Give the Poor Vonage and $99 Laptops

It has been a while since I wrote about the mythical 100 dollar laptop and the stupid One Laptop Per Child (olpc) plan to spend a billion dollars giving tinker-toy-like piece-o’-crap windup laptops to the world’s poorest people. I argued that a billion dollars would go much farther building infrastructure and sanitation systems. Hell, you could spend that money and transport the people to healthier environments where they don’t have to drink contaminated water or face rape gangs.

Now you can get a high quality laptop for under a 100 bucks, as long as you sign up for Vonage. From CNET here:

Notebooks dropping to $99 levels

Circuit City will try to best Wal-Mart and Staples in notebook pricing this holiday season with a Compaq notebook for $299 after rebates, or $99 with rebates and a 12-month subscription to Vonage, according to bargain hunting Web site Black Friday 2006.

To see all of my stories on this (which somehow became the most commented-upon story on the site) click here.