Grave Consequences

Open-Source... or Freeware? You Decide! — Open-source?  Freeware?  Which is it? Some people frequently interchange the terms as a generic way to say that a piece of software costs nothing to download or use.  I mean, it's all free, right?Wrong!Open-source software has as much to do with freeware as an apple has to do with an orange.  Both are fruits, but each offers a different enough of a texture and flavor to render it completely unique from the other.  You cannot, and should not, confuse open-source software with freeware, as there can be grave consequences for such a fatal misstep.  Ok, so maybe not grave.  But... [Tags: apple, fruits, grave consequences, interchange, misstep]

Amb. Marc Ginsberg: Post (perverse) Pervez Pakistan — Rather than face impeachment, Pakistan's disgraced President Pervez Musharraf finally resigned. So ends (more or less) America's first post-9/11 bilateral era with Pakistan, and the scorecard is utterly mixed at best with ominous prospects for the second era under Pakistan's newly-elected democratic government. For nearly 9 years, Gen. Musharraf was our double-gaming, unreliable (and certainly undemocratic) "ally" in our enterprise to mop up what Rumsfeld- Franks & Co. failed with grave consequences to mop up inside Afghanistan and Pakistan after 9/11. Yes, we did at times obtain Musharraf's cooperation. Some of Al Qaeda's leading commanders are dead or in jail... [Tags: consolation, democratic government, democratic rule, face impeachment, false bravado]

I watched a four-way debate on Al Gore's speech on Larry King Live last night. Among the panelists, John Stossel struck me as smug. Don't take my word for it. Watch the video here. Anyway, one important solution that gets buried in these alternative energy debates is the idea of efficiency. "Modern society uses natural resources extremely inefficiently. What's wrong with that? For one thing, many resources are non-renewable — for all intents and purposes they aren't being made anymore — so it makes sense to use them sparingly so they last as long as possible. And as for renewable... [Tags: al gore, alternative energy, climate change, debates, disruptions]