December 2003 - cypherpunks-legacy

Why I Support Microsoft
by Tim May 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Over the years I've sometimes joined in on the jokes about Microsoft and Bill Gates...the jokes about the Borg, assimilation, and the habits of Gates. And I've lately really enjoyed the "Saturday Night Live" skits involving Bill Gates interrupting the Pope to announce that Microsoft has merged with Christmas, and so on. As a longtime Macintosh user, and only occasional user of MS products, it's mostly of entertainment value to me to see what MS is doing. (Caveat: I used Microsoft Basic on Intel MDS systems (8080-based), circa 1977-78, bought a PC in the early 80s, bought "Microsoft Word" Version 1.00 when most people were buying Samna Word, Wordstar, and other such vanished products, and even bought the execrable, terrible, crufty, horrible "Windows 1.0" when it first came out, circa 1984. And for my Macintosh, I bought Microsoft Word 1.05 and used it for many years in various versions. I currently use no Microsoft products on a daily basis.) Anyway, the recent government actions against Microsoft are reprehensible to any person who values liberty. Microsoft is being punished for its success. The appearance of Ralph Nader, Jamie Love, and executives of Netscape (who are miffed that _their_ attempted monopoly is being threatened by MS!), in the (ironic) "Microsoft Bash," along with opportunistic actions by various states' attorney generals, and with judges imposing million dollar a day fines..... Well, it's all a familiar pattern. I hate to say it, but read parts of "Atlas Shrugged" to see this piling on, this "taking down the successful a few notches" behavior. Attila T. Hun is, for some reason, bashing MS a lot. I'll use one of his posts to make some specific points: At 10:15 AM -0700 12/21/97, Attila T. Hun wrote: >> WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A federal judge Friday told Microsoft >> Corp. he easily uninstalled the company's Web browser >> without breaking Windows 95 and ordered company officials to >> explain why they could not do the same. "Windows 95 >> functioned flawlessly" with Internet Explorer uninstalled, >> U.S. District Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson told Microsoft. >> > mistake #1: dont piss off a federal judge --let alone > try to show that he is ignorant. PC makers like Compaq, Dell, Gateway, etc., are in fact perfectly free to bundle Netscape Navigator (or whatever the Do Everything version is called) with their systems. Microsoft is then perfectly free, in a free society, to say "Fine, then don't put Windows on your machines." Right? Customers can then make their choices. Or can buy Windows in the nearest software store. The way it used to be done. Yielding to pressure from the court, MS is now allowing PC makers to also include Netscape Navigator. Well, none have yet elected to do so...quite probably because Netscape is _charging_ for this, and MS is not. (To Ralph Nader, and perhaps even to Attila, that MS is _giving_ away its browser, free for the download and free to the PC vendors, is itself a crime.) ... > this is my one big fear: the DOJ will accept a plea > bargain like they did last time and it will be back > to business as usual for M$ --and they will be back in > court within a year having gained even more horizontal > and vertical control of the entire communications > and information industries --and claiming again that > they are misunderstood --and complying with the order, > etc. Customers are voting with their pocketbooks. They like the MS offerings more than they like the competing offerings...of which there are still many. (Macintosh, Unix in several flavors (incl Linux), and loyal followings for older OSes. Sun and Oracle and others are pushing for Java-based systems to obsolete the MS products. This is a major struggle which analyses about Microsoft's "domination" seem to ignore.) > > there is only one solution to organizations like M$ > which are operated without ethics: treat them to the > pleasures of not only the antitrust laws but the > exquisite delights of RICO. I cannot understand how Attila can so enthusiastically support this. His "exquisite delights" even recalls Torquemada and the Inquistion. A suitable term for what is being to MS, in my view. > M$ is a cancer; it has fully metasticized and is gorging > itself at the banquet of the vanquished. Ralph Nader would probably be interested in hiring ATH as a speech writer. .... > anyway, just think where M$ would be with Royce today! > Gate$ and Ballmer might be down at the local MCC for a > few free 3 hots and a cot, all expenses paid, "enjoying" > a well earned vacation from screwing all of us. I take it that ATH means that because something like 20 or 30 million Americans chose to buy Windows 95 (and thus gain the benefits we Macintosh users have had for many years :-}) that this means "we" were screwed? > Other than the usual ills of a monopoly, what really > irks anyone with a modicum of intelligence is that Gate$ > intends to migrate the entire package for the benefit of > the couch potatoes; Gate$ intends to dictate not only > what we use to view his trash, but that only his trash > is splashed. Why not pick on Intel? Intel is, if anything, even more of a "monopoly" than MS is. While customers have some reasonable choices in OSes (Windows/NT, Unix, Linux, Macintosh, AmigaOS, Inferno, Java-based developments, etc.), the fact is that all of the surviving OSes are being ported to the Intel platform (pace recent announcements by Sun that Solaris will be on Merced at its rollout in 1999, and earlier announcements by H-P, DEC, and IBM along the same lines). But neither MS nor Intel are "monopolies." They are just the People's Choice. Which always tends to cluster...the big really do get bigger. For awhile, at least, until the paradigm shifts and the big can't adapt quickly enough. Of the 10 biggest chip makers in 1970, all are distant seconds to Intel, the world's largest producer of chips, in dollar amount. (And in total square meters of silicon output.) .... >> After the hearing Friday, Christine Varney, a former Federal >> Trade Commissioner now representing Netscape, was jubilant. >> "I think the judge has understood the seriousness of the >> issue," she said. >> > she had every reason to be jubilant --so far. even if > the judge did not fully understand the technological > bullshit M$ was trying to slide on by, the judge fully > understands that M$ was trying to blind pitch him --and > insulting him to boot. Of _course_ she's jubilant! Netscape wants its "rightfully-earned monopoly" back! Has anyone forgotten that in 1995 it was looking like Netscape would be on 95% of all desktops, Windows, Mac, and Unix, and that it was turning into the Big Bad Monopoly? Are memories really that short? Netscape has been using its legal manouvers to attempt to stop Microsoft from horning in on _its_ monopoly. (I hate using the term "monopoly," but if critics of MS are going to use it, hey, when in Rome....) >> Microsoft stock closed at $128.69, down $2.19 on NASDAQ, >> where it was among the most active issues. > yes, down almost 20 points since their fiasco with the > DOJ started. before it's over, I hope to see M$ listed > with the junk bonds and issues --in the penny stocks. > Yep, sort of the way Netscape stock went from its IPO price of around $25 (in today's shares) to $80 when it looked like Netscape Navigator and related products were going to be the Next Big Monopoly....and then plummeted down to the $30-40 range as it appeared this was not the way things were going to turn out.... Netscape stock is currently at $27 3/4, just about where it began trading in '95. Even so, Navigator remains popular on many platforms. Microsoft Explorer is by no means a monopoly. And MS announced a long time ago, in '95 if I recall correctly, that the Web was such a big deal (let us not forget that some were saying Gates had missed the boat on the Web and MS would falter) that the URL addressing scheme would be _built in_ to future versions of its OS so as to make Web browsing and file browsing identical, and to facillitate intranets. "One big file system." Like this or not, it makes a certain amount of sense. Ah, but now we face the spectacle of a judge or panel of Nader-pandering bureaucrats telling Microsoft what features it will be allowed to include in its operating system. Perhaps the graphics chip companies facing extinction as Intel puts massive graphics capabilities into new chips can sue on antitrust grounds and get a "special master" to dictate to Intel what features it may put into chips? (Certainly the long-departed Weitek might have survived a few more years had Ralph Nader turned his unsafe at any speed attention to the floating point processing market and gotten an injunction against Intel putting onboard floating point instructions into the 486.) I cannot understand how any Cypherpunk can be advocating interference in the market the way Attila and a few others are doing. Making jokes about Bill Gates is one thing, just harmless fun. But advocating the Men with Guns (TM) seize control of the products he offers to uncoerced customers is simply wrong. --Tim May The Feds have shown their hand: they want a ban on domestic cryptography ---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---- Timothy C. May | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money, ComSec 3DES: 408-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA | knowledge, reputations, information markets, Higher Power: 2^2,976,221 | black markets, collapse of governments. "National borders aren't even speed bumps on the information superhighway."

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Re: Automatic Translations
by John Young 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

bureau42 wrote: >Just out of curiosity I ran a paragraph of one of Bob H's wordy >pieces through a few translations and, son of a bitch! if it didn't become clearer! Now this is truly helpful advice to get what's being miscommunicated by deranged brute-forcers spit and shined and pinstripped like truetext masterblasters. If some dingdong's spew comes through translation unchanged then it is the plain vanilla-est, the most unshaded, unnuanced, unbiased, untrickery, unimaginative, and thus the most omnipotent of all possible upchuckery aimed to infect the globe with toenail jam passing as troot juice. If these lies (aka blackheart pus-drip) remain unchanged by translation and unmangled by retranslation through all spitbucket languages and all Earth's cheese-bowels bent on misconstruance and prejudicial warp to fit preconceptions of perfectly slit-minded right to disembowel and deny life and liberty to those of opposing views, then it is the word of You Know Who, and your way-behind clan better believe it, and copy it, and bray-pray in it and bet your bed-watering, unwavering Clone Constitution Bible Koran Hit Man Browser on it. Seattle-shrouded in this Kelvar-asbestos cloak, napalm those east of the Rockies (and west) who question the Macrosoft Word, PR sizzle those who mock it, and Jesus-crowbar the infidels who mess with mismarketing PICS to the world's DoJs and 1st Amend lingo freedom-futzing bill-mauling mud-doggies. Sez Iggy, plain and simple.

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Re: Making them eat their words... (while they watch!)
by Bill Stewart 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

At 05:15 PM 12/21/1997 +0000, Attila T. Hun wrote: > there is only one solution to organizations like M$ > which are operated without ethics: treat them to the > pleasures of not only the antitrust laws but the > exquisite delights of RICO. Nonsense, and I'm surprised to hear this from you. Treat them to the pleasures of the free market - if you don't like them, start a Boycott M$ campaign, and see if people stop buying their lousy software. The direct democracy of the free market is far more appropriate than government here - it's $1/vote, and if enough people vote against M$ they'll get the hint, and it enough people vote _for_ M$, it's none of your business. It _is_ funny to see the Feds hiring a big corporate lawyer to run their case; I guess they don't think Federal Prosecutors are good enough. Surely if a low-level prosecutor can't hack it, they should use their boss, and on up the hierarchical chain. If Janet Reno can't do it either, they should replace her with someone who can :-) Thanks! Bill Bill Stewart, bill.stewart(a)pobox.com PGP Fingerprint D454 E202 CBC8 40BF 3C85 B884 0ABE 4639

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Don't lie to the marketers or Feds! from ZDNET
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

http://www.zdnet.com/intweek/print/971215/264108.html >For Social Security Number, the EPIC page recommends using >a number, which won't be reprinted here, used on "sample" >cards decades ago. The figuring: "Most clerks probably >won't recognize it as a fake" and it won't interfere with >other Social Security numbers. > >For addresses, the EPIC page suggests using hometown parks, >city halls and police stations. It specifically suggests >the address of Comiskey Park in Chicago. Makes one wonder >how White Sox officials feel about the prospect of getting >extra junk mail and spam really destined for disciples of >EPIC's peculiar freedom of information act. What crime >against the common good did Jerry Reinsdorf commit except >to sign Albert Belle to an ungodly contract undermining >baseball owner solidity against rising salaries? > >For telephone numbers, the recommendation is >1-202-224-3121. That turns out to be the switchboard of the >U.S. Congress. If this is intended to send some sort of >message to solons about the loss of control of personal >information, it's likely to be wholly lost. The only people >it will punish are operators handling incoming calls at the >Capitol. They will only regard the extra calls as more >wrong number calls they have to handle. They will have no >way to figure out that this is some sort of subgrassroots >effort to gum up the works. And they will certainly have no >way to provide statistics to Congress on the result. > >The EPIC page is, in that last case, urging Americans to >waste taxpayer dollars, for no clear purpose. > >On a larger scale, the EPIC document only exacerbates the >issue it tries to solve. The answer to the loss of control >of personal information on the Internet is not to >contribute instead to a boom in unreliable data. >

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Disection of Politics
by Douglas Decicco 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

There is that word "FREE" which has a scope similar to the other massively abused word "LOVE". As far as I'm concerned the term "FREE WORLD" is as ambiguous as the sentence "I LOVE YOU." Sometimes people mean by freedom that the government penalizes those who impinge upon the civil rights of others or the attitude of the people under that government tends to uphold such civil rights willingly because of the prevalent ideology of that social group. This freedom is important to me, and why I am grateful to have been born into this century under a fairly civil-minded constitutional government. When it comes to monopoly issues it is not civil freedom that is under question, not the rights of free speech, belief system, assembly or the simple choices of spouse or educational objective. It is the right to secure control over hoards of assets that is in question. I think that successful business people who seek monopolous control are actually sick with an insecurity which underlies their apparent love of money. It is clear to me that even though the human mind does not appear to be up to motivating itself for the good of the whole which many of the non-free-enterprise economic systems have proposed, free enterprise has many deficiencies. It is inefficient and it encourages lack of humility, greed, theft, dishonesty and, above all, gluttony. Take a walk through a shopping area in a Christmas-celebrating country at this time of year and just watch. People are buying hoards of useless items. The fallacious conjecture is that this "stimulates the economy". No, it distracts the workforce from work that could benefit people in meaningful ways. The reason I believe in the dissemination of cryptographic technology and mailing lists like this one is that it assists the continuance freedom of speech, a freedom which invites me to practice restraint and exercise responsibility. I am torn between joy over Internet communication and disgust in the ugly creatures that free-enterprise has nourished while funding this communication mode. When I find myself reading the manipulative legal statements of any of the large corporations I loath myself for being so willing to purchase their products, even if it pays my bills.

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Why Linux Users Support Microsoft
by David Miller 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Tim wrote: >Over the years I've sometimes joined in on the jokes about Microsoft and >Bill Gates...the jokes about the Borg, assimilation, and the habits of >Gates. And I've lately really enjoyed the "Saturday Night Live" skits >involving Bill Gates interrupting the Pope to announce that Microsoft >has merged with Christmas, and so on. That last skit was lame ass -- I like the monkey-boy ones. > Anyway, the recent government actions against Microsoft are reprehensible > to any person who values liberty. Microsoft is being punished for its > success. No shit. I've been fighting the 'free-thinking' Linux crowd for weeks on this. Just because MSFT sucks is no reason for the gov to start this shit. If MSFT sucks, they should be brought to court on those charges, and not because everyone in the world was stupid enough to use their OS. Further, just becuase MSFT sucks is no reason to give the gov the power to regulate software content. Jesus christ, get out of my pants. > Making jokes about Bill Gates is one thing, just harmless fun. But > advocating the Men with Guns (TM) seize control of the products he offers > to uncoerced customers is simply wrong. Yes. This is not a case of "biting the hand that Fed you." It is a case of government power to control a free market. I don't fear Bill Gates, I fear the gov. Who will you fear in 20 years? Linus? Give me a break. --David Miller Windows '95, a dirty, two-bit operating system.

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Building Pro-Monopoly Judges
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

[Hmm. Apparently Charles is reluctant to defend his position here on cypherpunks. Small surprise. --Declan] ========== Date: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 18:49:41 -0500 (EST) Reply-To: cmueller(a)metrolink.net Originator: am-info(a)essential.org Sender: am-info(a)essential.org Precedence: bulk From: charles mueller <cmueller(a)metrolink.net> To: Multiple recipients of list <am-info(a)essential.org> Subject: Building Pro-Monopoly Judges Declan McCullagh, still displaying a reluctance to debate with graciousness (below), now wonders if I've heard of the Federalist Society. "PS: I wonder if Mueller knows about the Federalist Society, which is a group of libertarian-leaning lawyers and law professors. Among other things, they make a point of educating judges about (gasp!) economic theory and this concept of a government strictly limited in its powers..." I've been reporting on this propaganda mill for roughly 2 decades-- and have published hundreds of pages on it. (See my January post on the subject, below.) Charles Mueller, Editor ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller *************************8 ** > >>Return-Path: <antitrust(a)essential.org> >>Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 19:04:50 -0500 (EST) >>Errors-To: antitrust-owner(a)essential.org >>Reply-To: cmueller(a)metrolink.net >>Originator: antitrust(a)essential.org >>Sender: antitrust(a)essential.org >>From: cmueller(a)metrolink.net (cmueller) >>To: Multiple recipients of list <antitrust(a)essential.org> >>Subject: GMU's "Law & Economics Center" >>X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas >> >> Perhaps I can add some information on the "Law & Economics Center" >>at George Mason. My journal first reported on its teach-in with the federal >>judges in 1981 (Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 70-71) and the following year I >>physically visited the University of Miami campus (where it was then housed) >>and did extensive interviews with several of the Center's people. Those >>interviews, plus another interview series I did at Emory University in >>Atlanta when the Center moved there, and finally at George Mason itself >>after the 3rd move, fill a number of my issues, beginning with Vol. 14, No. >>2 (1982). I've also reported on a couple of the legal challenges >>(unsuccessful) to the Center's indoctrination of the federal judges. >> For example, U.S. District Judge Spencer Williams presided over a >>predatory pricing case against ITT Continental Baking (Wonder Bread) some >>years back. The day after the jury began its deliberations, Judge Williams >>left San Francisco to begin attendance at a 2-week "economics" seminar >>presented by the Law & Economics Center at the Royal Biscayne Hotel in >>Miami. While he was gone, his jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in >>the amount of $5 million which, under the law, he was bound to triple to $15 >>million. Instead, he returned from Florida, overturned the jury's verdict, >>and wrote a letter to Henry Manne in Miami that read in part as follows: >>"As a result of my better understanding of the concept of marginal cost, I >>have recently set aside a $15 million antitrust verdict. I will send you a >>copy of the memorandum [opinion] as soon as it is prepared." (See my >>journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1985), p. 13.) >> Nan Aron and her colleagues at the Alliance for Justice in >>Washington published a monograph on the subject--Justice for Sale In >>America--in 1993 and I reprinted the key chapters in my journal, beginning >>with Vol. 24, No. 3 (1993). For earlier background, see Fortune, May 21, >>1979; Washington Post, January 20, 1980; and The Nation, January 26, 1980. >> Put simply, this "Center" is a right-wing propaganda mill >>masquerading as a purveyor of academic "economics." The "teachers" have >>been Harold Demsetz and others from the University of Chicago and its major >>academic outposts (paid at an hourly rate commensurate with the up to $600 >>per hour commanded by George Stigler and the others as antitrust "experts" >>in court). No opposing economists have ever been allowed to appear before >>the judges. When I asked the Center's people why they didn't permit >>distinguished non-Chicago economists to share the podium at these judicial >>teach-ins, they laughed and said, "Let them go start their OWN seminars for >>the judges!" >> I asked to be allowed to just sit in as an OBSERVER with the judges >>and/or the 200 antitrust law professors (who have been run through a similar >>indoctrination program) and Henry Manne himself responded to my request (by >>telephone), No, "We keep it all in the family." (Manne, who had been a law >>professor at the University of Rochester, founded the "Center" in 1974 at >>the University of Miami, then moved it to Emory and finally to George Mason. >>A federal judge--Judge Hoffman, as I recall--helped him get the approval of >>the judiciary's executive body in Washington, headed by the Chief Justice of >>the Supreme Court. The money to finance these sessions at luxury resorts >>(mostly at Key Biscayne and other Florida beach towns) was originally gotten >>directly from Fortune 500 companies who had experienced the sting of >>antitrust prosecution; in response to some criticism of that obvious >>conflict of interest, Manne, with some creative accounting, arranged it so >>that the seminars for the judges themselves--in 1981, the cost was $5,000 >>per judge per 2-week seminar--were thereafter paid for exclusively by the >>corporate foundations, e.g., Schaife, Olin, etc., rather than by active >>firms that frequently appear before the judges as antitrust defendants. >>With this accounting twist, the judiciary gave its full blessing to the >>operation.) >> I also did an interview with a federal appeals judge in Washington >>(DC Circuit). He saw nothing wrong with Manne's program, even assuming it >>was pure propaganda designed specifically to bias the federal judiciary >>against the antitrust laws and in favor of corporate monopoly. Why? (1) >>First, he said, judges are, by the nature of their work, "immune" to >>propaganda of all kinds. They hear so much argument on so many sides of >>every issue that it's simply impossible to "bias" them via argument. (2) >>Second, he told me, federal judges have every RIGHT to be as intellectually >>"biased" as they like and to DEVELOP those intellectual biases with the help >>of WHOEVER they please. >> For example, he said, suppose I go to the beach for a weekend with 3 >>volumes of Karl Marx's writings in my briefcase. I find Marx so persuasive >>that I come back to my chambers on Monday, throw away an opinion I had just >>written on one of the cases before me, and proceed to write a new one >giving my >>decision to the opposite party. Karl Marx "biased" me to change my >>decision. He had every right to do it--and I had every right to LET him >>do it. >> George Mason University law school and its economics department >>aren't scholarly enterprises at all; they're hired propagandists, awash in >>corporate money awarded precisely for the purpose of making a contrived >>"economic" case for laissez-faire monopoly. They get away with it for one >>reason and one reason only: Manne's operation had the approval of Reagan's >>Justice Department (rember Ed Meese?) and now it has the blessing of >>Clinton's. All it would take to bring it to a halt would be a couple of >>speeches by, say, the Attorney General and, if necessary, by Clinton >>himself. If Justice treated it as the outrage that it plainly is, the >>press--and the ensuing public condemnation--would purge the judiciary of >>this 20-year scandal within a matter of weeks. >> Charles Mueller, Editor >> ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW >> http://www.metrolink.net/~cmueller/ >> >> > ***********

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Re: Building Pro-Monopoly Judges
by Declan McCullagh 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Thanks, Charles, for the attached rant. Very amusing. Me, I prefer to tell the truth, and if that means that I don't abide by your standard of "graciousness," so be it. I've run into the Federalist Society a few times before. I occasionally go to their conferences, and I know they've been active in such HEINOUS dealings as: -- arguing against the Communications Decency Act -- arguing against state-by-state content regulation of the Internet -- arguing for your right to speak anonymously online -- arguing for your right to use and distribute encryption freely Yes, folks, you heard it here first. These folks are evil and must NOT be allowed to hold seminars for judges. (Only leftists are allowed this particular trick.) BTW, if Charles had half a clue, he'd know George Mason's law and economic schools are not particularly conservative, but are instead free-market and libertarian. (How many conservatives opposed the CDA?) The Federalist Society is also generally libertarian. Libertarians are not pro-big business; they oppose corporate welfare and special-interest lobying. Such as what Charles seems to endorse. -Declan At 18:49 -0500 12/21/97, charles mueller wrote: > Declan McCullagh, still displaying a reluctance to debate with >graciousness (below), now wonders if I've heard of the Federalist Society. >"PS: I wonder if Mueller knows about the Federalist Society, which is a >group of libertarian-leaning lawyers and law professors. Among other things, >they make a point of educating judges about (gasp!) economic theory and this >concept of a government strictly limited in its powers..." > > I've been reporting on this propaganda mill for roughly 2 decades-- >and have published hundreds of pages on it. (See my January post on the >subject, below.) > > Charles Mueller, Editor > ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW > http://webpages.metrolink.net/~cmueller > > ** > >>Return-Path: <antitrust(a)essential.org> >>Date: Wed, 15 Jan 1997 19:04:50 -0500 (EST) >>Errors-To: antitrust-owner(a)essential.org >>Reply-To: cmueller(a)metrolink.net >>Originator: antitrust(a)essential.org >>Sender: antitrust(a)essential.org >>From: cmueller(a)metrolink.net (cmueller) >>To: Multiple recipients of list <antitrust(a)essential.org> >>Subject: GMU's "Law & Economics Center" >>X-Listprocessor-Version: 6.0c -- ListProcessor by Anastasios Kotsikonas >> >> Perhaps I can add some information on the "Law & Economics Center" >>at George Mason. My journal first reported on its teach-in with the federal >>judges in 1981 (Vol. 13, No. 3, pp. 70-71) and the following year I >>physically visited the University of Miami campus (where it was then housed) >>and did extensive interviews with several of the Center's people. Those >>interviews, plus another interview series I did at Emory University in >>Atlanta when the Center moved there, and finally at George Mason itself >>after the 3rd move, fill a number of my issues, beginning with Vol. 14, No. >>2 (1982). I've also reported on a couple of the legal challenges >>(unsuccessful) to the Center's indoctrination of the federal judges. >> For example, U.S. District Judge Spencer Williams presided over a >>predatory pricing case against ITT Continental Baking (Wonder Bread) some >>years back. The day after the jury began its deliberations, Judge Williams >>left San Francisco to begin attendance at a 2-week "economics" seminar >>presented by the Law & Economics Center at the Royal Biscayne Hotel in >>Miami. While he was gone, his jury returned a verdict for the plaintiff in >>the amount of $5 million which, under the law, he was bound to triple to $15 >>million. Instead, he returned from Florida, overturned the jury's verdict, >>and wrote a letter to Henry Manne in Miami that read in part as follows: >>"As a result of my better understanding of the concept of marginal cost, I >>have recently set aside a $15 million antitrust verdict. I will send you a >>copy of the memorandum [opinion] as soon as it is prepared." (See my >>journal, Vol. 17, No. 2 (1985), p. 13.) >> Nan Aron and her colleagues at the Alliance for Justice in >>Washington published a monograph on the subject--Justice for Sale In >>America--in 1993 and I reprinted the key chapters in my journal, beginning >>with Vol. 24, No. 3 (1993). For earlier background, see Fortune, May 21, >>1979; Washington Post, January 20, 1980; and The Nation, January 26, 1980. >> Put simply, this "Center" is a right-wing propaganda mill >>masquerading as a purveyor of academic "economics." The "teachers" have >>been Harold Demsetz and others from the University of Chicago and its major >>academic outposts (paid at an hourly rate commensurate with the up to $600 >>per hour commanded by George Stigler and the others as antitrust "experts" >>in court). No opposing economists have ever been allowed to appear before >>the judges. When I asked the Center's people why they didn't permit >>distinguished non-Chicago economists to share the podium at these judicial >>teach-ins, they laughed and said, "Let them go start their OWN seminars for >>the judges!" >> I asked to be allowed to just sit in as an OBSERVER with the judges >>and/or the 200 antitrust law professors (who have been run through a similar >>indoctrination program) and Henry Manne himself responded to my request (by >>telephone), No, "We keep it all in the family." (Manne, who had been a law >>professor at the University of Rochester, founded the "Center" in 1974 at >>the University of Miami, then moved it to Emory and finally to George Mason. >>A federal judge--Judge Hoffman, as I recall--helped him get the approval of >>the judiciary's executive body in Washington, headed by the Chief Justice of >>the Supreme Court. The money to finance these sessions at luxury resorts >>(mostly at Key Biscayne and other Florida beach towns) was originally gotten >>directly from Fortune 500 companies who had experienced the sting of >>antitrust prosecution; in response to some criticism of that obvious >>conflict of interest, Manne, with some creative accounting, arranged it so >>that the seminars for the judges themselves--in 1981, the cost was $5,000 >>per judge per 2-week seminar--were thereafter paid for exclusively by the >>corporate foundations, e.g., Schaife, Olin, etc., rather than by active >>firms that frequently appear before the judges as antitrust defendants. >>With this accounting twist, the judiciary gave its full blessing to the >>operation.) >> I also did an interview with a federal appeals judge in Washington >>(DC Circuit). He saw nothing wrong with Manne's program, even assuming it >>was pure propaganda designed specifically to bias the federal judiciary >>against the antitrust laws and in favor of corporate monopoly. Why? (1) >>First, he said, judges are, by the nature of their work, "immune" to >>propaganda of all kinds. They hear so much argument on so many sides of >>every issue that it's simply impossible to "bias" them via argument. (2) >>Second, he told me, federal judges have every RIGHT to be as intellectually >>"biased" as they like and to DEVELOP those intellectual biases with the help >>of WHOEVER they please. >> For example, he said, suppose I go to the beach for a weekend with 3 >>volumes of Karl Marx's writings in my briefcase. I find Marx so persuasive >>that I come back to my chambers on Monday, throw away an opinion I had just >>written on one of the cases before me, and proceed to write a new one >giving my >>decision to the opposite party. Karl Marx "biased" me to change my >>decision. He had every right to do it--and I had every right to LET him >>do it. >> George Mason University law school and its economics department >>aren't scholarly enterprises at all; they're hired propagandists, awash in >>corporate money awarded precisely for the purpose of making a contrived >>"economic" case for laissez-faire monopoly. They get away with it for one >>reason and one reason only: Manne's operation had the approval of Reagan's >>Justice Department (rember Ed Meese?) and now it has the blessing of >>Clinton's. All it would take to bring it to a halt would be a couple of >>speeches by, say, the Attorney General and, if necessary, by Clinton >>himself. If Justice treated it as the outrage that it plainly is, the >>press--and the ensuing public condemnation--would purge the judiciary of >>this 20-year scandal within a matter of weeks. >> Charles Mueller, Editor >> ANTITRUST LAW & ECONOMICS REVIEW >> http://www.metrolink.net/~cmueller/ >> >> > ***********

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Coercive Monopolism vs Wimpyness
by Blanc 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

Attila T. Hut quoted Tom Steinert-Threlkeld: "So, it can't coerce computer makers to license the IE browser as a condition of licensing the Windows operating system, forcing them to install both onto the machines they sell to the public." ................................................... How do computer makers get "coerced"? How, specifically are they "forced" into doing something they don't want to do? Are they incapable of just saying "no"? Is there a gun put to their head? Does someone threaten them with DoJ action if they don't participate in the game of monopoly? Why do they continue to lie down and roll over when MS comes around - don't they know they're contributing to the demise of Netscape and the other better-than-thou companies, which are *much* more deserving of success than Gates is, since they're kinder & gentler? Whose side are these people on, anyway; how can they renege on the right to choose and instead just _give_it_up_ to Microsoft? And, since Windows OS is so pitifully lousy, why do people continue to buy it, even without the computer attached; why do they continue to upgrade, even if it's so slow and bloated? Don't they realize Unix is better? Don't they realize they're just making Billg richer? What's the matter with all these people, anyway (Attila)? .. Blanc

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Re: Is Anonymous Communication only for "Criminals"? (was: Re: UCENET II and Peter duh Silva)
by Charlie Comsec 17 Dec '03

17 Dec '03

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- gburnore(a)netcom.com (Gary L. Burnore) wrote: > On 19 Dec 1997 23:01:59 +0100, Charlie Comsec wrote: > :Actually in the case of anonymous e-mail you have one additional > :safeguard. You can ask to be blocked from receiving anonymous e-mail. Try > :telling the telephone company that you want to be blocked from receiving > :calls from any pay phone! > > It's available now. The first to use it are pager companies. Why would a pager company want to block calls from pay phones? Haven't you seen that commercial (for MCI?) where the kids crowd into that phone booth and page someone to pick them up from school before the big storm hits? Imagine if they had gotten a recording saying "I'm sorry. You can't page this number from a pay phone." Really bad PR! - --- Finger <comsec(a)nym.alias.net> for PGP public key (Key ID=19BE8B0D) -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.3i Charset: noconv iQEVAwUBNJvy7Abp0h8ZvosNAQHvxgf+K2qymGG+uDduMJbDHw94OhAWioubIXHe KK7dXYstS1qFpoG7zJgbcJprYWMsdOQD9c/GD68CmzOj+BYLRQ+7cMLyFWmvIylJ pVMBIuocLKFo2CXU5m5aHNb6MUoTkqAZA4ZOP6HlWVFbXdOlrzyD689qpDTNOwsH DEJtlF4Iu1wogZN5D1rh4Obr1hTPgihJH4cXqkfpwsaAnGKB0uHn8akhgGVFP0rL ovDLmiCGoCUFTTOgKGPv1Z3+dZ07TEy3yhLEbJPrEfw6Cua8F8C7fD0+ZymErJoJ qvr51KoxKp5LJAgZgAgYgCcmTEhVoiPiO6Hafyu6x5r4QKYxe+ONMA== =yaoP -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

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