Friday, Jul 25, 2008
Dissecting the VA Linux IPO
BY MARK GIMEIN
(12/11/99)
I think there may be another story behind the scenes of the VA Linux IPO. One needs only to read the December '99 issue of Linux Magazine: "Can Linux Revive SGI?" The article argues that if VA's IPO were a success, CEO Larry Augustin might "just buy SGI outright." Other things to consider: VA and SGI engineers have been sharing technology and working on the Linux kernel along with Linus Torvalds; and the two companies collaborated on the Debian/GNU Linux for distribution worldwide. According to a source in the article, "the idea that a post-IPO VA Linux could acquire SGI is actually more than a remote possibility."
-- Ray Ferrari
Sharps & Flats: "Amplified"
BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG
(12/10/99)
You cannot call a hip-hop group a "band." (I got to that point in the review and just about stopped reading.) And to compare A Tribe Called Quest to Black Eyed Peas is bad hip-hop writing. Black Eyed Peas do have a live band backing them; they're MTV-backed new jacks, and there are a litany of other more meaningful groups that should have been mentioned instead -- Gang Starr for example. Your reviewer didn't even mention that Jay Dee produced the album. How can you write a hip-hop review without mentioning the producer? The whole album (minus two tracks) is Jay Dee's sound.
The mistakes are too bad, because Q-Tip came out with a great album -- against all odds, really.
-- Kenneth Kohlmyer
What the National Guard is doing for New Year's Eve
BY SAM STANTON AND GARY DELSOHN
(12/10/99)
Sam Stanton and Gary Delsohn apparently neglected to read the FBI's "Project Megiddo" report itself. Had they actually done so, they may have realized that Christian Identity is not a "group," as their article incorrectly stated, but rather a noxious White Supremacist theology. They might also have recognized that the report did not mention a "group" called "the New Americans, an offshoot of the John Birch Society," but rather referred to the New American magazine, which is an affiliated publication of the John Birch Society.
-- William Norman Grigg
The congressman from Columbine
BY JAKE TAPPER
(12/08/99)
Jake Tapper noted that "more than 470,000 people -- almost 75 percent of whom were convicted felons -- have been prevented from purchasing firearms" since the implementation of background checks.
The number is correct, but the logic jump is not. More accurately, 470,000 attempts at purchasing a firearm were stopped. It is likely that the individuals made other attempts elsewhere, whether at a gun show or from a black-market dealer. Both are loopholes, but the latter will sell firearms without bureaucratic difficulty regardless of what background checks exist.
-- James Moyer
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