The head of legal affairs at Sun Microsystems Inc. (SUNW.O: Quote, Profile, Research) , which initiated the current case in 1998, said taking away some of Microsoft's intellectual property might be an appropriate remedy, although the company had tried to elevate intellectual property to "the mystical and holy and untouchable.""When considering a repeat lawbreaker, a logical approach is to have an asset of that lawbreaker, usually money, taken away in the form of a fine," said Lee Patch, head of Sun Microsystems' legal affairs.
"What's so special about intellectual property? It's an asset like many other types."
In an article I wrote a few years ago, I said that anyone who takes arguments against the sanctity of intellectual property seriously must ultimately reject the protection of property per se. This slimeball from Sun Microsystems takes the other approach: since we don't take property seriously in general, why take intellectual property seriously?
Really, though, he's right in a certain sense: if you accept the validity of anti-trust laws, you might as well accept that you can take away a company's intellectual property as punishment for their success. The amount they'd have to fine Microsoft to seriously affect their revenue would be insanely high. The above article quotes one analyst as saying that a sum close to the $3.43 billion maximum fine under EU law wouldn't be enough to "break the bank" for Microsoft. So what do you do if you can't take away enough of a company's revenue to "level the playing field"? You take away their means of revenue, that which makes them unique within the market: their intellectual property.
This illustrates the need for businessmen to take a principled stand against anti-trust laws. So long as Microsoft continues to plead that the fines are too high rather than challenging the ideas on which the laws are based, they will be attacked again and again. Without taking a morally couragous position, they will be left with only two choices: be bled to death by the success-hating leeches, or to pray that one day another company will surpass them on the market and draw the statist fire elsewhere.
Steve Ballmer, CEO of Microsoft, seems to recognize this:
"I believe negotiations between Microsoft and the European Commission broke down because we were unable to agree on a set of consumer driven principles on issues that might arise in the future," Ballmer said in a statement."It's likely things broke down at the core issue in all of this," said Mark Ostrau, co-chair of the antitrust group of the technology law firm Fenwick & West. "Microsoft feels it needs unfettered freedom to add functions to the operating system, and the Commission is saying there needs to be lines drawn."
Ballmer reinforced the approach, supposedly boasting that his company should be free to "bundle Windows with a ham sandwich" if it wants to.
Damned right. And I don't even like ham.
Notice how obvious it is which side is good and which is evil. Ballmer wants to make Windows the best operating system possible, the EU wants to stop them. (Shades of SBC?) It's freedom vs. authoritarianism: Ballmer wants to offer the consumers what they want, the EU wants to force the consumers to take what the EU thinks they ought to want. At its essence, it's life versus death, creation versus destruction, the rational versus the inane. Let them eat cake, says the EU -- but you'd better not include any icing!
Props to Desiree Dudley and Michael Smith for the links, via posts on HBL.
Slashdot: Senator John McCain wants to force cable companies to sell cable channels a la carte, so you only pay for the channels you want. He argues that "When I go to the grocery store to buy a quart of milk, I don't have to buy a package of celery and a bunch of broccoli," McCain said. "I don't like broccoli."
McCain refuses to understand that the whole cable package is more than the sum of its parts: the more successful cable channels subsidize the less popular ones in order to provide a well rounded package that provides a better value that the individual channels – just as the Microsoft Office Suite provides a better value that the individual applications that compose it. If politicians were really concerned about cable prices, then they would remove the government monopolies, price controls, preferential treatment, and the legion of regulations imposed and granted to cable companies. Till then, their approach to industry can only be described as a see-saw between government-enforced “competition†and government-enforced regulations – when one fails, they resort to other – never considering that freedom from government might be the answer.
The University of South Carolina announced Wednesday a $1 million grant from North Carolina-based BB&T to promote the study of capitalism.USC will get the funds over the next couple years, said business school dean Joel Smith III, and will use the money to create a capitalism ethics class, a capitalism-focused professorship, a lecture series and a room in the business library dedicated to the works of authors that support free enterprise such as Ayn Rand.
John Allison, chairman and CEO of BB&T, said USC and the bank jointly developed the focus of the endowment.
"If you look at a lot of business education programs, they do a good job of teaching people the technical part of business," Allison said. "But they don't often explain the philosophical foundations for capitalism, and anybody can make better decisions if they understand the context."
I saw John Allison speak at last summer’s Objectivist Conference, and I think its wonderful (and rare) to see a successful CEO defend capitalism. You can see how he applies Objectivism to the corporate philosophy of BB&T at their philosophy page.
I don't need to mention what I think of the EU ruling to fine Microsoft €497.2 million ($605 mil U.S.) for having the audacity to make superior software. However I was curious how the loot would be split it up. Turns out that it will be a trickle into the €100bn EU budget, which is allocated as follows:
Almost half of this is spent on agricultural aid, for subsidising farmers and their produce, and for improving rural development.The second biggest portion - about one-third - goes on EU funding, which supports the poorer countries in the union. Currently Ireland, Spain, Portugal and Greece benefit most from this fund.
Money has also been allocated for the 10 countries set to join the union - some 40bn euros in the first three years of enlargement, in which time these countries will pay 15bn euros into the EU budget.
The remainder goes on research and educational programmes, aid to regions outside the EU such as Africa and the Balkans, and administration costs...
It has become obvious to any honest individual that the UN is essentially a pulpit for dictators, communists, and looters of all sorts to attack and demand welfare from the few free countries of the world.
The latest resolution against Israel condemned "the most recent extrajudicial execution committed by Israel" and "all attacks against any civilians as well as all acts of violence and destruction." This was for the killing of a man “responsible for the deaths of 377 Israelis in at least 425 terrorist attacks over the past three-and-a-half years of the Palestinian Authority's war against Israel.†How many resolutions were passed to condemn the murder of all those innocent people? How many resolutions were passed against brainwashing and sending little boys who “don’t want to die†to blow themselves up? You guessed it – zero. No, the UN cannot even be accused of pacifism –the latest vote demonstrates its open support of terrorists.
Lest we forget that UN representatives follow the policies of the nations they represent, here are the nations that voted to support this mass-murdering “spiritual leader:†China, Russia, France, Angola, Chile, Pakistan, Spain, Algeria, Benin, Brazil, and the Philippines.
If you believe the mainstream media you might think that it’s “common knowledge†that Israel’s policy of assassinating terrorist masterminds creates more violence. New Hamas chief Khaled Meshaal would like you to believe that:
Your leaders, chaired by Sharon, will only bring you destruction. Blood begets blood. The Palestinian people can endure a long struggle and if you think that the confrontation will exhaust it then you are deluded. You will lose.
Rantisi said similar things just last year, after he himself survived an Israeli targeted strike: "By G-d we will not leave one Jew alive in Palestine."
... "Sheikh Ahmad Yassin rest in peace. They will never enjoy rest. We will send death to every house, every city, every street in Israel!"
A 16 [edit:14]-year-old Palestinian with a suicide bomb vest strapped to his body was caught at a crowded West Bank checkpoint Wednesday, setting off a tense encounter with Israeli soldiers whom the army said he was sent to kill.
The family of the teenager, identified as Hussam Abdo, said he was gullible and easily manipulated.
"He doesn't know anything, and he has the intelligence of a 12 year old," said his brother, Hosni.
"He told us he didn't want to die. He didn't want to blow up," Milrad said.
The military said Abdo's mission was to kill soldiers at the crowded checkpoint.
"In addition to the fact that he would have harmed my soldiers, he would have also harmed the Palestinians waiting at the checkpoint, and there were 200 to 300 innocent Palestinians there," said the commander of the checkpoint, who identified himself only as Lt. Col. Guy.
Several teenagers have carried out suicide bombings over the past 3 1/2 years, and there has been recent concern that militant groups were turning to younger attackers to elude Israeli security checks.
Abdo, though 16, looked far younger, and the Israeli military initially said it believed he was 10 years old.
The number of suicide bombings and the number of victims has dropped, with 142 Israelis killed in 22 bombings in 2003, compared to 214 killed in 53 bombings in 2002. Analysts attributed the drop to Israel's partially built West Bank barrier, beefed-up intelligence and Hamas leaders' fear of assassination.
After years of delay caused by inadequate intelligence, the U.S. government decided just one day before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks that it would try to overthrow the Taliban rulers of Afghanistan if a diplomatic push to expel Osama bin Laden from the country failed, the independent panel investigating the attacks reported Tuesday.
The report alleges that the Clinton and Bush administrations moved slowly against the al-Qaida terror network in the years before the attacks, partly because they lacked detailed intelligence that would have allowed a military strike and partly because they preferred to explore diplomatic alternatives. As a result, bin Laden and other al-Qaida leaders were able to elude capture repeatedly.
The commission faulted both the Bush and Clinton administrations for ignoring warning signs and failing to pursue significant military action that could have disrupted al-Qaida and its Taliban sponsors, who were becoming increasingly dangerous...
This period [of diplomacy in the late 1990s] may have been the high-water mark for diplomatic pressure on the Taliban. The outside pressure continued. But the Taliban appeared to adjust and learn to live with it,†the report found.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Tuesday defended Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas and said he may send a delegation to the region next week to try to keep the peace process alive following the assassination of the group's leader by Israeli forces.Bush also said his administration took seriously any threats by Hamas against the United States.
"Any country has the right to defend itself from terror. Israel has the right to defend herself from terror. And as she does so, I hope she keeps consequences in mind as to how to make sure we stay on the path to peace," Bush said in his first public comment on Monday's assassination of Hamas leader Ahmed Yassin.
Minutes before Bush spoke to reporters, White House spokesman Scott McClellan urged Israel to exercise "maximum restraint" in response to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's order to target all Palestinian militant leaders.
Bush did not repeat a statement by McClellan on Monday that Washington was "deeply troubled" by Yassin's killing.
This is yet another example of President Bush wanting to have his cake and eat it too.
President Bush not only wants to satisfy those of us who demand swift revenge and destruction for terrorist organizations and the states that sponsor them, but he also wants to appease those of us who seek to give into the terrorists' demands and have peace talks. President Bush wants Israel to defend itself from the terrorists attacking them but at the same give into their demands for more Israeli land and capitulation.
In the same respect, President Bush wants The United States to fight terrorist groups such as Al-Qaeda, but at the same time to negotiate with the states that are sponsoring such groups.
President Bush wants to occupy Iraq because they are a threat to our national security, but at the same time he claims our primary mission was to liberate the people of Iraq from tyranny.
President Bush wants to be a conservative capitalist in his economic policy by cutting taxes for the wealthy but also be a liberal socialist by ushering in the largest expansion of Medicare in our nation's history.
The examples can continue for quite a long time. Simply put, President Bush wants to have his cake and eat it too, or in other words, he wants A to be both A and not-A. President Bush is thus the ultimate compromiser, the ultimate man of contradiction.
But a contradiction can not exist in reality. President Bush can not be a conservative and a liberal at the same time, nor can he encourage the destruction of terrorists and act to appease them at the same time either. President Bush, because of his contradictory nature, will, in the end, be an ultimate failure.
As Dr. Hurd wrote recently in his blog, The Daily Dose of Reason:
A President who tries to be all things to all people—to have his principles of limited government conservatism and eat them too—is worse than a President who’s simply wrong, as a liberal President would be on this issue. Put another way: If President Clinton, Gore or Kerry harms medical care through further socializing medicine, at least they have, in the process, weakened the case for socialism and, indirectly, strengthened the case for capitalism.When George W. Bush further socializes medical care, he not only harms patients; he also harms the case for capitalism. This is because it’s assumed that his economic policies represent steps in the capitalist direction when in fact most of them do not. In the election of 2004, the Democrats will actually blame the lackluster economy and the failures of Medicare on capitalism rather than socialism. This sets the stage for even more socialism in the years to come, with an even greater disaster than currently projected for Medicare, down the road.
This is very well put. Bush's contradictory nature will eventually ruin him (whether it will ruin him in this election or not is hard to tell). Even if he does not ruin himself in this upcoming election, he will, as Dr. Hurd elaborates, ruin the case for capitalism for some years to come. In addition to this, Bush will also ruin our war on Islamic fundamentalism, resulting in a catastrophic attack on The United States, unless his current policy of contradiction is changed.
For this reason, I hold that President Bush is a man of contradiction that is very harmful to the well-being for The United States. For this reason, I will not be voting for President Bush in this year's election.
Recently, the Israeli military launched a missile strike against the spiritual leader and founder of Hamas, Sheik Ahmed Yassin. This is a very bold move on the part of the Israelis in the fight against Islamic terrorism; however I believe that it is not nearly enough.
By only targeting the leaders of terrorist organizations such as Hamas, meanwhile leaving the infrastructure of the Palestinian terrorist network intact, the Israeli government is only inviting further attacks on their citizens. While it is true that the decapitation of the leaders of these terrorist networks hampers their operations, it also incites further attacks from of all of the remaining members of these organizations.
The solution to the threat of Islamic terrorism to Israel is not to incapacitate the leaders of the various terrorist organizations therefore, but rather to wipe out their infrastructure. The only means of doing this effectively is by launching an invasion of the Palestinian territories and occupying it until the terrorist organizations are wiped out (including the Palestinian Authority), and a new government is installed.
Naturally many nations around the world (unfortunately including The United States) will be opposed to this solution. But Israel can not defeat their enemies by capitulating to their so-called allies that encourage them towards a policy of self-destruction, in the same respect that The United States can not abandon its war on Islamic terrorism because of the concerns of our so-called allies.
Unfortunately, with the Israeli's fight against terrorism, as well as with our own, an increasing level of negotiation and appeasement has been the standard of our action. Perhaps this recent bold move by Israel can be seen and followed as a step in the right direction.
Sheik Ahmed Yassin, the founder and spiritual leader of Hamas was just killed in an Israeli airstrike. MSNBC was quick to point out that he was a quadriplegic, but not that he "was responsible for the deaths of 377 Israelis in at least 425 terrorist attacks over the past three-and-a-half years of the Palestinian Authority's war against Israel" Earlier this year, he made his stance clear: "Muslims should threaten Western interests and strike them everywhere." We should celebrate the fact that Israel has made it's anti-terrorist stance clear – and demand that our leaders do likewise.
Hamas – with Yassin at its head – was responsible for the deaths of 377 Israelis in at least 425 terrorist attacks over the past three-and-a-half years of the Palestinian Authority's war against Israel. Among the most devastating attacks Hamas has claimed was their doing were: the Park Hotel Passover Massacre in Netanya (March 27, 2002; 29 killed, including six husband-and-wife couples); a suicide bombing of the no. 2 bus from the Western Wall (Aug. 19, 2003; 23 killed, including three children and two babies); a suicide bombing at the Dolphinarium discotheque in Tel Aviv (June 1, 2001; 22 killed, mostly teens); a suicide bombing of Sbarro's Pizzeria in Jerusalem (Aug. 9, 2001; 15 killed, including the parents and three children of one family); a suicide bombing of the Matza restaurant in Haifa (March 31, 2002; 15 killed, including two sets of a father and two children), etc., etc.
The Young Republicans group at Roger Williams University recently offered a $250 "why you are proud of your white heritage" scholarship contest. Following up on their lead, the Young Conservatives at my own Texas A&M have created a $10,000 "Overcoming Affirmative Action Essay Contest" that open to everyone.
The scholarship follows up on an "Affirmative Action Bake Sale" and other provocative actions by conservative groups across the nation. Such demonstrations rely on a strategy of reductio ad absurdum, "a type of logical argument where we assume a claim for the sake of argument, arrive at an absurd result, and then conclude the original assumption must have been wrong, since it gave us this absurd result." The assumed claim is that an individual's identity and personal worth are determined by ethnic/racial membership. The absurd conclusion is that Caucasians are just as entitled to ethnic pride and entitlements as other ethnicities. Therefore, one should conclude that neither whites nor any other group is entitled to racial pride or entitlements based on inherited traits.
While reductio ad absurdum can make a powerful emotional impact, it has a major pitfall as a method of persuasion: it requires that one's opponent rejects the "absurd" conclusion -- and that they do so for the same reasons. It is not a logical argument, as much as a means of getting someone to see the inconsistency of his own position. In this case, the shared idea is that racism is wrong. White-only entitlements are meant to make people realize that racism is wrong no matter which group it favors. The problem is that advocates of multiculturalism do not reject the "absurd" conclusion for the same reasons because they do not hold a proper definition of "racism."
Liberals are incapable of recognizing that one's mind determines one's identity and achievements, not his social/racial/ethnic group. Because of this basic premise, they cannot imagine an alternative to class or race-based discrimination. Hence, they reject white-only entitlements not because they are racist, but because they favor the wrong ethnic group. Their concept of "racism" means, "discrimination based on the belief that some groups are superior to others." This definition fails to recognize the distinction between discrimination based on superior values and discrimination based on inherited traits. In practice, this means that the only "racism" that they recognize is that directed by a dominant group towards a weaker one - whether it is whites against blacks or Israel against the PLO, or successful businessmen "against" bums or the terrorists against America. Decades of public-school indoctrination has embedded such collectivist attitudes in the American public. Conservatives themselves are unable to recognize the root of racism because they accept their own collectivist doctrine of "original sin."
While the Young Conservative's protests are effective means of bringing attention to the multiculturalism that dominates our schools, only an explicit recognition of the individual's mind and a rejection of collectivism can provide the intellectual ammunition necessary to combat it.
Every ad that has a picture of a group of people nowadays pays homage to political correctness. Whether it's a commercial real estate project, and the picture is that of a board room, or whether it Forbes magazine showing a picture of teenagers who help brand managers promote their products, it's invariably the same.
The leader of the group is female, and/or black. The right hand person is asian or black, and usually female. There is an asian male (or female if the right hand person is male). The white male is clearly the most junior of the whole group, looks like his job is secretary, and his clothing and appearance are quite foppish, as opposed to the women executive who looks all-business.
It's particularly bizarre for groups that are almost always all men, for example embedded systems developers. What kind of reality-denial is it to depict such a group as a white woman with an asian woman, black man, and white boy?
Why is it unacceptible to admit that one knows that most corporations are led by white men?
The FCC recently scolded U2 singer, Bono, for using the f-word on Howard Stern's syndicated radio program.
In the past, the FCC has rarely set any rules against using the f-word in the past. In fact:
"It marked the first time that the FCC cited a four-letter word as profane; the commission previously equated profanity with language challenging God's divinity." Oh, so it really is ok for us to curse on the airwaves, so long as we are not cursing god.
As if we didn't already know this, the FCC is operating arbitrarily based on subjective reasoning. To say nothing of the ethics involved in such a government agency, the very fact that profanity is restricted to the real of "blasphemy" is ridiculous, AND is flagrantly demonstrative of the fact that government bureacracy does not operate on objective reasoning. What would happen, I wonder, if an atheist took to the airwaves?
(Sent in by NewIntellectual)
The Supreme Court case concerning the Pledge of Allegiance reveals the hostility of both the Right and Left to individual rights and the First Amendment.
By Robert Garmong
In a current Supreme Court case, Michael Newdow has challenged the constitutionality of reading the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools. Newdow, an atheist, argues that the Pledge’s reference to America as “one nation, under God,†constitutes governmental establishment of religion. The Bush administration counters that the pledge is “a patriotic exercise, not a religious testimonial,†and should be allowed.
This might seem to be a trivial case. But as part of a “culture war†between the religious Right and the secular Left, it has taken on an ominous significance. Both sides have demonstrated naked hostility to the independent mind: the Right, by its desire to force school-aged children to profess religious belief; the Left, by its demands for governmental support for secular ideas.
The First Amendment established what Thomas Jefferson termed a “wall of separation†between Church and State--a deliberate break with the then-standard European practice of establishing an official church by governmental edict and supporting it by taxes. The purpose of Church/State separation was to protect the right to disagree in matters of religion: to ensure that the power of the government would never be used to force a person to profess or support a religious idea he does not agree with. Government officials may make whatever religious pronouncements they wish, on their own--but they may not use the power of the government to promote their ideas.
On religion or any other topic, an individual’s ideas are the matter of his own mind, decided by the application (or misapplication) of his own rational faculty. To force a man to adhere to a particular doctrine is to subvert the very faculty that makes real agreement possible and meaningful, and thereby to paralyze his mechanism for recognizing truth. The kind of forced “agreement†obtained by governmental edict is every bit as meaningless as was the Iraqis’ “love†for Saddam.
Yet it is precisely this kind of forced agreement that the political Right seeks, through its support of religion. The Pledge of Allegiance is a perfect example: in 1954, when Congress replaced its original language, “one nation indivisible†with “one nation, under God,†then-President Eisenhower expressed pride that “millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural schoolhouse, the dedication of our Nation and our people to the Almighty.†This can only mean the attempt to demand religious agreement by the power of the government, which means ultimately “agreement†at gunpoint. Whether this premise is implemented by means of a nativity scene on public property, prayer in public schools, or the Ten Commandments in a public courthouse--the meaning is that the government should dictate the contents of the individual’s mind.
The political Left has properly condemned governmental support of religious ideas--but at the same time, it demands that taxpayers support secular ideas, via National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities, among myriad smaller agencies. If the Right’s attempt to impose religion by force is destructive of intellectual freedom, the Left’s demand that taxpayers support their ideas is openly contemptuous of the intellect. Liberals do not care whether you or I in fact agree with or approve of the ideas and images our tax dollars support--be they the latest collection of paint splotches or a Madonna smeared with elephant dung--just as long as we hand over our taxes. Thus, our minds have been rendered irrelevant, our agreement or disagreement pointless, as long as we serve as cash cows for the “artist†or “intellectual†to exploit.
Conservatives, who properly argue against public support for secular ideas, endorse the use of publicly funded institutions to promote religious ideas. Liberals, who properly object to religious displays on public property, advocate public funding for their pet ideas. It’s politics without mirrors: each group feels free to attack its opponents for violating rights, as long as they don’t have to notice that they are committing the exact same crime.
This so-called “Culture War†truly is a war: a war against the individual mind. It is a particularly dirty kind of war, with both sides of the political spectrum vying for the right to enslave the minds of legally disarmed victims, and to do it by means of money expropriated from the victims themselves.
The only way to end this war is to re-assert the First Amendment, with its guarantee of intellectual freedom--and the only way to do that, is to get the government out of the business of supporting ideas.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Robert Garmong, Ph.D. in philosophy, is a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute (www.aynrand.org) in Irvine, Calif. The Institute promotes the philosophy of Ayn Rand, author of Atlas Shrugged and The Fountainhead.
The Marine was patrolling the Belair neighborhood, a stronghold of ousted President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, around 9:35 p.m. when he was shot in the left arm, Edwards said. The weapon was believed to be a small-caliber pistol, and the injury is not life-threatening, he said.Anger has been brewing among residents in the neighborhood since Marines - under fire - shot and killed two men on Friday. The Marines said the two were gunmen, but no weapons were recovered. Residents said those killed were neither militants nor armed, and that one was playing basketball. Several people were wounded in the fierce but brief firefight.
U.S. troops have been attacked several times and have shot and killed at least six Haitians in the past week. In Aristide strongholds, Marines are seen as an occupation army by militants who believe Aristide's charges that the United States abducted him and forced him to leave the country.
Why are our Marines in Haiti? What threat to national security does the overthrow of one thug for another bring upon the United States? Why is our government risking the lives of our Marines?
The purpose of our government, specifically our military force, should not be to mediate disputes between savages but rather to protect our national security by crushing our enemies, specifically, the Islamic fundamentalist movement.
I’m sure that you’ve all heard of the Madrid bombings this morning that killed 190 and injured over 1200 people. While the Spanish government initially blamed Basque separatists, new evidence implicates Islamic fundamentalists, possibly cooperating the separatists. I have two observations to make about this:
Unlike Islamic fundamentalists, the Basque separatists are not death-worshipping suicide bombers. They did this expecting not only to get away their act, but also to survive long enough to reap the political benefits. What policies of the Spanish government and the larger war on terrorism led them to that conclusion?
Aside from the lackluster and self-defeating American response to 9/11, the European response to terrorism has been to portray Islamic fundamentalists as victims and America as the aggressor. If the Basque separatists anticipated the same attitude to be extended to them, they now expect a wave of sympathy for their cause, an attack on the Spanish government as the “imperialist aggressors†and a military response designed to capture their “hearts and minds†rather their bloody hearts and splattered brains.
So how did the Spanish politicians react? Did they pledge to hunt down and kill every single terrorist behind this attack? Did they renew their dedication to destroying the global terrorist network that is almost certainly at least partially behind this atrocity?
Three days of national mourning were declared and thousands of people took part in spontaneous anti-terror rallies across the country Thursday. The government called for nationwide anti-ETA demonstrations on Friday evening, and millions were expected.
The U.S. Senate unanimously passed a resolution expressing outrage and urging Bush to "provide all possible assistance to Spain" in pursuing the terrorists.
The Arabic newspaper Al-Quds al-Arabi said it had received a claim of responsibility issued in the name of al-Qaida…. This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam," the claim said.
Under the law, counterfeiters could face civil penalties, but proposals for criminal sanctions were dropped.Before the vote, critics said the law was flawed as it applied the same penalties to both professional counterfeiters and consumers.
But a late amendment limited them to organised counterfeiters and not people downloading music at home.
Property price
The final vote on the EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive took place in the European Parliament on 9 March. The directive was passed by 330 votes to 151.
The law was drawn up to target professional pirates, criminals and counterfeiters who make copies of goods such as football shirts or CDs.
During the debates, the directive was widened to cover any infringement of intellectual property.
It's good to know that despite all of the flaws of the European Union, at least they are willing to take steps to protect intellectual copyrights.
Amidsts the demands that Martha Stewart go to jail, and the demands that Sam Waksal go to jail, and of course Tony Bracanavich should be shot, I want to know one thing.
Who is the vicious regulator at the FDA who ruled that imClone's new cancer drug be rejected?
This man's poor judgement has ruined the career of a man who ran a biotechnology firm whose products can save the lives of cancer patients, a woman entrepeneur, and a stock broker.
He also destroyed billions of dollars of value.
And he contributed to a chilling effect, that discourage people to invest their money, discourage entrepeneurs to seek access to the public capital markets, and encourage regulators to impose an even more draconian regime on public companies and their executive teams.
What is his name, and why isn't he on trial for the damage he caused?
Recently, the Minnestoa Public Utilities Commission (PUC) tried to assert jurisdiction to regulate Vonage, the provider of telephone service using the Internet.
This is *wrong* in every way and every respect. Let me count the ways.
The notion of "public utility" is a socialist abortion that basically means: your business is so big and so important, we're going to sort-of nationalize it. You will be entitled to a profit--so long as we deem it "reasonable"--but we will control your every decision.
Each state has its own PUC, and some counties and cities have additional regulatory layers. Of course, everything Telecom is regulated by the Federal Communications Commission, and there is some overlap by the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice, Department of Homeland Defense, Department of Treasury, etc. There is not one body of non-objective laws that controls a national telephone service provider company; there are at least 54 bodies of non-objective law.
Telecommunications regulation goes back to the Radio Act of 1927 and the Communications Act of 1933. They are based on several bad premises. First, radio spectrum is "scarce". Second, that therefore the government should force people to use it only for the "public good". And third, that there is a "natural monopoly" for telephone networks.
Of course, all property is scarce--it can have only one owner. To cite this as a reason for government control is simply the Marxist argument for a government takeover of everything. It's true that wishing is not sufficient to obtain values, but only dishonest people are bothered by this fact.
The "public good" is a banner that, when one can grab it, one can use to ram one's special interest down everyone else's throat. For decades, AT&T had held this title. When they lost it, the new carriers used it to destroy AT&T. Today, it is quite plausible that the remaining husk of AT&T itself will be acquired from one of the companies it was forced to spin off.
The economic principle of networks was stated by Bob Metcalf, the value of a network is proportional to the square of the number of connected nodes. This means that if I have an intercom in my house, that connects my wife in one room to me in another, the value is pretty low. But if I build a nationwide telephone network, the value is vastly higher.
But this does not mean that a network is a "natural" "monopoly". I put these words in separate quotes deliberately. In business, there is nothing which is "natural". Objective value is created by an idea, acted out by people, enabled by spending money over a period of time. This is fundamentally unlike a rock or a mud puddle.
The "Monopoly" itself is a rationally unusable term. There is only one kind of business entity that can sustain itself against more able competitors. I refer, of course, to the kind of business that has special favors from the government. Merely having built a nationwide network is no guarantee of future profitability. The Bell “monopolies†today face competition for their core businesses from cellular, Voice Over IP, cable companies, and even electric power line companies.
As if this were not bad enough, the alleged scarcity of radio spectrum has been proven to be a Big Lie. This lie is the foundation of the national communications policy. It is obviously a lie, and yet few are willing to ask if the emperor has any clothes.
Witness the huge success of Wi-Fi. 802.11b uses a small block of radio frequency in the 2.4 GHz range. This is not particularly good spectrum, as it’s subject to interference from many things including microwave ovens.
I submit that more innovation has occurred in this narrow piece of mediocre spectrum in 3 years than has occurred in a decade over all other spectrum combined. An apt analogy is Israel in the Middle East. They have a mediocre chunk of desert without oil, and yet have thrived whereas their neighbors have not.
Let’s get back to the Minnesota PUC’s attack on Vonage. Regulation, by its nature, is unconstitutional. According to the document on which the legal system of the USA is based, one branch of government creates the laws, a different branch enforces them, and a third adjudicates.
Regulation breaks this model: it is written, enforced, and judged by a single agency.
That musty old document also declared that one is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Regulation repeatedly presumes one’s guilt, and forces one to prove one’s innocence--until next time.
The Constitutional also prohibits ex-post facto law (law, written after an action, applied in order to punish that action). Regulation does this, also.
Finally, the Founding Fathers wrote about Bills of Attainder. This is a law targeting a specific person or company. I don’t believe there can be any serious debate about whether or not Bills of Attainder attack liberty to the roots, and yet regulation is often written to target a specific company.
My biggest attack on regulation is to consider its objectivity. Objective law has several criteria: it must be clear in advance what is legal and illegal, it must apply to everyone, and it must be based on a rational standard of prohibiting the initiation of the use of physical force.
The murder trial of OJ Simpson is an interesting comparison to the antitrust trial of Microsoft. In the OJ case, there was no debate over whether it should be illegal to beat and stab two people to death. The entire debate was over whether or not Mr. Simpson did, or did not do this. This is proper (except for the fact that the jury acquitted him out of political correctness).
In the Microsoft trial, there was no debate about whether or not Microsoft bundled Internet Explorer into Windows. The entire debate was over whether or not this should be legal or illegal(!)
The alarm bells going off from this should be enough to scare the hell out of anyone who prefers liberty to dictatorship.
Currently, the telecommunications industry is in limbo. It is waiting for Congress, the courts, the FCC, for *somebody* to tell them what is legal and what is illegal.
Into this scene, bursts the power-lusting bureaucrats from Minnesota. It should be illegal, they say, to offer a new kind of Internet service without first asking permission from at least 54 different agencies.
This is nothing more than the expression of a thug’s envy.
America brings down a secular dictatorship...to make room for a theocratic one:
According to Qanbar, the interim constitution charter will recognize Islam as a major source of legislation and ban any laws which violate the tenets of the Muslim faith. U.S. officials and secular-minded members got their way with the phrase "a source" -- out of many sources -- but the ban on laws that violate Islam was aimed at pleasing conservatives.
There can be no compromise on basic principles. There can be no compromise on moral issues. There can be no compromise on matters of knowledge, of truth, of rational conviction. In any compromise between food and poison, it is only death that can win.-- Ayn Rand