Problem: Background: Robert David Sanders "Bob" Novak (February 26, 1931 - August 18, 2009) was an American syndicated columnist, journalist, television personality, author, and conservative political commentator. After working for two newspapers before serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he became a reporter for the Associated Press and then for The Wall Street Journal. He teamed up with Rowland Evans in 1963 to start Inside Report, which became the longest running syndicated political column in U.S. history and ran in hundreds of papers. They also started the Evans-Novak Political Report, a notable biweekly newsletter, in 1967.
Context: Novak was registered Democratic, despite his conservative political views. He held more centrist views in his early career, and he supported the Democratic presidential candidacies of John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson, of whom he was a friend. In later years, he said that he maintained his registered Democratic status so he could vote in District of Columbia Democratic primaries where victory would be tantamount to election. He was also close friends with Everett Dirksen. Novak later stated that reading Whittaker Chambers' book Witness changed his views from moderate-to-liberal to a strident anticommunism. Reading Chambers' message as a U.S. Army lieutenant in the Korean War gave him a feeling of moral absolutism in his cause. Novak's views turned further rightward through the 1970s, but Novak remained strongly critical toward Ronald Reagan and his supply side economics in the early 1980s. Novak changed his mind after debating economics with Reagan face to face, and he later wrote that Reagan was one of the very few politicians that he ever respected.  Novak strongly supported wars in Korea, Vietnam, and Grenada, but he took an anti-interventionist stance after that. He was a hard-line social conservative as well, holding pro-life and anti-divorce views. He also generally tended toward low-tax, small-government libertarian views, but his disagreements with mainstream Republicans and neoconservatives--specifically his opposition to the Iraq War--earned him the label of being a "paleoconservative." Novak's political column once stated that he considered every single president in his lifetime to be a failure, with the lone exception of Reagan. After Novak's death on August 18, 2009, Chicago Sun-Times described him as an independent voice. The Daily Telegraph stated that Novak felt "glee" at starting interparty fighting.  In July 2007, Novak expressed support for Ron Paul's bid for the presidency. In the same year, and shortly after the summer publication of Novak's memoirs, he was interviewed by former columnist Bill Steigerwald. Asked of the future of the country, Novak said:  From my standpoint, I see the long Republican realignment ending and going into a period of Democratic supremacy. I think there will be a lot of mistakes and a lot of bad things done. But I do believe the American people are really up to making the best of their politicians.... When I am given a chance to address college students, I always tell them, "Always love your country but never trust your government." I believe that.  David Frum, writing for National Review, essentially dismissed Novak as a contributor to the modern conservative movement in March 2003. His statement prompted a rejoinder from Novak and defenses by other commentators. Frum then wrote his book The Right Man motivated by what he called "Novak's disregard for truth." Novak attacked Frum again in his autobiography, labeling Frum a "liar" and a "cheat." After Novak's death, Frum wrote on his blog criticizing Novak while also reflecting that "Novak and I were fated always to misunderstand one another."
Question: Why did he not consider Reagan to be a failure?
Answer: Novak changed his mind after debating economics with Reagan face to face, and he later wrote that Reagan was one of the very few politicians that he ever respected.

Problem: Background: Ballmer was born in Detroit; he was the son of Beatrice Dworkin and Frederic Henry Ballmer (Fritz Hans Ballmer), a manager at the Ford Motor Company. His father was a Swiss immigrant, and his mother was Belarusian Jewish. Through his mother, Ballmer is a second cousin of actress and comedian Gilda Radner. Ballmer grew up in the affluent community of Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Context: In 2005, Microsoft sued Google for hiring one of its previous vice presidents, Kai-Fu Lee, claiming it was in violation of his one-year non-compete clause in his contract. Mark Lucovsky, who left for Google in 2004, alleged in a sworn statement to a Washington state court that Ballmer became enraged upon hearing that Lucovsky was about to leave Microsoft for Google, picked up his chair, and threw it across his office, and that, referring to former Google CEO Eric Schmidt (who previously worked for competitors Sun and Novell), Ballmer vowed to "kill Google." Lucovsky reports:  At some point in the conversation Mr. Ballmer said: "Just tell me it's not Google." I told him it was Google. At that point, Mr. Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office. Mr. Ballmer then said: "Fucking Eric Schmidt is a fucking pussy. I'm going to fucking bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to fucking kill Google."  Ballmer then resumed attempting to persuade Lucovsky to stay at Microsoft. Ballmer has described Lucovsky's account of the incident as a "gross exaggeration of what actually took place".  During the 2011 Web 2.0 Summit in San Francisco, he said: "You don't need to be a computer scientist to use a Windows Phone and you do to use an Android phone ... It is hard for me to be excited about the Android phones."  In 2013, Ballmer said that Google was a "monopoly" that should be pressured from market competition authorities.
Question: What is Ballmer's connection to Google?
Answer:
Microsoft sued Google