More Details of MS/DOJ Deal

There are various news articles out at most major news sites, but they're all based on this press release from the Department of Justice. The actual terms of the settlement will probably become public shortly, so I wouldn't spend a whole lot of time trying to dissect this press release. Just read it for generalities. In sum: for this whole multi-year case, which you will recall started when Microsoft refused to obey its earlier behavior restrictions, we have more behavior restrictions, lasting only five years. And if MS doesn't obey those, they'll ... be in effect longer. Update: 11/02 15:07 GMT by M : Here are the promised terms of the settlement. Now you can dissect them. :) Update: 11/02 15:53 GMT by M : The states are refusing to sign on.

Comments

Re:Tender Lovin by the DOJ

[hey!]

Personally, I think that that affair was responsible for extending the economic expansion for several years. It happened just as the world was going down in economic flames. Asia is going down the toilet, Europe is slumping, but who the hell cares? The president is getting nookie in the Oval Office and the Republicans are going to try to nail his hide the wall because of it.

It had dramatic plot twists, juicy revelations, nasty rumors, villains galore. How about those press jackals for starters? I loved reading the insights of a friend of a roomate of one of her college chums into her character (she was a slob who didn't pick up her room, apparently). It was fun to abhor, on one hand, the reporters who dredged up these ripe tidbits, and on the other the nebbishes desperate for the notoriety that having a little inside "information" would give them. I loved the pop sociologists swarming out of the woodworks to tell us about the post-gen-X attitudes toward fellatio. You could feel superior while salaciously lapping up all the steaming fetid garbage the press could supply.

I loved the impeachment process with its air of arcane ceremony ceremony and the seething, cathartic enmity underneath. It was like watching a druidic exorcism ritual in which some person might be burned to death in a wicker basket (only no real people or animals would be hurt in the production -- just politicians).

Now the old show has folded up, and the new one isn't nearly as fun (despite a promising start with the FL fiasco -- Bush should have found a much more visible role in his administration for Ms. Harris). The new star isn't nearly as charismatic or compelling; you can't really love to love or love to hate him. He'd be OK in a supporting comic role (like Mr. Quayle of yore), but he is no Clinton, Reagan, Nixon or Kennedy. People are leaving the theater and looking around in the bright sunlight, and finding that things don't look so good. Reality has hit us like a hangover, and Mr. Bin-Laden hasn't contributed much to restoring our former joie de vivre.

Only a year has gone by, and already I am nostalgic for that smarmy, but oddly compelling charisma of Mr. Clinton. Alas, his alloted two terms are gone.

But there is one potential bright spot:

Jobs in 2004!