As much as "computers are our most powerful tool", we have many arguably more powerful faculties built-in.
Most kids, or at least many kids, will neither enjoy nor benefit from coding, and only a tiny fraction will become proficient enough to not have to rely on others for critical, or even marginally important, systems.
The fact that we can all read and write doesn't mean that we can all entertain ourselves and others with our own novels!

We should rather be teaching more generalised skills, like logical thinking and clear expression of ideas. These can be taught with a bit of programming, but needn't and shouldn't be limited to it! And they are certainly important skills to have. I'd call them the two most important things programming teaches the layman.

A 19 year old aiming a DOS attack at a couple of websites is as much an act of war as if someone stood outside the airport or outside the stock exchange shouting that he really didn't like these institutions and maybe harrassing passers-by a bit.
Methinks Yoni Shemesh exaggerates. It's one thing for the NYT to publish that quote, but Slashdot submitters should know better than to take it seriously.

Your language seems pretty Democrat-biased to me, but I suppose that's par for the course around here. (Which isn't necessarily a judgement. I don't like the Republican party either).

The way I see it, you can sum-up the difference succinctly: Republicans place the personal over the social, while Democrats do the opposite. Most things follow from there. (Corporations, in this view, are indeed an extension of the individual). (The Republican emphasis on religion and "family values" is an enigma to me, I don't know where it comes from, and it seems perverse in terms of my model. It breaks a lot of things. Libertarians are what I think Republicans should be).

Thus, (in general) Republicans emphasise the individual's responsibility in getting an education and making money, while Democrats emphasise society's/the government's responsibility to support individuals in this.
Democrats insist that society must support itself through taxes on individuals, whereas Republicans insist that society leaves individuals (and corporations) alone, allowing them to support themselves.
Republicans demand that health and safety matters are left up to (presumably intelligent, responsible) individuals to take care of, while Democrats demand that society (/governement) protects individuals both from risks, whether posed by others (eg gun-control) and by themselves (eg environmental or food regulation). Republicans tend to be less concerned by social inequality, including racism, sexism, etc, whereas Democrats tend to be quite concerned by these, but less concerned about telling people how to think/speak/behave/raise kids (in terms of protecting the rights and freedoms of society (racism or sexism is more a social issue than an individual one).

And so on...

As I mentioned above, the way I see it, Republicans should be in favour of Gay Marriage and stuff like that. I can't say why they aren't, and perhaps my simplification is a little too simple. I see it more as an anomaly than as a theory-breaking flaw.
[If I were American, I would very happily vote for Gary Johnson.]

If we were wiped out, we would stop where we are, and something "fitter" would replace us. Right or wrong, "not stopping where we are" is not at all the same as being replaced.

Are you kidding? As an African (living in (South) Africa), I can't see how using Ubuntu helps Africans. I'm very proud of Mark Shuttleworth, and until recently I used Ubuntu for many years (I switched to openSuse last week). And unless you think Africa needs more 'exposure', I don't think that's useful.

From the bottom of TFA: "If Cox is found to have practiced engineering without a license, Ritter said, the likely action would be a letter telling him not to do it again."

There is a distro aimesd specifically at toddlers called Qimo. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks pretty cute, and if I were in a position to give a computer to a toddler, it's what I would go with.

Qimo for Kids is a Linux distro specifically aimed at that age-group. I haven't tried it myself, but it looks cute enough. (I think it must have been featured on /. a few months ago, or how would I know about it?)

Whoa! Sorry about that folks! It was my first slashdot message and apparently I haven't yet figured out how to format it properly (in terms of line breaks).