This is potentially very bad, if Adobe tries to make Macromedia products more Adobe-like. Adobe might “get” the print world, but Macromedia gets the Web, and I haven’t really seen any Adobe products that do as well for what I do. Of course, the other problem becomes readily apparent. If the companies’ competing products were already selling for high prices, what’s going to happen now?

Tom, Tom, Tom… Why do you protest so much? :)

…a Bono, Up and Back, the Gilligan cut… John Rogers at Kung Fu Monkey on what you say when there’s little new under the sun. :)

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist is speaking at a telecast organized by the Family Research Council. The event is set around the theme that using filibusters to block President Bush’s judicial nominees is acting against people of faith. It’s all “sick, dark and demented.” ;) Just to make it clear, I also find the equating of “people of faith” with “supports Bush’s nominees” to be offensive, but in a political, religious sort of way, not a “The culture war is starting!” sort of way. Are the folks speaking at this event wrong? Yep. Are they calling for a culture war against the judiciary? If they aren’t now, they have been. But can we act like this is shocking behavior, never before seen? ...

A column by David Folkenflik on what major news organizations really care about. …in an increasingly corporate world, media companies are acting more like companies than they are the champions of free speech and the public good. Link courtesy of Romenesko

Interesting analysis of the security considerations behind a small-group voting process, plus much more information than I’d ever heard about Papal elections. Update: I like this quote. “…when an election process is left to develop over the course of a couple thousand years, you end up with something surprisingly good.”

A meme that will hopefully go around pretty quickly, as I’m always curious about how folks run their sites. What plugins do you use on your blog and how do you rate them? I don’t know that I could rate them in importance, so I’ll go alphabetically: Backup Restore - I’ve got v1.5, but I can’t find where to download it right now. The important thing is, you get a one-click backup for your database and your files. Seems to work quite well. ...

A quote from Newt Gingrich about Tom Delay: “DeLay’s problem isn’t with the Democrats. DeLay’s problem is with the country.” :) Link courtesy of EdCone.com

The Charlotte Observer’s Mark Washburn got a byline in The New York Times, without even having to submit a story. :)

So Mitch Albom just made up significant portions of a column on Michigan State’s Final Four game, and now there’s a debate about whether he should be fired. Personally, although I don’t want to, I can’t help but think sports journalists have to meet lower standards of reporting than someone who is reporting “hard news.” After all, sports reporting has had a long history of colorful characters and colorful writing that didn’t always come close to the facts. ...