Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired By Fox News

neutrino38 writes "The International Herald Tribune reports that Fox News hired Carly Fiorina, ex-HP CEO. Such an interesting move will certainly bring support to those who viewed her as the over-hyped CEO who killed the original corporate engineering culture know as 'the HP way.' The article, off course, does not elaborate on this aspect of things. Slashdot has previously reported her demise from HP and some comments mentioned some HP employee dancing in the cubicles then."

Comments

Despite this news

[Anonymous Coward]

It is observed that Fox News is not in charge of Gundam.

Re:Despite this news

[Jarjarthejedi]

Well they weren't...with this development? Who knows what they'll do... :P

Don't blame me...

[shrubya]

...I voted this story down in the Firehose as Offtopic.

Oh well, let the "Faux News / Liberal Media" flame wars begin.

A Question for Current HP employees..

[pentalive]

Do you think that the "original corporate engineering culture know as 'the HP way'" is returning or has returned to hp?

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[rubycodez]

no, they finished laying off all the good engineers over a year ago, they're going down the crapper. still pushing technology customers don't need and don't want, like itanium2 and freakin' ethernet NFS/CFS NAS appliances in front of fibre SAN for "high performance databases" to protect the customer "from having to deal with complexity of fibre SAN and disk arrays".

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[Anonymous Coward]

Sadly, HP is now a mish-mosh of "old HP", Compaq, DEC and Indian outsourcing - there is no HP anymore.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[gaffle]

I agree with this totally.

As an employee of HP only because they bought my company, I can attest to the fact that HP is no longer a monolithic institution, but rather a bunch of components jammed up against each other operating largely autonomously.

It's what the stockholders want I guess, and will only become more prevalent as HP continues its pace of rapid acquisitions.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[Austerity Empowers]

Actually, I'm pretty sure the stockholders don't want that as clearly you have some inefficiencies to cut.

But speaking as someone who worked in that environment in the past, but now works in a large monolithic company...count your blessings ;) There's a high "corporate tax" on each employee, such that I do almost 100% less daily, due to spending so much time "maximizing synergy". The sad part is my manager thinks that's great, he's annoyed when i spend a day in the lab developing and testing our new product.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[cplusplus]

no, they finished laying off all the good engineers over a year ago, they're going down the crapper.

What a dumb thing to say. Really. I'd hold the engineering talent in my lab up to that of any other top tier organization in any other company. Interestingly enough, and counter to your argument, it's most often the case that when a lab or product line is shuts down (and this is the same for almost any employer), the top 10%-20% are readily scooped up somewhere else within the company. The rest? Well...

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[whoda]

No it hasn't and it never will.

When Dave Packard died, upper management and the bean counters started salivating.
When Bill Hewlett died in 2001, these same people instantly sought to change the "HP Way" to try and get a couple more percent in growth. The rest is modern history.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[Vancorps]

Are you implying 10gigabit iSCSI is because of people that don't want to deal with the complexity of 8gigabit fabric switches which cost twice as much and requires all new wiring. I think both most definitely have their places in any organization which actually requires a SAN.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[Anonymous Coward]

HP started as a test-and-measurement company. Then they merged with Compaq, and then spun off their test-and-measurement half as Agilent. If you want to find the real HP (of "the HP way"), look at Agilent.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[olyar]

I have a slightly different perspective than some other poster, I suppose.

The two way trust between management and the employees that Bill and Dave cultivated went away with Carly. Any HP employee who was there can tell you about the key event that started this shift.

Having worked at HP, and at other places, I do think that the HP Way still has some life in the way employees there treat one another. There is a level of decency in the way people treat one another that - I think - is a remnant of the old culture.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[jafac]

HP will continue its pace of acquisitions until Microsoft feels they can get away with buying them.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[khallow]

As an employee of HP only because they bought my company, I can attest to the fact that HP is no longer a monolithic institution, but rather a bunch of components jammed up against each other operating largely autonomously.

While it's not entirely relevant, HP has never been a monolithic organization. Each business unit was more or less self-contained, so I gather. Carly Fiorina did a lot to consolidate various operations, but I guess that she and her successor never got around to combining everything that HP bought out. The real difference as I see it is that the corporate culture, the "HP Way" (of which I frankly know little despite having worked at HP for a couple of years 1999-2001) doesn't appear to me to be widespread in HP any more.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[l0g0s]

Sorry to hear that, but I can't say that I'm surprised. This seems to coincide with the lack of quality in many products and services these days and an overabundance of regulatory crap to wade through in our daily jobs. They are intricately related to be sure.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[mccabem]

I can attest to the fact that HP is no longer a monolithic institution, but rather a bunch of components jammed up against each other operating largely autonomously.

It's what the stockholders want I guess, and will only become more prevalent as HP continues its pace of rapid acquisitions.

I call this the Worldcom Model of Corporate Success. This seems to be the most popular model these days.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[phaze3000]

Actually, HP do some decent iSCSI storage devices - I've been using the MSA 1500i and have no complaints.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[gaffle]

We heard a lot about the 'HP Way' when being bought. I still don't really know what it is. Mostly I have just had to deal with signing into a bunch of new systems coupled with the complete inability of HP to build a decent remote solution for their own employees. This is compounded with a 'self-service' culture (HP Way?) that relies on a horribly splintered web portal.

However, my unit (essentially the entirety of my former company) is doing extremely well so it's gravy. Maybe in a few years I'll see the 'HP way'. I'm not gonna hold my breath.

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[Mex]

"When Dave Packard died, upper management and the bean counters started salivating.
When Bill Hewlett died in 2001, these same people instantly sought to change the "HP Way" to try and get a couple more percent in growth. The rest is modern history."

Yeah... They went to be #1, beating even Dell computers in the PC market.

If that's not depressing...

Re:A Question for Current HP employees..

[Anonymous Coward]

And they had their first financially losing quarter in over 50 years in business.....

The OP asked about the HP way, not their market share.

-1 Flamebait

[l2718]

Ms. Fiorina's past behaviour notwithstanding, the story submission is rather incendiary. Surely a more civil account of the situation could have bdeen found?

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Penguinisto]

No kidding - this reads more like an editorial than a news item.

Cue the hordes of political flame-fests in 3... 2... 1...

/P

Re:-1 Flamebait

[trolltalk.com]

>"Ms. Fiorina's past behaviour notwithstanding, the story submission is rather incendiary. Surely a more civil account of the situation could have bdeen found?"

Why? This is Faux News we're talking about. You can be sure that everyone over at CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, BBC, etc., are dancing in their cubicles!

Re:-1 Flamebait

[falcon5768]

Funny and the way I looked at it her past behaviour as a evil sith lord in training was all the flamebait needed. I mean its like Faux news and Fionia are made to complement each other.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Caball]

Yep, I am sure they are all dancing in the streets with their rating trailing Fox's.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[hey!]

It's not incendiary. It's opinionated and sarcastic.

Incendiary would be if it were implied that she and her new employers were going to do something bad to you in the future. Incendiary evokes new negative emotions. Sarcastic just rehashes old ones.

After, this is all just the story of a third rate CEO being hired by a third rate news organization. It's not as if she were being hired by some covert arm of the Republican Party...

Re:-1 Flamebait

[sumdumass]

That's the point silly. They think their ratings won't be trailing after she had been at Fox for a while. They can finally ask for a raise and act like they deserve one for competing with Fox News.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[YU Nicks NE Way]

You might want to fact-check your data there, Mr. Cavuto.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not as if she were being hired by some covert arm of the Republican Party...

Not according to Bill O'Reilly... http://chocolatenews.ytmnd.com/

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

She was hired at the new Fox Business News channel (FBN) not The Fox News Channel (FNC)

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Jimithing DMB]

Wow, how clever. Take a broadcast where Mr. O'Reilly refers to NBC and trim out all references then put it up there with a TV capture of the show displaying the Fox News logo.

For what it's worth, I flip around the various news stations. My observation is that many of the commentators on Fox News have conservative/traditional views. What I don't see are commentators going to bat for Republicans acting badly just because they are Republicans. In fact, Fox News is more critical of Republicans than other news organizations, precisely because their commentators tend to criticize non-conservative polices from any candidates, whether they be Republican or Democrat. Also, not every commentator or guest necessarily has the same views. For instance, O'Reilly is really pretty liberal, at least in the more traditional sense of the word. My dad refers to this as "New York Liberal." On the other hand, there are guys on there like Hannity who are very conservative and fairly close-minded about it. Hannity clearly comes off as being a Republican cheerleader although occasionally he makes a good point. I also see quite a number of moderate Democrats as well as the occasional far-left Democrat. And often times, even the far-left Democrats have a well-reasoned point even if I happen to disagree with their conclusion. The moderate ones almost always have a very well-reasoned point.

On the other hand, I can hardly stand to watch MSNBC anymore. It feels like I'm watching a Democrat rally. Any politician who kow-tows to the far left wing of the Democrat party gets a pass. Everyone else gets slandered.

I'll tell you one thing I don't like about Fox News though: Alan Colmes. Not because he's liberal, but because his schtick is to give Hannity a hard time. Half the time I don't believe he even believes what he's saying. He does exactly the sort of Democrat cheerleading that MSNBC does except not as well. I used to watch the program but lately I flip off the TV after O'Reilly. If I want to get a balanced viewpoint, O'Reilly's program is far better because despite claims otherwise, he does give his guests a fair shake.

O'Reilly also serves a good purpose of weeding out the idiots who otherwise look good. Take Ron Paul for instance. Mr. Paul sounds good at first, a libertarian with conservative religious views and liberal social views. Then you find out he's on the "get out of Iraq now, damn the consequences" bandwagon. Well, I'm sorry, but that line of thinking is not what I'm looking for in my next president. Even Hillary Clinton has softened her position on the war to that of a reasoned debate rather than a knee-jerk reaction. I'd sooner vote for Clinton than Paul and I don't like many of Clinton's viewpoints at all.

Of course, the "damn the consequences" viewpoint is very prevalent so I'm sure that Paul's idiocy appeals to a lot of people who are also idiots.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm shocked. A well reasoned, moderate post on slashdot. I really have come to detest the vocal minority on both sides. As for slashdot, it seems like you're guaranteed to be ridiculed if you support fiscal conservatism or religion of any sort. I wish there were more moderate people that were willing to engage in intelligent discussion such as yourself.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Bob Uhl]

Actually, I imagine Ron Paul could be made to stay in Iraq: if Congress declared war, then he (as the executive) would have to fight it.

Unlike other presidents, I can't imagine him just ignoring Congress. On the contrary, I expect that he'd prefer for Congress to do its job and legislate, leaving the work of executing the legislature's will to the executive. Crazy thought, I know.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[nuzak]

> For instance, O'Reilly is really pretty liberal, at least in the more traditional sense of the word

Funny, I cannot picture Jefferson throwing around the word "treason" to describe his political opponents in every other speech. O'Reilly is basically just a sad old troll there to whip up the faithful, and has no credibility when it comes to actual reporting or analysis. But of course that's because all the other media outlets are full of godless traitorous liberals, right?

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Jimithing DMB]

I have no idea what Ron Paul would do. I've seen him with my own eyes take the stance that we must leave. More importantly, I watched him fail to enumerate the costs and benefits of leaving vs. staying and fail to provide any concrete reason for leaving. Instead, I watched him attack the Bush administration for making what is in his eyes, and the eyes of many others, a bad decision.

That does not, however, make it a bad decision. There were already clear signs of Al Queda moving out of Afghanistan and looking for a nation in the region more friendly to their interests. Our state department, headed by Colin Powell at the time, made it quite clear to the world that harboring Al Queda would not be tolerated. Bush made a speech containing a severe distillation of this with the phrase "you're either with us or against us." Most nations in the region took heed and decided to make it their national policy that they would not harbor terrorists. Some of them have anyway; sometimes simply because it's nearly impossible to enforce a border. We can relate to that since we can't do it either.

Despite the "with us or against us" comment, simply laying low is and has been enough to avoid getting oneself in our crosshairs. See for instance Syria and pre-Ahmadinejad Iran. But one man apparently felt the need to test our resolve and chose instead to begin welcoming Al Queda into his country despite not aligning with their principle beliefs. In a classic case of the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Saddam began allowing Al Queda training camps within Iraq. To further test our resolve, he decided to violate the treaties he signed after the Gulf War. That it turns out he did not have any usable weapons does not put into dispute the fact that he violated his treaty to allow weapons inspectors.

Those are a subset of the many stated reasons for using military force in Iraq. They were accepted by Congress when they passed the "Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002." So it would seem your assertion that Bush has ignored Congress is clearly false. Perhaps though, you mean that he has since then ignored Congress. Of course, you'd need an example for that and unfortunately for you there are none to be found. Congress continues to fund the war and has not repealed the resolution. I don't doubt that you, and probably Ron Paul as well, really believe that Bush went to Iraq and stays in Iraq without Congressional approval. But believing in a falsehood does not make it true.

What Congress should be doing now is letting the President do what he is sworn to do. Congress should also be checking to make sure that he's not failing at what he's doing. Indeed, we see that not even a month ago, General Petraeus gave a report to Congress. Furthermore, he has promised a second report in March. So it would seem that Congress is doing their job and that the President is doing his.

Why is it so hard to understand that our government is working correctly? Is it simply because the result has thus far not been good? Clearly the majority of Congress believes that it's possible for a victorious result or else they'd have already voted for an immediate withdrawal.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[hey!]

FWIW, Roger Aisles, the president and founder of Fox News, is a long time Republican political consultant and operative. That in itself is not damning, although it raises a red flag. It is possible to have been a political operative, but to participate in an institution that people expect to be non-partisan. David Gergen was also a Republican consultant but that doesn't make the Kennedy School of Government a branch of the Republican party.

The question is whether the evidence shows that he is using a kind of institution that people traditionally trust as non-partisan to misrepresent politically slanted messages as fair and balanced. I'll report, you decide.

Fox News exercises much more centralized control of reporting than traditional news media. For example, John Moody, the VP of news, sends daily memos specifying the kinds of language that reporters and commentators should work into their discussion of various issues or people.

It is unlikely that this will come as a surprise if you try watching Fox News over the course of a single day when a controversial news story is in progress, rather than flipping through the channel. Commentator after commentator will not only pull up the exact same tu quoque examples to deflect criticism of Republican officials, they'll use the exact same words and catch phrases. That's basic propaganda: if an opinion is shared by many people, it appears more credible, so the propagandist arranges that his voice speaks through many mouths.

That they sometimes go after Republicans doesn't prove anything. They go after Republicans that don't toe the leadership's line. That's hardly independence.

The same thing happens on left wing partisan forums. You can go onto any major liberal Democratic blog and read scathing criticisms of Nancy Pelosi because she failed to force a confrontation with the President over Iraq. It doesn't mean the people writing aren't Democratic operatives. It doesn't even mean they aren't liberals -- in fact the opposite. The extremity of their views puts them outside the Democratic mainstream, although they're still Democrats. Just like Fox is outside the Republican mainstream, but they still represent the party, only in this case the part of the party that is in control.

It's painful to listen to political opinions that one disagrees with; its comforting to hear your own views repeated. But time after time it has been shown that regular views of Fox News have the most inaccurate factual grasp of current events of any consumers of news. That should tell you something.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[castle]

Exactly, if the consensus opinion of congress was towards a declaration of war Ron would be a president who would be sure of doing it (per the constitutions definition), I think the view of the grandparent poster represents the immediately dismissive view of Paul as isolationist. This view is rather tired, as Paul's overall position would be one of encouraging relationships other than military relationships with other nations. I'd characterize the immediate withdrawal of troops as essential, and I believe that Iraq would likely (since it has reasonable financial capability) purchase and implement it's own security forces. Why not send Carly, Bill Oreilly, Haliburton and let Blackwater handle the contract they can charge their reasonable rates to Iraq. The great thing about this is that the funds come from a different source than tax revenue. If Iraq wants the bases, we can sell them too, cha-ching.

Then, we start making ethanol out of sugar, and make irrelevant our foreign energy dependence, and be less hated everywhere eventually.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[graviplana]

Mod #20929447 -1 Full of Shit

Re:-1 Flamebait

[ppanon]

I'll tell you one thing I don't like about Fox News though: Alan Colmes. Not because he's liberal, but because his schtick is to give Hannity a hard time. Half the time I don't believe he even believes what he's saying. He does exactly the sort of Democrat cheerleading that MSNBC does except not as well.

Of course he doesn't do it as well. He's a straw man meant to reinforce your prejudices about liberals as being effete and incompetent. You don't think Fox would actually hire a competent liberal who could show up Hannity as the trollish buffoon he is, do you? Come on! Fox have an agenda to sell and competent liberals can get a better job than as a punching bag on Fox News.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Jimithing DMB]

Fox News exercises much more centralized control of reporting than traditional news media. For example, John Moody, the VP of news, sends daily memos specifying the kinds of language that reporters and commentators should work into their discussion of various issues or people.

Yes, I think I read that (and actually most of your post) on Wikipedia the other day. Basically, the allegation is that Moody wants reporters to do things like ensure they refer to U.S. soldiers who shoot enemies from a distance as "sharp shooters" rather than "snipers" because the former has more positive connotations. I hardly see how that is going to bat for the Republican party. If anything, it's perhaps a bit jingoistic but I don't see anything inherently wrong with it.

While we're on the subject, I happened to note that just tonight O'Reilly referred to our green berets who were repeatedly charged then cleared of wrongdoing as "snipers." Oops, I guess he didn't get the memo?

It is unlikely that this will come as a surprise if you try watching Fox News over the course of a single day when a controversial news story is in progress, rather than flipping through the channel. Commentator after commentator will not only pull up the exact same tu quoque examples to deflect criticism of Republican officials, they'll use the exact same words and catch phrases. That's basic propaganda: if an opinion is shared by many people, it appears more credible, so the propagandist arranges that his voice speaks through many mouths.

I do notice this and it works both ways. Every which way actually. Criticism of Republicans and criticism of Democrats and praise for Republicans and praise for Democrats is generally reported consistently on Fox News. And, indeed, you will notice that the (very rare) praise for Republicans and praise for Democrats and so on and so forth found on MSNBC and CNN and CNBC and everywhere else is also very consistently worded.

I don't believe the idea is to go to bat for Republicans so much as ensure that Fox News presents consistent reporting which makes viewers trust the network more. It's a smart business decision. Fortunately, Fox News also carries several opinion programs where guests of varied viewpoints are invited to speak. One of those is the O'Reilly Factor. Another one is Special Report (w/ Brit Hume). Obviously the formats are different. Special Report is basically a clone of CNN's Crossfire (is that even still around?) The O'Reilly Factor has no analog as far as I know. There's also Hannity and Colmes if you can stand it, but there you just get a looney supposed conservative and a looney supposed liberal. Actually, I don't think they're that bad but I get the feeling that there's a lot of very heavy scripting going on with that show. Alan often espouses Democrat talking points he clearly doesn't believe. Hannity also has a habit of just espousing Republican talking points. He is more convincing though because he comes off as actually believing what he's saying.

That they sometimes go after Republicans doesn't prove anything. They go after Republicans that don't toe the leadership's line. That's hardly independence.

I'm sure it's much easier for you to shoehorn it into that but that is simply untrue. That said, I've seen O'Reilly toe the party line. For example, he supported the immigration bill "compromise" along with all of the Republicans at that point. Meanwhile, nearly every conservative commentator said W.T.F. That wasn't the party line. That wasn't the Bush line. Or maybe it was? I dunno, who was toeing the party line? I'm not even sure what exactly the party line was. The republicans in congress wanted to pass it, their constituents didn't like it. Of course, maybe it was all a conspiracy and the plan was never to pass it but instead to capitulate to the Democrats to gain trust and then bring out the big guns like Rush to make sure the Democrats would wind up with egg on thei

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Jimithing DMB]

Of course he doesn't do it as well. He's a straw man meant to reinforce your prejudices about liberals as being effete and incompetent. You don't think Fox would actually hire a competent liberal who could show up Hannity as the trollish buffoon he is, do you? Come on! Fox have an agenda to sell and competent liberals can get a better job than as a punching bag on Fox News.

Perhaps that's what he's meant to do. I'm not sure. I'm actually glad that he doesn't seem to believe most of the stuff he says. Every so often he seems to forget the script and make a reasoned argument. Occasionally he does make Hannity look like the trollish buffoon he is. Hannity bothers me because he comes off as actually believing some really asinine things. Alan works precisely because he comes off as scripted.

Say FNC instead had Hannity&Olbermann. Then we'd have two trollish buffoons toeing the party line. That would certainly not help the show at all.

I'll tell you what would be a better show though: a moderate conservative and a moderate liberal. Maybe Fiorina (assuming she's a moderate conservative) and Powers?

O'Reilly regularly hosts a Malkin/Powers debate. Powers always appears very moderate and very reasoned. Unfortunately, Malkin is worse than Hannity. O'Reilly/Powers would be a great combination (and in fact, O'Reilly does sometimes have Powers on one-on-one) but of course O'Reilly isn't going to do a O'Reilly&* show when he's got his own show. Maybe Miller/Powers?

You know, it's problematic that I can't think of any popular moderate conservative commentators other than Bill O'Reilly and Dennis Miller. Boortz would be a good fit as well but he's really a radio guy. That's not to say that there aren't moderate conservatives. I would say that most of the personalities on FNC are moderate conservatives. But none of them have the personality it would take to do a __&__ type of show.

Is this, then, where Fiorina comes in? Could be.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Bob Uhl]

An authorisation to use force is not a declaration of war. It should have been, but the US Congress hasn't declared war since 1941. They have not been doing their job.

As for ignoring Congress, I was talking about the war; I was talking about how US presidents behave as elected kings or prime ministers, not as the executives of the republic. When running for election they promise all manner of things that aren't in their power; when elected they pursue all manner of initiatives which aren't in their power.

The president's job is to approve, veto & execute the laws, negotiate treaties and a few other items (all neatly listed in the Constitution). It's not to lead the country. The country doesn't need to be led: the people send their representatives; the states send their senators (whoops, not since the asinine Seventeenth Amendment); the people appoint a president to execute the law.

The Constitution isn't perfect, but it's better than what we have now.

Re:-1 Flamebait

[Jimithing DMB]

An authorisation to use force is not a declaration of war. It should have been, but the US Congress hasn't declared war since 1941. They have not been doing their job.

Yeah, you're right, it should have been a declaration of war. Actually, it should have been a simple one too. Hmm, let's see. We've got members of the terrorist group who attacked us on 9/11 running around the region. We've got a guy who lost a war to us a decade prior telling us he doesn't have to abide by our weapons treaties. We think not only that he's starting to rebuild his weapons arsenal but that he's starting to harbor terrorists.

Should have been a no brainer really. And basically it was, nearly ever member voted for the authorization of force. Why not a declaration of war? Frankly I think it's because wishy-washy language has become the norm these days. That's a whole other topic but suffice to say that I think you're splitting hair and that I also think that Congress votes on resolutions with imperfect language so they have a political out in case things go badly. Oh, and guess what? Yeah, that's exactly what they did. Claims like "Well, I didn't really think it was a war resolution" have actually been uttered by Hillary Clinton at campaign stops. I really only have one response to that: Lady, then you're pretty stupid.

I realize that sounds "harsh" in today's modern say a lot of words but really say nothing culture but I'm really beginning to feel like I'm living with 1984's doublespeak lately.

As for ignoring Congress, I was talking about the war; I was talking about how US presidents behave as elected kings or prime ministers, not as the executives of the republic. When running for election they promise all manner of things that aren't in their power; when elected they pursue all manner of initiatives which aren't in their power.

The president's job is to approve, veto & execute the laws, negotiate treaties and a few other items (all neatly listed in the Constitution). It's not to lead the country. The country doesn't need to be led: the people send their representatives; the states send their senators (whoops, not since the asinine Seventeenth Amendment); the people appoint a president to execute the law.

This is a tradition that goes back at least to Jefferson, the first president to take military action without consulting Congress. Search for the Barbary Pirates. It is true that the President was not meant to be a monarch. There's no question about that. However, what you describe as the presidency is not an executive position, but more like a chairman of the board. We're not England. We don't have a prime minister. We have a president.

Do I also need to point out that it's actually in the president's sworn oath to "preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States"? Do I further need to point out that while the Constitution goes into quite a bit of detail about Congressional procedure, it's fairly sparse on what the president may or may not do. Compared to Article I, with its laundry list of dos and don'ts for Congress, Article II is surprisingly sparse and only contains must-dos and shall-dos.

That has historically (except by very recent scholars) been interpreted to mean that the President has a huge amount of leeway. But it's worth pointing out that even though history suggests that Bush did have the power to go into Iraq without asking Congress, he did so only after asking and receiving approval from Congress.

I do, however, note that your quip about "it's not to lead the country" is at least founded in some amount of reason. Indeed, the President's job is to preserve, protect, and defend the country. However, in order to accomplish that, the President will find it necessary most of the time to be a leader who is able to convince the electorate and Congress that he needs to do something in order to fulfill his oath. Thus while his job description isn't to be a lea

Now if she can....

[HerculesMO]

Screw up FOX News as badly as she screwed HP, we would be in good business!

Re:Now if she can....

[jellomizer]

To keep things more fair and ballanced we will get fatter democrats to give their issues so we can get more slim republicans to debate against him.

Re:Now if she can....

[WheelDweller]

Sure; when *all* the news sources spout exactly the same psychobabble, there will be no paritisanship.

(Note to audience: stifling divergent, and even provably-true news content is NOT enlightened.)

Best of luck!

[griffjon]

I hope she brings Fox the same integrity and good business sense that she brought to HP.

Re:Best of luck!

[sg3000]

> I hope she brings Fox the same integrity and good business sense that she brought to HP.

I'm sure we will.

Now we'll finally get the answer to the question "Which is harder? Running a first rate company into the ground, or being a Bush economic policy apologist?"

For those of you keeping score at home, in this corner, we have the person who helped bring down HP's stock by more than 50% and missed earnings targets. In the other corner, we have the economic policy that turned $250 billion budget surpluses under Clinton into $300 billion budget deficit in just two years!

Sounds like a perfect match.

Re:Best of luck!

[deniable]

Wait until they hire Patricia Dunn. You could have the Carly and Patti show. They could give advice on how to run a business the right way.

Re:Best of luck!

[jimicus]

You could have the Carly and Patti show. They could give advice on how to run a business the right way.

So presumably all a budding exec would have to do would be to carefully watch the show, then go into work and do the exact opposite?

Sounds like a plan to me.

Re:Best of luck!

[jollyreaper]

I hope she brings Fox the same integrity and good business sense that she brought to HP. So now I'll need a 500mb driver every time I tune in to Fox? Just another reason not to.

Re:Best of luck!

[sumdumass]

Lol.. If you think that turn of events was from economic policy, then you really don't know much do you?

There are factors present in those 2 years that would have done the exact same for clinton if he was still president in those two years. Try being a little more realistic.

Re:Best of luck!

[WindowlessView]

And Lucent. Let's never forget the fine job she did there.

It's an astounding accomplishment to drive two of the world's premier engineering organizations into the ground within a decade. Truly Fox worthy.

Re:Best of luck!

[deniable]

Truly Fox worthy.

Jeff Foxworthy? I feel a "you might be a redneck joke coming." Either that or is she smarter than a fifth grader.

Re:Best of luck!

[bladesjester]

I feel a "you might be a redneck joke coming."

Okay. You might be a redneck if you eat Jeff Foxworthy Beef Jerky. (I kid you not. I saw it in a store the other day)

How does that work for you? =]

Re:Best of luck!

[Mordaximus]

Don't for get Compaq, the merger didn't do them (or their customers) any favors either....

Re:Best of luck!

[FreakinSyco]

I propose a sg3000 law that states any time Bush's policies are brought into a discussion the discussion is finished and whoever mentioned his policies automatically loses.

Re:Best of luck!

[sg3000]

...and for those of you tracking my score at home, here's that comment's moderation summary:

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Informative (+1).
It is currently scored Informative (2).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).
It is currently scored Flamebait (1).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Insightful (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (2).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Funny (+1).
It is currently scored Funny (3).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Flamebait (-1).
It is currently scored Funny (2).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Insightful (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Insightful (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Offtopic (-1).
It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Informative (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Troll (-1).
It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Insightful (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Overrated (-1).
It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Interesting (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Overrated (-1).
It is currently scored Insightful (3).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired by Fox News, has been moderated Informative (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (4).

Re:Best of luck!, posted to Ex-HP CEO Carly Fiorina Hired By Fox News, has been moderated Insightful (+1).
It is currently scored Insightful (5).

Re:Best of luck!

[letchhausen]

It was vague about what she's doing for Fox. I'm holding out the hope that they'll let her run the Wall Street Journal.....that would make things interesting....

Fox News the News you want to hear.

[jellomizer]

Well at least she is doing something wich doesn't matter. Fox News is just for people want to hear what they want to hear. They are not interesting is differnt views just conferming what they think is right so they feel good.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Lally Singh]

Watch 'Outfoxed,' the network was *literally* founded as a mouthpiece for the Republican party. Hell, it's first president used to be the PR Head for the GOP.

Carly's taking over Fox? There is justice and there is a God who loves us.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

They are not interesting is differnt views just conferming what they think is right so they feel good.
Ask yourself in an era of declining subscription rates, how is the different from just about any other media outlet? They all try to coddle their viewer/readship and reinforce the worldview that keeps them(the reader) buying the paper/tuning in etc.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[t0rkm3]

Would you care to contrast that with the other media outlets who are currently run by major contributors and/or political beneficiaries of the DNC?

Media is the currency by which political capital is exchanged in this country. If you want an informed opinion you have to form your own.

FoxNews was founded to fill an entertainment gap. A news channel with a fundamentally conservative outlook, in contrast to the liberal outlook promulgated by most other outlets.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[jellomizer]

I never said Fox wasn't like the others. NPR does the same thing for the Democrats, sure they change the structure so it makes them feel more intelectual. But other stations try a little harder to be fair. I remember the last time I watch fox news and they were debating the War, They had a well informed Political Analysis to support the war, and a college student half high on pot to support the other side, after that I stopped watching.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Enry]

You find me reporters for the non-FNC that are directly affiliated with liberal causes and you might have a point. Most of the talking heads on FNC either identify themselves as conservative or write/appear/work for organizations that identify themselves as conservative.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[jdgeorge]

Would you care to contrast that with the other media outlets who are currently run by major contributors and/or political beneficiaries of the DNC?

Hmmm... Which are the DNC-oriented media outlets you describe? I'm curious; it would be interesting to know how the news I'm seeing is being shaped.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Capt James McCarthy]

"Fox News is just for people want to hear what they want to hear. They are not interesting is differnt views just conferming what they think is right so they feel good."

You can swap out "Fox News" with pretty much any/all "news" media outlets, local, regional, and national. If the news was reporting just facts without slanted commentary, from any side, 6 people may watch the news. People watch based upon their belief system, if Fox fits the bill, they watch Fox, if CNN does it for them, they watch CNN, and so on.

However, trying to tell people to sift all the BS to get to the facts...well...that's too much work for them.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[cthulu_mt]

Except NPR does it on the tax payers dime.

...one of these things is not like the others....

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[knewter]

Let's try that comment out again, this time with preview!

Well at least she is doing something wich doesn't matter. Fox News is just for people want to hear what they want to hear. They are not interesting is differnt views just conferming what they think is right so they feel good. Well, at least she is doing something *which* doesn't matter. Fox News is just for people *who* want to hear what they want to hear. They are not *interested* *in* *different* views, just *in* *confirming* what they think is right so they feel good.

Whew. Now, that doesn't actually make your statement grammatically appropriate, but at least now it can be read.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Jawnn]

He won't, because he can't. The entire "liberal media" rant, so regularly trotted out by the right whenever they are confronted by actual facts that put the lie to their "fair and balanced reporting", is a myth. Right our wrong, "the media" is, for the most part, television, and broadcast media has been almost entirely subsumed by corporate interests, interests whose political leanings really need no discussion.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Anonymous Coward]

in contrast to the liberal outlook promulgated by most other outlets.

Show me a single news channel half as left-wing as Counterpunch.org and I might believe you.

Oh wait, you can't.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[uniquename72]

Well, at least she is doing something *which* doesn't matter. If you really want to be pedantic, it should be "that", not "which".

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, that 6% of NPR's total funding that comes from state and local governments is really a heavy burden on the tax payers.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Bassman59]

Would you care to contrast that with the other media outlets who are currently run by major contributors and/or political beneficiaries of the DNC?

Media is the currency by which political capital is exchanged in this country. If you want an informed opinion you have to form your own.

FoxNews was founded to fill an entertainment gap. A news channel with a fundamentally conservative outlook, in contrast to the liberal outlook promulgated by most other outlets.

Who modded this guy insightful? Inciteful, perhaps, meaning troll.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[WindowlessView]

Except NPR does it on the tax payers dime.

So does Fox News, just with a level of indirection. You think many of their corporate advertisers aren't sucking the public tit dry? That the farm bill doesn't subsidize ADM, or the perverse medicare prescription policy isn't a handout to Big Pharma, etc.?

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Entropius]

The best counter to the "liberal media" tirade I've seen, shortly after Ronald Reagan died:

Someone linked to NPR (National Public Radio, for the non-American readers)'s story about Reagan's funeral, and said "When Clinton dies, if you can find me a Fox News anchor that describes him as a 'great American', then you can talk to me about the liberal media."

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[benzapp]

The academic study cited most frequently by critics of a "liberal media bias" in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter. They surveyed journalists at national media outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, and the broadcast networks. The survey which found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters whose attitudes were well to the left of the general public on a variety of topics, including such hot-button social issues such as abortion, affirmative action, and gay rights. Then they compared journalists' attitudes to their coverage of controversial issues such as the safety of nuclear power, school busing to promote racial integration, and the energy crisis of the 1970s.

The book's most thorough case study involved nuclear energy. The survey of journalists showed that most were highly skeptical about nuclear safety. However, the authors conducted a separate survey of scientists in energy related fields, who were much more sanguine about nuclear safety issues. They then conducted a content analysis of nuclear energy coverage in the media outlets they had surveyed. They found that the opinions of sources who were cited as scientific experts reflected the antinuclear sentiments of journalists, rather than the more pro-nuclear perspectives held by most energy scientists.

The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes, and the predominance of political liberals in newsrooms therefore pushed news coverage in a liberal direction. They presented this tilt as a mostly unconscious process of like-minded individuals projecting their shared assumptions onto their interpretations of reality. In principle this meant that newsrooms populated mainly by conservatives would produce a similarly skewed perspective toward the political right. Such accusations have been leveled against Fox News. At the time the study was embraced mainly by conservative columnists and politicians, who adopted the findings as "scientific proof" of liberal media bias.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberal_media

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Wildclaw]

Except that Fox News isn't a news channel. Telling the truth, however biased, should be a requirement to be called a news channel. And Fox News have openly admitted that they have no intention of telling the truth.

They are a propaganda/entertainment channel, no more, no less.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Entropius]

NPR isn't as turbo-liberal as you might believe.

Sure, some stations carry blatantly left-wing programs like "Alternative Radio". But nearly every station carries "Marketplace", a financial news show that takes as an axiom "an unfettered free market is ultimately a public good". That's a center-right position. The news shows (All Things Considered, Morning Edition) tend to be fairly middle-of-the-road, since they mostly just give the news without a whole lot of spin. The few "opinion" segments, by people like Daniel Schorr, tend to be pretty nonpartisan.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Anonymous Coward]

Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

What really kills me about Fox "News" are the deliberate errors... mislabeling a 'bad' republican with (I) or (D), mislabeling a 'good' democrat with (R), and just the complete fabrications. If you actually sit down with a transcript of even their 'news' programs a huge portion of it is factually incorrect.

Just because something is biased doesn't mean it is wrong. You could have a channel that only reported Bush's fuckups, a 24/7 channel in other words, and still have everything you report be correct. It's bad enough to only report what you like to hear, but it's even worse to actually make shit up. And Fox News does a lot of that making shit up.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[uradu]

> Reality has a well-known liberal bias.

LOL, my thoughts exactly. Fox News is the Colbert Report minus the sarcasm.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[GoblinJuice]

Oh, puh-lease. You're stretching so far you're making silly putty look like steel.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[homer_s]

So what you are saying is that both NPR and Fox screw the people - NPR more blatantly/honestly than Fox.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[innerweb]

NPR is a moderate news post. They piss off both sides. They also deal with many subjects that almost no other news outlet will deal with, as they are not mainstream news (sex, violence, pestilence, gore, ...) If you sit to the right, they look left (so we know where you sit), and if you sit to the left, they look right. That is the way news used to be. Balanced. Maybe not entirely fair, but balanced. I have heard as much news on NPR that was pro-neo-con as I have that was pro-humanity, and normally, those were balanced with later news on the same subject from the other side.

Yeah, I know that many will disagree, but if you are up North, then they are all Southerners. I don't have time to live my life sitting on an extreme side of life waiting for an honest understanding, so NPR is one of my news sources (as the WSJ, Reuters for short tags, BBC, NBC, CBS, ABC and Google). NPR does better at getting deeper into a story than most do, though in many cases the stories are not interesting to people who are self-centric.

InnerWeb

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Darby]

I never said Fox wasn't like the others. NPR does the same thing for the Democrats, sure they change the structure so it makes them feel more intelectual.

Laughable. NPR is the closest thing we have in the mainstream to an unbiased news source. If you'd said CNN, you'd at least be in sane territory, but seriously. Their hate mail generally is from both right and left wing extremists about the same freaking stories.

They tend to be easier on the right wing nutters due to that whole nonsense "liberal media" campaign the wingnuts came up with, but they're still far more neutral than any of the other major media outlets.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[aethera]

Umm...I don't have the exact numbers, but from what I remember, only 2% of NPR's funding is directly from the federal government. Roughly 30% of their funding is from state or local government grants (my local university houses the studios for our NPR station, for instance). But speaking of the local stations, mine recieves about 70% of its funding from listeners. As they say, "its the purest form of capitalism, we give you something and you pay what you think its worth." Hardly liberal bias, except as Steve Colbert has noted "reality has a proven history of liberal bias."

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Scudsucker]

The academic study cited most frequently by critics of a "liberal media bias" in American journalism is The Media Elite,* a 1986 book co-authored by political scientists Robert Lichter, Stanley Rothman, and Linda Lichter.

Too bad their work is exceptionally poor. Their research and book were funded by right wing groups like the Scaife Foundation and the Coors Foundation. Reporters that agreed with statements like "the government should not attempt to regulate people's sexual practices" were counted as "liberal" even though keeping government out of people's lives is supposedly one of the foundations of the conservative movement.

And there's the flawed methodology:

The Lichters' study of PBS is notable for what it leaves out: It excluded talkshows such as William F. Buckley's Firing Line and Morton Kondracke's American Interests, news reports like the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour, and business programs like Louis Rukeyser's Wall $treet Week. The Center claims this is to ensure "a group of programs that were similar in style and content, to maximize the comparability of judgments."

The study's focus, however, removes those PBS shows most often criticized for having a conservative slant--programming that takes up more of the PBS schedule than the documentaries that the Center's study is limited to. Firing Line and American Interests--programs underwritten by the Center's biggest funders--provided approximately 50 hours of programming a year between them.

The survey which found that most of these journalists were Democratic voters

Operating under the old "Democrat==Liberal" fallacy when the Democratic Party is actually very conservative.

The book's most thorough case study involved nuclear energy. The survey of journalists showed that most were highly skeptical about nuclear safety. However, the authors conducted a separate survey of scientists in energy related fields, who were much more sanguine about nuclear safety issues. They then conducted a content analysis of nuclear energy coverage in the media outlets they had surveyed. They found that the opinions of sources who were cited as scientific experts reflected the antinuclear sentiments of journalists, rather than the more pro-nuclear perspectives held by most energy scientists.

Completely ignoring three facts: the Cold War was still going strong, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. Is it any surprise there was a heightened concern about nuclear explosions/accidents?

The authors concluded that journalists' coverage of controversial issues reflected their own attitudes

Yes, in the chapter called "Pot calls Kettle Black."

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Roxton]

I feel the need to plug my favorite NPR show, On Point Radio with Tom Ashbrook. Each show is an interview of a variety of guests on a topic. He's a brilliant moderator, and the guests are amazing. Not long ago, Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer surprised Tom by popping into his studio when they were discussing the Dred Scott case. When discussing Iraq, you'll always have some combination of generals, ambassadors, former secretaries of state, and Iraqi politicians. You owe yourself a listen; I recommend the podcast available in the iTunes store.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[benzapp]

Their research and book were funded by right wing groups like the Scaife Foundation and the Coors Foundation.

Only materialistic liberals believe money is the great motivator of society. Too bad all the free money, housing, and education still hasn't righted all the wrongs in the world. It's unfortunate you began your rebuttal with what is essentially an ad hominem attack.

Reporters that agreed with statements like "the government should not attempt to regulate people's sexual practices" were counted as "liberal" even though keeping government out of people's lives is supposedly one of the foundations of the conservative movement.

That's great. You find me the "conservative movement" that holds that view. If you would have read the book, you'd find they aren't making an argument that a particular viewpoint is conservative or liberal, they are assuming that they are for the basis of the study. If I want to figure out what the negative effects of smoking marijuana are, and one of those effects I define as being "apathy", I don't have to make an entire argument that apathy is a negative trait. The author states the viewpoints he believes to be associated with liberalism. That is all that is required. It is not a political treatise, it is a sociological survey.

Operating under the old "Democrat==Liberal" fallacy when the Democratic Party is actually very conservative.

I live in one of the most liberal places in the United States. I have neighbors who go on vacations to communes, but still are wild eyes liberals who fervently support the democrat party. I can assure you that your viewpoint is shared only by hardened communists. Are you a communist?

Completely ignoring three facts: the Cold War was still going strong, Three Mile Island, and Chernobyl. Is it any surprise there was a heightened concern about nuclear explosions/accidents?

Three Mile Island was a greatly overblown event, and Chernobyl is simply impossible in the US. Even today, many if not most environmental groups consider the risk of nuclear energy to be far less severe than the immediate effect of burning fossil fuels. Respected scientists have ALWAY held this view. Your statement only makes sense in support of the conclusion drawn by the book - journalists completely ignored the many positive statements by respected scientists purely because of their own irrational fear of one severe tragedy in a communist country and a sensationalized event.

Yes, in the chapter called "Pot calls Kettle Black."

At least they don't advocate government oversight of media to regulate "fairness" as do democrats.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Scudsucker]

Only materialistic liberals believe money is the great motivator of society.

Like all those liberal Republicans in Congress who investigated and re-investigated Whitewater with no probable cause?

Too bad all the free money, housing, and education still hasn't righted all the wrongs in the world.

Red herring.

It's unfortunate you began your rebuttal with what is essentially an ad hominem attack.

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

You find me the "conservative movement" that holds that view.

Do you also demand evidence that the Pope is Catholic? If you willfully ignore decades of Republican rhetoric, that's your problem, not mine.

I live in one of the most liberal places in the United States. I have neighbors who go on vacations to communes, but still are wild eyes liberals who fervently support the democrat party.

Yeah? Go and ask one of those "wild eyes liberals" how happy they are over the Democratic leadership caving on the Iraq war, NSA wiretapping, "free trade", etc etc. They'd vote Labor or Socialist but we don't have those parties in the U.S. We have the conservative Democrats and the ultra-conservative Republicans.

Three Mile Island was a greatly overblown event

Why don't you ask someone in the nuclear field how "overblown" they think a partial core meltdown happens to be.

Even today, many if not most environmental groups consider the risk of nuclear energy to be far less severe than the immediate effect of burning fossil fuels. Respected scientists have ALWAY held this view.

How many respected scientists blow off nuclear safety.

Your statement only makes sense in support of the conclusion drawn by the book - journalists completely ignored the many positive statements by respected scientists purely because of their own irrational fear of one severe tragedy in a communist country and a sensationalized event.

Must have been a conservative reaction then, like their modern hand-wringing over the terrahrists.

Either you are a Kool-Aid drinker, or you are a troll.

the democrat party

Suck it biznap. Suck it long, suck it hard.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[benzapp]

Like all those liberal Republicans in Congress who investigated and re-investigated Whitewater with no probable cause?

I really don't see how that is related. Whitewater was a criminal conspiracy that resulted in many people being convicted. Enforcing the law is the duty of the government.

That word doesn't mean what you think it means.

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.

In this case, you appealed to a specific characteristic of the folks who wrote The Media Elite, that they were funded by conservative organizations and thus could not be trusted. Guilt by association could have applied as well, if you had made a more direct claim regarding the sources of the writers' funding. Sorry, you fail it.

Do you also demand evidence that the Pope is Catholic? If you willfully ignore decades of Republican rhetoric, that's your problem, not mine.

You are really not very good at making arguments are you?

Yeah? Go and ask one of those "wild eyes liberals" how happy they are over the Democratic leadership caving on the Iraq war, NSA wiretapping, "free trade", etc etc. They'd vote Labor or Socialist but we don't have those parties in the U.S. We have the conservative Democrats and the ultra-conservative Republicans.

Actually, the green party is quite popular amongst said wild eyed liberals.

How many respected scientists blow off nuclear safety.

Oh, sure, that's what were talking about here....

Either you are a Kool-Aid drinker, or you are a troll.

Oh yeah, another slam dunk! Your mastery of rhetoric is inspirational. I tremble with shame.

Suck it biznap. Suck it long, suck it hard.

Drop 'em big stuff.

Re:Fox News the News you want to hear.

[Scudsucker]

I really don't see how that is related.

Well, you are pretty stupid.

Whitewater was a criminal conspiracy that resulted in many people being convicted.

Yeah? Why don't you look up the lengths of the prison terms served by Bill and Hillary over it, and then get back to us.

An ad hominem argument, also known as argumentum ad hominem (Latin: "argument to the person", "argument against the man") consists of replying to an argument or factual claim by attacking or appealing to a characteristic or belief the person making the argument or claim, rather than by addressing the substance of the argument or producing evidence against the claim.

Absolutely none of which applies to saying "their work was exceptionally poor" or pointing out their partisan ties or their their flawed methods.

You are really not very good at making arguments are you?

Nah, you're just not very good at life. If you don't know about the Republican hard-on for deregulation and "small government" there's not much we can do for you.

Oh, sure, that's what were talking about here....

It's what the press was talking about, yes. Your point?

One organization's rubbish...

[mfh]

... is another organization's treasure!

They should have got her for Surreal Life, but I'm sure Fox News will find something stupid for her to say.

...and here it comes....

[UncleTogie]

In other news, Fiorina will push to aquire the "We Network", rename it to "You" to make it more personal, and later merge it with Fox.

The new network, of course, will be:Fox-You

Coming soon to a boardroo^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hcable provider near you!

Re:...and here it comes....

[Anonymous Coward]

LOL! How do you do it? I'm just awed by the subtlety and simplicity of completely changing names of unrelated channels around and combining them with the name of the channel in the story, to make a NEW channel that sounds almost, but not quite, completely unlike the phrase, "Fuck You!"

With jokes like that, I think Fox should seriously consider hiring you to create your own show to compete with the Daily Show.

Re:...and here it comes....

[spectro]

sir, you're a genious. I which I had mod points

Re:...and here it comes....

[UncleTogie]

With jokes like that, I think Fox should seriously consider hiring you to create your own show to compete with the Daily Show.

Fox DID hire me as a writer to compete with the Daily Show, you insensitive clod!

All joking aside, I'm rather curious to see what her job description will be. If she's just another "analyst" with a 10-second sound bite, does this move count as a step down?

The article, off course

[rob1980]

Oblig. Final Fantasy 7 reference:

Keep goin'?! Current battle points: 10
Off course! No, way!

Position?

[bostons1337]

Fox did not specify her role at the new channel.

I don't see what the big deal is about telling people her role at the company. Its not like there telling everyone her salary even though well all know its well into the 6 figure ballpark.

Re:Position?

[krog]

I'm not sure she'd wave a fart in your direction for six figures. HP gave her $21,000,000 just to get rid of her... just before losing $21M more to her in court.

My only hope is that she brings the same quality of guidance and direction to Fox News as she did to HP.

Re:Position?

[TheRaven64]

Considering how good she is at reading markets, she'll probably decide that Fox needs to be 100% fair and balanced. I can't decide whether this would be a good thing or not...

hopefully she's just a writer

[rubycodez]

that is one ugly and evil-radiating bitch to put on camera, drive away viewers for sure.

Re:hopefully she's just a writer

[Anonymous Coward]

Any worse than Ann Coulter?

Re:hopefully she's just a writer

[bladesjester]

Any worse than *** *******?

Don't say its name. It might show up....

Re:hopefully she's just a writer

[slackingme]

Only if you say it three times in a row in a dark room, looking into a mirror..

Now everybody: Don't say we didn't warn you.

Re:hopefully she's just a writer

[Grishnakh]

Maybe I'm out of touch (I don't watch a lot of TV; mostly what I download on BitTorrent), but I've never seen AC (I'll refrain from typing her whole name) on TV before. In fact, the only place I've seen her image is on her book covers, and on the internet in images people link to (usually to make fun of her anorexic looks). I don't listen to the radio at all, but I thought she was mostly a radio personality and book writer, not someone who showed up much on TV.

Fox News, home of untalented women

[Anonymous Coward]

Not that any woman is talented, beyond the kitchen and bedroom.

ORGINAL??

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone was in a hurry to post this article, you douche bag, cmdrtago [sic].

Is this the 'real' Carly Fiorina??

[jkrise]

Or will it be someone else pretending to be her, but pocketing the money nevertheless?

I forget the interesting euphemism they had for 'lying' on the phone... anyone remember?

Re:Is this the 'real' Carly Fiorina??

[Dielectric]

That would be pretexting.

Obligatory "screw you!!1!" to Carly for messing up the calculator division.

Re:Is this the 'real' Carly Fiorina??

[krog]

Can I blame her for the HP-33S? Because I'd really like to pin that abomination on someone I already hate.

Re:Is this the 'real' Carly Fiorina??

[644bd346996]

Nope. Other than the display and the keyboard, the 33s is a good calculator. It isn't worthy of Fiorina.

But you can blame her for completely killing their calculator business for several years. (They left the assembly lines running for a while, but fired all the engineers at ACO). She's also responsible for making sure that none of the good bits of HP were left after the spin-off of Agilent (excepting the aforementioned calculator business she killed) and she is responsible for the assimilation of Compaq (for which she also killed off all the good bits of the company, including what was left of the Alpha business).

Re:Is this the 'real' Carly Fiorina??

[Loether]

> I forget the interesting euphemism they had for 'lying' on the phone... anyone remember?

Pretexting: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_engineering_(computer_security)

Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[pzs]

According to this comment, Carly feasted on the souls of thousands of decent tech workers at HP. Where is she going to find a soul at Fox News?

I have visions of her, the arch-liche and Bill O'Reilly, some kind of undead bear, chucking mega spells at each other across the office.

Peter

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[Nom du Keyboard]

Peter,

Such hate is best not paraded in public.

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[dbitch]

What, would you prefer Fiorina and Papa O'Reilly reproduced and had little vampire pundits? Just think about Fiorina reproducing with ANYONE at Fox, and you might just want to scream.

*shudder*

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[khallow]

Although, if hate is to be paraded, then slashdot is as good a revenue as anything else. :-)

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[uradu]

I don't know about reproducing per se, but I could certainly tolerate her and some of the very fine female staff going through the reproductive motions. I could even entirely overlook their conservative bias while doing so.

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[Darby]

Although, if hate is to be paraded, then slashdot is as good a revenue as anything else. :-)

I'm going to pretend that I don't think you just mistyped "avenue" and ask you what you meant by that ;-)

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[khallow]

The ex-CEOs we love to hate and the banner ads that attempt to take advantage of our moment of weakness?

Re:Vampire in a company full of ghouls

[pzs]

Dude, how can you *not* be angry at what Fox News has done to America? And how can you fix this problem without parading it in public?

Peter

One fine editing job, there...

[damn_registrars]

From the summary:

corporate engineering culture know as 'the HP way. The article, off course does not elaborate on this
Thats three typos in two sentences, taking up barely a full line of text. Is that a new record for a lousy summary?

Re:One fine editing job, there...

[swordgeek]

Take a step back, one word to be specific, and you add another one: "orginal."
Literacy is a dead art.

Re:One fine editing job, there...

[dave420]

You missed the lack of hyphen in "over hyped" in the previous sentence, and the missing comma after "course" in the sentence you quoted.

Re:One fine editing job, there...

[Anonymous Coward]

In other words, it's perfectly adequate for Fox News.

Re:One fine editing job, there...

[PhxBlue]

Indeed. One wonders how Taco, et al, call themselves "editors" with a straight face.

Says PB, who knows from experience that part of being an editor is copyediting ...

Clearly staffing up for battle w/CNBC

[Presence1]

As mentioned in TFA, Fox is planning to start a new business news channel, to compete with CNBC. Interesting that TFA makes no mention of her anticipated role in the new organization.

The man they hired to run the new news channel, Roger Ailes, also helped start CNBC.

The WSJ has an agreement with CNBC to provide content. The WSJ also just got bought by Rupert Murdoch's empire, which also owns Fox. Ailes says that there won't be a conflict.

Ailes also gives a lot more info here in this interview:
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB119160938630350371.html

Should be interesting.

Re:Clearly staffing up for battle w/CNBC

[Rogerborg]

I'd imagine that her contribution will be to answer really tough questions, like "Carly, would you view the latest White House economic policy as merely really great, or super hyper great?"

Re:Clearly staffing up for battle w/CNBC

[sumdumass]

Hmm, so the WSJ did actually sell out. Last I heard, the controlling family was holding out for more money and Murdoch walked away and everyone else interested did the same.

Maybe he was just calling out the chickens who where attempting to bid the cost up on him. But I'm glad to finally hear that he got it.

Re:Clearly staffing up for battle w/CNBC

[Knara]

I don't *really* get how they could compete. CNBC is already fully staffed with market cheerleaders, "free market conservatives", and amoral trading shows (not that I necessarily think those things are bad).

It *would* be pretty funny if they created a network that was based on "values investing", or better yet, "socially responsible" investing. Would really show in a brighter light how FOX isn't news, just entertainment for the neo-con crowd.

Re:Clearly staffing up for battle w/CNBC

[Dachannien]

She's described in the IHT article as being hired as a "contributor". The folks who are normally described as contributors on FNC appear on various programs to provide their opinions, but typically don't have journalistic duties. (Some contributors are journalists for other publications.)

Re:Clearly staffing up for battle w/CNBC

[thule]

According to their web site, the channel will go beyond Wall Street and have programming targeted to Main St types. They want to attract small business owners, middle America, etc.

Uh...

[Kabuthunk]

So wait... working for Fox News is supposed to increase her support?

Evil Empire

[Doc Ruby]

"Fox" is just the TV channel that Murdoch uses to promote the same global fascism that his new ownership of the Wall Street Journal will bring to print. The "Fox Business Channel" is yet another face. There's plenty of evil business/political people out there to fill the seats, and plenty of people paying money to get their badly skewed content with which to pay the staff.

What I like is that all of these incompetent liars are accumulating in one place, which makes it convenient to ignore them all at once. Maybe they'll achieve critical mass and collapse into total conversion to whatever negative energy crapons degrade to.

I already said my piece(s)

[Groo Wanderer]

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2003/09/15/hp-buys--two-new-gulfstream-vs
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2003/09/20/hp-covers-up-gulfstream-buys

But sadly I can't claim this piece of genius.
http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2003/10/28/hps-carly-fiorina-hates-fags

              -Charlie

Re:I already said my piece(s)

[Anonymous Coward]

Hahaha... The Inquirer. Say no more.

(No really, I mean it.)

Carly did NOT practically wreck HP first....

[pandrijeczko]

...she got in a lot of good practice at Lucent Technologies also.

Carly Fiorina is a cunt.

[Jackie_Chan_Fan]

Carly Fiorina is a cunt. It is well known that she pissed away HP. She has been trying to reinvent herself, taking credit for things wherever she can, but the truth is, she ran HP into the ground and destroyed it. HP barely supports their products, and that is the Carly Fiorina way. She's a cut throat cunt, that destroys companies.

Foxnews? She'll fit right at home there.

Re:Carly Fiorina is a cunt.

[harshmanrob]

Agreed...flamebit...but Agreed with 100% of everything you just said.

Re:Carly Fiorina is a cunt.

[Obsidian Butterfly]

Shame on you! Did you really have to say it like that?

Now I'll never be able to think of "cunt" the same way again!

[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[hal9000(jr)]

In the other corner, we have the economic policy that turned $250 billion budget surpluses under Clinton into $300 billion budget deficit in just two years!

While I am not a fan of Bush, the deficit slide can't be blamed entirely on Bushes economic plan. The magnitude, sure, but the slide started long before. The forecasters of the OMB were overly optimistic about the dotcom boom and expected it to last forever. When the bust happened, not only did a lot of money dry up, but the expected capital gains taxes forcast dried up too. That and the balanced budget bill lapsed. Congress started spending. So alot of things happened in the span of a few short years some of which can be blamed on President Bush.

BTW, The Age of Turbulence: Adventures in a New World by Alan Greenspan has a pretty good overview of that happened in addition to prividing insight into how the guy got to be so smart. It's good reading.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who should we blame for the fact that the US dollar is now worth less than the Canadian dollar? http://www.xe.com/ It is $1.02 to get a Canadian dollar. I know all my paperback books from a few years ago have prices on them like $5.99 US, $7.99 Canada. So this is a rather large event...

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Who should we blame for the fact that the US dollar is now worth less than the Canadian dollar?

This makes American goods and services CHEAPER for foreigners meaning, US stuff becomes more price competitive. Also, it drives up tourism as America becomes a lower cost destination.

Although, economics is not my thing, so I don't fully understand how it all balances out, such as oil costs, particularly since the world market is usually stated in American $. I guess that means that the cost of oil also increases as the value of the dollar decreases to maintain balance. Yadda yadda yadda, inflation increase.

Anyone have more insight?

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

You're conflating issues.

The claim was the recession that followed the Clinton administration that erased the projected surpluses cannot be blamed upon the Bush administration. The economic decline had already begun during the end of the Clinton administration. Had he remained president for a third term, the same events would have transpired. There were numerous layoffs across the economy, earnings were weak, and everyone except venture capitalists and greedy day trader was projecting the end of Greenspan's "irrational exuberance" with pain. Indeed it would have been even worse had idiots not moved into a housing bubble right afterward, which surprise, surprise, has resulted in a "credit crisis" that is oozing all over the economy.

The U.S. economy has been floating on nonsense for quite a while. It's a sickness that predates the the Bush administration. 'Real wages' have been falling since the '80s.

The Bush administration is retarded, for sure. It ramped up spending and cut taxes, in some perverse amalgam of Keynesian and supply-side theory that we'll call "mortgaging the country's future and then looting the capital, while using our power to reduce the financial liability for our interest groups." The disease that afflicts America is just bigger than any one administration's looting, even if this one is ridiculously egregious.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Entropius]

Congress started spending.

Funny that he'll veto (revenue-neutral) stem-cell research, but won't use his veto pen to enforce that wonderful Republican virtue of "fiscal responsibility"...

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[zippthorne]

Everyone seems to think Greenspan is this really smart dude, but he's not, and if he is, he is the most Machiavellian bastard ever to chair a quasi-governmental agency.

Let's look at the evidence.

In the months leading up to the 2000 election (roughly 18ish), the Fed continued to raise rates despite low inflation numbers. Indeed despite candidate Bush being lambasted for "talking down the economy" for warning of the very recession he would be blamed for in the coming months. There was much discussion about what it was, exactly, that Greenspan feared. Especially in light of the dot-com collapse which occurred at roughly the same time and lead in part to the recession of late 2000, early 2001.

Greenspan was making anti-exuberance moves at a time when the market was already cooling off.

Either Greenspan was unaware of the impending slowdown or he was actively trying to enhance a recession which would take place in Clinton's successor's presidency. The only reason I can think of to do that on purpose would be to set up the successor (who everyone expected to be Gore) for failure, leading to nostalgia for the Clinton presidency and therefore support for a Senator Clinton 2004 presidential run. Such nostalgia would be necessary to overcome an incumbent Gore's near-automatic party nomination.

It's especially brilliant since Gore would have been unwilling to take potentially revenue reducing steps like capital gains tax and income tax reductions during a recession, a position which would only exacerbate the situation.

I'm not convinced that he actually had this as a plan, though. Its flaws are glaringly obvious to anyone capable of conceiving it. I think it's far more likely that Greenspan is a moderately effective bureaucrat who's had disproportionate superstar status painted on him by virtue of his high post.

It's a symptom of the same problem which propagates the idea of the "Corporate Savior" CEO, allowing an artificially small pool of mostly competent, but not astoundingly so, individuals to command enormous salaries. He was kept on by virtue of a desire not to "rock the boat" in financial circles, which ironically would probably have had more effect on the economy than any of his actual decisions.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[hondo77]

While I am not a fan of Bush, the deficit slide can't be blamed entirely on Bushes economic plan. The magnitude, sure, but the slide started long before.

Part of leadership is responding to change. How did the Bush administration respond to an impendining budget shortfall? By cutting taxes on the wealthy. How did the Bush administration respond to an actual budget shortfall? By staying the course. How did the Bush administration respond to the increased expenditures required by this unending B.S. war? By staying the course.

I blame the Bush economic "plan" completely for the budget mess. What about Congress? Congress has been Bush's lapdog for the past six years so the blame still rests with him.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

There may be other reasons that would make the U.S. less attractive as a tourist destination that would have to be taken into account. The obvious being the unpopular war in Iraq, the hassle of airport security, and the detention of foreigners in prisons without legal recourse. If people think, "Yeah, Americans are real crazy after 9/11, let's go somewhere else" it won't matter much.

The weakening U.S. dollar may increase interest in U.S. exports, but it may also decrease foreign investment. The weakening dollar may also increase prices for goods as investors seek to maintain a standard of living that includes imports and travel outside of the U.S. Keep in mind that even with a weaker dollar it doesn't mean that U.S. labor is competitive with China for the production of tennis shoes, toys, and pants; it just means that the prices for those items increase. It may also decrease immigration, which in turn may depress economic growth as highly-skilled laborers seek employment elsewhere. Admit it, when 1USD ~= 1.5CAD you never thought, "I think I'll move to Canada to become a software engineer, so I can have a smaller salary, pay more in taxes, and then after the exchange rate, pay even more of what I earn for the same goods."

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[geekoid]

The fact the the Bush administration wouldn't let him continue his plan after 2000 had nothing to do with it at all.

". Its flaws are glaringly obvious to anyone capable of conceiving it. "

You are applying hindsight and finding patterns in noise.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

Interestingly enough, Mr Greenspan apparently was a failed economic consultant when he was tapped on the shoulder to join the government. Those who can do, do, those who can't get a government job. I know that's completely unfair to the huge bunch of solid government workers out there, but it's remarkably ironic to hear folks like Greenspan talk up free markets (interesting idea, would like to see one), when they themselves can't turn a buck, and have to go on the dole.

More reading:

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18486.htm

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[timeOday]

I think the worst thing Bush has done for the economy may have been our response to 911. Yes, it was a terrible attack that demanded a response. But everything we have done since then amplifies its effects. We've hyped the notion that terrorism is now an overwhelming problem which will plague us at least for the next generation or two, and that perpetual warfare is the answer. All this, basically in response to an attack carried out by 19 guys with a modicum of training, who all died in the attack.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not denying there are terrorist networks in the world plotting attacks and they must be broken up. (Several plots have been broken up -- using basic police techniques, while others in the UK were carried out to little effect). Making 911 a generation-defining event was really our choice, and it hasn't helped us any. Of course it is nearly impossible to determine the economic impact of this.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[operagost]

Funny that he'll veto (revenue-IMPACTING) EMBRYONIC stem-cell research FUNDING

Fixed that for you.

"Correcting lies on Slashdot since 1999"

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[operagost]

How did the Bush administration respond to an impendining budget shortfall? By cutting taxes on the wealthy.

... which increased tax receipts. Look it up.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[hondo77]

a) Give me a reference or two.

b) Obviously it didn't increase them enough to keep up with spending, which is what matters.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Notquitecajun]

It's nice that you don't understand the effects of tax cuts on the economy. Quit blaming the rich for making money.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

That makes sense only if Greenspan is a democrat, while he has said he's more along the lines of a libertarian republican.

Admittedly to most there's now very little difference between a democrat or the current batch of republican frontrunners for the presidency which should really all be called neoconservatives. (None of the front-running dems will commit to pulling out of Iraq, none care as much as they should about cutting government spending). The best hope really lies with the lesser known candidates.

Ron Paul on the republican side because he's the only anti-war republican who understands that it's US foreign policy which is screwing up the economy to the tune of a trillion a year and has the best chance of the allowing the republicans to win the general election as the sole anti-war candidate in a pro-war party at a time when the country is 70% opposed to the war.

Kucinich on the democratic side because he realises it's a lost war but imo has less hope of getting the party nomination.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[hondo77]

Really? And what effect did the tax cuts in question have on the economy? Did they balance the budget (sorry, that should read "Did they continue the budget surplus")? No. Did they lower the unemployment rate? No. Did they create new jobs? No. Please, enlighten us on how those tax cuts did any good for the economy.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Leghorn]

...and when you're done, read The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Kiein for the darker side of that story.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[tyrione]

Borrowing more than $1 Trillion from China to fight a War and not invest into the infrastructure of the US, while implementing a sliding tax spread for the top tier tax bracket will destroy any surplus.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[zippthorne]

Finding patterns in the noise is precisely the nature of what people believe his job was.

Clinton was fond of saying, "It's the Economy, Stupid." He meant that the economy has significant effect determining the president. Whoever controls the economy controls the presidency, and Greenspan is the only figure during the two Bush and Clinton Presidencies who's been said to have that power. He didn't exactly make decisions favorable to the elder Bush administration, either.

If he made unfavorable decisions because of conspiracy, the person who benefits is Hillary Clinton. Especially, but not solely if Gore had been elected in 2000. The thing that changed everything was 9/11, which shifted everyone's focus from "the Business of America is Business" to "National Security" (although each party developed different approaches to it) and gave Bush a bit of a boost just for being there.

If he made unfavorable decisions because of incomplete knowledge (as is far more likely) then he's either incompetent for failing to see the trends, or just an ordinary guy who didn't see things that really couldn't be seen.

Hindsight tells us only that the trends existed, not that they could've been predicted. But the assumption that they were predictable raises some interesting questions about the guy whose job it was to make the predictions and adjust policy to affect them. Interestingly, there was one guy at the time claiming to have made just such a prediction. I've already mentioned his name and what he was doing at the time, and what people thought of it.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[sricetx]

The Military-Industrial complex wanted their cold war and the associated government spending back. The "War on Terror" is the perfect successor - it's a 'war' that can't be won, has no foreseeable end, and trillions will be spent on it.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[mosch]

It doesn't help that Bush has spent half a trillion dollars (so far) to blow up Iraq. In the end, that'll probably cost closer to a full trillion dollars.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[rtechie]

... which increased tax receipts. WHICH tax receipts? Bush cut capital gains taxes and taxes on the wealthiest 10%. Capital gains tax revenue is has been going down every year of the Bush presidency. Income tax revenue HAS grown slower than expected. You see, income tax revenue is normally expected to increase and the American population grows and more people enter the workforce. If income tax revenue actually DECREASES that means a huge tax cut, or a depression. So while overall revenue is still up, is rate of increase isn't much lower than it was during the Clinton presidency and that has more to do with Bush's crazy spending policies than the end of the dot-com bubble.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[DavidShor]

"Did they lower the unemployment rate?"

Well, thats impossible to say with any certainty. On the other hand, unemployment did go down signifigantly, to it's currently very low levels. Many other factors are responcible, and in fact most likely make up most of the increase, but it is very concievable that the tax cuts were a big part.

"Did they create new jobs?"

Yes, they almost certainly did. The question is how many.

"Please, enlighten us on how those tax cuts did any good for the economy."

Ok, they increased GDP and median income per household. They did not do so in a large enough proportion to increase tax revenue, but there have been several studies showing that the increase was there. Not only that, but the tax cuts expanded the use of the earned income tax credit, which has been rather benificial for the very poor.

Now overall, the tax cuts most likely did more harm than good, because we failed to curb spending. Deficits distort the economy, mostly by subverting our exchange rate, along with inflationary measures. But neither of these factors effect unemployment in the short term.

Now if we had supported entitlement spending cuts, that would have been better.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Grishnakh]

"Fiscal responsibility", while still touted by Republican apologists and a few old-school Republicans, is no longer part of the Republican Party's credo. Now, they believe dogmatically in deficit spending. Basically, since the government can print money, they think the government should print more money for the Federal Reserve, borrow it, and then spend it. Since they're just borrowing on America's future value, which in their view is infinite, there's really no end to the gravy train: they can spend as much as they want.

I'm not kidding; I've argued with Republicans about this very subject, and this is their view. They see no problem at all with deficit spending, and think there should be no limits to it.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Entropius]

The bill didn't provide any additional funding, only stipulated that federal funding could now be used to fund stem-cell research.

And who gives a shit where the stem cells are from?

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Entropius]

... only if that deficit spending is spent on the Pentagon or contractors for the Pentagon.

*sigh* Maybe in this era of crushing credit-card debt among people who have no idea what "24% APR" means (because our schools suck too much for them to understand $(t)=$(0)*exp(kt)), the government is just going into debt to appeal to voters?

"Uncle Sam understands what you're going through, he's in debt too! Vote GOP!"

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[hondo77]

On the other hand, unemployment did go down signifigantly, to it's currently very low levels.

Just not as low as what it was when he took office.

Ok, they increased GDP and median income per household.

GDP usually increases (only six of the last fifty years decreased). In fact, in terms of year-2000 dollars, the GDP in the first five years of the Bush administration increased 14.4%. Pretty good...unless you compare it to the 20.4% of the first five years of the Clinton administration or the 18.4% of the first five years of the Reagan administration. But, hey, he beat the 11.4% of the four years of the Carter administration.

As for median household income, it's increased over the last two years but not over the last five.

Now if we had supported entitlement spending cuts, that would have been better.

Some measure of fiscal responsibility would be nice. Cutting taxes while waging war does not fall under that category.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Anonymous Coward]

While I am not a fan of Bush, the deficit slide can't be blamed entirely on Bushes economic plan. The magnitude, sure, but the slide started long before.

No it did not. The economic slide started during the 2000 presidential election around the time candidate Bush announced his plans to hyperinflate the national debt, er, I mean "cut taxes". From then on there was a general pattern that every time Bush's poll numbers went up the economy went into a slide and every time Gore's poll numbers went up the economy improved.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[graviplana]

Mod +5 Insightful

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[tylernt]

The Military-Industrial complex wanted their cold war and the associated government spending back. The "War on Terror" is the perfect successor - it's a 'war' that can't be won, has no foreseeable end, and trillions will be spent on it.

It wouldn't be so bad if they weren't taking a bunch of civil rights along for the ride. In that sense, I prefer the Cold War and the threat of nuclear holocaust.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Bluesman]

Well, printing money like it's going out of style benefits people who are heavily in debt, since decreasing the value of the dollar decreases the real value of the debt.

It's the people trying to save money for college, retirement, health care, etc., that are going to get screwed by out-of-control spending.

Tax rates are a red-herring, especially since nobody talks about the actual tax revenue after the rates are changed. It's possible to lower rates and see increases in revenues if you do it right. Not to say that this is what happened, but it's not as simple as raising or lowering tax rates, there are many variables.

But it really doesn't matter when neither party will stop spending. They're killing the future value of our economy for short term gains and it's a travesty.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Bluesman]

Amen. Not to mention, the "trillion dollar surplus" was spent even before Bush got into office, since they extrapolated a few good years of tax revenue decades into the future and spent on that basis. It's akin to saying that everyone will be an Elvis impersonator if the current rate of increase in Elvis impersonators continues.

There was never an overall surplus, the yearly surplus should have gone to paying off the national debt.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[hcmtnbiker]

The bill didn't provide any additional funding, only stipulated that federal funding could now be used to fund stem-cell research.

And who gives a shit where the stem cells are from?

Sadly, the government doesn't have an unlimited supply of money, so in order to keep up other current projects it would have to add money to it's R&D list. Second, there are a large number of people who care about the destruction of a human embryo when there are other viable alternatives, like umbilical cord stem cells which don't destroy anything.

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Artifakt]

The whole way savings and capital gains taxes have been changed under this administration is a huge con game:

There's a saver's credit, which is now tiered at 50%, 20%, and 10%, before being phased out entirely. The very poorest group of people, typically making less than 15,000 for a single filer, or 22,500 for a single parent head of household, gets the 50% credit if they save for their own retirement with something like an IRA or 401-K. Most of them are too poor to save anything at all. If they are making less than $15K, what's the chance they have an employer who matches 401K contributions? If they are making less than $15K, how likely is it they can put a typical minimum balance in an IRA, when that can take from 1,000 to 2,000 dollars to start? So the 50% bracket group can't afford even such a 'generous' setup, and if, through serious determination and exceptional fiscal prudence, they manage, the credit mostly just balances the lack of employer matching before it actually improves the employee's bottom line. If they are making a little more, and might actually be able to save, the credit drops at $15,001 to 20%. A plan that really wanted to encourage the working poor to save for their own retirements would have many small steps or a smooth curve instead of this huge differential.
          Then there's capital gains. Long term (where you hold the stock or whatever more than a year) capital gains has a 5% bottom rate, then jumps right to 15%. Again, almost nobody eligible for the 5% rate actually has long term investments (less than 1 in 100 people eligible). They get a "50% discount" if they are in the bottom 10% tax rate, but it drops off by half in shelf like fashion for anyone a trifle above that. With little access to mutual funds, particularly conservative, balanced funds that often have base investment amounts in the thousands, taking advantage of capital gains for the very poor can often be limited to the riskiest way, buying a few shares of this and that penny stock without professional advice.
        The laws sound very generous, as phrased, but in practice, almost no one qualifies. They are feel-good laws, where the government says in effect, "See, we do care about the poor.", but very little actual money transferring occurs compared to something like raising the poverty limit, extending the EIC to cover more than 2 children, or even enforcing the existing law for people who are being wrongly carried as self employed but should count as employees. The government loses almost no tax revenues from these laws (at least as they affect the poorest bracket - there may be some benefits to the upper middle class that actually reduce the government's revenues a bit).

Re:[OT] Re:Best of luck!

[Entropius]

Conducting research on stem cells derived from embryos which were going to be discarded anyway doesn't cause "the destruction of a human embryo."

If you believe that the death of a human embryo is a "sin", whatever that means, then stop having unprotected sex: many pregnancies spontaneously abort very early after fertilization.

She Didn't Happen to Bring a Gold Ring, Did She?

[Anonymous Coward]

"He is gathering all evil to him. Very soon he will summon an army great enough to launch an assault upon Middle-Earth."

It would be a waste to make her an anchorperson

[TechForensics]

..wouldn't it? She's good enough to do a lot more for Fox News.

Well...

[Cleon]

At least we know that Fox's new business venture isn't going to go very far.

Do you suppose they'll hire someone from Enron to manage programming?

Fox keeps strange company

[chaffed]

Fox news also has Oliver North. Fox news keeps strange company. I question their choice in consultants. I'm glad I do not get my news from Fox.

Re:Fox keeps strange company

[advs89]

Aside from Iran-Contra, what's your problem with Oliver North? And have you ever even watched FoxNews? I'm not trolling, but I just don't think people "get it". FoxNews is not any more biased than CNN or (especially) MSNBC... It just slants to a different direction. And at least they have people on both sides stating their viewpoints, and they pick people who will defend both sides really well. "I'm glad I do not get my news from Fox." Why, because you might actually have to hear the truth? Read Arrogance by Bernard Goldberg sometime... It deals with media bias and the source of that bias. It explains the presuppositions of journalists and how it affects which stories they pick and which details they include. Also, why do you think FoxNews gets higher ratings than CNN and MSNBC combined? Could it be because people are sick of hearing the far-left talking points presented as "news"??

Re:Fox keeps strange company

[Anonymous Coward]

umm.. convicted liar? for a news program? ok, the ACLU did get his conviction overturned since immunized testimony was used. BUT, that does not mean that he didn't do it, just that the conviction was overturned. He still was guilty of the actions, beyond a reasonable doubt.
North has been banned from Central America's leading democracy, Costa Rica, for drug running.

While he looks like a boy scout in his uniform, he is a liar and a drug dealer.

Why do you support him?

Re:Fox keeps strange company

[advs89]

He has a show on FoxNews called "War Stories" where he tells stories of war. It's strictly for entertainment as far as I'm concerned, rendering it irrelevant. So what if he was fired by Reagan for lying (iran-contra)?? He has an entertainment show... he's not claiming to be an objective source of "news"...

Let Fox News have her!

[harshmanrob]

Let's hope she can succeed at running Fox News into the ground. Fortunately, she was unable to do that at HP but if she had stayed any longer, she would have. She can get on the economic segments and tell people how ordering Compaq to fire workers and rehire them at half the pay and no benefits as contractors is a good model for a takeover. And then fired HP employees after the merger, keeping those contractors. She can say how outsourcing is good for the economy as she fired MORE HP workers for those Indian call centers.

Carly, you're a FUCKING BITCH! (and go ahead, moderate me down to a score of zero, I do not care. She is a bitch who destroyed lives and everyone here knows it).

Re:Let Fox News have her!

[graviplana]

Mod Parent up! "This Bitch is Toast!" - Ghostbusters

Last Days of HP

[Nom du Keyboard]

I was a contractor at HP for 2-1/2 years that covered the last days of Lew Platt and the first days of Carley. From what I observed, the decline had started, due to the economy weakening during that time, before Carley.

When I started at HP they were much like the way Google is described to be now. While I'd have to say that Google is HP on steroids, since HP offered great coffee, tea, and often sweet rolls in the well-equipped snack nooks around the cubical farms, and a well-subsidized cafeteria -- in contrast, Google offers free meals and transportation, among other amenities -- but the idea was the same. HP employees had a lot of freedom towards arranging their own transportation to other HP sites as they determined their requirements to be, specified and ordered their own personal computer equipment including printers, and generally were given a lot of freedom to do their jobs.

Over the next year and a half under Lew, much of that went away in ways that make it clear it would never return. It was belt tightening time, and a lot of it happened in areas like this one, including two job freezes.

When Carley did arrive, she was very warmly received by all of HP. There was great enthusiasm -- and perhaps not too much looking back at what she'd (un)accomplished at Lucient. Right up to the time I left, pretty much everyone was behind her, and much jazzed about having a woman CEO -- and a relatively young woman at that.

Yes things got worse after that in ways are that well known. But in fairness, I saw the first signs of decline before she ever arrived.

Best Carley joke from that era: After she visited our facility (contractors not allowed to attend the actual meeting) we were told that the lovely palm trees in the courtyard were going to be cut down after Carley had found out that they weren't going to meet their 15% growth target for the next year.

Re:Last Days of HP

[Anonymous Coward]

So you all joked about how stupid her world view was regarding growth but its all good because the guy before her cut free donuts???

Re:Last Days of HP

[DrVomact]

It is true that there was a period of increasing frugality at HP just before C. Fiorina's advent, but that was truly due to economic conditions, and HP was handling the crisis in its traditional way: instead of laying off employees, HP was saving money in other ways. After all, this was the company that once temporarily cut everyone's salary by about 15% instead of having layoffs. (The reductions were restored when times got better.)

It was only under C.F.'s reign that layoffs were first introduced. However, I do not believe that the reasons for these layoffs were primarily economic—they were moral and political. HP had a well-skilled cadre of professionals with high self esteem; these people thought they mattered. C.F. perceived this as a problem; thus, she proceeded to show the technical staff of HP that they were a disposable commodity by decimating them. I use this word in the old, Roman sense: to instill a proper fear of management, to restore discipline to the level desired by the commanders, you kill a tenth of the men at random. This has a most salutory effect on the survivors.

I worked at HP during this time. Like many, I had been an employee of a company that was bought by HP. At first, the change seemed to be benign—HP was not quite as good a place to work as my old one had been, but it was still pretty decent. That changed with the advent of C.F. It's hard to describe the feeling of helpless despair that became prevalent in my workplace as wave after wave of layoffs swept through it like a series of plagues. The first couple were justified as "getting rid of the deadwood", and you were supposed to feel good that you were not classed among the victims. With successive layoffs, the reasons became progressively thinner, until they achieved total transparency. One layoff was actually announced by management as being "random"; we were supposed think that this meant "fair".

As any student of Josef Stalin's methods knows, the best terror is random terror. If people do not know how to behave to avoid being struck down by the Centurion's truncheon, they become paralyzed by fear. They become docile, easily managed victims that have no self-esteem, make no demands, and are neurotically eager to obey their masters. They become perfect corporate employees.

This was not a phenomenon isolated to HP; HP merely furnishes a particularly egregious example of how the corporations dealt with a perceived threat to their sovereignty that emerged in the last two decades of the twentieth century—the rise of a new intelligentsia, composed of technically savvy "knowledge workers" who acquired a sense of empowerment through their understanding of how the new computer and communications technologies worked. This "geek" intelligentsia thought of itself as autonomous, as being outside the old paradigm of boss and peon. But the essence of corporatism is control; consequently, the corporations moved to suppress the intelligentsia using a variety of methods, both subtle and (as in HP's case) not so subtle. Today, their victory seems complete.

Lest I be accused of digression from the topic at hand...I wonder if C.F. had to take a 25% pay cut at her new job, compared to her HP salary, as did I?

Re:Last Days of HP

[Nom du Keyboard]

I wonder if C.F. had to take a 25% pay cut at her new job, compared to her HP salary, as did I?

Given the move from CEO of a Top 50 company to commentator on a cable television network, it was probably more than 25%.

Re:Last Days of HP

[evilviper]

enthusiasm -- and perhaps not too much looking back at what she'd (un)accomplished at Lucient.

Lucient: (noun) Lucifer + Lucent

Re:Last Days of HP

[graviplana]

Mod Parent (#20930165 +5 Best Reply of the Thread.

Re:Last Days of HP

[Loopy]

Having worked for Compaq for the last 3 years before HP bought 'em and then HP for another 4, this just about sums up exactly how things went. The general water-cooler consensus in the first few months was, "Whew, at least HP has that culture of not laying people off first like Hurd et al was wont to do." Well, we learned real quick-like that this was pure myth and it was pretty much SoSDD. The first round, followed by another 6 months later and another 9 months after that had everyone pretty much hunkered down in labs waiting for the half of the building they occupied to spontaneously implode. This is speaking from observation at the Houston campus...can't say what it was like out in Kalipr0nia.

Re:Last Days of HP

[whystopnow]

much jazzed about having a woman CEO

Why? Feeling politically fashionable?

Re:Last Days of HP

[nobuddy]

Actually, before Carly (known internally as the Wicked Witch of the West) HP had never laid anyone off, in 40 years of operation. Incoming Compaq employees missed the environment we had grown to love in pre-Witch days.

Fox Severence Pay

[digitaldc]

I hope she can get at least $21 million severence pay when she leaves Fox News, sounds like a great retirement plan IMHO

What for?

[Opportunist]

Fox already has the quality and integrity that HP acquired during her stay.

Why not?

[ObiWanStevobi]

Fits right in with Oliver North, Mark Fuhrman, Geraldo,etc.

Welcome to the team!

Re:Why not?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'll give Geraldo props for one thing: http://www.crooksandliars.com/2007/04/05/bill-oreillys-head-practically-explodes-as-he-screams-at-geraldo/

Might have been a fluke though. :|

Skank Was Always On the Dark Side

[curmudgeon99]

This is no surprise. Having worked under the skank when she was at HP, I'm not surprised she's in league with the slime over at Fox. She was the worst imperial style CEO who--though HP had just inherited several new Gulfstream jets when they purchased Compaq, Carly went out and bought two brand new jets (one which was reserved for she and her husband alone) at the same time that several thousand contractors and employees were getting axed. She was a nightmare.

Not so sure she was that bad - Compaq anyone?

[Morky]

HP now dominates the Windows server space, and is #1 in PC sales and printers. They were #1 only in printers before the Compaq merger/acquisition. Maybe she didn't do so bad by HP in the long run?

Re:Not so sure she was that bad - Compaq anyone?

[Ant P.]

Dominating in the windows server space counts for about as much as dominating in the Mac desktop space.

Re:Not so sure she was that bad - Compaq anyone?

[durdur]

If PCs and printers are such great businesses, why did IBM get out of them?

Re:Not so sure she was that bad - Compaq anyone?

[moosesocks]

HP is a shadow of its former self. Their success in the server space is simply a result of IBM's departure, and the fact that they *did* manage to hold on to a scrap of their prior expertise with building enterprise-grade hardware. (Mind you, a small scrap.)

Sure, it's nice to sell lots of PCs and Printers. Dell does that too.

HP was always first and foremost a research company. That's gone today. There is very little innovation going on there. Any kid can assemble a PC from parts.

Re:Not so sure she was that bad - Compaq anyone?

[GPL Apostate]

Any kid can assemble a PC from parts.

Careful, there. You'll hit the nerve of a whole passel of 'hardware experts' here. They'll grip their phillips screwdriver in one hand and mod you down to oblivion.

Re:Not so sure she was that bad - Compaq anyone?

[dwye]

HP was always first and foremost a research company. That's gone today. There is very little innovation going on there. Any kid can assemble a PC from parts.

Except that HP isn't HP, just the division that kept the original corporate name. To find a real HP, you would have to look at Agilent. Unfortunately, they weren't granted enough money to support themselves in the style to which they had become accustomed.

Let's ponder this

[Opportunist]

She's managed to turn HP from one of the most efficient and highest quality manufacturers of hardware into a cheap crank-out-the-crap shack. Fired all the quality staff and hired clueless wannabes (mostly 'cause the latter are cheaper). Turned slick, quality-driven production into cumbersome, bureaucratic molasses and relied on PR and marketing as selling point instead of quality and integrity.

Maybe she believes in karma and wants to undo in Fox what she did to HP. Because, well, Fox is already where she left HP, what else could she do for the company?

Cheney and Bush have wreaked economic havoc.

[Anonymous Coward]

Quote: "... you really don't know much do you?"

SumDumAss, you sound like a typical superior feeling, but ignorant Republican.

Cheney and Bush have wreaked economic havoc on the U.S., and want that to continue. The Iraq war is intended to be exactly what oil and weapons investors want: Destruction of the reputation of the U.S., so that there will be constant war, and huge increases in gast prices.

Re:Cheney and Bush have wreaked economic havoc.

[Anonymous Coward]

The budget surplus disappearing has nothing to do with bush and cheney's economic policy. The only reason we had the surplus in the first place was because of the capitol gains tax cut and the Roth IRA conversions. Over a course of about 5 years we had tax revenue coming in that would have never came in otherwise. And once those stabilized, the wildly growing economy started falling back into place. Why do you think the DOT COM bubble burst while Clinton was in office?

Now, you take that and combine it with the economic effects of 9/11 and you will see a pretty good policy over the first few years he was in office. and the economy isn't all that bad over the other years either. The same numbers that made clinton a god seem to make Bush evil. Go figure.

And if you are going to bitch about the exchange rate, then look to people like Clinton who championed the NAFTA and various other free trade agreements. That's why our dollar is falling. And it isn't really falling, it is sinking to the levels of the countries we are taking advantage of. After all, thats what we want isn't it? TO make it not look profitable for companies to relocate and offshore their production so we can keep jobs in the US?

The GP got marked a troll for speaking the truth and you seem to not be as smart as you think if you don't see it either. Unless this is some sort of campaigning effort to talk the economy down so democrats will fair better next election. Lol.. you have to wonder about some of the fucked up shit you guy sayt for no reason other then saying it.

Re:Cheney and Bush have wreaked economic havoc.

[graviplana]

Even more bullshit on /. Mod #20931165 -1 Bullshit.

FOX needs a domestic spying expert.

[SQLz]

Who better than Carly?

look at it this way...

[v_1_r_u_5]

since she layed off thousands at HP, maybe she'll lay off thousands at fox too and we'll all be saved.

Re:look at it this way...

[sethstorm]

The problem is that the last places they'd cut (O'Reilly&Tagalog Service,Hannity&Colmes) would be the the first places some would start looking for cuts.

Can they also hire Darl?

[vtldtlm]

Please, please.....

Ignoring the emotional opinions of the moment....

[Anonymous Coward]

If she had something else to do, she would be doing it by now. It will be interesting to see if she can use this opportunity to leap back into a CEO position. I wouldn't bet on it, but stranger things have happened.

Don't have a problem with FOX, but...

[Lumenary7204]

... this is still a bad move for Roger Ailes & Co.

Some people can throw too much emphasis on Carly's involvement with the "Investi-Gate" scandal (where she authorized the investigations to pinpoint who was leaking privileged information to the outside). She may have authorized the investigations, but in a bit of turnabout, she herself became a subject of her own boardroom's paranoia; the actual (mis)handling of the investigation fell largely to Chairwoman Patricia Dunn, who was indicted as a result. (At best, she ended up being a scapegoat.)

From a leadership perspective, I compare Ms. Fiorina with former U.S. President Jimmy Carter: untried, uninspiring, and unimaginative. Her guidance of HP during Investi-Gate at the corporate political level can be compared with Carter's decision-making during the Iran hostage crisis at the government political level. She essentially authorized the board to "do something," and then failed to keep control of the situation and take decisive action when necessary.

Fox News is based on fast-paced, hard-hitting, "damn-the-torpedoes"-style reporting, where journalists try to wrap a riveting story around a collection of often incomplete or unverified facts (and so are most other 24/7 news channels).

Given her otherwise okay but hardly noteworthy performance in leading HP, I'm not sure she's the one for the job...

Re:Don't have a problem with FOX, but...

[geekoid]

She did things that were actively counter to the culture at HP. Possible because she got options based on when she left, maybe she did it on purpose for personal gain.

Re:Don't have a problem with FOX, but...

[epine]

She did things that were actively counter to the culture at HP. Possible because she got options based on when she left, maybe she did it on purpose for personal gain. Then what you are saying is the shareholders/board aligned her incentive package to encourage those behaviours. Perhaps the board's strategy in appointing Carly to oversee these disagreeable actions is that she makes such an attractive effigy. Amazing. From what I've read in this discussion, not a single person remaining at HP (executive, shareholder, board member) after Carly was forcibly strapped into an ejection seat has been named as bearing any portion of responsiblity for what happened there under her watch.

Everyone is busy documenting how polarizing Carly was during her time at HP and Lucent, and then wondering why she's made the jump to FOX.

The fact is, the same emotional reflex that personalizes all the changes at HP as being the result of one person will drive people to watch all the polarizing drivel on FOX.

Consider Targets of Aggression on redirected aggression.

Recently physiologists have uncovered the hormonal basis for such behavior. Animals and people subjected to attack or threat experience "subordination stress," as a result of which their adrenal hormones go up, along with blood pressure and the probability of developing ulcers. But -- and this is crucial -- when given the opportunity to "take it out" on someone else, victims show no sign of stress. By passing along their pain, they modulate their own internal distress while generating trouble for the next ones down the line.

When an individual suffers pain, he most often responds by passing it on to someone else. When possible, that "someone else" is the perpetrator, the original source of the pain. But if this cannot be achieved, then others are liable to be victimized, regardless of innocence.

People need to think hard about whether Carly is a cause or a symptome of an unpleasant economic reality, and then consider directing their emotional reponse at an appropriate target. Or not. Perhaps we could tweak the moderation system to assign points for "ulcer relief" when the culpability of the target is dubious or irrelevent. I suspect some people would configure "ulcer relief" as a bonus score, because any victim is better than no victim. Even better if the "victim" is rich and famous, because then we can all deny that this is what we are engaged in doing.

Her Worship with a national audience

[twasserman]

The Fox Business Channel will give Her Worship the right-wing national audience that she wants in the hope that she can parlay it into a leadership position in the Republican Party and possible future elective office. That would give her the chance to mess up the country the way she messed up HP.

Added missing comma to summary

[autophile]

The article, off course, does not elaborate on this aspect of things.

There, I fixed your summary for you!

--Rob

Financial shows 2.0

[heroine]

Everyone is rolling out new business shows again, now that the stock market is on fire. Hopefully they'll last longer than the 2000 round.

Re:Financial shows 2.0

[Overzeetop]

Hopefully the stock market will last longer than the 2000 round, too. Or is that what you meant...

Ditto that.

[Anonymous Coward]

I can attest to the OP's statements about the last days of Lew Platt.

For me, the kicker was when HP mandated Drug Testing for Contractors. Heh, what a joke. The top technical contractors won't do Drug Testing. First, there's the invasion of privacy issue. Then there's the cost associated with just one false positive. That will stay on your record permanently, and I can guarantee you that it will cost you work.

There's nothing like driving away the top technical talent like Drug testing. Most (nearly all I daresay) of HP's competition doesn't require it. And so, they drove away their good people right into the arms of their competition.

Personally, I've been absolutely delighted to help HP's competitors. A pity though. HP used to be a good place.

Roger Ailes? News?

[dpbsmith]

Surely Roger Ailes was the head propagandist for Richard Nixon's campaign? The one that designed the non-issues-oriented feel-good ads? The one that combatted Nixon's reputation for being an geeky, aloof guy by putting him into controlled situations where he appeared to be surrounded by ordinary citizens asking "spontaneous," scripted, softball questions?

So what?

[Deadstick]

It's not as if she were taking a real job away from a deserving person...

rj

Brilliant!

[Anonymous Coward]

cubical farms Is this your proposal for the coming energy and food crises? If so, it's brilliant!

Fiorina was incompetent.

[PaulGaskin]

Under her reign, HP computers always came loaded with trashy software that would make bile rise up in my esophagus as soon as I saw all the trashware short-cuts on the Desktop of brand new computer. She just doesn't get it, whatever it happens to be.

Its nice to know that no matter how you fuck up...

[denzacar]

...FOX will still take you in.

It warms my heart to know that there are such people out there. Giving second and third chances to high-profile fuck-ups.
God bless them. God bless them all.

Carly as a commentator...

[AetherBurner]

Commentator on business - her actions at HP speak quite loudly on her business acumen. And Fox News expects me to listen to her for her learned observations and commentary? I have a mute button and I plan on exercising it.

Re:Carly as a commentator...

[Jaysyn]

You watch that crap?

That doesn't make any sense.

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't make any sense.

"Economist" on Fiorina Carly

[mi]

Economist held a generally favourable view of her work. Last year it reviewed her book "Tough Choices"... The second link is freely readable by all.

why so much hate?

[p51d007]

NOBODY is forcing you to watch or listen to the FNC. There are these little knobs, buttons called channels. I bet you could even block that channel if you want. But, as I suspect, you are an uneducated, or overeducated liberal, who, like most liberals, believes in freedom of speech, as long as said speech is 100% in line with your tilted beliefs. I don't watch or listen to most of the other networks, but, I would fight to the death if someone tried to take them off the air. We are suppose to be a nation of independent thinkers, but, in your "my way or the highway" attitude, you would rather have your socialistic utopia here. After all, socialism and stifling free speech works... it just hasn't been tried by the RIGHT people yet...

Re:why so much hate?

[toddestan]

Wow, was your sense of humor surgically removed at birth or something?

Terrific...

[TaleSpinner]

...I hope she takes all her spies and spy gadgets with her. The Fox people will undoubtedly rue the day they hired her when they find a bug in the men's room. And I don't mean the kind with legs.

So we could borrow less for our conflict in Iraq.

[FatSean]

Instead of $1000 Billion, we only have to borrow $999 Billion* to pay to get our asses kicked in the desert.

*By the time you read this, the total cost of play-time in the sandbox may have increased as it is on-going.

Proof Fiorina is an idiot

[Anna Merikin]

Carly changed HP's motto, apparently, from "Invent" to "Remarket" in selling iPods under HP's name.

Now, apparently after some time unemployed and unemployable after the mess she and her hubris left at HP, she turns up, where? At Fox, the spinmeisters.

They deserve each other.

wasn't she destined for jail?

[wardk]

seems there were some shenanigans at HP that Fiona might have to answer for. Did that all go away?

In fairness to Carly, she was correct.

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Maybe you could argue that she was just a stupid, bleached-blond bimbo who randomly stumbled upon the correct course of action, but in fairness to Carly, her vision was correct: Only the large [really the massively, monstrously gi-normous] will survive.

HP's choices were to continue to grow [with the acquisition of Compaq] or to die.

[Cf Tuesday's Register article about Gateway: Gateway failed to grow, and now Gateway is dead.]

And the stocks have proven that she was correct:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=HPQ&t=my&l=off

-versus-

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/bc?s=A&t=my&l=off

At HP, Carly faced two dilemmas:

1) Everyone is in the business of selling commodity computers these days, and only the largest will survive at that game [in particular, HP needed the higher-margin server business which distinguished Compaq from the rest of the competition], and

2) Like it or not [and most Slashdotters aren't going to like it very much], there just isn't any money to be made in the sale of scientific equipment, as the history of Agilent's stock proves.

Now you can argue that it would be really "nice" if a big company like HP could subsidize a bunch of really "neat", cutting-edge research [the way that AT&T used to do with Bell Labs, back when AT&T was a monopoly, or the way that Xerox used to do with PARC, back when Xerox was a monopoly, or, to a lesser extent, the way that Microsoft & Google appear to be doing now, while they are still monopolies], but Carly's duty was not to the scientific community: Carly's duty was to her shareholders, and her vision proved to be correct.

Heck, just compare the results of her vision with the current state of affairs at IBM, whose stock has been absolutely stagnant for the last eight years:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=IBM&annual
PERIOD ENDING 31-Dec-04
Total Revenue: 96,293,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Dec-05
Total Revenue: 91,134,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Dec-06
Total Revenue: 91,424,000

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=HPQ&annual
PERIOD ENDING 31-Oct-04
Total Revenue: 79,905,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Oct-05
Total Revenue: 86,696,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Oct-06
Total Revenue: 91,658,000

QED.

Re:In fairness to Carly, she was correct.

[Grishnakh]

2) Like it or not [and most Slashdotters aren't going to like it very much], there just isn't any money to be made in the sale of scientific equipment, as the history of Agilent's stock proves.

Agilent's stock looks very stable to me, and has a low P/E. Why is that a problem? If you're looking for a long-term investment, that's the stock to get. If you're looking to get rich quick in day-trading, HP is a better stock. Obviously, Carly was more interested in joining the dot-com bubble and getting rich on stock options than maintaining a strong, stable company.

That "scientific equipment" (really test and measurement equipment) you mention with disdain is what keeps the tech economy going; companies wouldn't be able to develop new products without it. Every lab at any large tech company (and many small ones too) is filled with Agilent and Tektronix equipment: oscilloscopes, logic analyzers, spectrum analyzers, and lots of automated test equipment. It'd be funny if Agilent, Tek, LeCroy, and the other T&M companies decided to just close shop tomorrow and stop selling equipment, because all new technology development would grind to a halt, and all the existing equipment would be worth a fortune.

Re:In fairness to Carly, she was correct.

[kaiser423]

Agilent's stock values suck because they make absolutely horrid equipment. I routinely crash their freakin' Oscilloscope, and to even use most of it's features I need a mouse and keyboard hooked up to it! In many cases we "downgraded" back to the old HP equipment while we returned the Agilent items and went and bought R&S or aqny number of other people, who's business is doing just fine by the way!

Agilent going down the tubes is a result of the loss of the "HP way" -- everything made there, you can tell has hardly been touched by an engineer, but rather designed by some drone who has no idea what situation s the system might be used in. It was really one area that HP could have totally dominated if they had decided to re-focus. Instead they cut loose a division that was a huge market leader and that had insane brand recognition. Poor move. Over the past two years we've literally taken about $10 million dollars worth of money that was 100% locked up by HP and went elsewhere. It might have been a good business decision to gut and destroy a division that literally had hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue without having to even compete for it, but I doubt that it was.

Re:In fairness to Carly, she was correct.

[jayslambast]

Vision and execution are two separate things. The idea for the merger has been speculated as being the Compaq CEO's idea (look what he did for Worldcom). So giving her full credit for this one decision may not be completely right. She did a great job selling it to Wall Street and Retirement fund managers. But just because she made one right call, there were 100s of others she missed.

  What really did her in was how she ran things afterwards that was the issue. She set unrealistic goals (saying we were going to grow by 15% when the industry was declining). She said something to the effect if we didn't have the bar set high enough, we never would try to beat it. Her over promising the world to the market setup us up for failure, especially considering if would make it impossible to get a company bonus requirements. As a matter of fact, she would never tell us how we were evaluated so we could try to hit them. This was one of many things she did that effected moral in the rank and file. She would change the company's focus several times just when we were gaining steam. This inconsistent direction alienated us even more, to the point where feedback showed we had little faith in upper management.

    So even though she was a great speaker, it takes more than a few good ideas to make a decent CEO. I would give Hurd the credit for increasing the stock price and Dell dropping the ball for the last 3 or 4 plays over Carly's few decision that remain today. Now if he would stop reducing our benefits in the name of "Matching the industry average", I would be happier.

btw, I would say there are still some excellent engineers left at HP, and they are helping train the next set of them. The group I'm in is still open working together, mentoring, and trying to keep moral up under our current contraints. We may not have the HP way, but looking at the way the industry is, very few companies that are over 30 yrs old have their original cultures left... But it would be nice it if came back again.

Re:In fairness to Carly, she was correct.

[nobuddy]

I bought 300 shares of HP stock at $82 a share on the employee purchase program, just before Carly took over. The stocks vested 6 months later at $12 a share. Yea, she was good for the stockholders.

The word "conservative" should never be used.

[Futurepower(R)]

"A news channel with a fundamentally conservative outlook..."

The word "conservative" should never be used. "Conservatives" are not conservative. Republicans only use that word because opinion testing showed that it tested well with voters.

Openly misogynistic venting

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think there's any big difference between men and women on a biological level. That being said, our culture's climate creates conditions which encourages professional women to be headstrong, illogical, and ruthless. A higher percentile of them simply cannot hold a reasonable, objective discussion without resorting to bickering, circular/evasive arguments, and other "conversational terrorism" strategies (http://www.vandruff.com/art_converse.html). I finally understand why Nietzsche considered women "contemptuous of the truth." These beings - at least the ones who make it to the professions - simply cannot admit they are wrong when all the facts are against them.

Is this by necessity? Certainly not. I know lots of women who are reasonable and logical beings who are big enough to admit they're wrong. But more often than not, you come to them a whole and honest human being, and they, more often than not, come at you with n years of emotional baggage - the fruit of real or imagined gender discrimination - and drop all that shit on top of your head. This post is in some sense counterproductive, since they are simply passing on their own real or imagined mistreatment, but god damn, I just dread the next time some pushy-ass, powersuited broad tries to tell me that 2 + 2 = 5.

Re:Openly misogynistic venting

[Grishnakh]

Is this by necessity? Certainly not. I know lots of women who are reasonable and logical beings who are big enough to admit they're wrong.

The difference is, these women you know aren't in high-up corporate positions. The only way women get to those positions is by having the negative traits you mentioned before. Women who are reasonable and logical beings do something else more honorable with their lives.

The men that get to these positions aren't saints, either, though they exhibit different negative traits than the women. By and large, I think most people, male and female, that get to the top corporate positions, are undiagnosed sociopaths. They generally have no conscience and only care about themselves and feeding their ego. Wikipedia will have a better scientific explanation of the condition.

Re:Openly misogynistic venting

[Anonymous Coward]

Very well put. The difference I've observed between career-men and -women is that the women feel they have to be twice as sociopathic as the men to be taken seriously. That's not to say that the men can't be equally sociopathic, but I perceive that there is some effect which filters out all men who are less than n on the evil-scale, and all women less than 2n.

Re:Openly misogynistic venting

[graviplana]

Mod Parent up for harsh truth.

It makes sense...

[cazbar]

Fox News attracts spectacular incompetence.

Awww, look at the bitter liberals...

[slashkossucks]

This site has nothing to do with "tech"... its all about a club for lost liberals looking to get together and spew their anger, with a healthy dose of back-slapping and self-congratulation. Such an impressive website this is...

Re:Awww, look at the bitter liberals...

[justinlee37]

I thought it was "news for nerds," not "news for techies."

Carly's fiduciary responsibilities

[mosel-saar-ruwer]

Agilent's stock looks very stable to me, and has a low P/E. Why is that a problem?

Because Carly Fiorina's duty to the shareholders was not to preside over just another player in a stagnant cottage industry.

Look, I will readily admit that 100 GHz digital-sampling oscilloscopes are really, really, really "neat", but, sadly, that's about all they are - there just isn't any money to be made in the business of selling them.

As I said above, the geeks on Slashdot might not like to hear it, you can't get rich selling "neat" stuff - the big bucks are made in selling incredibly boring, run-of-the-mill, prosaic crap, like servers, storage networks, and support contracts.

And since the HP-Compaq merger was announced, on Sept. 4, 2001, HPQ's stock [and gross revenues] have soared, whereas IBM & Agilent's stocks [and gross revenues] have been completely stagnant.

Actually I'm being charitable when I say that - the truth of the matter is that both IBM & Agilent's gross revenues have collapsed:

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=IBM&annual
PERIOD ENDING 31-Dec-04
Total Revenue: 96,293,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Dec-05
Total Revenue: 91,134,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Dec-06
Total Revenue: 91,424,000

http://finance.yahoo.com/q/is?s=A&annual PERIOD ENDING 31-Oct-04
Total Revenue 7,181,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Oct-05
Total Revenue 5,139,000
PERIOD ENDING 31-Oct-06
Total Revenue 4,973,000

Re:Carly's fiduciary responsibilities

[Grishnakh]

Ok, so how do you propose that companies develop the next generation of computers without those "neat" oscilloscopes that supposedly don't make any money (which is interesting considering they cost more than most cars)? Someone's gotta do it.

Interestingly, you left out Agilent's profit on your linked website:
Gross Profit 2,658,000 2,522,000 3,123,000

Even with lower revenues, their profit has gone up in the last year.

Reporter group-think

[thule]

It is unlikely that this will come as a surprise if you try watching Fox News over the course of a single day when a controversial news story is in progress, rather than flipping through the channel. Commentator after commentator will not only pull up the exact same tu quoque examples to deflect criticism of Republican officials, they'll use the exact same words and catch phrases. That's basic propaganda: if an opinion is shared by many people, it appears more credible, so the propagandist arranges that his voice speaks through many mouths. Dude... this happens *between* news channels. CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, FNC, MSNBC, etc will all use the *same* language to describe something the President or Congress did that day. Rush Limbaugh has great fun putting all these little phrases together into a single sound clip. I remember one example where every major news organization (including Fox) mentioned Bush giving a verbal "fratboy towel snap" to someone (reporters?). The "towel snap" and "fratboy" words were used almost exactly with each reporter.

Rush's theory is that it is a example of group-think. You have people squished into a room all day. They become friends, etc, etc. They start to use the same language. It's not unnecessarily nefarious. It is just lazy.

Oh I can see the headlines now!

[Anonymous Coward]

I can see the news headlines now: Carly and Bill O'Reilly announcing the birth of their space-alien love child. He denies the love child is his (but offers money to keep out of court and offers to raise or pay custody for the child), and she spies on him and other boffins at Fox to make sure he doesn't make any other love-children behind her back. Ultimately the love-child rebells, becomes a democrat (although a suspicious one).

Lesson for Kids

[Anonymous Coward]

Hey kids! Be a criminal and an evil liar and you will get rewarded with a cushy job in the media. Punishment? Responsibility? They don't exist. This is America after all.