A Microsoft flack says that the foundation created by their settlement will be technology agnostic. Schools that are funded by the foundation will be free to apply for grants to purchase any hardware or software they like. The free software provided by Microsoft will obviously consist of Microsoft products.

Returning to Fouad Ajami’s article in the NYT Magazine about Al Jazeera, Steve Baum had the patience to take the article apart brick by brick. Thanks, Steve.

The five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. The Taliban leadership seems to have moved past denial, and are well into anger and perhaps even bargaining. They seem to have realized that they’re not going to be able to resist the Northern Alliance and destroy America all by themselves, and are now looking to Allah to shoulder that burden.

Mozilla 0.9.6 is out.

Those clever folks at Red Hat have come up with an alternative to the settlement that’s in play in the Microsoft class action cases. Making the argument that the settlement shouldn’t reinforce Microsoft’s monopoly by indoctrinating school children in the ways of Microsoft, they say they’ll provide the software and Microsoft can use the money that would go to software to buy hardware for more schools than originally planned. Quoth Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik:

“While we applaud Microsoft for raising the idea of helping poorer schools as part of the penalty phase of their conviction for monopolistic practices, we do not think that the remedy should be a mechanism by which Microsoft can further extend its monopoly. Through this proposal all of the states and all of the schools can win, and Microsoft will achieve even greater success for its stated goal of helping schools. By providing schools with a software choice, Red Hat will enable Microsoft to provide many more computers to these schools. At the same time, the schools can accept this offer secure in the knowledge that they have not rewarded a monopolist by extending the monopoly. It’s now up to Microsoft to demonstrate that they are truly serious about helping our schools.”

One small benefit of the post-attack hysteria is that it provides certain politicians with the ideal platform for demonstrating how stupid and small-minded they really are. The latest victim of their own lack of intellect is Georgia Republican C. Saxby Chambliss, who advocated arresting every Muslim that crosses the Georgia state line.

Slate Explainer: Is President Bush’s Executive Order Creating Military Tribunals Legal?

It looks like Microsoft is going to settle some of the private class action lawsuits against it by giving some used computers and software to poor school districts. The software is “valued” at $900 million, but of course we know that the marginal cost of that software is 0 as far as Microsoft is concerned. The quandry that the people who brought the suits faced was that the amount of the settlement would not be greater than the cost of contacting all of the members of the class and distributing payments to them. The MSNBC story from the Wall Street Journal is the most detailed I’ve seen, Wired News also has a report. Th e hard numbers are in the WSJ story:

According to lawyers and others briefed on the deal, Microsoft would provide software valued at about $900 million over five years to schools where most students qualify for free federal lunch programs. Microsoft also would be responsible for making available 200,000 reconditioned computers and laptop computers during that period, $90 million in teacher training and $38 million in technical support. It would provide as much as $250 million to set up an independent foundation to meet project goals, and would seek an additional $200 million in matching funds.

The New York Times reports that women in Kabul attempted to hold a march demanding basic rights and a greater voice in the country’s future yesterday. They were denied permission to march by the Northern Alliance military police because they did not provide adequate notice of their intentions, so they’re rescheduling for next week. Even so, the thought of hundreds of women freed of their burqas massing in the streets for a march has to be taken as a hopeful sign. Some of the women are demanding that they be allowed a seat at the meeting to be held in Europe to discuss the country’s future government. They certainly deserve a seat at that table.

For the sake of completeness, here’s a link to part two of Salon’s series on oil and the Bush administration.