Here's a tip: When you steal something, don't post a picture of yourself on Facebook with the stolen item. Especially when that item is a 70-pound, fiberglass cow that's a local icon and has been the subject of news stories. “It's back home,” said Tracy Gagnon, owner of the antique, brown and white cow that was stolen April 27 from the front of the Paris Flea Market, 1815 N. Fourth St. The cow was recovered by police on a porch near Fourth Street and Coeur d'Alene Avenue on Wednesday morning. Police were tipped off by a caller, whose daughter saw photos of the suspect posing with the cow on his Facebook account. Detectives found the cow partially hidden under a blanket. Brandon M. Hiza, 23, Coeur d'Alene, was arrested for grand theft, a felony, and was being held without bond in Kootenai County jail. His first court appearance is scheduled today/Bill Buley, Coeur d'Alene Press. More here.

Question: Have you ever posted something on Facebook that you wished you hadn't?

Facebook is about “connecting and sharing” - especially now it can help you donate your internal organs, Mark Zuckerberg announced today. Describing it as “a life-saving initiative”, the tousle-haired CEO officially announced a special button for people wanting to tell their friends that they are organ donors. “Became a organ donor” has been added to the list of health-related life events that a Facebooker can add to their “Timeline” alongside “buying new glasses” and “weight loss”. Logging your philanthropic wishes for your internals has been made easier and will automatically sync to your permanent profile information making it easier for your friends to see/Anna Leach, The Register. More here. (AP/ABC photo: Robin Roberts, host of “Good Morning America,” right, talks to Mark Zuckerberg, the founder and CEO of Facebook, during an interview in Menlo Park, Calif.)

Question: Do you want to share your organs with Facebook Friends?

Marine Sgt. Gary Stein, who is facing dismissal for posting critical comments about President Obama on Facebook, accused the review board that recommended he be discharged of basing its decision on “personal opinion” Tuesday. “I believe it was more based on personal opinion on the three members than it was based on the legalities on the case. They denied four expert witnesses that were there to talk about the legalities. They didn't even want to hear or take written testimony from them,” said Stein on CNN's “Starting Point” Tuesday morning. … The three-member review board recommended last week that Stein receive an “other than honorable” discharge, which would include a loss of benefits and reduction in rank, for saying he would not follow orders he believed unlawful and for calling Obama a “domestic enemy” on his “Armed Forces Tea Party” Facebook page/Geneva Sands, The Hill. More here. (AP photo)

Question: Should Marine Sgt. Stein be booted from the Armed Services for posting critical remarks about President Barack Obama?

Has an employer or potential employer ever requested access to your Facebook account? If so, Facebook itself advises you to just say no. Responding to growing complaints from employees over the practice, Facebook made its own position quite clear in a post published today. Noting an increase in the number of such requests from employers, the social network said they undermine both the security and the privacy of the user and the user's friends. And the practice can put employers themselves at risk. Companies making such requests may not have the right policies or training in place to deal with private information, according to Facebook/CNET News. More here.

Question: Have you ever been asked by your boss or an authority figure to provide your password?

Studies have shown that Facebook can be a useful hiring tool. Just a 5- to 10-minute perusal of a user’s profile can net more information than a basic personality test. It’s no wonder employers head to the site to check out prospective hires. But one problem remains: Many users are now going private, cutting off their profiles from outside viewers. As a result, a new trend has emerged. Employers are reportedly now asking job applicants for Facebook passwords. Is this a good idea? Can you legally ask a job applicant for a Facebook password? Even though law professor Orin Kerr considers the practice to be “an egregious privacy violation,” it appears to be legal/Stephanie Rabiner, Reuters. More here. (AP file photo: A Kennewick teen reads her Facebook wall in the local library earlier this month)

Question: Would you provide your Facebook password to a prospective employer, if asked to do so?

Whether it's pruning friends lists, removing unwanted comments or restricting access to their profiles, Americans are getting more privacy-savvy on social networks, a new report found. The report released Friday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that people are managing their privacy settings and their online reputation more often than they did two years earlier. For example, 44 percent of respondents said in 2011 that they deleted comments from their profile on a social networking site. Only 36 percent said the same thing in 2009/Associated Press. More here.

Question: Do you allow angry comments to remain on your Facebook wall?

This frame grab taken from an undated video posted on YouTube Feb. 8 by Tommy Jordan of Albemarle, N.C. shows Jordan answering his teenage daughter's Facebook complaints by firing several rounds from his handgun into his daughter's laptop her computer as it lies on the ground. More than 26 million people have seen the video in which Jordan reads and replies to his daughter's rant before emptying his .45-caliber pistol into her laptop. AP story here. (AP Photo/YouTube Channel of Tommy Jordan)

• See video here

Question: Unless you've been living under a rock, you've seen this video. Did Tommy Jordan do the right thing by responding to his daughter via video & then shooting her laptop computer?

On the Huffington Post, Abby Tolchinsky writes: “As a divorce mediator and lawyer, sometimes I feel like I've heard it all. I am terribly hard to shock. And yet, yesterday something shocked me: a divorce announcement via email. What's more, it was both thoughtful and tasteful. The thrust of the email: We have been married a long time, we will always be friends and parent peacefully together. Please let me know if you notice anything when your child is with mine about which I should be concerned.” I suppose in retrospect, the initial shock wasn't warranted. After all, if social media has been a contributing component of so many enormous world shifts (see Arab Spring), then why not as a means of announcing the most intimate of life changes?

Question: Should you announce your divorce on Facebook?

Joe Heller/Hellertoons

There’s a vital message to the planet contained in the story headlined: “Man hardly fazed by nail in his brain.” And no, the vital message has nothing to do with any misplaced nail. Heck, X-ray all the bozos we elect year after year. I’m betting half of them at least have loose screws rattling around inside their cranial cavities. How else do you account for the ridiculous ways they waste our money? But getting back to our point …Dante Autullo, a 32-year-old Illinois man, was using a nail gun in his workshop when the device somehow went off on his noggin. … But as riveting as this not-so handyman’s ordeal is, here’s the real shocker. And I quote: “… he posted the X-ray on Facebook during his ambulance ride between hospitals for surgery.” My friends, the social media is a social disease/Doug Clark, SR. More here. (This photo provided by Christ Medical Center & Hope Children's Hospital in Oak Lawn,, Ill. on Friday, Jan. 20, 2012 shows an X-ray of a nail embedded in Dante Autullo's brain)

Question: Do any of your Facebook Friends go too far in sharing personal information?

Yesterday, Facebook rolled out its new Timeline feature to the masses. This ultra-illustrative, chronological listing of posts, photos, shared links, check-ins, and more is a radically different arrangement than the Facebook profile you’ve been used to. And now that your life can be exposed for everyone to see — and scrutinize — you may be interested in curating the new interface. Once you’ve activated Facebook Timeline (go here to do so), you’ve got seven days to tweak it to make sure it’s just how you like before it goes live for everyone to see\Christina Bonnington, Wired Gadget Lab. More here. (AP file photo for illustrative purposes)

Question: Do you consider the new timeline to be a bother or worth the effort?

On his Facebook wall, Marc Stewart issued this challenge to his 547 friends: “I am challenging all my Facebook friends to go out and spend $20 at Wal-Mart or your favorite grocery story to buy a Thanksgiving dinner for a family less fortunate than you. The Coeur d'Alene-based food bank, called the Community Action Partnership Food Bank is short 3,000 turkeys. This is unacceptable. I took my 5-year-old son shopping and to the food bank to show him the importance of giving. He said, 'Daddy, how come people don't have the many foods.'”

Question: Up to the challenge?

On his Facebook wall, David Townsend laments: “The shame of it! My own son has unfriended me. Says he is tired of my snarky remarks to his status updates. It's true a sage is never recognized by his own family.”

Question: Have you been unfriended on Facebook by a child? Did s/he give you a reason for the unfriending?

As the excessive force trial of Officer Karl Thompson enters its second week, many Spokane police officers have made his badge number their personal Facebook profile pictures as a show of support. Thompson is a mentor to many in the department and was drafted to run for police chief before Anne Kirkpatrick was appointed in 2006. His indictment on federal charges of lying to investigators and violating Otto Zehm's civil rights during the 2006 confrontation that led to Zehm's death has drawn the ire of many in the department, who have joined a Facebook group that says Thompson is “a media scapegoat, wrongly accused, and wrongly charged”/Meghann Cuniff, Sirens & Gavels. More here.

• You can follow Meghann's live Twitter of the Thompson trial today here.

Question: Should Spokane police be taking sides in this case?

Facebook.com founder Mark Zuckerberg smiles at Facebook headquarters in Palo Alto, Calif., in this 2007 AP file photo. Facebook, the social network, is tweaking the home pages of its 750 million users, much to the chagrin of some very vocal folks. The world's largest online social network is expected to announce even more changes on Thursday, when it holds its annual f8 conference in San Francisco for developers who create games and other applications for its site. (AP Photo/Paul Sakuma)
  

MikeK: Is it heresy to say I kinda don't care about the Facebook changes that seem to be angering everyone? It's a software product built on an eyeball advertising model that will either be interesting enough to sustain eyeballs or not. If not, something else will replace it. I spent about 13 minutes on Myspace 5 or 6 years ago and it wasn't for me. Google Plus hasn't connected for me either though I have been on it. I'm not that emotionally invested in any of them. The next billion dollar idea is waiting in the weeds somewhere to spring itself, and I'm intrigued at what that will be (hope it's mine).

Question: What do you make of all the recent Facebook changes?

I'm not sure who Amber Copeland is. But OrangeTV posted a link to her new Facebook page: “Amber Copeland for Coeur d'Alene City Council.” I appreciate her introduction to us on her site: “I am not a business owner. I am not on any commitees or a member of any organizations. I am not wealthy. I am not married or well connected. I am a single parent. I struggle to make ends meet. I want the best for my family and neighbors. I want the best for my community. I am a majority of the population. I am a representation of who the decisions made by city council affect. It is time for someone like me to be a part of those decisions. It is time to elect a citizen to city council who has been in the trenches, who knows what it is to drown. That is the kind of person who has learned what it takes to swim and I am that person.” She was born on Halloween, and she (hearts) Ayn Rand's “Fountainhead.” You can find much more info about her here. She's running for Seat No. 5 (now held by Councilman John Bruning).

Question: Can a City Council candidate effectively use social media in a campaign?

A Missouri teacher has sued the state over a new law that prevents teachers from contacting their students over the Internet, arguing that it will make it illegal for her to chat with her own child over Facebook.

 The law, which has been nicknamed the Facebook law, prohibits teachers from having exclusive communications with students over non-work Internet sites. Students are defined as anyone under 18 who attend or used to attend the school where the teacher works. Full story.

Do you think teachers should be allowed to contact students via facebook?

In case you missed it, the Sesame Street Workshop put an end to speculation about the sexual preferences of Bert and Ernie.

“Bert and Ernie are best friends. They were created to teach preschoolers that people can be good friends with those who are very different from themselves,” the public television program said in a statement.

“Even though they are identified as male characters and possess many human traits and characteristics (as most Sesame Street Muppets do), they remain puppets, and do not have a sexual orientation.”

The move came in response to a Facebook campaign launched by gay rights activist Lair Scott of the northern US state of Illinois asking that Bert and Ernie get married on the program to teach acceptance of gays and lesbians. More here.

D'oh! I'm all for acceptance and teachable moments, but gosh, can't we just let our preschoolers just be kids for awhile?

Detroit Dude: Not at all, Facebook is stupid. However, I do find the vanity of it all amusing. Whats better than seeing 500 pictures of the same person in different locales with different expressions on their face? Whats better than seeing random pictures of innate objects with “LOL” under it? And seriously, it doesn’t get any better than spouting off random thoughts for the expressed purpose of having other people read it and respond to it.

Question: Has Detroit Dude provide an accurate depiction of Facebook?

Doctors say what may seem fun and innocent may actually be leading teens into what's being termed “Facebook Depression.” If you're a teenager you're most likely on a social networking site like “Facebook.” For most it's a fun, easy way to keep in touch and find out what's going on with friends. But new research shows a growing number of youngsters who obsess over the on-line sites may be headed down a troubled path/Keely Chalmers, NWCN. More here.

Question: Do you get depressed because you don't think your life measure up to the Facebook photos and accounts of happy people who appear to be having the time of their lives?