For some unfathomable reason, Adobe Systems is pouring another half a megabuck into that bottomless hole in the Internet known as Salon.com.

No big mystery here. Between Salon and Adobe, there's synergy to be had. For all its faults as a business model, Salon is still a fairly well-recognized source of interesting and frequently updated reading material. Adobe's own business plan is heavily dependent upon establishing Acrobat Portable Document Format (PDF) as a universal electronic publishing and content distribution standard. So, it's in their interest that there should be a steady source of noteworthy content which can be distributed in PDF format.