Tag: president

Inauguration Day 2009 Around The Web

Did you miss the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama earlier today? Don’t worry, there are tons of resources online for you to check out. Here are some of my favorites, starting with this incredible image:

CNN was making a big deal out of this satellite image all day. Fortunately, BoingBoing posted a link to it this afternoon. Zoom in and check it out!

The most anticipated part of the day was probably President Obama’s Inaugural Address. The complete transcript is available here, and you can watch the video at CNN (or below).

Above is a word cloud of Obama’s speech, courtesy of ReadWriteWeb and Wordle.net. They compare it to the inaugural speeches of Bush, Clinton, Reagan, and Lincoln too.

Here’s the oath and inaugural address, courtesy of CSPAN:

You’ll notice the oath didn’t quite go as planned but Talking Points Memo points out that Obama didn’t mess it up, Roberts did:

Roberts started the oath. Obama went a little more quickly than he’d anticipated. And then in the second stage of the oath Roberts got the words wrong. Instead of "I will faithfully execute the office of President of the United States" he said "I will execute the office of President of the United States faithfully …"

There was a moment of awkwardness, but they eventually sorted it out. The swearing in is just a formality anyway – Barack Obama became President at noon EST even before he had taken the oath (they were slightly behind schedule).

Here are some other great links:

Know of any others? Let me know.

Finally it’s a reality – Barack Obama is President! Now the real work begins. I hope he’s ready.

Tracking the 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama online

The 2009 presidential inauguration of Barack Obama is now just a few hours away! At 8am MST (10am EST) the program will begin, and by about 10am MST (noon EST) the oath of office and inaugural address should be underway at the United States Capitol. Two million people are expected to attend the event, with millions more following along remotely. I’ll be one of the many people using the web to keep an eye on things. Here’s how I plan to do it:

TechCrunch has a few more resources in their Guide to the Inauguration. Lifehacker also wrote a Guide to Catching the Inauguration from Anywhere.

Make no mistake about it, Barack Obama’s presidential inauguration is a big deal. The cellphone carriers are bracing for a flood of mobile traffic, and have spent millions of dollars to upgrade their networks in Washington. Antivirus vendors are also preparing for the event – a large amount of inauguration-related spam and malware is expected. Curiously, the most popular search requests are related to Beyonce, who will be performing for Barack and Michelle’s first dance at the inauguration ball.

Need a blast from the past? Read about previous inaugurations at Wikipedia, or watch the videos.

Finally, keep an eye on Whitehouse.gov. At exactly one minute after noon (EST) the new website will launch. As the AFP’s headline states: Change.gov is coming to the White House!

Anything else I’ve missed? Let me know!

UPDATE: Here are a few more resources: National Post liveblog, CNN & Facebook (very cool), Twingly Microblog Search.

Bloomberg for President?

Post ImageI don’t know about you, but when I think of “Bloomberg” I generally think of money. Maybe that’s because Bloomberg L.P., the company that current New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg started back in 1981, is the largest financial news and data company in the world. Or maybe it’s because Mr. Bloomberg is filthy rich! Either way, it takes more than money to run for President doesn’t it? Okay, okay, money is important. Still, that’s pretty much all the press has to go on at the moment:

The announcement by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg of New York that he was leaving the Republican Party to become an independent was made after nearly two years in which his aides had laid the groundwork for a potential independent run for president.

Oh no, not the aides laying groundwork! That means he must really be planning to run for President! Nevermind that he made it clear he wants to finish his term as mayor:

“My intention is to be mayor for the next 925 days and 10 or 11 hours,” he said. “I’ve got the greatest job in the world, and I’m going to keep doing it.”

Ah I can just imagine what the reporters were thinking – he has money, so he must want to run for President, let’s find information that proves us right! Maybe I am just being naïve, but if he says he isn’t running, don’t you think there’s a small chance he is telling the truth?

Bloomberg becoming an independent is interesting, for sure, but I find it kind of comical that the media want to make becoming an independent mean running for President. Perhaps Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have become boring?

Read: NYTimes.com