Jobs disses teachers' unions: Steve Jobs has stirred up another hornets' nest of controversy with his recent attack on teachers' unions, stating that the "unionization and lifetime employment of K-12 teachers" is "off-the-charts crazy." While we may not go as far as Wired News' Leander Kahney, who called Jobs's comments "absurd, he's-on-a-different-planet bullshit," we do believe that attacking the most underpaid, overworked, underappreciated members of the public school system isn't the answer to the complex problems facing America's admittedly deteriorating schools. Oddly enough, we find our opinions more in line with those of Bill Gates, who a year ago said that in the effort to reform our schools, "The key problem is political will." We also wonder, along with one blogger, whether Jobs's blame game will "alienate some of his adoring Mac fans." Maybe Steve and Bill will debate how to fix our schools when they appear together at the "D: All Things Digital" conference later this year.

The latest Leopard-release-date rumors: Today's rumor mill suggests that Leopard " will be released as early as the end of March," along with "new versions of iLife and iWork." Whether these rumors are true or not, one thing's for certain - that with the seeding to developers of Mac OS 10.4.9, Tiger's running out of version numbers. Incremental improvements to Tiger continue, however, such as today's release of Apple's WWAN Support Update 1.0 for mobile users of "broadband-lite" 3G wireless services such as HSDPA (high-speed downlink packet access) and EVDO (evolution-data optimized).

The latest DRM discussions: The current turmoil over DRM (digital rights management) shows no sign of abating, the latest development being that Germany's Germanically named Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Consumer Protection has released a "charter for consumer sovereignty in the digital world" that would, among other things, require Apple to remove DRM that prevents music purchased from the iTunes Store from being played on devices other than the iPod. Throwing another monkey wrench into the DRM debate is the fact that recording giant EMI, which was recently reported to be investigating whether is should dump DRM, is considering a takeover bid from fellow giant, Warner Music, which has made no mention of dropping DRM. Our thoughts on DRM can be summed up by one analyst's statement that "Everyone can live without DRM. Even the music industry."

Vista continues to stumble: Speaking of things Germanic, we can't help but feel a frisson of schadenfreude when we read that no less a Microsoft biggie as CEO Steve Ballmer admits that Vista isn't selling as well as hoped - although, of course, this Steve has a ready reason why: "piracy." Hmm, Mr. Ballmer ... might the actual reason have more to do with the fact that, as reported by one analyst, that "It simply doesn't work very well, unfortunately."

Adobe's Lightroom released: Today saw the release of Adobe Photoshop Lightroom - and already the good folks at Ars Technica have published a review of that Aperture competitor. Their verdict: It's a "great program" that's a "no-brainer for professional photographers." Our call: Aperture, of course, is not exactly chopped liver, but its high system requirements will tempt many a Mac user to check out Lightroom, instead.

Other product releases: Nikon announced eight new Coolpix cameras (including the way-cool S50) on, maybe not coincidentally, the 10th anniversary of the original Coolpix; Lexar released a super-fast 300x Compact Flash card; and Sonnet released a nifty under-your-desk cradle for your Mac Pro called the MacCuff Pro. Oh, and speaking of Mac Pros, earlier rumors about an upcoming Mac Pro redesign were joined today by rumblings that the new Mac Pro may be HD-ready.

In other news: The man behind the "Month of Apple Bugs" efforts claims that we Mac folks are too lax in our security concerns; Macinstruct show us all how easy it is to add the date to our Mac's menu-bar clock, Jason O'Grady's SuperDrive is destroyed by a faulty disc; Apple is involved in yet another patent dispute, this time over the iPhone's touch-screen display; one analyst is of the opinion that Apple should be worried about Sony's plans to offer movie and TV downloads for its Playstation 3; Mac|Life's associate publisher and marketing coordinator talk about the switch from MacAddict to Mac|Life; and finally, today's Chutzpah Award winner goes to the IBM ex-employee who is suing that company for $5 million. Why? Because he was fired for viewing porn on company time. His defense? That his "porn addiction" should be classified as a disability, protected under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Breathtaking.