Advogato has a thread on Microsoft’s latest attack on Samba.
Salon has a good piece of reportage today on an ongoing controversy between members of a mailing list and a supplier of plants for aquariums. After members of the list complained about service from a company called “Pets Warehouse,” the owner of the business sued them for $15,000,001, and keeps amending his complaint to include more and more defendants in the suit. The big problem is that while his suit is trivial, the expenses of fighting it are not. Harrassment through lawsuits is a really big problem, but I’m not sure of any obvious solutions. One good solution is getting as much publicity as possible so that the person (or, more often, company) that brought the suit is shamed into giving up. Here’s a link to the story.
Howard Kurtz’s media column today talks about why President Bush has done an about-face on the conflict in the Middle East. There are plenty of people in favor of peace on both sides of that conflict that believe that a resolution can only be reached with America as the arbiter. That’s not really fair to the United States, it’s not like we asked to be in that position, but if it’s true that our involvement is required to squelch the conflict, then I think we’re obliged, out of basic decency, to help out.
So the advice columns in Salon and Slate both ran the same letter from one “Stuck in the Middle” who can’t find an appropriately weird girl to date. I wonder if that’s an advice columnist faux pas? Salon ran the letter back on February 19, and Slate managed to respond to Stuck’s letter yesterday. His question was not particularly interesting or thought provoking, and both advice columnists basically gave him the same advice. Keep watching Dear Abbie, maybe he’ll be showing up there soon.