Yay Obama! Net neutrality! Whatever that is! We're having a little spat over Barry O this morning. Owen thinks he took the Internet's money and ran. I think Obama thanking the Internet for his win would be like thanking telephones. Either way, Obama's presidency will be a comedy goldmine for Valleywag. Bay Area liberals have bitched about Republicans nonstop for eight years. Now, with the GOP out of the way, it'll be hilarious to watch the Dems come up with newer, more complex excuses for not getting anything done. (Comic by Hugh MacLeod)

Uh, while we're on the topic of layoffs today, we hear Goldman Sachs is currently a "SHIT SHOW" because the fancy bank has started its layoffs of what could eventually be 10% of its total work force. We hear people have already been put out of the GS building, and are upset, naturally. Been laid off from Wall Street today and want to bitch? Email us!

Michael Bloomberg has revealed how he plans to slice $1.5 billion from the city's budget this year and next. Some 3,000 city employees are going to be losing their jobs, he's rescinding the 7 percent property tax cut, and he's also suspending those annual $400 property tax rebate checks. [NYT]

Oprah may have been vibrating out in Chicago, but Tina Fey nearly burst with relief at Sarah Palin's expulsion back to Alaska on Tuesday. "I have to retire just because I have to do my day job,” she told Entertainment Weekly this morning, suggesting Kristin Wiig as her flute-rockin', pageant-walkin' heiress apparent should Palin persist as figure worthy of late-night ridicule. We agree, if only to provide a cannier doppelganger for all those confused, frustrated European photo agencies. [EW]

John Edwards could have settled the question of whether or not he fathered the child of campaign "filmmaker" Rielle Hunter during his affair with her last year, but instead he left it up to the discretion of the National Enquirer. Edwards' payoffs through recently deceased trial lawyer Fred Baron had previously convinced Hunter to refuse a paternity test, but her rumored new tell-all book and an end to getting paid may change that reticence. Racing her to press is the Enquirer, who are apparently keen on settling the matter in the most disgusting way possible: DNA siphoned from a months-old dirty diaper.In the wake of the Edwards' potential separation and Hunter's pending tell-all, the tabloid says it collected a dirty diaper during its original stake-out of Edwards' visit to Hunter at the Beverly Hilton. The Daily News is reporting that the Enquirer has been holding onto the baby's stinky diaper hoping to get some of Edwards' DNA for a match. To compare the sample they have "all they need is a cup he drank from," says the News source. Of course, they'll need to get that cup before Rielle Hunter scoops the paper herself. If you really want the goods, why not match poop with poop? If Edwards is staying in a hotel, sabotage the hotel's sewage system and work from there. If you're in the shit, might as well go as deep as you can.

Not a typo: The AP reports from Minnesota that out of 2.9 million votes cast, Al Franken fell 571 short of upsetting his GOP nemesis Norm Coleman in their U.S. Senate death match. Coleman claimed victory early this morning while the defiant politico comic pledged to fight on with a recount, taking one last tour around the state to rummage beneath couch cushions and car seats for the mislaid ballots that will send him laughing all the way to Washington. And with the caravan of lawyers behind him, that might take a while.Coleman's narrow margin of victory — 1,210,942 to 1,210,371 (a third-party candidate pulled most of the remaining votes evenly from Coleman and Franken) — would automatically prompt a recount, the results of which won't likely be known until next month. Especially with Franken and his attorneys hovering nearby and the SNL alum on the lookout for anywhere else he can close the gap — starting with conspiracies, natch:

Time Warner has reported its third-quarter results, including AOL's numbers, and they are dismal. Internet-access revenues were down 26 percent, a loss everyone more or less expected, since the dial-up business is moribund. But advertising sales were down 6 percent. AOL management can't blame the market meltdown for this one, since that had barely started by the time the quarter ended. October through December, one assumes, will be much, much worse.What's odd is that Time Warner CEO Jeff Bewkes isn't getting more criticism for AOL's numbers. As the head of HBO, he was one of a handful of Time Warner executives who loudly opposed the AOL deal. But enacting Time Warner's revenge on AOL by driving the business into the ground seems a strange way of making things right with shareholders. Bewkes's hand-picked boss for AOL, former NBC executive Randy Falco, has been a complete disaster — a short-timer waiting for the company to be sold. Bewkes and Yahoo's Jerry Yang have been holding desultory talks on selling AOL to Yahoo. But Bewkes's negotiating position is considerably weakened by these results. Why didn't he sell sooner — and when will he pay the price for mismanaging AOL?

♦ ABC appears to generated the highest ratings as the election results rolled in last night. NBC came in second and CNN ranked third. [TV Decoder]
♦ Time is rushing to produce a commemorative issue of the mag by the end of the week. [HuffPo]
♦ Both People and Us Weekly will feature Obama on the covers of the next issue. [NYP]
♦ Can The Daily Show survive an Obama presidency? and how will other media outlets deal with the post-election dropoff? [Politico, AdAge]
♦ An explanation of that holography thingie on CNN last night. [YouTube]

A tipster tells us there have been "Major, across-the-board layoffs at Hearst. All magazine titles had cuts, even the healthy mags had cuts, in all departments. Management says it's because of the economy." Hearst has already canceled its holiday party, and its top competitor Conde Nast just had layoffs of its own. If you have any info, please email us ASAP.

So that happened last night! And by "that," we refer not to the historic presidential victory, nor to the nationwide propositions that we are still gritting our teeth about, but to CNN newsman Anderson Cooper interviewing Black-Eyed Peas frontman Willi.i.am via hologram. Let us unite as a nation to dissect this clip's best/worst moments, blow-by-blow, after the jump!· "We're joined now, uh, via hologram, uh, with, by, uh, Will.i.am," Cooper begins, clearly thinking, "I'm missing the Bravo Real Housewives marathon for this?" · Will.i.am is beamed in with a Star Trek transporter beam special effect. Cooper stares uncertainly into the middle distance because he cannot see the person he's interviewing, which is a tremendous new innovation. · "All this technology, I'm being beamed to you like it's Star Wars and stuff," says Will.i.am. Not to pull a Liz Lemon, but, uh, Trek. · Cooper corrects him: "It's basically exactly like Star Trek." Thank you, Anderson. Willi.i.am's cogent response: "Yeah, but...yeah." · "Will, we're doing this interview with you this way because it's a lot quieter than having you in that crowd [in Chicago]. It's very hard to hear in this crowd," Cooper lies. · As Willi.i.am rambles on about the "Yes We Can" song, Cooper mentally composes an angry email to the CNN producer who let his boo Donna Brazile go off to ABC so they could spend her hair and makeup budget making a hologram out of the man who produced "My Humps." · "Will.i.am, I appreciate you being with us tonight via hologram," concludes Cooper. Will.i.am thanks him, says, "Check it out," and then does The Worm. · Cooper takes an awkward pause, collects himself, and says, "All right."

Why did Tony Fadell, the driving force behind the iPod, leave Apple? We know this much: Apple is willing to pay him handsomely not to make a fuss on the way out. Digital Daily notes that he's getting paid $300,000 a year through March 24, 2010. That's a 40 percent paycut from his regular salary of $500,009, but the salary is the least of his post-Apple compensation. according to Apple's 10-K filing. If he keeps his gig as as a "special advisor," doesn't sue Apple, and agrees not to recruit Apple employees to any new venture, he'll get 77,500 shares of Apple stock — currently worth a cool $8.4 million.

Man what a wonderful hopey week for America. Let's see how hopeful Robert Novak is, shall we? The headline is promising: "No mandate for Obama, no lopsided Congress." Hah! It's funny because we thought Obama became the first Democratic president since Carter to win with more than 50% of the vote, winning by a larger margin than any Democrat since LBJ, and the Democrats picked up enough Senate and House seats to keep a very comfortable majority? No, apparently that's all wrong. As Novak says:

Natalie Portman did it! Her eleventh-hour phone-banking put Barack Obama's campaign over the top, eking out a nail-biting victory of 349 electoral votes to McCain's 173, and ushering in a tidal wave of jubilation we were thrilled to let sweep us away.House parties spilled out into the noisy streets and local bars—if our own destination was any indication, all of America was marking this seismic moment by getting down to Jermaine Stewart's one hit, blissfully wasted on a heady mixture of well vodka and hope. There was of course that one gigantic bummer hanging over the proceedings, and the party would occasionally pause to hiss at a TV monitor showing a Yorba Linda Ramada ballroom of inbreds cheering wildly over their successful attempts at snuffing out the happiness of thousands people they don't know, and hope never to meet. "Prop 8 = Religious Freedom," read their signs. Well, then, free at last, free at last, thank God almighty they are free at last, and marriage's sacred definition as something that can only be shared between a Michael Jackson and a Lisa Marie Presley has been secured, for the time being at least. Hurray! But let's not let the bastards get us down, shall we? Let's focus on what we do have: A new President! One who possesses a kind heart, a probing intellectual curiosity, a masterful command of the English language, and a general air of giving a shit! In other words, everything we haven't had for the past eight years. A new era has begun. Let's see what famous people think about it: · If the night belonged to anyone whose last name isn't Obama, it was Oprah Winfrey, weeping during Obama's victory speech like a proud Mother Earth: "I'm vibrating. [I want] to be fully present. I'm just trying to take it all in. I can't even talk about it. This has been the greatest experience of my lifetime. I haven't seen a sense of unity like this since 9/11. Now, we're all brought together in the name of hope." [Us] · George Clooney: "I congratulate President-elect Obama on his historic victory and now it's time to begin unifying the country so we can take on the extraordinary challenges that this generation faces." · P Diddy: "I felt like my vote was the vote that put him into office. It was down to one vote, and that was going to be my vote. And that may not be true, but that's how much power it felt like I had." [AP] · Star Jones is filled with pride! [ET Online] · Harvey Weinstein: "It's a great day for America." [NY Daily News] · Jessica Alba: "I was surprised that McCain brought race into his speech. I guess he was trying to bring people together." NY Daily News]

¡Que lastima, Sarah Palin! Is this the end for the heroic Alaskan everywoman, who came out of nowhere to bravely humiliate herself on the national stage in one brief flash of incomprehensible fuck-upitude? No, liberals, no. And why don't you all stop lying: you crave more Sarah Palin. She is the political equivalent of hate sex. But it's obvious now that Palin's future isn't in politics; a (winning) presidential run in 2012 is a pipe dream. Her future is in the media! She can barely speak English, but fellas sure do like to hear her anyhow. With that in mind, we present—free of charge, in the spirit of unity—the simple five-step plan for Sarah Palin's upcoming national stardom: 1. Leave Alaska. You can't even get a media job living in Philadelphia, and that's just down the road from NYC. You have to move to New York, Sarah. You'd probably like the Murray Hill area. 2. Fashion Endorsements For Wal-Mart. Remember how you gave that speech and then all these people ran out and bought the glasses you were wearing? And then you spent $150,000 on clothes and everybody paid attention? It all adds up to two words, and those words are "Fashion icon." Is moose the next hot fabric for the fall season? Why don't you tell us, by appearing in middlebrow fashion advertisements for America's top discount retailer? 3. Have An Affair. That guy you're with, the snow racer? Yea, I'm sure he's nice and everything but he's not really sizzling tabloid material. Why not go and fuck A-Rod, or possibly be spotted going down on a male hooker in the bathroom at the Beatrice Inn? These are proven techniques that can work for you. 4. Ghostwritten Column For Ladies Home Journal. What are some Pretty Pillow Projects and Bad Hair Day tips that you learned on the campaign trail? Have your ghostwriter make some up, to be published. Republican housewives eat that shit up. 5. Join the cast of The View. This is where it all ends for you, Sarah. You were never going to be President. You never had a shot to be Vice President. You never even had the potential to be a serious political figure of any magnitude outside the strange and backwards frozen state of Alaska. But with a little perseverance you could end up on a couch, on daytime television, flanked by Barbara Walters and Joy Behar, arguing about Michelle Obama's wardrobe. Embrace your destiny, Sarah Palin. Elizabeth Hasselbeck can't hang on there forever.

Call it Company (Red). Michael Dell is asking employees at his computer maker to take five unpaid days off and thus help the company trim costs instead of slashing jobs. Extorting your people by suggesting they take a small hit now as opposed to a larger hit later on isn't particularly original. “We’ve seen a slowdown in spending,” says a Dell spokesbot, “but the primary reason is to ... to better position Dell for long-term competitiveness.” That makes no sense: Skimping on five days of payroll may temporarily give the company's bank account a fillip, but it doesn't change its permanent cost structure. Then again, maybe Dell's strategy is to drive away employees who are capable of doing math.

Richard Fuld, the disgraced CEO of Lehman Brothers, will officially leave the firm by the end of the year. (With no bonus, not surprisingly.) In other Fuld family news, the couple's $20 million collection of Abstract Expressionist drawings will be auctioned off at Christie's a week from today. [Bloomberg]

Valleywag is name-checked in the New York Times today. (Page B1 if you're holding the dead-tree version.) The article talks about how companies must now pre-blog their own layoffs to beat the rumor mill. What it doesn't talk about is the problem of false positives: On the Internet, you can find layoff rumors about any company on Earth. For example, look at LayoffGossip.com this morning. Valleywag layoffs! They're coming! I can confirm that layoffs are scheduled for October 3, 2008. Credit the losers behind LayoffGossip for building every Clay Shirky talking point into their site. You can vote for the truth/lie factor of a rumor. Awesome. I clicked True on this one 76 times.

You know you've made it when everybody a.) thinks they can do a better job than you, and b.) thinks they can make money off competing for your business! So congratulations, Jezebel. Not only is former Gawker ed Elizabeth Spiers describing her forthcoming ladysite as a Jezebel-ish incarnation, but Alley Insider reports that Slate is hiring for a Jezebel competitor. Their predicted assessment of the site's direction is fairly apt: "600-word what-everyone-thinks-is-wrong articles and their close cousin, what-everyone-thinks-is-right-but-not-for-the-reasons-everyone-thinks." Only for ladies. But don't worry, future girlblogs: there are plenty of hysterical commenters to go around.

With the election madness, we almost missed Arnold Diaz's interrogation of Martha Stewart outside her office earlier this week! It seems some sort of Martha-branded glass table at Kmart spontaneously explodes "for no apparent reason," which is reason enough for the dogged Fox5 reporter to pop out of nowhere and pester her with questions before inducting her into his "Hall of Shame." Just so you know, though, Martha says she is not to blame for small kids getting sliced by shards of glass. Blame the Chinese. "We just designed the tables. Kmart manufactured them in China." Click through for the video.

Word has it there's been a bloodbath at Goldman Sachs today: "No big names have been told to pack up their staplers yet, but they may actually be praying to be given the boot. We're told there will basically be no bonuses this year, especially at senior levels." [Dealbreaker]