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Former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev has urged Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates to intercede in a computer piracy case against a Russian headteacher.

The plea came in an open letter published on Mr Gorbachev’s website.

Microsoft representatives in Russia brought the case against Alexander Ponosov, accused of running pirated software on school computers.

Russian President Vladimir Putin has also criticised the prosecution of Mr Ponosov, in Perm, east of Moscow.

Mr Gorbachev’s letter, on the website run by his charitable foundation, said “many people in Russia regard this scandalous case as trumped-up, launched on the initiative of Microsoft corporation to set a precedent”.

“We have great respect for the work of Microsoft’s programmers… and are in no way casting doubt on the principle of punishment for intellectual property violations.

“However, in this case we ask you to show mercy and withdraw your complaint against Alexander Ponosov,” the letter read.

Mr Gorbachev said that under Russian criminal law the teacher could face “imprisonment in Siberian camps”.

The Perm region lies in the Ural Mountains, between Moscow and Siberia.

Microsoft accuses the teacher of knowingly using pirated Windows software in the school and causing the company losses put at 266,000 roubles ($10,000; £5,000).

Mr Ponosov says he is innocent, that the software had been pre-installed and he did not know it was unlicensed when he obtained the computers.

At his news conference on 1 February, President Putin said investigators should “go after the distributors, not the users”.

“It’s ridiculous to just arrest a chap for using computers,” he said.

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On ABC’s This Week, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said it is unrealistic to expect the escalation strategy to change the situation in Iraq in “a few months�?:

MCCAIN: Took us a long time to get in the situation we’re in, and to say that — and somehow assume that in a few months, that things are going to get all better I think is not realistic.

Just 47 seconds later, McCain said we’ll know whether the escalation strategy is working “in a few months�?:

STEPHANOPOULOS: You say it’s all in. How long are you going to give it to work?

MCCAIN: I think in the case of the Iraqi government cooperating and doing what’s necessary, we can know fairly well in a few months.

Nothing new, of course. Here’s what McCain said on August 31, 2003:

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We do not have time to spare. If we do not meaningfully improve services and security in Iraq over the next few months, it may be too late.

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Two of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers had a support network in the United States that included agents of the Saudi government, and the Bush administration and FBI blocked a congressional investigation into that relationship, Senator Bob Graham wrote in a book to be released Tuesday.

The discovery of the financial backing of the two hijackers “would draw a direct line between the terrorists and the government of Saudi Arabia, and trigger an attempted coverup by the Bush administration,” the Florida Democrat wrote.

And in Graham’s book, “Intelligence Matters,” obtained by The Miami Herald yesterday, he makes clear that some details of that financial support from Saudi Arabia were in the 27 pages of the congressional inquiry’s final report that were blocked from release by the administration, despite the pleas of leaders of both parties on the House and Senate intelligence committees.

Graham also disclosed that General Tommy Franks told him on Feb. 19, 2002, four months after the invasion of Afghanistan, that many important resources — including the Predator drone aircraft crucial to the search for Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda leaders — were being shifted to prepare for a war against Iraq.

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In these pages, people of faith are invited to tell their stories of spirituality, morality and ethics. But these issues concern all citizens, so it might occur to some readers to ask how people who are not religious struggle with moral and ethical issues.

It is right to pose this question, if for no other reason than that many assume they know the answer: Nonreligious people are immoral (or amoral) and unethical; the only basis for morality is religious belief.

I do not believe in any supernatural being, and I do not subscribe to any religion, though this was not always the case. I was a born-again, spirit-filled Christian from youth. I grew up in an evangelical church. I attended a Bible college and married a good Christian girl. We ministered overseas and as church youth ministers. I earned a seminary degree, and a graduate degree in ancient languages, including Biblical Hebrew.

I remember exactly where I was nearly four years ago when, walking home from a day of study, I admitted to myself that I could not really know whether my religious beliefs corresponded with reality, or whether they were merely the product of human imagination. It was difficult to acknowledge that a naturalistic explanation for the universe was simpler and more plausible. I was sad to think there would come a day when my mind would cease to function, and I would sleep forever.

While I was in the midst of incredible disorientation and grief, there was another sensation — the feeling of freedom, curiosity and the sense of rising to a challenge. It was, I now see, very similar to the experience of growing up and leaving home. This sensation grew, and it soon overcame the initial sense of loss and despondency.

But that very day, I also began thinking about moral and ethical questions. What would change? What would stay the same? In a phrase, how would I now live? And how would I relate to my wife and two small children? The answers might surprise you.

The initial answer is that nothing changed. I did not suddenly lose interest in the well-being of my children, nor want to cheat on my wife. I did not become a “heathen,” with all the accompanying moral and ethical connotations.

The long-term answer is that I became a better human being. I found more compassion toward the billions of people I had never met. If the teeming masses of the world were no longer the concern of a supernatural being, then they just became mine.

In other words, there is growth. Why is it OK to stop believing in Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy as you get older, but the “god” fairy-tale — which is based on the exact same kind of argument by assertion — is somehow supposed to be sacrosanct?

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No commercial that appeared last night during Super Bowl XLI directly addressed Iraq, unlike a patriotic spot for Budweiser beer that ran during the game two years ago. But the ongoing war seemed to linger just below the surface of many of this year’s commercials.

More than a dozen spots celebrated violence in an exaggerated, cartoonlike vein that was intended to be humorous, but often came across as cruel or callous.

For instance, in a commercial for Bud Light beer, sold by Anheuser-Busch, one man beat the other at a game of rock, paper, scissors by throwing a rock at his opponent’s head.

In another Bud Light spot, face-slapping replaced fist-bumping as the cool way for people to show affection for one another. In a FedEx commercial, set on the moon, an astronaut was wiped out by a meteor. In a spot for Snickers candy, sold by Mars, two co-workers sought to prove their masculinity by tearing off patches of chest hair.

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The inventor of the “Electric Slide,” an iconic dance created in 1976, is fighting back against what he believes are copyright violations and, more importantly, examples of bad dancing.

Kyle Machulis, an engineer at San Francisco’s Linden Lab, said he received a Digital Millennium Copyright Act takedown notice about a video he had shot at a recent convention showing three people doing the Electric Slide.

“The creator of the Electric Slide claims to hold a copyright on the dance and is DMCAing every single video on YouTube” that references the dance, Machulis said. He’s also sent licensing demands to The Ellen DeGeneres Show, Machulis added.

Next up, the Funky Chicken, the moonwalk, and the Hustle?

Here is some footage from the Super Bowl…

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There are growing suspicions in Iraq that the official story of the battle outside Najaf between a messianic Iraqi cult and the Iraqi security forces supported by the US, in which 263 people were killed and 210 wounded, is a fabrication. The heavy casualties may be evidence of an unpremeditated massacre.

A picture is beginning to emerge of a clash between an Iraqi Shia tribe on a pilgrimage to Najaf and an Iraqi army checkpoint that led the US to intervene with devastating effect. The involvement of Ahmed al-Hassani (also known as Abu Kamar), who believed himself to be the coming Mahdi, or Messiah, appears to have been accidental.

The story emerging on independent Iraqi websites and in Arabic newspapers is entirely different from the government’s account of the battle with the so-called “Soldiers of Heaven”, planning a raid on Najaf to kill Shia religious leaders.

The cult denied it was involved in the fighting, saying it was a peaceful movement. The incident reportedly began when a procession of 200 pilgrims was on its way, on foot, to celebrate Ashura in Najaf. They came from the Hawatim tribe, which lives between Najaf and Diwaniyah to the south, and arrived in the Zarga area, one mile from Najaf at about 6am on Sunday. Heading the procession was the chief of the tribe, Hajj Sa’ad Sa’ad Nayif al-Hatemi, and his wife driving in their 1982 Super Toyota sedan because they could not walk. When they reached an Iraqi army checkpoint it opened fire, killing Mr Hatemi, his wife and his driver, Jabar Ridha al-Hatemi. The tribe, fully armed because they were travelling at night, then assaulted the checkpoint to avenge their fallen chief.