I forsee myself in your shoes in the next few months. Application-level awareness of our key Microsoft applications (Exchange, MOSS, AD, etc..) are very high on our need list, and so SCOM is a natural best-of-breed pick. However, I *really* want a single integrated solution that also covers our unix/linux systems. Is unix/linux monitoring part of your requirements? If so, could you briefly describe the capabilities (and requirements on the monitored systems) that SCOM currently has in this regard?

I think the chances of this being bio-terrorism just clicked up a notch: According to this article:
The first case was seen in Mexico on April 13. The outbreak coincided with the President Barack Obama's trip to Mexico City on April 16. Obama was received at Mexico's anthropology museum in Mexico City by Felipe Solis, a distinguished archeologist who died the following day from symptoms similar to flu, Reforma newspaper reported. The newspaper didn't confirm if Solis had swine flu or not.

You are aware that we're talking $500k just for a high-school education, right? I guess the money is easy to spend^H^H^H^H^H waste when its not yours.

Now you know why the idea of vouchers generates such spitting hatred and loathing among the politicians most ideologically closest to the unions.

They will tell you that they're concerned about the children. They're not. They're concerned about the gravy train stopping. And their gravy train is much more important than educating your children.

You missed a crucially important point: Tax cuts have an immediate impact on the economy. Stimulus takes months or years to propagate into an economy.

That approach has two side-effects, both horrifying to Washington:
1. The money would be spent on the specific needs of each citizen, and not on the needs of Das Kapital.
2. Any mechanism of consolidation of power to Washington would be eliminated. When "the people" buy a badly needed refrigerator, who will be there to negotiate for another refrigerator for their state senator's vacation home in Florida?

Our schools are not foundering due to a lack of funding. They are foundering because a powerful public education cartel has driven school spending skyward, making the United States among the world's biggest education spenders, even as student achievement lags.

Then read this in-depth article on education costs run amok in New Jersey. It's fascinating (and not boring) reading. Unfortunately it will pop your misconcpetions about how well-spent our education dollar is. Maybe after reading this, you can give us a soundbite or two about how spending $500,000 per graduating high school student is good for the taxpayer.

http://www.city-journal.org/html/16_2_new_jersey.html

Where I live (Massachusetts) there has already been a wasteful construction boom in school construction. Cities and towns of modest means have spent hundreds of millions on school construction. It's government run amok. We don't need to federalize this problem.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2008/03/22/newtons_taj_mahal/
http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2005/03/31/state_plans_school_construction_probe/

Well, I don't know about where you live, but where I do we've already had a mess of wasteful school construction. Cities and towns of modest means have built these "Taj Mahal" schools, sometimes approaching $200 Million.

I don't have a problem with giving construction workers jobs as a stimulus, but let's not be arrogantly wasteful about how we spend the money. It's not JUST about providing short term jobs, it's about putting people to work for the long-term good.

How about fixing our bridges and infrastructure?