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Senior Senate Aide Joins Hewlett-Packard
by Heather Greenfield
Kristy Skupa Sternhell, a senior aide to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the past five years, has joined Hewlett-Packard's government relations team in Washington.
Sternhell was most recently the legislative counsel for Reid, D-Nev. Before working for Reid, Sternhell was deputy district attorney in Clark County, Nev., from 1998 to 2001. She will become director of congressional affairs for the computer company.
"Kristy has strong relationships on Capitol Hill because she has earned a reputation for reliability and in-depth knowledge of a wide range of issues," said Gary Fazzino, HP's vice president of government affairs. "We're thrilled to have her on board as we move forward on important policies that impact everything from competitiveness to opening markets to environmental issues."
Sternhell said the job will give her a chance "to work on issues I care deeply about and do it with a company that has made strong contributions to our nation's economic growth and competitiveness through a history of innovation and smart policies."
No Blog Love Lost For The RIAA
The new spokeswoman for the Democratic National Committee is not getting a warm welcome from bloggers because of her past affiliation with the Recording Industry Association of America.
The DNC hired former RIAA spokeswoman Jenni Engebretsen to help with public affairs during the Democratic convention. The headline at the liberal blog Daily Kos: "DNC Hires RIAA Shill".
The implication from the post by Markos Moulitsas Zuniga is that the DNC will not score points in the liberal blogosphere by hiring someone who has taken "a paycheck for selling gangsters to the public."
At Boing Boing, Cory Doctorow said liberal bloggers are united in hating the RIAA for supporting a tiered pricing system on the Internet dubbed network neutrality. Doctorow also blames RIAA "for suing our friends, for lobbying for laws that suspend due-process rights of the accused," and for demanding wiretapping power to catch suspected music pirates.
Edwards' Finance Chief Leaves Campaign
Days before the latest presidential fundraising filings were released over the weekend, the finance director to Democrat John Edwards resigned.
Democratic fundraising sources said Jennifer Swanson announced her decision to leave late last week, about two weeks into the second fundraising quarter. Swanson was not fired, sources said.
Swanson posted an item on the campaign blog, saying that Brian Mixer is the new national finance director. "I joined the campaign to lead the finance team through the first critical quarter of this year, knowing I couldn't move to Chapel Hill, but I couldn't be more pleased to be giving you the news that Brian is going to be doing this job," Swanson wrote.
Mixer worked for former presidential hopeful and former Virginia Gov. Mark Warner.
Senators Salute Stevens' Service Record
Alaskan Ted Stevens, the top Republican of the Senate Commerce Committee, just celebrated a milestone, becoming the longest-serving Republican senator in history. He began serving on Christmas Eve 1968, after being appointed by then-Gov. Walter Hickel.
Stevens passed the longevity record of the late Strom Thurmond of South Carolina, who started his career as a Democrat. "I passed this milestone only because Strom made the mistake of being a Democrat for two terms," Stevens joked at a celebration honoring his career.
Stevens, 83, received several standing ovations during a half-hour tribute for his 13,990th day in office. "This is an outsize accomplishment for a man whose name is virtually synonymous with the nation's largest state," Minority Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said. "Yet no one who ever crossed paths with Sen. Stevens is surprised that he's achieved it."
Stevens ranks seventh in overall Senate seniority. He is behind his closest friend, Democrat Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, who chairs the Commerce Committee.
Stevens has said he plans to run for an eighth term next year.
IEEE Computer Society Honors Internet Pioneer
An astrophysicist has received an award from the engineering group IEEE for his 1983 proposal to the National Science Foundation that helped drive formation of the national supercomputing program and made high-performance computing resources available to fellow scientists.
Larry Smarr, director of the California Institute for Telecommunications and Information Technology, received the prestigious Tsutomu Kanai Award. He was cited for outstanding contributions in the area of distributed computing systems.
Smarr is an engineering professor in the University of California at San Diego. He also is the principal investigator on the NSF-funded OptIPuter project and the Moore Foundation-funded Community Cyberinfrastructure for Advanced Microbial Ecology Research and Analysis.
New Babies For FCC Commissioner, Blogger
FCC Commissioner Robert McDowell and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed their third child into the world April 12, just two days after Jennifer made it to the annual Federal Communications Bar Association dinner.
Cormac Augustine McDowell weighed 8 lbs., 15 oz. and was 21-1/2 inches-long. The new little boy has two older siblings, Griffin and Mary-Shea.
Daily Kos' Moulitsas, meanwhile announced the birth of his daughter and later sent photographs to readers. Elisandra Elexy was born April 7. The numbers: 8 lbs., 15 ounces, 20.5 inches long.
Moulitsas said he will not be writing regularly on the political blog for several weeks.
Why 'KGB' Is Not Synonymous With 'FCC'
At the annual FCBA dinner last week, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin joked about a criticism that Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., had leveled against the agency.
Martin offered a "Top 7" countdown of reasons the FCC is not like the former Russian spy agency, the KGB. Senior Reporter David Hatch, who attended the dinner, first reported on Martin's humorous list at our blog, Tech Daily Dose.
The top seven reasons included: the KGB knows how to terminate a backlog; KGB agents speak Russian, but linguists are still unable to determine the language of FCC commissioners; KGB officials don't wait for public hearings to decide things.
The No. 1 explanation: The highest rank ever achieved in Russian government by a former KGB official: president. The highest rank ever achieved in U.S. government by a former FCC chairman: FCC chairman.
No word on whether the last reason was a reference to rumors of Martin's political ambitions.
Quote Of The Week
"The people we need to contribute to our innovation economy are being subjected to a perverse form of 'Wheel of Fortune.'"
-- Robert Hoffman of Oracle, speaking to The New York Times about the lottery to distribute 65,000 H-1B visas to the 123,480 high-skilled workers who sought them.
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