According to Barr, "keeping third-party application writers happy, which helps the operating system sell, is more important than giving Microsoft's own applications an unfair advantage."

Critics of Microsoft, like myself, who are convinced that the company leveraged its monopoly over the operating system in illegal ways that essentially forced everyone to plug into Microsoft whether they wanted to or not, will be likely to take issue with Barr's contention that evangelism is more responsible for Microsoft's success than its sheer market power. But it's worth taking Barr's argument at face value, because it gives even more force to his observations about Linux and open-source software.

OK, so you're kidding yourself when you let yourself believe your partner is the funniest guy in the world. But you're kidding yourself even more if you believe that there are guys out there who are both funnier and who don't, say, screw up the crossword in ink, or insist on leaving for the airport three hours early. Both are illusions, but only the second one will lead you, inevitably, to lonely perusal of the personals in the New York Review of Books.

Yahoo! News - Reuters Photo

Taiwan's Central Bank issues a silver medallion commemorating the Year of the Horse in Taipei January 24,2002. One side of the medallion depicts the Chinese classical fiction "Journey to the West" (L) while the other shows a horse modelled on the brash tri-colour glaze pottery of the Tang dynasty. Each costs T$1,000 (US$28.5) REUTERS/Simon Kwong

Taiwanese politician keeps her clothes on for Playboy

"Taiwanese women are beautiful in our own way. We may not be tall, but we have smooth skin. We don't have freckles," said Yu, who weighs about 55 kg (120 lb) and stands 153 cm (five feet) tall.

CNN.com - Bush asks Daschle to limit Sept. 11 probes - January 29, 2002

He asked that only the House and Senate intelligence committees look into the potential breakdowns among federal agencies that could have allowed the terrorist attacks to occur, rather than a broader inquiry that some lawmakers have proposed, the sources said....

"The vice president expressed the concern that a review of what happened on September 11 would take resources and personnel away from the effort in the war on terrorism," Daschle told reporters.

CNN.com - Beijing blasts Bush on 'axis of evil'

In a hard-hitting commentary, the official Xinhua news agency said such an axis simply did not exist....

The commentary said there were suspicions whether the U.S. was "seeking to prepare public opinion for possible strikes against these hardened foes under the banner of anti-terrorism."

Meanwhile, Vice-Foreign Minister Wang Yi has appealed to the U.S. to give up "unilateralism" and to work through the United Nations in its campaign against terrorism.

Xinhua news agency on Sunday quoted Wang as saying in a security conference in Munich that the fight against terrorism should be "clearly targeted and that it should avoid hurting innocent people."

"We should boost mutual understanding and dialogue among different countries and peoples," he said, adding it was not proper to exacerbate the contradictions among civilizations.