Whew! The Rich are Safe - I never go to Commondreams.org unless Matt sends me there, but I always find it a rewarding lefty experience.

CitizenCorps.gov - at first I thought this was a parody, given the especially stupid-looking George W. Bush in the masthead.

The expansion and successes of CitizenCorps.org

Online Music Sharing Diminishes 'Superstar Phenomenon' - a big benefit of MP3s and file sharing is that it may usher in the end of the pop megastar.

price fixing since 1996 caused CD sales slowdown - on a related note, the decline of music sales may have more to do with ill-conceived monopolistic behavior on the part of record companies than with the rise of file sharing.

the accelerated melting of polar ice - another interesting CommonDreams article.

a red heifer born in Isræl - a product of a dedicated breeding program funded by Jewish and Christian fundamentalists, this heifer has a potential to further polarize the situation in East Jerusalem. When "purified" in its ashes, observant Jews may once more enter and occupy the sacred Temple Mount, currently the third holiest site of Islam. Christian Eschatologists are eager for this to happen, since, according to Revelations, this occupation will supposedly bring about the second coming of Jesus. According to the author, the red heifer is the religious analogue of a suitcase nuke.

Here's something I came upon at Slashdot.org all by myself today:

A highly-misleading "informational" page on Microsoft's website - this inaccurately states what can and cannot legally be accepted when receiving donated computer equipment. It actually says that if hardware does not come with unique operating system installation disks, it cannot legally be accepted. Obviously this bogus language is being provided as a means of intimidating poorly-informed school districts into not accepting hardware, thus forcing them to buy new hardware (and thus software). The effect of pages like this is to undo all the dubious charity of the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation.

For me there wasn't much choice but to assume a bogus online identity and compose the following email to Microsoft (in order to further explore their misinformational services):

Dear Microsoft,

A couple of weeks ago my school (for now I'd prefer not to disclose its name) received a generous donation of a number of old PCs. These included mostly low-end Pentiums with 32 Megs of memory or less. Some have intact operating systems, some do not. Others come with installation disks, and some do not. It's not easy to match up the installation disks to the machines. Some even appear to have the Linux operating system installed on them, again, both with and without installation disks. I've consulted your page (http://www.microsoft.com/education/?id=DonatedComputers ) and been concerned that perhaps some of these computers shouldn't be accepted by my school, owing to the complexity and possibly grave legal implications of the operating system situation. How would you recommend I proceed? Is it really illegal to accept a computer with no operating system? Is the Linux operating system illegal in the absence of a valid installation disk? Thanks for your time.

Angus Wheeler,

(School Name Withheld)

For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?020418