It was like the National Football League and you had to perform at the very top level or you were gone.

CNN: The case for firing Janet Napolitano

Did the Internet change while you were gone?

CNN: Disconnected: My year without the Internet

In a recent column in Newsday you wrote that about women on the campaign trail, you said you were appalled at how quickly we've gone back to thinking of women in the oldest of stereotypes as only wives and mothers.

NPR: Candidate's Wives Put Under the Microscope

If, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis, for example, which you and I remember because we were around, it had all gone wrong and the Russians had put a bolt from the blue on London and Mr MacMillan was killed, the decision whether to launch the B-force, the B-bombers with their hydrogen bombs, would have gone to the Chief of Bomber Command, an airman in uniform.

BBC

If you were wondering what was next for webOS now that it's gone all open source on us, webOS Nation chimes in with word that Gram is working with LG to bring it to connected HDTVs.

ENGADGET: Open webOS-powered HDTVs said to be on the way from... LG? HD

Similarly, you could end up solving for a problem that has either gone away, or been solved by someone else while you were lining up resources.

FORBES: You Have THE BIG IDEA, What Do You Do Next?

We had gone through a decade where jobs were being shipped overseas, where you were working harder but making less while the cost of everything from health care to a college education kept on going up.

WHITEHOUSE: The White House

But gone are the days of jaw-dropping liplocks (Where were you, Madge?), wildly inappropriate (and wildly entertaining) speeches and scantily clad starlets (rapper Lil' Kim, newly released from prison, gave a shout-out to former cellmates but was, disappointingly, covered up).

FORBES: Magazine Article

Would the administration, if they were willing to do that, be willing to go further on Medicare and Medicaid than you've gone in your current budget?

WHITEHOUSE: Press Briefing by Press Secretary Jay Carney,

However, the days when second-hand book shops were the only place to find a book you could not get in a high street store are long gone.

BBC: How do book towns survive in the age of the e-reader?

You will have some say as to whether students who were brought here by their parents as infants and have gone to school here, and understand themselves to be Americans and have pledged allegiance, that suddenly they should be kicked out of the only country they've ever known.

WHITEHOUSE: Remarks by the President at a Campaign Event -- Boulder, CO