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Ex-CEO Steve Ballmer has a huge holding of Microsoft stock. At yesterday's shareholder meeting, he tore into the company and its current CEO, Satya Nadella, cursing about the financial reporting and saying a key part of its strategy "won't work." Ouch. Far be it for you humble blogwatcher to repeat the actual naughty word Ballmer used. Let's just say he was alluding to bovine excrement. NSFW language aside, the ex-CEO seems unhappy about changes made to the Windows Phone strategy he put in place. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers settle in with some delicious popped corn. Not to mention: He loves...

The head of the State Department's refugee bureau told a congressional panel on Thursday that Syrians trying to enter the United States pose "less of a threat" than other populations, sparking a harsh exchange with a Republican lawmaker. Asked whether the U.S. government tracks Syrian refugees once they are in the country, Anne Richard, assistant secretary of state for population, refugees and migration, said authorities track them for three months after arrival. "They're not treated differently than other refugees. Syrians are less of a threat, actually, because they've fled their country. They've voted with their feet," Richard said.

He's been slowly climbing to the lead for weeks and now Dr. Ben Carson has officially overtaken Donald Trump's status as the frontrunner in the GOP race for the White House. According to a new WSJ/NBC News poll, Carson is leading Trump by six points.

Explanations provided by the Internal Revenue Service for how it lost two years of former employee Lois Lerner's emails are "entirely reasonable," the White House said on Monday. "You’ve never heard of a computer crashing before?" White House spokesman Josh Earnest told reporters traveling with the president aboard Air Force One. Congressional Republicans have blasted the IRS's admission that it lost Lerner's emails from between 2009 and 2011 because of an apparent computer error. Lerner resigned from the agency amid controversy over charges her division unfairly targeted conservative political groups. In a statement Monday, House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa...

The rumors that chief White House political architect Karl Rove will leave sometime next year are being bolstered with new insider reports that his partisan style is a hurdle to President Bush's new push for bipartisanship. A key Bush advisor tells the US News Political Bulletin, "Karl represents the old style and he's got to go if the Democrats are going to believe Bush's talk of getting along." The advisor said a departure might come in "weeks, not months." A Rove ally, however, noted that he has a record of out-witting his critics.

CHINO - When the sun finally sets and the fast of Ramadan ends for the day, Luqman Malik joins the faithful at the Baitul Hameed Mosque for a feast of chicken, rice, potatoes. And Mexican food. Islam is a tapestry, says Imam Shamshad A. Nasir, a religion that attracts men and women of many cultures. More Latinos are embracing the faith, said Hussam Ayloush, a Corona man who is spokesman for the Southern California chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations. While he has has no exact numbers, he said the shift is clear. "Go to the mosque in downtown...

A regular feature in the first half-hour of Fox & Friends Weekend is the "Long & the Short of It" segment, in which liberal Ellen Ratner debates conservative Jim Pinkerton. After viewing the just-completed segment, the question arises as to whether the "short" refers to Ratner's stature or, as would appear more likely, to the fact that she is short on brains. For this ultimate Kool-Aid drinker of a Dem just proclaimed "Hillary is a conservative Democrat. Too conservative for my taste. I'm a liberal Democrat, she's a conservative one. Nevertheless, she will be the next President of the United...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush and Democratic Sen. John Kerry are tied nationwide in a tense race for the White House, but Kerry leads in six of 10 battleground states, according to Reuters/Zogby polls released on Sunday. Kerry and Bush were deadlocked at 48 percent in the latest three-day national tracking poll, which included one day of polling taken after the airing of a videotape from Osama bin Laden. Kerry led Bush 47 percent to 46 percent on Saturday. Only 2 percent of voters remain undecided as Bush and Kerry scoured about 10 remaining battleground states to find the 270...