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| MS & the EU Commission - Calling Out the US Cavalry? Updated 2Xs |
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Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:09 PM EST
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[ UPDATE: Microsoft's lawyer claims a "breakthrough", as he leaves the session:
"As I said in the hearing, I believe that we have had a breakthrough," Brad Smith told reporters at the end of the two-day hearing into the Commission's plan to start fining Microsoft 2 million euros ($2.4 million) a day....
Some rivals of Microsoft said they had heard nothing new from the software giant at the closed-door hearing, run by independent arbitrators.]
[ 2d UPDATE: More details from Bloomberg News on the "breakthrough," which now appears to be a bit of bluster: Smith said the EU-appointed trustee Neil Barrett had provided more details on how to comply with the demands during a meeting with Microsoft engineers.
Barrett "described some further details about what should be included and the style in which it should be written," Smith said. "It gives us the start of a real blueprint." Oh, you want the documentation to be *usable." That's clear now. Let me guess. I'm guessing they will need more time now to implement their new-found understanding of what is required. No one else quoted in the Bloomberg article noticed a breakthrough at the hearing: Carlo Piana, a lawyer for the Free Software Foundation Europe, which represents developers of programs such as Linux, said in an interview that he was surprised Smith saw a breakthrough in the case. Trustee Barrett, who visited Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond, Washington in January, has been meeting regularly with Microsoft engineers, Piana said.
"He didn't say there was a new plan," Piana said. "The plan is to comply, and the goal post is there. The goal is set and it doesn't change."]
It will take a couple of weeks before we learn the EU Commission's decision on Microsoft. However, we do know that a memo urging the Commission to be "fair" to Microsoft was sent by US government officials and the same letter went to 25 national governments, according to the New York Times [sub req'd].
Your tax dollars at work. And IBM's tax dollars. And Sun Microsystems' tax dollars. And Novell's tax dollars. And Red Hat's tax dollars. And Oracle's. Hmm. So, the US government takes a stand against all those companies and on Microsoft's behalf? No, no, they profess, according to IDG: "We are careful not to take a position on the accuracy of Microsoft's accusations, but if they were true they would be a matter of concern," the diplomat said.
This isn't the first time the U.S. government has intervened in the European antitrust case against Microsoft. "There was frenetic political activity in the build-up to the March 2004 antitrust ruling," Todd said.
So, the US government isn't taking sides. It just looks like it is taking sides. Which is a pressure of its own, not that it did a particle of good in 2004, I notice. The Times story adds this: United States diplomats visited the offices of three European commissioners earlier this week. Jonathan Todd, the spokesman for the competition commissioner, Neelie Kroes, confirmed that her close aides met American diplomats this week and received the memo. He declined to comment on its content.The diplomats also visited the offices of the internal market commissioner, Charlie McCreevy, and Gunter Verheugen, vice president of the commission, according to the person close to the commission.
A United States official denied that the American government was coming to Microsoft's aid in the antitrust dispute. "Our interest is less that than wanting to see that everything is done properly," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the tenuous nature of the matter. Uh huh. The Times story says the memo was written by unidentified persons: A memo written by unidentified government officials in Washington stated that Microsoft's complaints raise "substantial concerns" about the way Microsoft is being treated, according to a person close to the commission who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the memo. The memo was distributed this week through embassies in Europe and through the United States mission to the European Union in Brussels. However, Reuters reports that the subject of Microsoft didn't come up when "senior European Union and U.S. competition officials met in Washington on Thursday, a European Commission spokesman said on Friday." Bloomberg news informs us that an ex-Microsoft lobbyist, C. Boyden Gray, is now the head of the US's EU Mission: Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, is getting U.S. government support for its complaint that European Union antitrust regulators have denied access to evidence needed for the company's defense.
Microsoft's complaint raises "substantial concerns," U.S. diplomats in Brussels said in a memo sent to the European Commission this week.The U.S.'s EU mission is led by C. Boyden Gray, a former White House counsel who lobbied on behalf of Microsoft during its battle with the U.S. Justice Department. Ah, now the mist is clearing. Here's some background information on C. Boyden Gray:
http://www.nationalreview.com/interrogatory/interrogatory060700.html
http://www.aei.brookings.org/policy/page.php?id=179
http://www.freedomworks.org/processor/printer.php?issue_id=283
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/business/0,39020645,39212457,00.htm
http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20040415-094757-6287r.htm
http://ecoustics-cnet.com.com/2061-10796_3-5808808.html
https://www.microsoft.com/freedomtoinnovate/newsletter/finnews_060501.asp
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:15 PM EST |
Given the overall tone of public conversation between the US and EU countries
these days, I'm not sure that if I were Microsoft I'd want this kind of help . .
.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:18 PM EST |
| oh I wish I were an Oscar Mayer weiner... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:18 PM EST |
Quite interested to see how this one plays out. MS has been very good at gaming
the rules in their advantage. Now that they run a risk of having the rules turn
against them, they speculate it is not going to be 'fair'?? Buuuhuuu, cry me a
river...[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: om1er on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:19 PM EST |
If needed.
---
Are we there yet?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Corrections Here - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:46 PM EST
- particle - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 03 2006 @ 10:50 AM EDT
- particle - Authored by: Anonymous on Monday, April 03 2006 @ 10:53 AM EDT
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| Authored by: om1er on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:20 PM EST |
Please make links hyper.
---
Are we there yet?[ Reply to This | # ]
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- OT Thread here (non-anonymous) - Authored by: troll on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:56 PM EST
- Microsoft claims breakthrough in EU fines hearing - Authored by: Chris Lingard on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 02:20 PM EST
- Voting machine fight - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:16 PM EST
- ODF - Authored by: DaveJakeman on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 06:12 PM EST
- ODF - Authored by: PolR on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 08:00 PM EST
- ODF - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 10:31 PM EST
- ODF - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 01:10 AM EST
- ODF - Authored by: DebianUser on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 01:18 PM EST
- ODF - Authored by: DaveJakeman on Monday, April 03 2006 @ 06:28 AM EDT
- First Textbooks on OpenOffice.org - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 10:36 PM EST
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| Authored by: jmc on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:52 PM EST |
True but quite a few EU govts do the exact opposite of what Bush tells them.
Admittedly we've got that Irish EU commissioner who does exactly what Bill says
- especially on S/W patents - but extracting a bit of M$ loose change to save
extracting EU taxpayers' loose change would generally go down well so I'm pretty
confident that M$ will have a hard time on this point.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Nick_UK on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 01:57 PM EST |
... this couldn't have been better said (has really
taken the
words out my
mouth) than this:
Slas
h
dot comment
Nick[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Kilz on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 02:02 PM EST |
It is a sad day when the government here in the usa proves it is for sale.
Trying to step in and stop the right thing from being done is sad. Especially
when we did not have the guts to do it in the first place.
I hope the
European Commission can resist the garbage coming their way. I hope they can see
past the lies and bought testimony of the hired M$ guns. It appears that
every one of the companies/org's that Microsoft told the commision about
yesterday was a business partner or had M$ as part of their organization. I
wrote an off topic on "Richard Stallman: "The Future of Free Software"" that
points out who backed up M$
Link[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: BassSinger on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 02:05 PM EST |
One could make a pretty compelling argument that getting the US Government to
put pressure on an EU decision would have exactly the reverse effect desired
(unless you are really Machiavellian and did it to get just the reverse effect)
due to the strong tendency of Europeans to like American money and military aid,
but the strong determination to avoid any remote appearance of being a vassal to
the US. The EU will not want to appear to its citizens and member countries to
be swayed by (read: taking orders from) the US government.
---
In A Chord,
Tom
Proud Member of the Kitsap Chordsmen
Registered Linux User # 154358[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: mossc on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 02:05 PM EST |
If so any pointers on how to file a request?
I have not done a FOIA request.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 02:06 PM EST |
Queen to give knighthood to Bill Gates - but you can blame it on
Gordon Brown
Bill Gates, the Microsoft founder and the world's
wealthiest man, is to receive an honorary knighthood for "services to global
enterprise". The recommendation that he receive the honour was made by the
Chancellor, Gordon Brown. Buckingham Palace is expected to announce it tomorrow,
when Mr Gates will speak at a conference on "Advancing Enterprise" organised by
Mr Brown.... The Telegraph
American
readers may not be aware of a current UK
scandal 'Toxic' cash for peerages row threatens to engulf
Blair
Brown's globalisation panel of 'wise men'
attacked from all sides.... The
Guardian
Does Gordon want British Business to adopt Microsoft's tactics
in World Trade? They'd better stock up on lawyers. Enacting software patents in
the UK might help if that's the case. But the courts in London may not be big
enough and we'd need more political judges.
Of course the UK Government have
had Microsoft's FBI spy don
't look to Microsoft for your security" Ed Gibson advising them for the last
year or so.
Brian S.
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| Authored by: Chris Lingard on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 02:31 PM EST |
The US government probably had to intervene, and a letter is about the
least that they could do. It has not been discussed in any of the joint
meetings, nor has the US Ambassador intervened.
It is the duty of
any government to protect its people overseas, and Microsoft has huge influence.
But US interference in this case could be counter productive.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jsusanka on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 03:12 PM EST |
Please keep on this story like a hound dog on a rabbit's trail.
I want to know who, what, where, and when MY government wrote letters and
visited the EU on behalf of microsoft using MY tax dollars.
guess all that abramoff money didn't go to waste after all.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 03:12 PM EST |
MS really don't want this help.
In the current environment, an endorsement from the govrnement of the USA can
only be seen as an international invitation to be kicked.
Signed,
An American Citizen (with 3 years to go)[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 03:14 PM EST |
Hmm. Let see.
Sir William (BillG) is a friend on Grodon Brown. Bush seems to be a friend of
MS. Britian is (just about) a member of the EU. MS is in the weeds with the EU.
Charlie McCreevy is being lobbied at the minute.
A connection. Now why would you think that?
--
MadScientist[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: jbb on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 03:27 PM EST |
We've never competed fairly and honorably during the entire
history of our company. It's just not fair to demand we
start doing so now. We're just not up to speed on such
strategies and tactics.
You must allow us 10 to 20 years of unfair, monopolistic
behavior in order to level the playing field and give us
a chance to learn how to compete fairly.
---
Anyone who has the power to make you believe absurdities has the power to make
you commit injustices.[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Hear hear - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:56 PM EST
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 03:44 PM EST |
Does it not comprehend that, given global (and especially European) opinion
regarding what we might generously call US "foreign policy", the
absolute worst thing it could do for M$ is to get involved in this action?
Or has Billy G upset someone in the Whitehouse and this is their way of getting
back at him?
If the US Government even comes close to applying real pressure on the EU the
most likely outcome is that they'll double the fine to $4m a day! (joke-ish)
But the chance of them backing down over their ruling on M$'s anti-trust
infringements just went from "unlikely" to "not in this
lifetime" - courtesy of Bush & friends.
Most people over here in the EU actually like the American people quite a lot.
And I think M$ is mostly viewed with wary distrust rather than actual
antipathy.
But we really, really, don't like the Government you've got over there at the
moment.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: luvr on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 03:47 PM EST |
| There was an article in the newspaper today ("De Morgen," 2006-03-31, p.
8: "Melchior Wathelet hielp Microsoft bij Europese rechtszaak"), stating
that Microsoft flew three former European judges over to the U.S., in order to
assist Microsoft's lawyers in preparing for the case. They held simulated
hearings, so Microsoft's lawyers could get an idea of how the actual hearings
would go.
One of the three former judges is Melchior Wathelet, who
also is a former Belgian Justice Secretary (I hope I get the terminology right;
in Dutch, it's "Minister van Justitie").
Mr. Wathelet said that
Microsoft's lawyers hired him to help them prepare their defense, and so he
worked for them as a consultant. He added that that is, after all, his current
occupation, as a lawyer specialised in European justice.
(I would post a
link to the article, but the online version is available only to subscribers of
the printed edition of the newspaper.)
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:23 PM EST |
Anyone else enjoying the spin Reuters is dishing out?
From the article...
"Despite 12,000 pages of documentation that Microsoft has submitted
spelling out how its software works, the Commission says rivals still did not
have the right information and it wants to fine the company until it
complies."
Although this has been covered before..,
Source code is NOT BLOODY DOCUMENTATION and doesn't spell out ANYTHING.
Actually had another engineer, on my team, once tell me that the only
documentation I needed was the source. I wanted to jump on a plane and go
strangle him.
And the Moronic Engineering award of the day has got to go to Mike Sax of
ACT...
"The Association for Competitive Technology, which represents more than
3,000 information technology companies including eBay , said the Commission's
demands were unreasonable.
As a software engineer with 12 years of experience ... I know that search for
perfect documentation is a search for the Holy Grail," said ACT's
president, Mike Sax."
Fine, you engineer your software and provide no docs, I definately don't want to
have anything to do with running/supporting/testing your apps, or getting
anything to work with any OS you've engineered.
As an engineer, you live and die by your documentation. If you don't document
it, you might as well not build it.
And I don't recall anyone asking for perfect documentation, but to even refer to
source as documentation is ludicris(sp?), it is NOT documentation, it is a WORK
PRODUCT that must be documented.
Morons abound.
And he throws another gem in there:
"It is equally true that perfect documentation has never been necessary to
create interoperable software," he said."
Sigh, maybe not perfect, but some documentation pertinant to interoperability
saves TONS of expensive engineering time spent on reverse engineering.
For the last time, I beseech you, give up on your quest of the moronic, and quit
referring to the source as documentation, 'cuz it BLOODY WELL ISN'T.
Got it?
Sheesh.
-w00t[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Minor nitpick - Authored by: PolR on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:42 PM EST
- Question - Authored by: brooker on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 05:40 PM EST
- Question - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 07:27 PM EST
- Question - Authored by: PolR on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 08:45 PM EST
- Thank you - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 04:06 AM EST
- Better Analogy - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 11:31 AM EST
- Gotta love the spin... - Authored by: PJ on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 05:29 PM EST
- Gotta love the spin... - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 06:01 PM EST
- twelve years? Bah, I can top that with my eyes closed! - Authored by: rc on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 06:59 PM EST
- Well, source code *is* documentation, but... - Authored by: Crocodile_Dundee on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 09:00 PM EST
- Thought "Association for Competitive Technology" sounded familiar... - Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 12:40 AM EST
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| Authored by: grouch on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:30 PM EST |
| Besides all the Diebold voting scandals (the boxes just happen to run MS
Windows), and the current step-and-fetch-it activity of the U.S. government at
Bill's every whimper, the use of U.S. government pawns in Bill's global racket
goes back a ways:
Don't dump
Microsoft for Free Software, U.S. ambassador begs Peru.
Are there any
parts of what was formerly the U.S. government that have not had the U. replaced
by M.?
What's the going rate for purchasing a national government these
days?
---
-- grouch
http://edge-op.org/links1.html
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| Authored by: ruurd on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:45 PM EST |
| Well. I don't know what the outcome will be. What I think
I do know is that
this is followed rather closely in the
European IT community. For obvious
reasons. And what I
have seen lately is that MS is trying to convince us the
EUC wants to take measures that are anti-innovation. That
is not the
case. What MS also seems to forget is that
this is not a legal case anymore.
It is not. Let me say
this. MS already has been found to be at fault by the UEC
for violation of EU competition rules. It is that simple.
The remaining matter
here is to let the EUC decide to
enforce the penalty. And FWIW, I think that
they have been
quite lenient and MS quite lacking in their response. MS
has
been given more than ample time to fullfill the
requirements of the EUC imposed
on them to be exonerated
from being fined, but instead thought they could get
away
by partially and/or sloppily fullfilling the requirements
for not being
fined, which is - in short - to open up
their server protocols and to unbundle
certain
applications from their operating system. It seems
obvious to me
that MS is quite unfamiliar with the inner
workings of the EUC. They approach
this in a typical US
fashion. It's needless to say that that approach is plain
wrong. I agree with others that in this case, the cavalry
will only incite
more resistance to letting MS off the
hook. Why? Because it makes it obvious it
does not want to
play nice here and puts in practice all the bullying
techniques they learned in their existence to get off the
hook. As long as
MS keeps thinking that they can take
the EUC and Mrs. Kroes for a ride, chances
are they are in
for a rude surprise. Bear in mind that Mrs. Kroes already
warned MS about the fact that Vista will be scrutinized
when it comes out. And
next time, the possibility of an
import ban on MS products isn't
theoretical.
---
ruurd [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 04:50 PM EST |
| Follow the money.
The money is hard to track;
money is typically funnelled through other (front) groups.
The available
data shows Microsoft sends more money to politicians than anyone else in the IT
field. Look at OpenSecrets.org's
Top
Contributors to Federal Candidates and Parties, in the "Computers/Internet"
category, Microsoft is #1 by a wide margin in 2006 (already), with $595,823
in contributions (59% Rep, 41% Dem). #2 is Siebel Systems ($380,000), #3 is
Cisco Systems ($216,741), and #4 is Intel Corp ($184,767); this is as of
March 2006.
Previous 2004 data shows the same pattern.
The 2004 data shows
Microsoft Corp contributing $3,317,520
(62% R/38% D), versus #2 Cisco
Systems ($1,126,133), #3 IBM Corp ($730,219), #4 Intel Corp
($603,450), and so on.
Microsoft not just the leader in sending money to
politicians... it's a leader by a huge margin.
When Microsoft spends 4 times as
much as IBM, it's hardly surprising that the politicians listen to
Microsoft.
The
primary client of disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff was Microsoft, so much so
that their contributions skew statistics about his clients. As noted in Capital
Eye,
"The largest [client of Abramoff], by far, was Microsoft, which employed
the firm of Preston, Gates & Ellis as a lobbyist—a law firm where Microsoft
chairman Bill Gates’ father is a principal. During the time that Abramoff worked
for Preston, Gates as a Microsoft lobbyist, political contributions associated
with the software giant totaled more than $13.3 million, accounting for 60%
of contributions from all of Abramoff’s clients."
Abramoff was not Microsoft's
only representative, far from it; "Abramoff was one of nearly 200 lobbyists
registered for [Microsoft] in 2002 alone. Through contributions from individuals
associated with the company and through its political action committee, the
massive software company has spread money throughout much of Congress and
politics at large."
This is not easy to squelch.
Politicians need funds to
campaign, and companies (which have money) want to talk to the politicians.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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- Wow! - Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 05:02 PM EST
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| Authored by: Brian S. on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 05:38 PM EST |
Neelie Kroes, the EU's competition commissioner, said at a conference in
Washington today that a decision on fining Microsoft will be made by June
21.
IMHO
The EU have been suckered or "persuaded".
Microsoft have
conceded the Protocol Specs will be produced - at some time.
They have until
June 21 (nearly 3 months)to show honest progress (say 25%).
That takes us to
April 07 for 100% completion. With a few problems along the way it shouldn't be
too hard to string out until 4th Qtr 07. The top governmental speciality is
"never complete a project on time". That should be about a
year after the
release of Vista.
Total speculation on my part:
The US has
said to the EU "We need to get the new backdoors into Vista after the Sony
debacle and the Chinese/UK government incident at Christmas. M$ think it's
going to take about a year". Brian S.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: contrarian on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 06:18 PM EST |
The U.S.'s EU mission is led by C. Boyden Gray, a former
White
House counsel who lobbied on behalf of Microsoft during its battle with
the
U.S. Justice Department.
My sources tell me that, in
addition to this lucky co-incidence, there is a
full-time Microsoft desk at the
US Mission to the EU in Brussels... [ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: drorh on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 09:36 PM EST |
Consider this - Microsoft claims that specifying their networking protocols is
too complicated, cannot be documented and is too burdensome. They propose
letting people look at their source code.
We are concerned about seeing source code from Microsoft for good reasons
(copyright trolls), rights?
Here's the blueprint to solve this and similar problems: a leading open source
project would be appointed by the EU (or some other organization - not
Microsoft) and the lead developers of that organization would have a open access
to a Microsoft developer expert in the relevant area. That expert would be
responsible for communicating with the open source project lead developers and
answering their question. If the Microsoft developer gives out a piece of code
as an answer to a question, this specific code block is to be considered as
public domain (or otherwise as licensable under the same license of the open
source project).
Using this model, the burden on Microsoft would be minimal and the benefit would
be maximal. The open source project can be used as a coherent and untainted
reference.
It does not matter too much if the open source is GNU, BSD or other open license
because anybody else is free to duplicate its behaviour 'in their own
handwriting'.
/d
----
A cyclop, not a troll![ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Friday, March 31 2006 @ 10:50 PM EST |
Maybe I'm the only person that noticed that Enderle got a little air time this
morning on Marketplace Morning Edition, in a story on this very topic. You will
not be surprised to hear that he said the EU's case had nothing to do with
protecting competition, they just want some easy money by fining Microsoft.
I'm pretty surprised that Marketplace wouldn't do a better job of checking out
the "experts" they talk to.
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 12:44 AM EST |
Word last week from the Mini-Microsoft blog postings from Microsoft employess
after Vista was delayed suggested that Microsoft Legal was the culprit behind
the delay.
Word is that Microsoft absolutely is refusing to release its server APIs,
because it is concerned that the open source application Samba must not be
allowed to interoperate with Vista's server editions the way it does with
Microsoft 2000 and 2003 Server.
It is thus holding back Vista until corporations pressure the US Commerce
Department or the WTO to intervene with the EU. It was suggested on the blog
that it didn't matter if the Vista delay was three months or nine months, no way
was Microsoft going to open its server APIs to open source competition.
This lends weight to that blog post.
In other news, George Bush has reportedly discovered WMDs in Europe...However,
he is hesitating in ordering a full-scale aerial bombardment of Europe because
there's no oil there...
Bill Gates is attempting to convince him there IS oil there, you just have to
take a right into Iran...
[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: Anonymous on Saturday, April 01 2006 @ 02:13 PM EST |
C. Boyden Gray
Man, this dude makes Mephisto look like a boy scout.
Has been an instrument of evil, as long back as the Reagan administion or more.
No polluter too dirty, no scheme too crazy. Boyden to the service. I bet he'd
lobby for asbestos to be allowed as supplement to babyfood if someone would pay
him $10 to do it.
That he'd end up heading the European U.S. mission is an insult and slap in the
face to all law-abiding americans. Abramoff could only dream of achieving what C
Boyden Gray has done.
I would equate giving C Boyden Gray a significant role in a US mission, to
making Jack Abramoff Secretary of the Interior. Outrageous, but par for the
course.[ Reply to This | # ]
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| Authored by: LPrecure on Monday, April 03 2006 @ 01:48 PM EDT |
But not, as I understand it, Microsoft's tax dollars. That's because, as I
understand it, Microsoft doesn't pay US corporate taxes. (At least not
corporate income taxes.)
(I assume that's because they claim, on their
tax return, that their company has never made a profit, or some such.) [ Reply to This | # ]
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