Beltway Biz

PC: First to market with PCS?

Izzy ("I'm a journalist!") Feldman just sent the board of directors of the Industry Advisory Council a letter asking for an open-ended leave of absence as chairman. Seems managing his business reengineering flyer is taking its toll, and the request has nothing to do with the recent flap about IAC appropriating citations from the Federal Acquisition Regulation that were inside a copyrighted database and putting them in an online document for the GSA.

Take two powdered rhino horns and call Hazel in the morning: The Department of Energy concluded a typo-riddled, grammatically disastrous RFP by advising contractors to submit all proposals on a "floppy dick." A hard disk is good to find, as they say, and more reliable.

Highway One, the infosuperhypeway for the Hill we wrote about three months ago, is finally acknowledging its existence with a gala this week. It's a not-for-profit, though its sponsors include Apple, IBM, AT&ampT, Novell and Quantum.

So we hear there's this little upstart telecom company in the Confederate Capital laying high-speed pipe as fast as people will sign on the dotted line, calling itself AlterNet. Wonder what UUNet's legal department thinks about that, or do they already know?

Jack Kemp, he of formerly sturdy throwing arm and GOP Fun Boy status, has been elected to the board of directors of WorldCorp, which owns a majority stake in transaction processors U.S. Order and airline World Airways.

In the new issue of Washington Wit due out this week, editor Bill Shein will be recounting what effects watching 36 solid hours of C-SPAN had on his brain. Washington Wit is a new biweekly political humor mag in town, distributed free in bookstores, coffee shops and newsstands a la City Paper, or at a cost outside "Wonk City," as Wit calls our lovely capital. 1-800-WASH-WIT is the number.

Got a morsel of high-tech gossip? Beltway Biz is always ready to virtually listen at earful@technews.com