WaPo Notices Important Fact: Murtha Has A Big Mouth

The fact of the matter is that John Murtha, unindicted Abscam co-conspirator, is an inept politician with a big mouth. He sank his own big plan to screw the troops by opening his big mouth and telling everyone in the world what his real agenda is. And the Washington Post reports just that today. Murtha shot himself in the foot, just like a REMF.

The plan was bold: By tying President Bush's $100 billion war request to strict standards of troop safety and readiness, Democrats believed they could grab hold of Iraq war policy while forcing Republicans to defend sending troops into battle without the necessary training or equipment.

But a botched launch by the plan's author, Rep. John P. Murtha (Pa.), has united Republicans and divided Democrats, sending the latter back to the drawing board just a week before scheduled legislative action, a score of House Democratic lawmakers said last week.

"If this is going to be legislation that's crafted in such a way that holds back resources from our troops, that is a non-starter, an absolute non-starter," declared Rep. Jim Matheson (Utah), a leader of the conservative Blue Dog Democrats.

Murtha's credentials as a Marine combat veteran, a critic of the war and close ally of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) were supposed to make him an unassailable spokesman for Democratic war policy. Instead, he has become a lightning rod for criticism from Republicans and members of his own party.

Freshman Rep. Joe Sestak (D-Pa.), a retired Navy admiral who was propelled into politics by the Iraq war, said Murtha could still salvage elements of his strategy, but Sestak, an outspoken war opponent, is "a bit wary" of a proposal that would influence military operations.

He succeeded only in splitting his own party. Murtha's need for adulation from the left fringe undid his entire scheme. Because every, single voter will know exactly what really drives his plot. And it is not concern for the troops. I would completely disagree with the Post on one point: the plan was not "bold". The Murtha "Kill as many troops as it takes" plan was - and is - an act of cowardice. It is an attempt to avoid responsibility for the failure of the war while ensuring the war fails.

Smoke Gets In Your Eyes

All of a sudden, the news is plastered everywhere that the US is planning for an attack on Iran. The Times of London has a breathless report that several unnamed pentagon generals "will quit" if the US attacks Iran.

SOME of America’s most senior military commanders are prepared to resign if the White House orders a military strike against Iran, according to highly placed defence and intelligence sources.

Tension in the Gulf region has raised fears that an attack on Iran is becoming increasingly likely before President George Bush leaves office. The Sunday Times has learnt that up to five generals and admirals are willing to resign rather than approve what they consider would be a reckless attack.

“There are four or five generals and admirals we know of who would resign if Bush ordered an attack on Iran,” a source with close ties to British intelligence said. “There is simply no stomach for it in the Pentagon, and a lot of people question whether such an attack would be effective or even possible.”

A British defence source confirmed that there were deep misgivings inside the Pentagon about a military strike. “All the generals are perfectly clear that they don’t have the military capacity to take Iran on in any meaningful fashion. Nobody wants to do it and it would be a matter of conscience for them.

Seymour Hersh is recycling his dire predictions - first made last year - that the war planning is ongoing. He calls it a "Redirection" of US policy.

In the past few months, as the situation in Iraq has deteriorated, the Bush Administration, in both its public diplomacy and its covert operations, has significantly shifted its Middle East strategy. The “redirection,” as some inside the White House have called the new strategy, has brought the United States closer to an open confrontation with Iran and, in parts of the region, propelled it into a widening sectarian conflict between Shiite and Sunni Muslims.

To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.

And I smell smoke here.

There is a concerted effort going on to make the public anxious that the administration plans an attack on Iran even though the administration is very openly saying they have no intentions of doing so. Military planning is an ongoing thing and means nothing in and of itself. There is probably a file cabinet in the Pentagon that has a plan for military action against Lichtenstein, for Pete's sake. I doubt the US will attack Iran, Bush would not have the political support necessary for such a move. He knows it - so do the political enemies of the administration. But if they can scare up enough public sentiment, they think there will be some political advantage. So the smoke machines are in full operation.

Mob Rules

Yesterday, I posted about an op-ed by Cass Sunstein from the Washington Post. He pointed to the great potential of the wiki-type projects to solve problems in the world. He breifly mentioned some dangers as well. Here's an essay that point to even greater potential damage the digital collectivism mentality can lead to. Hint - the title says it all: Digital Maoism.

(JARON LANIER:) My Wikipedia entry identifies me (at least this week) as a film director. It is true I made one experimental short film about a decade and a half ago. The concept was awful: I tried to imagine what Maya Deren would have done with morphing. It was shown once at a film festival and was never distributed and I would be most comfortable if no one ever sees it again.

In the real world it is easy to not direct films. I have attempted to retire from directing films in the alternative universe that is the Wikipedia a number of times, but somebody always overrules me. Every time my Wikipedia entry is corrected, within a day I'm turned into a film director again. I can think of no more suitable punishment than making these determined Wikipedia goblins actually watch my one small old movie.

Twice in the past several weeks, reporters have asked me about my filmmaking career. The fantasies of the goblins have entered that portion of the world that is attempting to remain real. I know I've gotten off easy. The errors in my Wikipedia bio have been (at least prior to the publication of this article) charming and even flattering.

Reading a Wikipedia entry is like reading the bible closely. There are faint traces of the voices of various anonymous authors and editors, though it is impossible to be sure. In my particular case, it appears that the goblins are probably members or descendants of the rather sweet old Mondo 2000 culture linking psychedelic experimentation with computers. They seem to place great importance on relating my ideas to those of the psychedelic luminaries of old (and in ways that I happen to find sloppy and incorrect.) Edits deviating from this set of odd ideas that are important to this one particular small subculture are immediately removed. This makes sense. Who else would volunteer to pay that much attention and do all that work? ……..

……

The collective rises around us in multifarious ways. What afflicts big institutions also afflicts pop culture. For instance, it has become notoriously difficult to introduce a new pop star in the music business. Even the most successful entrants have hardly ever made it past the first album in the last decade or so. The exception is American Idol. As with the Wikipedia, there's nothing wrong with it. The problem is its centrality.

More people appear to vote in this pop competition than in presidential elections, and one reason for this is the instant convenience of information technology. The collective can vote by phone or by texting, and some vote more than once. The collective is flattered and it responds. The winners are likable, almost by definition.

But John Lennon wouldn't have won. He wouldn't have made it to the finals. Or if he had, he would have ended up a different sort of person and artist. The same could be said about Jimi Hendrix, Elvis, Joni Mitchell, Duke Ellington, David Byrne, Grandmaster Flash, Bob Dylan (please!), and almost anyone else who has been vastly influential in creating pop music.

It is rather long, but it is worth the read. The hive mind collectivism that is popping up in various locations on the web is actually rather scary. Don't believe it? Write a blog entry that gets noticed by the artist formerly known as the Daou Report. When the swarm arrives, the spam filters go into meltdown.

UPDATE: Sorry, should have hat-tipped to Little Green Footballs for the link. Also head over there to see examples of hive mentality in action at Digg.

Guilt By Associated Press

It used to be called guilt by association, but the AP appears to have taken sole ownership of the term with this "story". Apparently, it is a matter of grave concern and much interest to the AP that Mitt Romney's great, great, great, great, great grandmother once owned a cat. Or something equally ridiculous.

SALT LAKE CITY - While Mitt Romney condemns polygamy and its prior practice by his Mormon church, the Republican presidential candidate's great-grandfather had five wives and at least one of his great-great grandfathers had 12.

Polygamy was not just a historical footnote, but a prominent element in the family tree of the former Massachusetts governor now seeking to become the first Mormon president.

Romney's great-grandfather, Miles Park Romney, married his fifth wife in 1897. That was more than six years after Mormon leaders banned polygamy and more than three decades after a federal law barred the practice.

Romney's great-grandmother, Hannah Hood Hill, was the daughter of polygamists. She wrote vividly in her autobiography about how she "used to walk the floor and shed tears of sorrow" over her own husband's multiple marriages.

This is exactly like the media reports about Arnold Schwarzenegger when he first ran for governor of California. They went something like, "Arnold Schwarzenegger, who, like Adolph Hitler, is originally from Austria." This is nothing but a media attempt at guilt by association. No matter how hard I try, I can't convince my great, great grandfather to change a thing about himself or how he lived his life. Because he's dead. I'm willing to be anyone reading this has the same limited amount of influence over - or responsibility for - something their ancestors did. This is pretty sleazy.

The Pompitous Of Space

Some people call me the space cowboy,yeah Some call me the gangster of love
Some people call me Maurice
Cause I speak of the pompitus of love People talk about me, baby
Say I'm doin' you wrong, doin' you wrong
Well, don't you worry baby
Don't worry Cause I'm right here, right here, right here, right here at home
(Steve Miller, The Joker)

Time has a long article out on the new space entrepreneurs trying to get commercial space flight opened up for the masses. It spends too much time on Richard Branson, but other than that it's quite good.

While Branson was hitting the beach with future passengers, his competitors– smart, rich and innovative like him–were busily at work plotting to beat him into space. Amazon founder Jeff Bezos just tested his first prototype for personal space travel in West Texas. John Carmack, co-creator of the Doom and Quake games, is test-firing rockets for the next generation of spaceliners and lunar landers near Dallas. In California, Jim Benson, founder of Compusearch, is developing a space taxi with a motor that runs on rubber and laughing gas. (Don't laugh. It works.) PayPal co-founder Elon Musk, who has a NASA contract to build a robotic Pony Express to the International Space Station (ISS), is pouring his own millions into a ship for galactic travelers at his factory south of Los Angeles. Robert Bigelow, founder of Budget Suites of America, already has a small-scale, inflatable space station–hotel in orbit, an outgrowth of his curiosity about UFOs. New Mexico wants to become the Cape Canaveral of space tourism, but six other proposed spaceports across the country are vying for business too. There's even an Orbital Outfitters store to provide space suits for civilians–whether portly or petite.

Ever since Alan Shepard became the first American in space in 1961, NASA has controlled our mission in space. It became a sacred place, untouchable, a museum open only to select government employees. Fewer than 500 people have reached space since Shepard; Branson plans to double that number in Galactic's first year. NASA's idea of progress is to return to the moon, nearly a half-century later. Last year the agency spent nearly $5 billion sending highly trained astronauts to the ISS, largely to ferry supplies and fix the AC and other sputtering plumbing. The new generation of entrepreneurs is betting it can do what NASA does–only better and cheaper, with cushier seats and cool views for paying customers.

Far from fighting these space invaders, NASA is pushing such ideas as FedEx–like service to lunar outposts, private fueling stations in orbit and space tourism. "We're entering a renaissance period of space exploration," NASA administrator Michael Griffin said in January. Like the Renaissance, he said, wealthy entrepreneurs will–in fact, must–take the lead in commercializing technology.

The future of space travel is in private ownership, not under government control. The real problems I see down the road will be when the inevitable accident happens and the trial lawyers see a new cash cow to milk.

Mutants Masticate Malaysian Military Masonry

The Animal Uprising™ has chosen the nation of Malaysia as the testing area for its most evil strategy to date. They have unleashed their genetically engineered mutant concrete chewing masonry termites on the Malaysian military!

Many of the Southeast Asian country's 80 army bases are believed to be plagued by the pests, forcing authorities to assign special officers to tackle the problem, newspapers reported Saturday.

"There are several problems with our camps, like old age and wear and tear. But the biggest problem are the termites," the New Straits Times quoted Deputy Defense Minister Zainal Abidin Zin as saying while visiting a naval base Friday in eastern Malaysia.

"These termites are like guerrillas inflicting damage on our facilities," Zainal was quoted as saying by The Star. "There are more termites than members of the force."

Officials have "found the termites not only attacking the wood but also the concrete sections of buildings," the minister said, according to The Star.

Note the first official acknowledgment of the guerrilla warfare the Animal Uprising™ is waging, too! It is about time governments started taking seriously the calm, rational warnings we here at the Crabitat are famous for. Now we don't want to raise any undue hysteria here, but think of how much damage concrete crunching termites could do in the world.

McConnell Vows A Fight

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell has promised a procedural fight in the attempt by some Democrats to "unring the bell" in Iraq. He's forcing a showdown with Harry Reid over the support of the troops and he is picking his battles very carefully.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) warned yesterday that a new Democratic effort to repeal the 2002 Iraq war resolution would meet the same fate as two previous efforts to limit President Bush's authority: blocked by procedural obstacles, unless Democrats relent to GOP terms.

Speaking to reporters by conference call from his Louisville home, McConnell compared the latest Democratic move to "trying to unring a bell." He warned that Lt. Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. military commander in Iraq, would "have to surround himself with lawyers" to comply with the new resolution that senior Democrats are drafting.

McConnell predicted he could muster Republican support to block the measure, unless Majority Leader Harry M. Reid (D-Nev.) allows a vote on a nonbinding GOP measure to guarantee troop funding.

A showdown over both measures could come as early as next week. Reid has signaled that Iraq-related amendments may be offered to an upcoming homeland security bill. "It's a bit of a cat-and-mouse game," a senior Democratic Senate aide said.

It is important to continue to point out just how bone-stupid these political machinations are for the Democrats. If they succeed in this, they will have set a precedent that WILL come back to bite a Democrat in the White House someday. They will also pay a serious price by virtually destroying voter confidence in their national security credentials. These are craven attempts to force a defeat on America while blatantly trying to avoid responsibility for that loss. It won't work. Voters are not as stupid as the politicians seem to think at times.

It’s A Wiki, Wiki, Wiki World

Cass Sunstein of the University of Chicago has an op-ed in the Washington Post describing the rise of Wikipedia and projects that use the same open collaboration. He argues that many problems in the future may stand a better chance of being solved by open, non-copyrighted collaborative projects resembling the Wiki approach.

The Central Intelligence Agency disclosed the existence of its top-secret Intellipedia project, based on Wikipedia software (and now containing more than 28,000 pages), in late October. The agency hopes to use dispersed information to reduce the risk of intelligence failures. NASA officials have adopted a wiki site to program NASA software, allowing many participants to make improvements.

In the private domain, businesses are adopting wikis to compile information about products, profits and new developments. The Autism Wiki, produced mostly by adults with autism and Asperger's syndrome, contains material on autism and related conditions. Wikileaks.org, founded by dissidents in China and other nations, plans to post secret government documents and to protect them from censorship with coded software.

But wikis are merely one way to assemble dispersed knowledge. The number of prediction markets has also climbed over the past decade. These markets aggregate information by inviting people to "bet" on future events — the outcome of elections, changes in gross domestic product, the likelihood of a natural disaster or an outbreak of avian flu.

In general, the results have proved stunningly accurate. For elections, market forecasts have consistently outperformed experts and even public opinion polls. (If you want to learn who is likely to win the Oscars, check out the Hollywood Stock Exchange at http://www.hsx.com.) Many companies, such as Google, Eli Lilly and Microsoft, have created internal prediction markets for product launches, office openings, sales levels and more. At Google, which has disclosed some of its data, the aggregation of dispersed information has yielded remarkably reliable forecasts.

Interest in open-source software — software whose "code" is available to users, so that they can improve it as they see fit — has also risen dramatically. But the idea of open source is not limited to software.

He also points out the obvious problem: open projects are easily vandalized or manipulated,as Wikipedia entries have been in the past. But there are many open source, collaborative projects going on already that have serious potential to do some real good in the world. Interesting times we live in.

Formerly Red Herring

The former Soviet-conquered territory of Estonia has decided to name the herring as their national fish. We here at Blue Crab Boulevard were not particularly fond of kippers when we tried them. But the folks in the Baltic regions have been inflicting them on the world for years.

The humble Baltic herring was chosen over the pike in a government-sponsored contest to find a fish suitable to join the blue, black and white flag, the blue cornflower, limestone, and chimney swallow as national symbols.

"We decided to award the title to the Baltic herring, as it is the fish that has provided a lot of traditional fare to people here," Valdur Noormae, director of the Estonian Fishery Association, said in a statement.

We have absolutely no idea whatsoever why this story made the news wires. But it does give us a chance to comment on the real reason our grandparents immigrated from Norway when they had a chance. We had a chance to eat at the Norwegian restaurant at Epcot Center a few years back. The buffet essentially consisted of various fish prepared in various ways including a lot of variations on herring. We were very pleased that they had real Norwegian aquavit in copious amounts. It helped. A lot. Sadly, the kids were too young to drink. They may forgive me in a few decades.

A Message For Muggers

A 70-year old cruise ship passenger was taking in the sights at Limon, Costa Rica. Pretty typical day trip from one of the cruises, right? Well, a mugger made it a very unusual trip. Wearing a mask the 20-year old street tough, who was well known as a bad actor by the police, tried to hold up a van load of cruise passengers.

And the 70-year old military veteran killed him.

The assault occurred during a ship stopover Wednesday in Limon, 80 miles east of San Jose, Costa Rica's capital.

Adams was with 12 American tourists who hired a driver to explore Costa Rica for a few hours. They were climbing out of the van to visit a Caribbean beach when three masked men ran toward them, she said. One held a gun to her head, while the other two pulled out knives.

Suddenly, one of the tourists, a U.S. military veteran trained in self defense, jumped out of the van and put the gunman in a headlock, according to Limon police chief Luis Hernandez.

Hernandez said the American, whom he refused to identify, struggled with the robber, breaking his collarbone and eventually killing him. Police identified the dead man as Warner Segura, 20. The other two assailants fled.

Afterward, the tourists drove Segura to a hospital, where he was declared dead. Sergio Lopez, a Red Cross auxiliary, examined Segura's body and said he died from asphyxiation.

I know the criminal died in this instance, but I love stories like this. Just like the 70-year old retired British SAS soldier who kicked four attacker's butts in Germany. Thugs who prey on the elderly thinking they make easy targets need more warnings like this. But notice that the passengers also tried to save the mugger's life. Americans are funny that way.

New York City Beaver Hunting Intensifies

We reported on the (completely serious, mind you) report of beaver not being spotted on Long Island. That's right, they wrote articles on not seeing any beavers waddling about. But there is, it turns out, a perfectly logical reason why they did not spot the beaver in Hampton.

It had moved to the Bronx.

Biologists videotaped a beaver swimming up the Bronx River on Wednesday. Its twig-and-mud lodge had been spotted earlier on the river bank, but the tape confirmed the presence of the animal itself.

"It had to happen because beaver populations are expanding, and their habitats are shrinking," said Dietland Muller-Schwarze, a beaver expert at the State University of New York College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse. "We're probably going to see more of them in the future."

Beavers gnawed out a prominent place in the city's early days as a European settlement, attracting fur traders to a nascent Manhattan. The animal appears in the city seal to symbolize a Dutch trading company that factored in the city's colonial beginnings, according to the city's Web site.

It's possible that the animal's cloak of invisibility was on the fritz that day, too. (Just for the record, there is no relation to this post and Britney Spear's Beaver entering rehab).

Animal Uprisingâ„¢ Orders Takeout!

The animal overlords of the Animal Uprising™ appear to have had a yen for some nice takeout chicken. So they sent their loyal minions to get some. This backfired on them when they got a little too much publicity, however.

The rats were caught on video.

NEW YORK - A dozen rats were caught on video scurrying around the floor of a New York City KFC/Taco Bell restaurant early Friday, running between counters and tables and climbing on children's high chairs.

News crews flocked to the windows of the Greenwich Village neighborhood restaurant, which hadn't opened for the day. By midmorning, the footage was all over the Internet and television news shows, with onlookers giving a play-by-play from the sidewalk as the rodents moved about.

"He's coming for his close-up," one bystander said as a rat came near the window.

A statement issued Friday for KFC/Taco Bell said construction in the building's basement on Thursday "temporarily escalated the situation."

The franchise owner "is actively addressing this issue," the statement said, adding that the restaurant will remain closed until the problem is "completely resolved."

"Nothing is more important to us than the health and safety of our customers. This is completely unacceptable and is an absolute violation of our high standard," it said.

I can understand why a fast food establishment would not actually want an endorsement by the Animal Uprising™. But they are being discriminatory, aren't they? After all, it is in Greenwich Village. CBS local coverage here complete with hot and cold running rats on video. The Health Department has formally ordered the restaurant be closed until it passes an inspection.

Vilsack Dropping Out

Iowa Democrat Tom Vilsack is reportedly dropping out of the nomination hunt for 2008. Considering the two 800 pound donkeys in the race, he's better off not wasting his time or the voters. (Put in the names of whomever you want in that donkey statement!)

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Democrat Tom Vilsack is abandoning his bid for the presidency after struggling against better-known, better-financed rivals, a senior campaign official told The Associated Press on Friday.

Vilsack left office in January and traveled through states holding early tests of strength. He had faced a tough challenge from rivals such as New York Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, Illinois Sen. Barack Obama and John Edwards, who have had more success raising money and attracting attention — even in Vilsack's home state of Iowa.

Vilsack was scheduled to make a formal announcement later in the day. The official spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity to avoid pre-empting the Democrat's statement.

Vilsack was the first Democrat to formally enter the 2008 race when he announced his candidacy in November. He conceded at the time that he faced a difficult race.

Frankly, he could not have gotten much attention from the power donors in the party. Expect a lot more early dropouts in the near future. I'm betting Biden next.

See?

Some people seem to think that our calm, reasonable warnings about the Animal Uprising™ are meant to be humorous. Others take out restraining orders and make us stop calling them. (We suspect they have gone over to the animals.) We now get fairly regular visits from that nice man from the health department as well offering us stylish, long sleeved white sport coats. (We decline, though, one just doesn't wear white after Labor Day). But now you'll all have to take us seriously! Because the major media is reporting on the Animal Uprising at last!

Spear-wielding, super chimps stabbing things gets their attention!

Chimpanzees living in the West African savannah have been observed fashioning deadly spears from sticks and using the tools to hunt small mammals — the first routine production of deadly weapons ever observed in animals other than humans.

The multistep spearmaking practice, documented by researchers in Senegal who spent years gaining the chimpanzees' trust, adds credence to the idea that human forebears fashioned similar tools millions of years ago.

The landmark observation also supports the long-debated proposition that females — the main makers and users of spears among the Senegalese chimps — tend to be the innovators and creative problem solvers in primate culture.

Using their hands and teeth, the chimpanzees were repeatedly seen tearing the side branches off long, straight sticks, peeling back the bark and sharpening one end. Then, grasping the weapons in a "power grip," they jabbed them into tree-branch hollows where bush babies — small, monkeylike mammals — sleep during the day.

In one case, after repeated stabs, a chimpanzee removed the injured or dead animal and ate it, the researchers reported in yesterday's online issue of the journal Current Biology.

"It was really alarming how forceful it was," said lead researcher Jill D. Pruetz of Iowa State University, adding that it reminded her of the murderous shower scene in the Alfred Hitchcock movie "Psycho." "It was kind of scary."

(A remake of Psycho using an all chimp cast would be brilliant.) So there you have it - validation for all the information we have been bringing to our faithful readership for all this time.

Dell Linux?

Dell Computers new blog is tabulating votes for the most popular changes to Dell products. The leader? Put Linux operating systems on Dell machines instead of Windows. The management of Dell is seriously considering that as well as several other suggestions.

The idea appeared Friday on a company-hosted blog called Dell Idea Storm. CEO Michael Dell unveiled the blog Feb. 16 as part of his effort to reinvigorate the struggling company. Dell said he hoped to use the blog to collect users' feedback and improve customer service.

Since then, company executives and department heads have been monitoring the site, paying closest attention to the ideas winning the most votes, Dell spokeswoman Caroline Dietz said.

Most Popular

The most popular threads yesterday included demands for Linux-based laptops, consumer PCs that are not pre-loaded with unsolicited applications, and requests for Sun Microsystems' OpenOffice applications instead of Microsoft's Office suite. Popular requests also included a preference for Mozilla's Firefox Web browser instead of Microsoft's Internet Explorer, and pleas for Dell to stop routing service calls to operators in overseas countries such as India.

Dell leaders have heard those ideas "loud and clear," and plan to post a statement on the blog this week explaining how they will react, Dietz said. But she warned that the company would judge ideas on more than just their popularity.

"Just because an idea is number one or number two doesn't necessarily mean Dell will do it, but it does mean it will receive the highest level of attention," she said.

I can say from personal experience that the only computer in my house that runs Linux with no driver issues is a Dell laptop. So Dell computers must be a popular choice for users to retrofit with Linux. In the article, an analyst points out that there still are not enough seamless applications for Linux yet. But more seem to be popping up every day. It will be interesting to see how Dell reacts to the instant feedback of the blogosphere, too.

(Incidentally, my Dell laptop has OpenOffice installed. I actually have come to prefer it over Microsoft Office at this point. I also have Firefox on the system but usually use IE anyway - more habit than anything else.)