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Obama Appoints Non-Tech Guy As CTO
NewYorkCountryLawyer writes "President Barack Obama has named his chief technology officer, and the appointee is not a Silicon Valley name like so many predicted. He is Aneesh Chopra. As the Secretary of Technology for the Commonwealth of Virginia, his job has been to 'leverage technology in government reform, promote Virginia's innovation agenda, and foster technology-related economic development with a special emphasis on entrepreneurship.' But Chopra's not a tech guy. Before he got his secretary job in 2005, he was a managing director at the Advisory Board Company, a public-market health care think tank, as well as an angel investor."
O'Reilly Radar is running an article discussing why Chopra is a good choice for federal CTO.
Underneath all the teleprompter smooth talk, is a chimpanzee. Obama is a talking monkey hired by the RIAA, MPAA, unions, welfare cheats, race baiters, and other parasites to do their bidding. Obama is a corrupt Chicago politician who has all the sincerity of a used car salesman. One of his goals is to enrich himself and his millionaire friends at the expense of taxpayers and productive members of society. But hey, it's "change we can believe in".
I'd say teach using things like Ubuntu, Open Office, etc. for the most part. Then have some specific classes that teach the differences between Ubuntu and Windows, Open Office vs Microsoft Office, etc.
By doing so, you can literally give the students all the software they need at home, from which they'll learn all the skills they'll need.
And with the class that specifically covers Microsoft's products differences, they'll know the quirks of said products and it will require far less money, because they won't need to purchase Microsoft products to go to school.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
If I could elaborate on whistlingtony's post... The CXOs can be thought of as [often unofficial] cabinet members. Much like there are different commissions like the FCC, FTC or Department of Agriculture that operate under executive power, it's really just delegation of the president's responsibilities. They have power in that they generally operate under executive authority. They have no power in that the president can pretty much hire/fire them at will and reverse their decisions and such in the instance that he disagrees after the fact. They just handle banal things for the president that he: doesn't want to, doesn't have time for, or doesn't have the necessary expertise in.
Also, if I read your post correctly, you have a slight misunderstanding of US government. Both of our parliamentary bodies are elected by the people. The US Constitution doesn't exactly dictate how states choose senators, so it is theoretically possible that the first parliamentary body could elect the second. However, to my knowledge, all states choose senators based on some variation, at least, of a popular vote.
It is not fallacy in his thinking it is ambition. O'Reilly is putting himself out there as someone who can be trusted by this new CTO for calming down the hordes of geeks out there who have experience dealing with CTO folk who do not know an IP packet from a ZIP drive. Seriously as someone who has been in multiple startups with good and bad CTO folk the best ones imho are always those who retired from a tech job and than got an MBA later in life not the MBA who learns tech on the job.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty