Texas is such a large textbook market that many publishers write to the state's standards.

Well, there's the crux of the problem. Book publishers probably shouldn't write the science textbooks. Scientists should.

This is a great idea... If nothing else, it might help induce certain monopolies to become more competitive and re-focus on creating better software, rather than spending its resources trying to crush its opponents.

And, as much as I would resist the government getting involved in standards-making and enforcement, it wouldn't be out of line for them to exert themselves toward making sure certain monopolies don't subvert the existing independent standards-making bodies through bribery and infiltration.

Several people use my computer at home. Plus, I use computers at several different IP addresses, some of which are in turn used by other people. So how can any IP address, by itself, be biographical information about me in particular?

More importantly, how can an IP address be identified with me directly? If "my" IP address is used to download porn, how do they know whether I did it, or someone else at my computer did it? How do they know it wasn't some Russian Mafia's botnet that took over my computer and did it?

In Putin's defense, he was slapping down a marketing pitch. The linked article gets it wrong on a subtle but significant detail: Mr. Dell didn't ask "If" Dell could help, he asked "How" Dell could help.

Who can blame Putin for being offended by the implication that Russia needed Mr. Dell's help? So he let him have it with both barrels, much as any of us might react to an unwanted and annoying telemarketer, if they gave us a similarly arrogant pitch.

And by the way, shouldn't the lame jokes be changed to start with "In post-Soviet Russia"?