responsibilities of President-elect Barack Obama to do before he is inaugurated is to fill his cabinet. He has appointed 14 positions so far but four positions are more important to his administration than any others: Secretary of Defense, Secretary of the Treasury, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. Obama has announced his appointment to each of those positions and is in the process of filling the rest of the cabinet before January 20th.

Secretary of Defense – Robert M. Gates

Gates is the current Sec. of Defense so Obama’s decision to stick with him is a good one. His role in the Obama administration is to be the principal defense policy advisor. He is also responsible for the formulation of general defense policy related to all matters of direct and primary concern to the Dept. of Defense, and for the execution of approved policy.

Gates has over 25 years of experience in two key defense programs: the National Security Council, and the Central Intelligence Agency. During his time in the CIA, he held the positions of Deputy Director for Intelligence and Deputy Director of Central Intelligence. After he left the CIA in 1993, he worked as an academic and a lecturer; he lectured at  Harvard, Yale, Johns Hopkins, Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Indiana, Louisiana State, Oklahoma, and the College of William and Mary.

Gates’ presence in Obama’s cabinet will bring experience and a steady transition between the two administrations. Gates will also help make sure the troops remain safe as the administration develops a timetable and returns the soldiers home safely.

Secretary of the Treasury – Timothy F. Geithner

The Secretary of the Treasury is the head of the Dept. of the Treasury, concerned with finance and monetary matters. I can’t think of a more important position in this time of economic distress this country is facing. The appointment of Geithner is a questionable one, but one that I think will work out for the better of this nation.

Currently, Geithner is the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In March 2008, he arranged the rescue and sale of Bear Stearns and later, in the same year, he is believed to have played a pivotal role in both the decision to bail out AIG as well as the government decision not to save Lehman Brothers from bankruptcy.

Since he played a big role in dealing with the financial crisis this year, his decisions will be called into question by everyone evaluating him for this job. However, current Treasury Sec. Henry Paulsonbelieves the Treasury needs new leaders to deal with the current crisis and described Geithner as a “very unusually talented young man…[who] understands government and understands markets.”

Secretary of State – Hillary Clinton

The Secretary of State is the head of the State Dept, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence. Obama’s appointment of Clinton to this position is probably the most controversial pick because of her candidacy for president rivaling Obama and her husband’s foreign influence.

Putting that aside, Clinton brings to the State Dept. seven years of Senate experience where she served on five Senate committees. She shares very similar views on the Iraq War with Obama and the two of them also share somewhat similar views on health care.

Clinton said she was reluctant to leave the Senate, but the new position represented a “difficult and exciting adventure.” Time will tell how her taking of this position will affect her chances of a presidential bid down the road.

Attorney General – Eric H. Holder Jr.

If approved by the Senate, Holder would become the first African-American Attorney General. This cabinet position is concerned with legal affairs and is the chief law enforcement officer of the United States government. The Attorney General is considered to be the chief lawyer of the U.S. government.

During President Bill Clinton’s administration, Holder served as Deputy Attorney General from 1997-2001 under Attorney General Janet Reno and was a pivotal player in the steps leading up to Clinton’s impeachment hearings. Holder also represented the NFL investigation of Michael Vick’s connection to dog fighting in 2007.

Holder shares very similar political views with Obama. Holder favors closing the controversial Guantanamo Bay detention camp. He is opposed to the Bush Administration’s implementation of the Patriot Act, saying it is “bad ultimately for law enforcement and will cost us the support of the American people.” He has been critical of US torture policy and the NSA warrantless surveillance program, calling the Bush administration’s “disrespect for the rule of law [and is] not only wrong, it is destructive in our struggle against terrorism.”

Besides Gates’ reappointment as Defense Secretary, Obama’s choices are controversial and surprising. But they are also full of potential. In a time of crisis, a new look and new administration needs to take charge and Obama is certainly getting his army ready to take battle. Time will tell if he has assembled the right soldiers.

Alex J Martin