It's clear that they had other other criteria in the personnel decisions that put Boylan in his position, but couldn't they have found a partisan hack who wouldn't embarrassingly hatchet the mother-tongue. He's a public affairs officer, for Reagan's sake.

Col. Boylan (Boilin' Boylan!) takes the position that someone has stolen his identity and used it to misrepresent the holder of one of the most important military offices in Iraq.

Well, let's take him at his word. This is a serious crime. Since the headers of the email in question, when compared to the headers of emails Boylan confirms as authentic, suggest that the mail was sent from the server he regularly uses, this is more than garden-variety identity theft. Col. Boylan is telling us that an important military communications server has been breached.

To whom should this serious crime be reported?

I realize you may be trying, as a Mac evangelist, to make the clearest argument for Macs. A clear case may not include some of the slightly more difficult to explain arguments. Still, they should be discussed.

Here is an incomplete list:

1) Viruses, viruses, viruses. If you run mission critical applications on a PC, or even if you just hate to have problems with your personal computing experience, purchasing a PC implies a purchase or subscription commitment to a virus protector. I've been running Apple computers (as well as PCs) since before the introduction of the MacIntosh in 1984. I've never once suffered from a Mac virus and I've never spent a dime on Mac virus protection. Virus protection alone makes up for the difference in price, not to mention the hassle of keeping virus protection up to date.

2) The Mac increases productivity because is easier to use. That one must click on 'start' to shut down a PC is emblematic of how unintuitive the use of a PC is. Yes, there is a learning curve, a steep but very short learning curve for PC --> Mac switchers, but that temporary valley in productivity is more than made up for, often within weeks.

3) The Mac is easier to learn. Yes, it's true that for some people the PC is already learned, sort of, so this argument may not apply to everyone. However, many PC users report that though they were somewhat reluctant to make the jump at first, they never really understood how much one could do with a personal computer until they got to know their Mac.

4) The Mac decreases support costs. Even before you resell your computer, the Mac is cheaper to own. One of the paradoxes of IT in a corporate or educational environment is that the IT staff don't want to do their jobs too well. Easy and smooth desktop operations can reduce the need for IT. This, at least as much as inertia, is the reason that IT staff continue to push for PC use in larger networks. I'm writing a quick response to a brief article, so I'm not going to dig through google results to find convincing studies, but there are very convincing studies that this result (lower cost of ownership) is substantial and increases with the size of the network. If this is important to you, google something like 'mac vs PC cost of continuing support.'

5) The Mac is more efficient. It is regularly argued that the PC is more flexible because it runs more programs. Yes, more programs are written for the PC than for the Mac. However, most of us do the same few things with our computers. Most of us do very little more than browse the web, send and receive email, and handle some media files. These programs, as well as many others that are easy to use on the Mac and a challenge to even install on the PC, are more integrated with each other on the Mac.

Also, Mac applications are faster. I didn't believe this when Apple first made the claims, so I tested it myself. Apple advocates are famously evangelistic, so I wanted to see it for myself. Side-by-side I started web page loads on a $1000 Mac and a $1000 PC, using the installed software. Oddly, the Mac was much faster at completing the task of loading pages. Some pages saw a greater differential than others, but I didn't find a single site that loaded as quickly on a PC as it did on a Mac.

6) The Mac lasts longer. This is a plain and simple fact. The failure rate on Macs is lower than PCs. The average life-span is longer. The $100-$200 more one spends on a Mac is more than made up for the fact that the average PC user buys approximately four PCs for every three Macs that a Mac user purchases. This is even more remarkable when you consider that the average Mac user uses his computer more than the average PC user.

7) The Mac is now seamlessly interoperable. Not only are all common and nearly all uncommon personal computer needs now met with a Mac, but there is no longer a wall between the Mac universe and the PC universe. Actually, there never was a 'wall.' It's always been possible to move files from the Mac world to the PC world. Now information can flow both ways, with all PC files usable and savable in the Mac environment. It's easy.

The Mac is beautiful and the operating system is elegant. More than that, it just gets out of the way. You don't have to think much about your computer, you just do your work. And that's the real reason to own a Mac. It's easy.