One member of the White House new-media team came to work on Tuesday, right after the swearing-in ceremony, only to discover that it was impossible to know which programs could be updated, or even which computers could be used for which purposes. The team members, accustomed to working on Macintoshes, found computers outfitted with six-year-old versions of Microsoft software. Laptops were scarce, assigned to only a few people in the West Wing. The team was left struggling to put closed captions on online videos.

Loving the stories of the Obama administration’s move into the west wing, which seems to have been somethng of a technological backwater. No tales of superglued ‘w’ keys as yet but we’ll see.

I have a theory here, that we will know that true change has come with the new Obama team when the White House becomes an all Mac operation. Never mind closing Gitmo, this would be the first sign of a new and progressive dawn for mine.

Crikey – and me personally – has copped a lot of blogosphere heat for running a poll to name the Obama puppy that included the candidate A Mongrel Called Trig. It was a reader suggestion, and it somehow made our shortlist, and then hopped onto the polling page. From there it was just a hop skip and a jump to the outraged comment strings of Andrew Bolt, Tim Blair and others.

There’s not a lot of love in those rooms.

We deserve our lumps here. There was no redeeming – or even comic – feature to what is just a dumb slur on an innocent child. The galling part of course, is giving ammunition to the billious rabble of the blogging far right. But what can you say when you’re so obviously in the wrong. Other than “I was wrong.” Which I was.

As I say, cop your lumps, learn your lesson and move on.

Funny

Of all the hundreds of images in dozens of photogalleries published in this post-Obama world, this single frame from deep in the Huffington Post struck me as having a grounding poignancy. Somewhere in Afghanistan, US soldiers watch the election of their new commander in chief.

7.50am. Degraves St Subway out of Flinders Sty Station, Melbourne. Barack Oabama is president. We all decide to go off to work regardless.

2.33pm First Dog calls it for Obama. Woof.

In all, the two men whom officials describe as neo-Nazi skinheads planned to kill 88 people — 14 by beheading, according to documents unsealed in U.S. District Court in Jackson, Tenn. The numbers 88 and 14 are symbolic in the white supremacist community.

OK, I’ll bite … how exactly are these numbers significant? Who knew that white supremacists had such a highly developed numerology? I’m assuming some elaborate reference to ancient texts? Or maybe Goering’s waste measurement? Maybe his waist measurement? Any guesses? Are they into reiki too? Phrenology?

I’d never travelled in the carriage set aside for this sort of activity before. But it’s nice to know it’s there.