Once again, the UK explains our government, incest, and M$:
[link|http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22647.html|The Reg natch]
A concluding portion:
... It's the most significant part of the entire
agreement document, as it describes
oversight of Microsoft's future conduct in the
most critical areas of web services
(authentication) and multimedia content
(DRM).
It also represents an end-run around the
AntiTrust Laws: Microsoft only needs to claim
that its security is being compromised to get
the authority of a Government policeman. In
its own way, this section institutionalizes
corporate malfeasance.
New balls, please
For much of the nineties, big business spent
enormous energy on promoting the idea that
markets and not the ballot box were the true
instrument of democracy. Swashbuckling
businessmen didn't just reject tiresome
burdensome regulations, they stole the
revolutionary couture of the Left to brand
such interference as anti-democratic.
For the IT industry, with its instinctive fear of
government, this became axiomatic: tech folk
bought into the notion faster and deeper than
anyone else, and ideology trumped common
sense even amongst Microsoft's most
articulate opponents. "Market failure is only
solved by freer markets," chirped Eric
Raymond in his 1998 essay which argued for
the repeal of the AntiTrust laws. It's an
argument that's welcomed, of course, by
powerful monopolies.
But not even in their wildest dreams could
the business elites have imagined that in
2001, the AntiTrust department itself would
be offering a convicted monopolist state
protection. \ufffd\ufffd\ufffd\ufffd
Ummm could we have back our ballot box and lose the soft-money, please?
Hello.
Um.. anyone there?
.
.
.
[begin recorded message]
Whaddayou Mean! this number is no longer in service !!?
bzzzzzzzzz
OK then, since no one is answering the phone:
let's elect the USSC each 4 years. They continue to Select the Prez like last time: only now we know it in advance.
A