No More Excuses for Internet Fraud

The San Jose Mercury News also reported on this: "'If you had to take one area where we put the most investment in, the security area would be the head of that list by a significant amount,' [Gates] told about 3,000 engineers. That may be the most critical message Microsoft gives to the computing world, now under incessant siege from destructive viruses and other bugs, said Greg DeMichillie, senior analyst with Directions on Microsoft , an independent research organization."

Waving the Pink Flag

Bill Gates has a distinctly different issue to deal with at Microsoft, that of whether to support legislation in Washington State that would ban discrimination against gays and lesbians. The company created a furor when it decided to take a neutral stance on the legislation after supporting it in previous years, but Gates is reconsidering that decision after gay rights groups protested.

"The legislation was rejected by one vote in the state Senate last Thursday, prompting outrage toward Microsoft among advocates for the legislation. The reaction was fueled in part by a story in The Stranger alternative newspaper that suggested Microsoft had caved to pressure from a fundamentalist Christian pastor. Other papers followed up on the story, including The Seattle Times and The New York Times, which ran its story Friday on its front page," the Seattle Times reported . "Microsoft denied that it had been influenced by the pastor or anyone outside the company... 'Next time this one comes around, we'll see,' Gates said. 'We certainly have a lot of employees who sent us mail. Next time it comes around that'll be a major factor for us to take into consideration.'"

Today's Washington Post also covered the uproar.

Kids These Days

Parents anxious to get a read on how much booze and sex their kids are getting into on prom night need no longer extrapolate based on their own hazy memories. Now they can just rocket into the blogosphere to get the full download, the East Valley (Arizona) Tribune reports :

"[P]arents can go on the Internet, along with complete strangers, and view photographs of their children carousing early Sunday morning in a hotel suite following Hamilton High School's prom. One snapshot shows a girl holding a beer with the caption: 'Still rockin at 6 in the AM,' the paper reported. "A Scottsdale student reports on her blog that she did not have sex following Chaparral High School's prom on Saturday... Meanwhile, a student from Tempe's Corona del Sol High School returned from prom at 2 a.m. Sunday and reported on her blog: 'No alcohol was consumed tonight by me, and I'm still a virgin.' But her mother, apparently, was not impressed. A follow-up message Sunday begins, 'What I learned from my mom today: I am a horrible excuse for a human being.'

Mesa Unified School District webmaster Loyal Clarke told the paper that kids think the blogs are only available to people whom they want to see them, so it's a rude awakening when they discover that blogging stands in diametrical opposition to traditional teenaged obsessions such as privacy. Example: Sarah Hayden, 14, high-school freshman: "It would be just as if they were sneaking into our room and looking through a diary," she said, "because they would be doing it when they know that we don't want them to." The best part of the article, however, is saved for Chandler High freshman Nicole Yannacci, 15, who notes that parents wouldn't know how to find their blogs if they tried.

I Got Your Law and Order Right Here

Latest tale from the iPod crime files: The daughter of former "Law & Order" star and Woody Allen regular Dianne Wiest was arrested for beating up a classmate at her Upper West Side Manhattan school and stealing his iPod, the New York Post reported .

"Emily Wiest, 17, and two other teenage girls were arrested Friday afternoon for allegedly roughing up a male classmate from the Beekman School and stealing his digital music player, court papers say. Asked for comment, her actress mom said through the door of her Upper West Side apartment, 'I don't know what you're talking about,' and declined to say anything else," the Post said. " A law-enforcement source said Emily Wiest, Lara Zieden, 18, and Leah Rucinski, 15, had gotten into an argument with the 16-year-old boy inside the East 50th Street school early Friday -- and plotted to finish the fight that afternoon. That's when the three jumped the teen, whose name was being withheld, during a recess about a block away from the school, court papers say. All three 'punched and kicked' him 'about the body,' their criminal complaints say. The three beat the teen to the ground, where his iPod and sunglasses fell out -- and were then scooped up by his attackers, the source said."

The Daily News also carried the story.

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