Another socialist blog

The official party line at Wal-Mart seems to be that educating people about HIV is bad.

Planned Parenthood of Central Washington was scheduled to hold an event at a local Wal-Mart on National HIV Testing Day where their Teen Council were simply going to stand outside of the store and hand out information about HIV prevention and testing. But the American Life League got a tip on the event, and urged their supporters to call and complain to the store, after which Wal-Mart succumbed and canceled the event.

As Bill Gates leaves the helm of Microsoft, there are lots of puff pieces in the media, helped along by the Microsoft PR machine of course, about what a swell guy he is. American Public Media’s Marketplace, which was in a position to know better, joined the love feast with a story about how terribly, terribly innovative Gates has been.

Mitch Kapor, founder of the Lotus Corporation, begged to differ: “Claims by Microsoft that people were buying the software because it was good are pretty self-serving. I’d like to smoke what he’s smoking.” Kapor is right. Innovation is hard. Anti-competitive practices and bogus patent lawsuits are easier. And bribing politicians to avoid punishment for anti-trust violations is easier yet.

Working Assets has called for a boycott of the iPhone because customers will be locked into a contract with AT&T.

Handset locking sucks, and AT&T sucks more: These people are criminal traitors who helped wiretap the nation, neutricidal maniacs bent on wrecking the Internet, and convicted monopolists besides.

You will recall that Microsoft successfully dodged the consequences of its proven violations of antitrust law by the time-tested means of bribing politicians. The scandal continues. The top antitrust official at the Justice Department is none other than Thomas O. Barnett, who until 2004 was a top antitrust partner at the law firm that represented —wait for it—Microsoft! The firm handled several antitrust disputes for Microsoft, though Justice claims Barnett never worked on Microsoft matters. The NY Times says that “Ethics lawyers ultimately cleared his involvement” in Microsoft-related matters at the Justice Department, which makes me think they have an impaired sense of smell.

Barnett, in an unprecedented move, has sent a memo to state attorneys general supporting Microsoft against accusations of anticompetitive conduct brought by Google. This is not atypical; the Bush administration has repeatedly defended Microsoft against such accusations.

One thing I’ll say for the Bushies: when you buy ‘em they stay bought.

I’ve mentioned before that corporations oppose government invervention in the so-called free market, except when the free market doesn’t give them what they want. Here is yet another example, from corporate bad citizen Microsoft: the company claims that Linux and other free software products violate Microsoft patents and they expect that people will pay Microsoft for the privilege of using free software. The same company that flouts anti-trust law and bribes politicians would like everyone else to be more reverent about the law, which upholds idiotic patents along with reasonable ones.

The New York Times reports that New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer has served subpoenas in an investigation of payola, the illegal practice of bribing radio stations to play particular songs. “According to several people involved, investigators in Mr. Spitzer’s office have served subpoenas on the four major record corporations - the Universal Music Group, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, the EMI Group and the Warner Music Group - seeking copies of contracts, billing records and other information detailing their ties to independent middlemen who pitch new songs to radio programmers in New York State.”

Everybody who feels sorry for the record companies, raise your hand.

David McReynolds shared an excerpt from The Economics of Innocent Fraud: Truth for Our Time by J.K. Galbraith, who argues that corporate power is the driving force behind US foreign policy.

In 2003, close to half the total US government discretionary expenditure was used for military purposes. A large part was for weapons procurement or development. Nuclear-powered submarines run to billions of dollars, individual planes to tens of millions each.

Such expenditure is not the result of detached analysis. From the relevant industrial firms come proposed designs for new weapons, and to them are awarded production and profit. In an impressive flow of influence and command, the weapons industry accords valued employment, management pay and profit in its political constituency, and indirectly it is a treasured source of political funds. The gratitude and the promise of political help go to Washington and to the defence budget. And to foreign policy or, as in Vietnam and Iraq, to war. That the private sector moves to a dominant public-sector role is apparent.

You may have been following the efforts of SCO, a corporation that is trying to collect license fees from the users of the free Linux operating system. SCO claims Linux users are in violation of SCO patents, and have been spending millions in legal fees to extort from Linux users. Where ever did SCO get the money? Not, certainly, from producing quality products. Turns out the money has been funneled through third parties by Microsoft. An article today on Slashdot reports on a leaked memo from a SCO whistleblower that proves Microsoft has raised $86 million for SCO’s efforts to destroy Linux, the main threat to Microsoft’s monopoly.

Only the dollar figure, much larger than previously rumored, is a surprise. Capitalists love to talk about the curative powers of a free marketplace. When it doesn’t give them what they want, though, they go straight to the government with their hand out. What the so-called free market won’t deliver, they can get in court or in the legislature.

Are you running Windows? Isn’t it about time you switched to Linux and told Microsoft to go to hell?

Slashdot reports today that Microsoft’s Tokyo office has been raided by Japan’s Fair Trade Commission, which is investigating whether Microsoft violated the country’s anti-monopoly law. A commission official commented that Microsoft Japan is suspected of “attaching improper restrictive conditions” when signing software deals with Japanese PC makers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents.

Apparently their mild punishment for violating U.S. anti-trust law has left no lasting scars. Perhaps the Japanese government will be less forgiving.

George Bush wants you to think of him as a visionary space explorer. But his Mars proposal is much more down-to-earth. It’s all about taking his policy of militarizing space to the next level. The prime beneficiaries will be military contractors, not scientists. If you doubt it, consider the fact that NASA will be abandoning the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the most productive scientific instruments of all time. As long as NASA is controlled by the U.S. military, its mission will be military, which means it will be all about keeping a river of tax dollars flowing to war profiteers.