Tuesday, May 22, 2007

Dell Ubuntu PCs available Thursday?

CNet yesterday:

Blogger Jeremy Garcia says on his blog that a Dell employee e-mailed him to say that the Ubuntu Linux OS will be available pre-installed on the E520 model desktop, XPS 410 gaming desktop, and 1505 model laptop, starting Thursday.

Garcia doesn’t name his source, and Dell is not talking. Spokesman Kent Cook said he could not confirm models, dates or availability of the forthcoming Ubuntu PCs. He did say that the release is still on track for the “end of the month.”

The world’s second-largest PC maker announced in early May that it had chosen the “Feisty Fawn” Ubuntu version of Linux to be pre-installed on a few of its PCs after polling its customers on its IdeaStorm blog.

Endgadget followed suit this morning, “it certainly gives Linux some cred with mainstream consumers who don’t know the difference between Beryl and that thing you shoot fish in.”

Said Dell’s John Hull, Manager of Linux OS Technologies, on Monday, “Before we announce the availability of Ubuntu 7.04 on select Dell client systems, I’d like to give an overview of what customers can expect from our initial Ubuntu offering...” Read on.

LATER: It’s Thursday. They’re available.

Still room for Justice. Genarlow Wilson deserves it.

Another AJC editorial calls for justice for Genarlow:

The Georgia Constitution bestows Attorney General Thurbert Baker with power and independence. He ought to use both to obtain justice for Genarlow Wilson, the young Douglasville man sentenced to 10 years in prison with no chance of parole for having consensual oral sex with a younger high school classmate at a 2003 New Year’s Eve party. [...]

Wilson’s behavior deserved reprimand, but not a decade behind bars, a sentence so severe that some jurors wept upon hearing it. The decision of the Douglas County district attorney to charge Wilson with aggravated child molestation represents prosecutorial overreach that ought to concern Baker.

A similar overreach occurred in the Duke lacrosse case, in which three players were accused of sexually assaulting a stripper at a party.

Last month, North Carolina Attorney General Roy Cooper overruled the local prosecutor and dropped all charges. “In the rush to condemn, a community and a state lost the ability to see clearly,” he ruled.

Unfortunately, Baker may duck the chance to bring clarity and justice to the Genarlow Wilson case. “Our office intends to uphold the presumptive valid sentence and conviction of Genarlow Wilson,” Baker spokesman Russ Willard said Monday.

While that doesn’t sound promising, some optimism can be teased out of the phrase “presumptive valid.” The qualifier suggests that Baker is open to the possibility that Wilson’s defense fell short and that there may be constitutional grounds to revisit the case.

Baker has proven a cautious man; he has a chance now to prove he’s also a just one.

Here are all of my Genarlow posts.

Gore gathers raves in latest media lap

Word is Apple is discontinuing the 17” iMac. Would that we could all have a set up like Gore’s (above via Time). Al was back talking sense - the media is strangling democracy - on GMA this morning; Think Progress has lowlights from yesterday’s interview. Radar remembers when Gore was a different kind of hot.

This particular media lap is occasioned by his new book, The Assault on Reason, out today. The NYTimes:

Much the way that the movie “An Inconvenient Truthâ€Â� showed a more accessible Al Gore - at ease with himself and passionate about the dangers of global warming - this book shows a fiery, throw-caution-to-the winds Al Gore, who, whether or not he runs for the White House again, has decided to lay it all on the line with a blistering assessment of the Bush administration and the state of public discourse in America at this “fateful juncture” in history.

Howard Kurtz says Gore’s getting hot:

Al Gore, non-candidate for president of the United States, is suddenly drawing such warm coverage that you wonder whether climate change is melting the hearts of journalists who once portrayed him as a cold fish.

E.J. Dione finds him free to be Al Gore:

Gore, to his credit, won’t talk about Florida, but I will. Whatever flaws he has, Gore suffered through an extreme injustice with great dignity. His revenge is to have been right about a lot of things: right about the power of the Internet, right about global warming and right about Iraq.

LATER: Media Matters points out that Kurtz failed to mention his own Gore turnabout.

Ann on Jerry

Ann Coulter:

Let me be the first to say: I ALWAYS agreed with the Rev. Falwell.

Actually, there was one small item I think Falwell got wrong regarding his statement after 9/11 that “the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians—who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle—the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, ‘You helped this happen.’”

First of all, I disagreed with that statement because Falwell neglected to specifically include Teddy Kennedy and “the Reverend” Barry Lynn.

For the record, I’m not “actively trying to make...an alternative lifestyle.” I’m actively trying to normalize a culturally accepted and naturally occurring part of the human condition.

Media Matters parses the Coulter column.

On Helprin and Shakespeare and copyright claims

In A Great Idea Lives Forever. Shouldn’t Its Copyright? Mark Helperin calls for perpetual copyright terms, “Congress is free to extend at will the term of copyright. It last did so in 1998, and should do so again, as far as it can throw.”

When folks wrote Lessig asking him to reply, he set up a wiki and asked, “Why don’t you write the reply instead?” A snippet:

Helprin does not present the total cost of infinite copyright. Instead he presents it solely from the point of view of the author’s benefit. However, were the idea of infinite copyright to be taken to its full conclusion, then authors would be paying the heirs of all the ancient Greek tragedies every time they created a derivation of Homer’s Odyssey. The works of William Shakespeare and Charles Dickens would require permission from someone’s distant heir… Helprin is best known for his novel “Winter’s Tale,” which is loosely based on a Shakespearean work by the same name. This raises the question as to whether Helprin intends to pay royalties to Shakespeare’s descendants.

Death by veganism

I never really thought it through:

WHEN Crown Shakur died of starvation, he was 6 weeks old and weighed 3.5 pounds. His vegan parents, who fed him mainly soy milk and apple juice, were convicted in Atlanta recently of murder, involuntary manslaughter and cruelty.

This particular calamity - at least the third such conviction of vegan parents in four years - may be largely due to ignorance. But it should prompt frank discussion about nutrition.

I was once a vegan. But well before I became pregnant, I concluded that a vegan pregnancy was irresponsible. You cannot create and nourish a robust baby merely on foods from plants.

How about soy?

Too often, vegans turn to soy, which actually inhibits growth and reduces absorption of protein and minerals. That’s why health officials in Britain, Canada and other countries express caution about soy for babies. (Not here, though - perhaps because our farm policy is so soy-friendly.)

Democrats lead in first quarter fundraising in Georgia

The Emerging Democratic Majority points to Sunday’s AJC where Tom Baxter writes that Georgia, like much of the South, has turned a pale shade of blue:

Democratic presidential candidates collected about 62 percent of the $1.6 million raised from Georgians in the first three months of 2007.

Democrats also led presidential fund-raising in Georgia in the same quarter leading up to the 2000 presidential election — the last race without an incumbent. But back then, their hold on the dollars wasn’t nearly as tight: Democrats led Republicans by just $36,000.

Now Democrats are leading Republicans by $382,000 - a gap more than 10 times greater - according to an Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis of first-quarter presidential contributions.

Obama leads, followed by Romney with Edwards coming in a close third.

One striking facet of the Democrat’s first-quarter resurgence in the South: It isn’t based on just one candidate.

In North Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana, Democrats held the overall advantage, and Edwards was the top fund-raiser. In Florida and Virginia, Democrats collected the most, with U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) as the overall leader. Democrats also took in more in Kentucky, with Obama in the lead.

Only four states in the region - South Carolina, Tennessee, Arkansas and Texas - gave more money overall to Republican presidential candidates. And in South Carolina, Edwards was the leading individual candidate.