• ...people have stopped wondering if the league will pull an XFL exit,

  "We now are treated like other leagues where we get the business questions about our attendance and about our [television] ratings and about our investors. It's no longer about will we be here tomorrow."

• ...new investors are about to come in,

  "The economy is improving and we think our structural changes are making us a more viable investment. We now have more investors looking at getting involved in the league than ever before, mostly in the form of expansion."

• ...two new teams will be in the leauge in 2005,

  "We've got many cities that have expressed interest. In Cleveland, the potential investor there is close to finalizing a deal to purchase property for a potential stadium. We've made progress in Houston. We've made lots of progress in Tulsa and Oklahoma City."

"IBM's endorsement of Linux has added credibility and an illusion of support and accountability," Ballmer said.

OK, so its caught up to windows which has had that illusion of support and accountability since circa 1990.\

Linux's weakness, however, was the lack of a central body investing in its development in areas such as engineering, manageability, compatibility and security, Ballmer said.

Ok, this is the whole one man's trash thing. Open Source advocates would argue that this is linux's biggest STRENGTH. Plus key subsystems- like the linux kernel - have a central body overseeing development.

First, the Windows Server 2003 generation of products offers stronger performance and value than Linux in most IT scenarios.

The biggest value that it can provide are the lower initial costs associated with staying on the Microsoft upgrade cycle compared to the cost of migrating systems and people to linux. So, if you're a Microsoft shop you'll stay one because its still cheaper to do so. Same goes if you are a Linux shop.\

Despite the best efforts of some soccer people to downplay expectations for the next Women's World Cup, Brandi Chastain says it will be better