Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Government Raids Microsoft Offices
Nakito writes "According to an article at the financial news site Bloomberg, Microsoft's Tokyo office was raided by Japan's Fair Trade Commission, which is investigating whether the world's largest software maker violated the country's anti-monopoly law." Other readers note a AP/Yahoo story claiming: "A commission official, speaking on customary condition of anonymity, said Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions when signing software deals with Japanese personal computer manufacturers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents."
Should we expect eminent post of the Japanese version of Windows XP source code now?
A programmer is a machine for converting coffee into code.
BBC is also running the story here.
Ryan T. Sammartino
"Ancora imparo"
Wow.. what a crazy hemispere. Kazaa and now Microsoft?
Just shocking. Never saw that coming *at all*.
One of the benefits of the new trend towards global companies is that the set of rules one must play by becomes more and more restricted as you enter into new markets.
--- I do not moderate.
"IT Department of Japanese Government Raided by BSA"
Too bad Microsoft has bought enough politicians here in the US to keep the company from conforming to anti trust laws. *sigh* Good thing I am starting to make my transition to Linux now, though if the **AA's had there way, Linux would be made illegal cause it circumvents DRM. :-(
Call up the troops! It's Pearl Harbor all over again!
Wow i hope they make a Anime about the raid!... .. Giant Robots!!
Officer: Stop!
M$: no!
Officer: So, Be it.. we must Kungfoo Figh!...
Then out of no where
you're next, Bill.
When will the governments of the world learn that Microsoft WILL do absolutely anything it can to achieve and maintain market dominance.
Microsoft's objective hasn't changed since day 1: control.
Microsoft would much rather control a broken protocol than use or contribute to an open one.
Microsoft would rather squash or buy out competitors instead of compete on a level playing field.
The only 2 things that can change this behavior are Open Source and government restrictions, in that order. (Increased public awareness and understanding is considered part of Open Source.)
Long live Open Source!
As covered in a previous story here , why couldn't the FBI do that on MS's home turf?
I'm willing to bet the anti-trust trial would have made more headway.
and it seems to me that they are protecting Japanese companies from alleged abuse on my Microsoft's part in contracts.
nothing sissy about that.
IAALS.
The article really doesn't say anything at all that Slashdot's preview didn't already say. (I guess that explains why slashdoters don't RTFA.)
I am curious, however, why the article's headline reads "update 3". Did stuff happen in the past I'm not aware of or what?
Umm...haven't they already been found guilty of abusing their monopoly? I can't see that as being a good thing to have on your record when going into an anti-monopoly lawsuit.
At least get it right if you're going to make that joke...
All your patents are belong to us!
always is. Unless they are talking about the xbox offices....
You linux weenies are just jealous.
After the first glance at this story headline I thought there would be a tiny Japanese government official with every copy of office 2k5.
Possible new Microsoft sales pitch in my demented mind:
Now those crazy kamikazies are going to help your system crash in style!
The original generic sig.
What happened to the good old days when we had RIAA and SCO jokes to space out the Microsoft ones?
It is absolutely ridiculous that our rights (to free trade in this instance) in the United States are treated so lightly by our government.
At every opportunity it seems the president is reinforcing "his commitment to spreading freedom throughout the world" yet it takes a foreign power to ultimately prove how hollow that sentiment is.
When compared against Europe and Japan, the United States commitment to protecting its citizenry from overbearing coorperate powers is shown lacking time and again. I for one an tired of the hypocrisy.
Its shameful that I have to look to another country with hope that something will be done to curb the monopolistic amoral appetite of these coorperations.
For now I can only say "go Japan!". I'm embarrased by the entire predicament.
Did anyone even know they had any? Last I checked the Japanese government was all for large overreaching companies.
The United States couldn't finish the Microsoft case during the Clinton administration, but it may be the Japanese that cause Microsoft to adopt tactics conducive to competition.
They gave us anime, lots of neat consumer electronics, and Microsoft a slap upside the head. Japan gets two thumbs up from me.
May we never see th
On November 1998, Japan's Fair Trade Comission has alerted Microsoft to force bundling Word/Excel. It was just alert, but it's raid this time!
How else did they come up with all the wonderful features in Open Office?
Matsushita, JVC, and Sony are Japanese corporations, which the Japanese government is probably very interested in protecting. The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings. It wouldn't surprise me if the raid was taken on in part to protect the interests of a Japanese firm or two.
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Come on, sack up and go after someone who has persistently leveraged monopolistic control to promote inferior technology (Intel, Matsushita, JVC, Sony), rather than someone that your government can't currently do without.
The article doesn't really say, but I'm thinking it's just that Microsoft stepped on the wrong toes. It's not like Japan is banning Microsoft from doing business in Japan, but more like a little warning. This is less anoying than a flybite to the big MS.
Shouldn't it be:
....
In A.D. 2004
War was beginning.
NEC: What happen ?
Dell: Somebody set up us the contract.
Dell: We get signal.
NEC: What !
Dell: Main screen turn on.
NEC: It's You !!
Microsoft: How are you gentlemen !!
Microsoft: All your patent are belong to us.
Microsoft: You are on the way to bankruptcy.
NEC: What you say !!
Microsoft: You have no chance to survive make your time.
Microsoft: HA HA HA HA
Japan: Take off every 'cop' !!
Japan: You know what you doing.
Japan: Move 'cop'.
Japan: For great justice.
It might not have happened if MS were Japanese company?
Microsoft Japan is suspected of attaching improper restrictive conditions when signing software deals with Japanese personal computer manufacturers, such as requiring that Japanese companies allow infringement of their patents."
A deal "allowing infringement of one's patent" is more commonly referred to as a "patent license". I don't see anything improper about that
The problem is the monopoly itself, not the specific conditions that Microsoft can impose using that monopoly. Forcing manufacturers to license their patents is no more or less injurious than forcing consumers to pay $200 for Windows XP Home.
Japan is not in the United States.
They don't have a problem with large overreaching Japanese companies, that's for sure. But Microsoft comes from America (or Satan-guys, don't post Slashdot after taking cough syrup).
If my answers frighten you, stop asking scary questions.
Matsushita, JVC, and Sony are also competitors in electronics. They all make AV equipment, computers, etc. So there really isn't a monopoly.
Microsoft Island.
A small island, in international waters, where Microsoft can conspir... err, schem... err, work... without fear of government raids.
C'mon. You just know they're thinking about it...
I hope they show a Japanese official on C-Span trying to pronounce "Ballmer"
In this case, they aren't recognizing patents held by foreign companies.
It's sort of like in WWII, where we seized Bayer's patents. Except Japan *always does this*.
I see this as another example of how the US has its head up its ass. We slapped their wrist after we found them guilty, while EU and now Japan attempt real action against this monopolist. /sigh
Do you see the sig? Do you have it in your sights? Why yes, Miss Moneypenny...
Actually I'm the president of a company that has used open source profitably for over 5 years, and it does pay the bills. Very nicely in fact.
Thanks goes to the developers of Linux, Apache, MySQL (and other databases), PHP, and others.
And yes, I want my company to make money, which it does. But there are more important things than that, and there are plenty of profitable companies (open source or otherwise) to prove that money can be made hand over fist without resorting to Microsofts tactics.
It's high time Japan start addressing unfair American trade practices. Millions of Japanese jobs have been lost to American corporations taking advantage of lax trade laws while the xenophobic American populace refuses to buy anything built by the "gaijins".
Oh wait, I think I have that backwards.
Yup - that's the way it went for Al Capone too. They finally get Bill Gates for tax evasion and he'll have to move to Florida.
Sony has leveraged its positions in both media and consumer electronics to push an admittedly superior to DVD-Audio format (SACD). Phillips beat RAMBUS to the "standardize my patents, suckers" game with CD. JVC with VHS, etc...
Matsushita and Sony were both found to have scale monopolies (price-fixing) in Europe. Japanese business is famous not only for its oligopolistic practices (keiretsu), but also its strong influence over the decisions of the modern Japanese government.
Besides, the root comment is an obvious troll. Admit that governments shelter their domestic businesses and move along.
Are you kidding me? They're getting away with it because it's a foriegn company. Japanese corporations get away with things we'd never dream of in this country. They have no trouble with overreaching corporations as long as they're there own. Japanese trade policy has always seen Japanese Companies and government working hand in hand to pry open foreign markets by every means nessecary, and the nature of the complaints has Japanese coporate complaint all over them.
Why?
From my knowledge of Asian culture, I believe these are the most likely scenarios:
....never mind.
1) Microsoft had discovered an ancient form of super-Karate, and was training hordes of minions in the art, with plans to take over the world. But, a lone anti-trust agent, has discovered a long lost form of Karate that is even more powerful. He, a few trusty sidekicks with little fighting experience, and a girl with an unusual aptitude for fighting, raid Microsoft and defeat the faceless hordes. Finally Steve Ballmer himself leaps into the fray for a one-on-one fight to the death with the hero. Ballmer is defeated, and begs to be spared. The girl leaps in to finish him, but the hero holds her back, showing mercy to Ballmer. As the hero and heroine walk away, Ballmer leaps at them with a knife, and the hero sidesteps, and cuts Ballmer in half.
2) Microsoft is fashioning a set of super swords that, if combined, will have the power to
While I've worked for MS before and may again I always find their street address rather funny/ironic.
One Microsoft Way
Redmond, WA
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
The large businesses/corporations of Japan have considerable influence in their government, moving beyond petty lobbying towards very strong and well-set puppet strings.
Fortunately, American companies don't influence our government.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Japan has some of the must unfair practices when it comes to dealing with the American market, this is one case where I don't give a rat's ass if they're being bullied by someone who is simply better at the game.
vampirical
Can you give a specific example or two? I'm not saying you're full of shit, but I'd like to look into this if it's true.
So what? That is part of the job of a smart government. If you look at the other nations in the asian sphere japan could be doing a hell of a lot worse.
Right on the money. Most litigation against large corporations are to protect competetitors that make inferior products. Tariffs, anti-trust laws, protectionist policies, patents-- need I go on?
Corporations: your universal scapegoat for all society's ills.
However my point is that as a company you have to pay attention to more and more rules. If you don't then you end up in a situation like the present one Microsoft finds themselves in.
While one legal ruling in one country may hold absolutely no weight in another, any company that assumes it won't entice other countries to look for similar laws is not only doing themselves a disservice but acting out of arrogance. While the rules ARE different from country to country, as a global organization, you have to be aware of all of them and make sure your corporation is covering all of its bases in each distinct zone but at the same time balance this against sets of created expectations.
Assuming one can just have very specific terms and rules for one country is dangerous... for example if in Croatia Microsoft relaxes desktop icon restriction and certain license requirements to fit in with local law, how do they then deny the same changes and benefits to Serbia?
--- I do not moderate.
I love how anonymous dickweeds such as yourself get so bent out of shape by moderation.
Care to illustrate it a bit? Are you speaking from first hand experience, or hear-say?
Unless you have a first hand experience, I doubt your assertion that the Japanese judicative does not upheld the right of foreign companies (which they have, thanks WIPO and TRIPS).
Next, it seems a bit unlikely to me that someone from the US tries to enforce a patent in Japan by going through a Japanese law-suit instead of a US ligitation. US courts are more than willing to accept a case, when the there is any involvement with a US citizen, US company, or US subsidary.
Not to mention that one had the favour of a American jury.
The enforcement would also be no problem, unless it is a purely local company, which has no business, directly or indirectly, with the US. But I guess, such a company would be hard to find.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
The Japanese arm of the BSA was part of the RAID, and found many unlicensed copies MS Office and Windows XP. When the head BSA agent called in the offense to the MS Piracy hotline from one of the office phones, the receptionist looked at the caller ID and said, "you make the software, you can't turn yourself in, you idiot!", and hung up.
I can't afford a sig!
Misutah Gaytsu. nto ne...Yuu bulingingu eh-to disu-ohnah atto famili da yo. Heeya izu yoah katana ne. Sahbanto no Steebu Balumah wa soon helupingu wizu seppuku.
Yes, most Japanese people have little understanding of English Prepositions and Tenses, which is understandable as they are much more complicated than the Japanese ones...And many Japanese people who speak English usually use little Japanese interjections when they speak, and probably don't even realize they are doing it. At least here in Japan that is what I have seen...
Uhh...am I far enough off topic yet?
"Empathise with stupidity, and you're halfway to thinking like an idiot." - Iain M. Banks
I'm not the parent AC, but this isn't flamebait, it's irony. Insightful as well. Comments about unfair trade practices wouldn't be modded on a topic about India or China-why is Japan exempt from criticism over it's racism?
Balmmer: Oh no. Japanese Government set us up the bomb...
You do the rest...
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
and a good deal of it is not aimed at children
But it still involves children, right? Like the classic "Schoolgirl Rape Party 5"
Score 1 point for Open Source!
Every encounter I've seen or heard of with the BSA has seemed more X-Filesish You would be that way to if you wanted your cookie money (BSA Nation Council homepage)
MoFscker
This is good because we'll get to see what's really going on behind those closed doors of Microsoft. An American company gets inspected by a foreign country.
Speaking of raid.s s/ap/ap _story.html/Financial/AP.V2590.AP-ITT-Tech-Subpoe. html
http://www.ajc.com/business/content/busine
Another tech school closes?
Summerizing this Japanese article, the issue is that the OEM contracts contain a clause disallowing the filing of complaints about against Microsoft software. The main part that seems to have rankled is that Microsoft is believed to have improperly included software developed by Japanese manufactures(Fujitsu, NEC, etc). By being forced to agree to the clause in the contract however, they are unable to file a complaint against Microsoft.
This is where the monopoly bit comes in. Because Microsoft has an OS monopoly the makers have no other choice than to include the OS on their machines, which in order to do so forces them into sign the contract. All of which rubs up against various Japansese antitrust and trade laws.
I don't have any link handy, but there has been a number of patent cases brought to a court by foregin (read: US) companies. One of my buddies, who used to work for a well-known Japanese electronics company beginning with "h," once told me that this Japanese company's newly established computer (desktop) devision knowingly copied DOS, and after it was discovered the company was tried, and ordered to pay hefty damage to MS, which lead the devision to shut down.
If Japan really is patent outlaw country, why do all the big companies (Sony, Panasonic, Toyota, Honda) own so many patents both in Japan and US? I'd appreciate it if you can explain to me, please.
I don't really have any link to back up my argument, but your knowledge in Japan's Patent laws and enforcement obviously is paper thin.
Remember The Madness of King George a few years back? The original title was The Madness of King George III but they thought that American audiences would want to know where parts I and II were playing at...
(ducks)
See it here.
Chances are the Japanese government warned them, but Microsoft thought the email with the attachment full of legalese was either spam or yet another trojan, and deleted it without opening. Seriously, who opens attachments you weren't expecting anyhow?
"Hi, this is the answering machine of (place your favourite political candidate here). I'm not home right now, leave your message after the beep....beep"
..."
"Hi, Bill here, erm... you want some more money for your campaign ? Well buddy... let's make it this way: you keep the law of my back, I'll get you in the white house. Sounds right? I'll be waiting for your call... click
I am using "L" instead of "R" because "la, li, lu, le, lo" is closer to the Japanese sounds.
Ahh, so that's why everthing seems so strange around here. Well anyway, I better hop on the Malunouchi line for Yulakucho to meet my friends for some kalaoke, but not before I pick up the Yomiuli Shinbun and read about the latest gaffe by P.M. Junichilo Koizumi...
Everywhere else microsoft have been able to buy their way out of situations like this.
It seems unlikely to me they won't be able to buy their brand of justice in japan too.
Microsoft won't behave nicely due to anyones laws. Only their customers ( or lack of ) can make them behave better.
if only dead ends were named as such I'd go with
1 seg fault dead end
"Not knowing when the dawn will come, I open every door." - Emily Dickinson
thought maybe a sequel to this great book.
"They can kill you, but the legalities of eating you are quite a bit dicier" -dfw
Microsoft was supposed to 'break up' several years ago, to comply with the court decision. I have only seen one thing come out of that, there needs to be more. Microsoft needs to get off their asses and finally do something to comply with the anti-monopoly laws. They already have market saturation and noone in their right mind will go against them, but now with the japanise, something might happen. When it finally does, it will be long overdue.
you don't understand... Japanese patents can be and are enforced in japan, it's just American patents that are not.
The American company Micro$hit cannot violate Japanese patents in Japan and expect that the police will not burn their office and publicly humiliate their imployees.
As to anti monopoly laws, "In Japan!?" LOL.
Again, only enforced if the company is American, and harms Japanese companies.
Less look fast, more go fast.
All your base are belong to Microsoftu, I mean us!
Let's not forget that Microsoft made a huge blunder with the Xbox in Japan.
.... NOPE ....... NOPE ....... NOPE
....that and the Xbox green colour looks like radiation.
Did they get the hardware wrong?
Did they get the marketing wrong?.... NOPE
Did they get the games wrong?
Did they get the price wrong?
So what did they get wrong?
The freakin NAME of the machine.
The letter X in Japan is synonymous with BAD, like an incorrect answer or a cross on a mistake....
and hence the X-box earned it's name as the BATSU-BOX (or the No-Way-BOX)
And THAT was just asking for trouble coming from an American company.
Funny, for a company with loads of cash... Microsoft couldn't even get the cultural sensitivity thing right.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
This is in referrence to raids on Kazaa in Australia.
Not a great post, but certainly not offtopic.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
What kind of evidence are they going to find in the Japanese HQ anyways.
!--- SECRET MEMO ---!
Point of interest:
We are a monopoly.
!--[end]-!
In capatalist Japan, Microsoft Perl Harbors YOU!
"Besides, the root comment is an obvious troll. Admit that governments shelter their domestic businesses and move along."
I'm waiting for an outsourcing story first.
How on Earth did this get moderated to +5? Just because the moderator knows little about patent enforcement in Japan doesn't mean Anonymous Cowards' words are gospel.
"An American company gets inspected by a foreign country."
Hopefully it will be with rubber gloves and cold instruments.
I'm sure a great deal of this legal action against Microsoft is partly "bandwagon" but I also think that perhaps now that folks are seeing that there actually *IS* and alternative to Microsoft, perhaps they can afford to fight back against the things Microsft has been getting away with all these years?
If the patent has been approved in Japan, why would it be diffucult to enforce it?
Maybe you mean that Japan Patent Office don't approve every stupid patent like USPTO.
Gun? Which gun? That thing pointing to your head? No worries, I have not used it yet.
"Corporations have become the new scapegoats for our failures as businesses and consumers."
OK, I will try to be a better consumer, once my job gets back from it's worldwind tour of the planet.
Has anyone seen my maxed out credit card? Oh well, time to take out another mortgage. Someone help me out of this couch?
Oh Mr businessman. You're doing it all wrong. To crush one's opponents. Use a large hammer, else the governments heel will do in a pinch.
Japan is FreeBSD country.
The problem is that there may not be a competitors product to buy if the market leader is doing things like.. Making deals with suppliers that make it difficult for competitors to find distribution. Making protocols and file formats closed so no-one else can make a competing product. You are correct that sensible regulation is needed but naive if you believe that there is always choice. The two tactics above are used to take that choice away from you. With most governments, you do have a choice, vote them out next time around if you don't like them.
-- Using the preview button since 2005
Why should businesses be able to do what they want? Why? For that matter, why not say that any /. user should have open access to the /. database?
Oh, wait, that's a really bad idea.
Law is basically a compromise between the perceived ideal and, more importantly, the pragmatic realities of life. If people could live in perfect accordance with the principles of honor, fairness, justice, mercy, &c then we wouldn't need to legislate things like this.
Unfortunately, human beings will tend to see potential advantages from a pragmatic point of view - i.e. what is the cost/benefit of a given action, what is the ROI, essentially (((probability of payoff) * (estimated payoff)) / ((probability of loss) * (estimated loss)))
basically, payoff/loss guides Microsoft - If they are more likely to make money than lose money by a given action, they will do it.
Recall the reason that we have police - people will break the law if they believe they can do so without getting caught. They will continue to break the law even if caught unless the consequences of breaking the law are sufficiently great as to serve as sufficient deterrent in the mind of the average citizen. This is why people get repeat traffic tickets - they don't believe that they will be caught often enough and fined enough for it to change their behavior.
As a citizen, I have the pragmatic concern that I do not desire that companies extort money from me. As this concern is pretty common, likeminded people have legislated against common methods of such. In the U.S., trusts and cartels have been and have been perceived to have been a significant problem in this area, and therefore we have laws to restrict this sort of behavior.
Japan, however, has a different view of how business should be organised. Japanese businesses are bound into keiretsu much more tightly that the trusts which U.S. law was formed to combat - unfortunately, there are a few downsides to this, such as difficulties in agreeing on a uniform DVD format, but as a whole it works pretty well. This binding, and the mindset behind it, should tell you something - namely, that Japanese law really doesn't have much in the way of anti-trust type laws. (The American occupational government broke up much of this after WWII, but the keiretsu recoalesced quite rapidly.) The organisation of businesses into keiretsu has historically been successful because of the ingrained code of honor that permeates the Japanese culture. If/as this changes, the keiretsu will either have to diminish or assume greater control of government, as has happened in the U.S.
Of course, one could argue along with people like Adam Smith that pragmatism is also the impetus for laissez-faire capitalism, but I think that a moderate position is most effective.
You are standing in an open server west of a blue house, with a boarded front door. There is an Exchange mailbox here.
...is *extremely* high, once the law decides to go after you. at least for individuals - we'll see what happens to a megacorp.
pr0n - keeping monitor glass spotless since 1981.
If you want to really go after the Japanese on patents, at least get your facts straight.
Japan actually has one of the highest rates of corporate patenting ANYWHERE. This is caused largely by corporate guidelines that say "department x must have at least 3 patentable inventions per year."
As a result, Japan's books are filled with tens of thousands of patents for truly mediocre things.
That said this forms the basis of a series of "blocking patents" which are taken quite seriously.
Your claim that "... without such enforcement" is simply wrong.
the moderators who gave you "insightful" should be ashamed. I mean, you're 180 degrees wrong and were just speaking out of your ass out of some quixotic wishful thinking, not facts.
None of that "focusing on our core capabilities" crap. Japanese do everything. Look up what say a sony or hitachi or suzuki do. Now compare that to say even a philips. Let alone against american firms.
America has the x-box. Japan has nintendo and playstation AND the foreign devil X-box. Oversimplified example of course but you get the point.
Where in the west we shop at supermarkets wich are really controlled by a handfull of mega corps worldwide the japanese are only slowly shifting to this. Lots of small family owned shops still around.
So MS is in a unique position. Outside old incumbuments like telephone or utitlitie providers there isn't a company that has such a hold on its market. If you produce a pc then you cannot afford to not sell windows with it. And MS is accused of abusing this to force companies to agree to unreasonable terms.
Allegedly. A raid like this shows that either someone overreacted or that the japanese goverment is serious. Japan may have enough monster coorperations to ensure that each on its own is not a monopoly but if you come in from the outside they all band together with the goverment to make something far more difficult to overcome. Just look at the success of foreign companies in japan.
So to answer your question, yes they are but they don't want 1 single companie going out of control let alone a foreign company.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
> Japanese Government Raids Microsoft Offices
how many casualties?
With OSDN having a Japanese Slashdot you would think there would be a little co-operation here on this story. I guess not. Really, how long would it have taken for Slashdot to correspond with their Japanese counterparts on the phone to come up with a better write-up.
Can I get a link re:Bayer's patents. It sounds interesting.
The Ro Factor - Jeep/Linux Weblog
No. But I have helped prepare the paperwork for a successful patent filing in Japan. The difference between the US and Japan is that you cannot patent bollocks. In this particular case 8 patents for the US ended up being 4 patents in EU and only 1 in Japan.
First: their patent office has not yet degenerated into an approval stamp machine so the patents have to have merit.
Second: they charge an arm and a leg for a patent filing so even large corporations avoid defencive patenting and stuff that has no commercial value is not patented at all.
I usually get flamed by the idealists which still believe in the "small inventor", but I will say it again. This is the way a patent system is supposed to work. A patent is a government guarantee to the inventor that he/she will be capable to exploit the commercial merits of his/her invention. Note the words commercial. So with all due respect I do not see any merits in trying to patent an invention of no commercial merit.
The side effect of this is that the US method of IPR development is reversed. For Japan you first find financial backers for the idea and then patent it.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
if MS is under monopoly threat in just about every country due to their own actions, the local government needing money, or the local people/government wanting to start their own software industry and need to stop MS?
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
'Nuff said.
Why SHOULDN'T Microsoft get to attach whatever terms they like to their products? They are, after all, MICROSOFT'S products. If these companies don't like the terms, they're free not to sign the contract.
"Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the play?"
As long as we are OT...
:)
If we didn't render the Japanese ra-ri-ru-re-ro as such, we wouldn't be able to make election/erection jokes...
But you're right, it's definitely far closer to an ell than the English 'r,' especially the stronger American 'r.'
iqu
Why am I even wasting my karma on this? You're a troll.
Microsoft's objective is control? NEWSFLASH : Microsoft are NOT the Borg. Microsoft is a corporation, and just like every other corporation in the Goddamn world, like Red Hat, like the bar around the corner, its objective is to make money. That's not exactly honorable, but it makes a huge difference. But it's certainly not dishonorable : the definition of a corporation is of a group of people trying to make money for themselves. Since Microsoft has a lot of money already and therefore a lot of power, it wants to keep what it has and get more of the same, and that's why sometimes it does bad things. But it does not mean it's evil!
Look at IBM. Only a few years back they were the Evil Empire and now they're advertising Linux all over the place and supporting the community. Does it mean that Darth Vader has suddenly realised the good of the Light Side and IBM has turned from blood-sucking Borg into a philantropic organisation? No. It means nothing if not that IBM's new strategy for moneymaking involves supporting Linux. It doesn't mean it's less Evil, it doesn't mean it's less good. It means it has a different strategy now than when it was 'Big Iron'.
You may get off the hook for campaign contributions in some places but eventually it catches up to you.
ok, it may be slightly offtopic, but it should not have been modded down as flamebait.
It is a valid point - if a company can make lots of money using open source software, then that is great.
But what if Microsoft suddenly releases 'MSLinux 1.0' next year which is entirely open source and nets them $43.2 million profit.
Dont deny it - you'd be a bit pissed off inside.
That's what the parent was talking about - when *bad* companies get rich using the free work of others, and have no intention of putting anything back into the community.
And even though that is their right, we dont have to like it!
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
Damn! Someone put Vicks in your vaseline or something?
Wishing I was a millionaire since 1969.
This really isn't a suprising move, since monopolies are very common in Japan, and only problem is that they ''influence'' the government through the Zaibatsu.
This seems like ploy againt American monopoly in Japan. Perhaps on of the big vendors over there is going to try and push an alternative OS? I've heard that the Linux movement over there is pretty strong, so maybe corporate interests in Linux are playing a hand there?
well. he won't be doing *that* again
...what Open Source can do for you: Ask what you can do for Open Source.
Apologies to JFK, but while it's great that you're making money from Open Source software, what have you put back into it? Donations, bug reports, anything? If not, that's known in some circles as leeching.
Free Software is free, true, but it doesn't just fall from the sky. It takes a lot of work from a lot of people, so hopefully businessmen such as yourself see the responsibility to replenish the pool, not just a resource to exploit.
Forget thrust, drag, lift and weight. Airplanes fly because of money.
Microsoft will attempt to justify that without looking like a monopoly doing market segmentation by declaring they are providing different products to different people, at different prices.
Observe this in Thailand, where after teh announcement that MS would provide XP + Office at a much reduced price (about 30 Euros as I recall) came an announcement that thre would be a special edition of XP + Office lacking some features (as yet unspecified AFAIK) - a Thai cheap edition.
Observe it in the UK with the National Health Service New programme IT suprremo Richard Granger muttering about the level of discount we get on (say) half a million copies (I feel ill) of Office on Windows OS and the placement of a contract for a trial of the SUN Java desktop/Linux/OpenOffice by SUN being followed by the suggestion that MS will customise a version for healthcare.
There are few more stupid ideas than that from a healthcare IT point of view, si it has to be a smokescreen for segmentation.
When I first saw the news from Thailand I thought this was a clear indication of another tipping point that MS has gone over in the infelction of its fortunes, but as the rise has been long, so will be the fall.
Okay MS, let's see how you like it!
"This is a bust. Step awaay from your keyboards. NOW!"
You don't mean the Boy Scouts of America, do you?
I was thinking of converting to paganism, but where the hell can you find sacrificial virgins these days?
Do you hear them complaining? Then shut the hell up.
Now if the Japanese would only raid the Redmond Washington offices.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
You folks do realize the reality of the situation, right? This has nothing to do with a monopoly.
Japanese culture makes behind-the-scenes dealings and agreements in america look like childs play. Their corporations LIVE on undercutting the competition by selling below cost to build market share, and the make monolithic groups of hundred of companies banded together to absorb those costs.
This has NOTHING to do with a monopoly. Much as the European Union, Korea, China, and elsewhere had nothing to do with monopolies. You are watching Microsoft's death warrant being signed and you don't even realize it.
Those countries are doing the equivalent of the US FINALLY cracking down on the Japanese car companies that subsidize lower costs through government finance and taxes - telling them to go home. What all these Euro-asian countries are doing is STEALING THEIR HOME MARKETS BACK. They simply can't stand having foreign companies being the driving force in their own economies, and the US government cracking down on Microsoft. If you don't think all the effort the US Government put into tieing up Microsofts finances and hurting their stock priced was HEAVILY lobbied by foreign interests, you're insane.
You're all clapping as one of the few great American money makers is put on life support.
But thank you for the nice retaliation idea...8)
"BSA ! Nous Voila !!!" Or whatever their local M$ doggy is called there....
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
if japanese companies in US/europe can follow the rules there; why it should be a problem for US company in japan ?
actually, why it should be a problem for microsoft in japan ?
These "Did anyone else read it as:" jokes are getting increasingly unfunny, especially when they rely on insane juxtpositions.
I agree 100%, and I demand we immediately create some kind of rating system that would make sure everybody could filter out those lame jokes... Maybe we could award 'points' to posts that are funny or otherwise worth reading.
This is a family story about a small boy and his cousine, born 2-3 weeks aprt, put into the same baby park at around one year, that have been found later by the parent having removed their diapers and were nicely fondling and kissing each other...
Babies have a sex life...if they get the opportunity...
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
The Japanese don't really have a strong awareness of "December 7th" the way people in the US do - It was December 8th for them, when the attack occurred, after all.
Funny story:
Back when I lived in the US, I had a Japanese housemate who was taking flying lessons at a small airfield nearby. Landing the plane one morning, he managed to bump into a couple of planes parked near the runway. It was nothing serious, but since it happened to be December 7th, he was known as "Kamikaze" from then on...
-- My Weblog.
You don't suppose this has anything to do with the new Linux-based joint effort among the Japanese, Koreans, and Chinese to create a kanji-friendly operating system? Just wondering. No paranoid conspiracy theory or anything. There *is* a certain element of "getting even" here, though, considering the US shot down a Japanese attempt to sell their own operating system with their computers sold in the US. I don't think we've seen the end of this titanic struggle, by any means.
"Is this Winkhorst a nova criminal?" "No just a technical sergeant wanted for interrogation."
its possible to get rich without robbing somebody.
I'm optimist so I tend to agree with your statement.
While it may be possible to get ritch without robbing somebody (I hope it is), I think this is not the case with a lot of rich people today (by rich I mean for example almost everybody living in USA, EU, Japan, ... and also myself). Why?
Well, in a lot of cases such wealth has been produced with a lot of side-effects like poisoned air, poisoned water, died-out species, irreversibly consumed resources, ... thus robbing our children of such wonderfull things like fresh water, clean air, walk in a country, study of wild animals, ... thus making their life more dull. And also a lot more difficult than ours or our parents.
What a shame.
hany
1) Requiring motorcycles over a certain CC level to get some sort of special certification thats nearly impossible to get also prohibiting tandem riding...of course the only motorcycles that had fit within both of those groups... american Harley-Davidson. Once they removed the restrictions Harleys became one of the top selling premium motorcycles in japan
2) Keeping less expensive better quality American beef and agriculture out of the japanese market. Dont the japanese wonder why their beef is so much more expensive than world price?
There couldn't possibly be any variation in the ability to make a distinct 'l' sound. And no one would ever pronounce it 'rukki'.
What's going to happen? In the us, nothing happened, in the EU nothing will really happen, and in Japan too.
All due to people bought by MS.
I hate to see this things happen on and on.
You'd have to be pretty monopolistic to have the Japanese consider you a monopoly!
-EB
Do you ever walk alone like a drifter in the dark?
The Inquirer has an article about this also.
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
I have seen a lot of these type of comments stating that Japanese companies are doing these things but yet nobody has given a specific example. If MS was asking people to sign away intellectual rights then this was a real breech of their dominant position regardless of where they are from.
Google gives this site on the Pharmaceutical industry in the first half of the 20th century. Quoting from about half way down:
World War I brought considerable changes to the pharmaceutical industry in the United States. A number of German products had been patented and were being produced in the United States under licensing arrangements. American scientists broke German patents for essential products, such as salvarsan, procaine, and barbital. At the conclusion of the war, some foreign assets were seized by the Alien Property Custodian and auctioned. Sterling acquired the rights to the Bayer aspirin trademark through this process.
The products mentioned are used to create asprin, which Bayer had a virtual monopoly on. I can't find anything to back up the grandparent post on Japanese patent-seizing though.
Until Japan utters these famous words again?
"I fear we have awakened a sleeping giant"
Cruising the internet on my TI-99/4A @ a whopping 300 baud!
What exactly does radiation look like? What I once thought was an entire spectrum is now limited to a narrow part of it, apparently.
I wonder what their poem would say
Would Truths finally come tumbling out
Like so much blood from just two cuts.
Their lives lost to a business illusion
Heartbeat by heartbeat
Never having seen the sunrise.
Their kishaku's blade hangs on the moment
Was that a tear he saw?
Has the light of Open Source manifested it's beauty?
The blade in motion, a slight turn of the head
The cut through and through
Shamed, the head bounces and rolls.
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
Wow, I didn't realize that there *was* a Japanese Slashdot. I always wondered why the Japanese seemed underrepresented on Slashdot.
How many different Slashdots are there?
May we never see th
Ack.
This post encoded with ROT26. If you can read it, you've violated the DMCA. Handcuffs please, sergeant.
In the past few years, look at what Microsoft's user base has suffered as a result of using their products:
1. Countless viruses - okay, not directly Microsoft's fault but nobody here would agree that MS have done all they could have done to make their products as secure as possible.
2. Licensing changes - costing businesses more.
Okay, so there's nothing new in either of the above except that both the above have had sometimes dramatic reductions on company profits through downtimes and extra IT costs. Add to that the shrinkage in the high-tech industry over the past few years and, all of a sudden, there are a heap of governments out there getting less income from taxation as a result.
On top of that, those same governments are being squeezed to spend less and less on public services and along comes Open Source that suddenly seems to offer a way of cutting down on a lot of the government's IT expenditure.
I know these discussions have been had on /. many times before but this issue in Japan just seems the latest in a long line of governments wanting to simply give, rightly or wrongly, Microsoft "a good kicking" - firstly the DOJ, then Europe, now Japan.
I don't think it matters whether or not MS is a "monopoly" but it is apparent that they could have done a lot more in the past to stop what's happening to them now.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
I must admit that Im not too up to date on the contemptorary Japanese Legal System, (I studied Japanese law and customs of the early Samurai era), but isnt the standard penalty for this sort of crime something like giving the guilty party the choice between an honorable Hari Kari, or take a public beheading ?
It was back in the 1600's, has anything changed over there ? Just curious.
Most likely somebody swapped his vaseline with bengay.
Microsoft gets all the monopoly jokes?
Yes, Microsoft is breaking your Anti-Trust laws. It doesn't matter what your laws are; MS is breaking them.
No, you won't do anything about it. It doesn't matter what you think or believe; there's too much riding on MS for you to seriously combat them. The revolution will not be mandated.
- The Amazina Llama
1) Microsoft is doing its best to combat OSS using strategies easily deduced from the early Halloween Documents. At the same time, 2) nearly everywhere outside the US, governments and companies are departing from the Microsoft Way, if not becoming more than a little wary of MS. The net result? An increasing transparency of this megacorp's insincerity.
Microsoft has repeatedly been accused (and sometimes convicted) of abusing monopoly power in multiple countries.
And they're the only ones badmouthing FLOSS.
--
is what they should name most of their software
Anonymous sources have supplied an unconfirmed statement that the official's name is "Kilroy". This "Kilroy" is rumored to be the recipient of intelligence enhancing implants designed by IBM. This unsubstantiated report was lent minor credence when the official in question walked away from the podium chanting, "Domo Arigato, Mister Roboto" repeatedly.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
(I'm not the guy who you're replying to, but what the hell...)
I've analyzed your post and I'll try to counter each of your points with my own.
1. You are Canadian. Or possibly from the US, if so, Oregon or Washington. (Though you feel you have a "Japanese Spirit.")
2. You're an underfed geek. Maybe not. Americans *are* fat.
3. You're a one-Nama, set menu kind of guy.
3. You can't count.
4. You're familiar enough with these stamp cards to know their name. And how they work.
5. You don't know the difference between Mexican and Tex-Mex. (El Torito *is* shit though. That's the point, with Tex-Mex.)
6. Ooh - you must be psychic,
7. You're working as an English teacher "until this economy turns around".
8. They agreed to their wage and he agreed to his. White-collar expats working in America are equally operpaid, too.
9. Nobody does anything useful before 10:00 or after 7:00. Those who stay later are trying to look busy to impress the boss.
10. You are single and very, very, very lonely. What ever happened to that rather ordinary-looking girl you used to hang with?
11. Ah! She dumped you!
12. You've been here too long, yet failed to make any friends or money and the prospect of moving to your parents place while you save up for a crappy apartment and try to find a job where you can use your mediocre Japanese skills is too depressing to consider. (Plus the original poster's home page says he's been here more than 11 years.)
13. The guy she dumped you for smokes.
14. Apparently, so are you, though I fail to see why this matters.
15. (OK - a bit of background may be needed for those following along - Akihabara is in Chiyoda Ward, which banned smoking on the sidewalks last year. This guy is pissed because the Linux Cafe on DIY street is always so smoky. ) Dude, you moved to a city where something like 50% of the adult population smokes. Get over your preconceptions. The thing is, if you saw this guy smoking there, you *WOULDN'T* *DO* *ANYTHING*. Because you're a pussy.
16. You think that if you ape the pronunciation of movie yakuzas well enough, people will think you were born here. They won't.
17. Doubtful. He's got Anti-bush links on his homepage.
18. Why the fuck shouldn't he express his views, whatever they are? Japanese people are not some delicate race of doll people who wilt at the vulgar mutterings of the kichiku beihei. They often have strong opinions themselves, often just as wrong as anyone else.
Summary. You're a bitter, pathetic fuck. You think you've got it all figured out, yet your life is shit. You're the only foreigner you know who can't get laid in Japan.
The original poster just said that he has lunch in some restaurant and you go all freaky on him.
Funny thing is, I think I know who you are and we actually sort of get along, so I'll post this A.C...
If you choose to sue a code contributor for patent infringement, I believe you lose all right to use the software. Of course, Mozilla is not a monopoly, yet.
I forgot, should this be invoked, MPL also allows you to relicense under GPL, which does not have this restriction so it probably has no teeth WRT arbitrary patent suits.
They must just all be Boy Scouts, doing their good deed for the day.
Seriously, MySQL is a very profitable company from their support of their free product, as are many other companies.
Others do it for the good of mankind, and work full time jobs to provide for their families.
I say, "Bless you" and "Thank you" to these people. They have created jobs and industries for hundreds of thousands of people directly and indirectly.
It may or may not be money, but they do and will have their reward, including my thanks and praise.
Oh, and speaking of which, when was the last time you helped an old lady across the street?
Only your top link works, and that one is about the BSA-Israel. Don't post shit please.
Damn spaces. Sorry.
If you focus less on the orginal spelling and more on the sound, you'll arrive at either BORUMAA or BARUMAA. As "ball" is "BORU", the first is more likely. Long trailing "ah" is typical of "ar" endings.
For what it's worth, the small-TSU RU combination is very infrequent. The only example I found was "GORRU" as in crying out "Goal!" in football/soccer. At any rate, it's unnecessary since the two L's do not extend the sound so much as the phonetic change from L to M. You'll get that pause automatically by using "ru".
Finally, the Japanese have no qualms about changing the cadence of a foreign word. Compare "McDonald" to MAKUDONARUDO.
-AC (fourth year student)
I was never one to believe what enviromentalist say ever since I heard my friends research report in class a few years ago.
I can't remember all the numbers, but from the numbers he got from eviromental web sites the rate we've been chopping down trees since the earily 80's there shouldn't be a tree left on Earth today.
*Looks out window* I still see trees, so we can't be messing up things as much as they say we are.
Windows is as solid as quicksand.
Is that not a bribe?
Isn't that against the law in the US?
I know of other companies that have been penalized for the SAME activity gets fined in the US for breaking the US law....
And I doubt very much that MS japan is independant. It's just too likely that they would go their own path if they were. (ie. like Royal Dutch Shell vs Shell Oil. Royal Dutch Shell was independant... and eventually bought Shell Oil in the US.)
With Microsoft bieng in the news, what seems like every other day. The source code leak, corporate offices bieng raided, countries accusing them of creating monopolies. It would seem the logical thing for Microsoft to do, would be to throw in the towel. At what point do you decide that your company has made enough money? Perhaps the world of computing would be a much user friendly place if MS went open source.
Bill Gates, it's time you said "No mas" and retire.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
This is incorrect. U.S. Issues the patent to the first person to file as well. I was reading a book the other day about the invention of the telephone. The guy who invented it first, by several months, (not Mr. Bell) got his patent application into the office two hours later than Mr. Bell. We all know who received the patent.
I wish I could remember the name of the book, right now.
I have a strong suspicion that Microsoft's deal partners knew full well what restrictive conditions were included in the contracts. That said, those computer manufacturers should have no access to recoursive actions by the government: they voluntarily entered into the contract with Microsoft.
Therein lies the beauty of economic power vs. political power: the government has the monopoly on the use of force. Microsoft could no more have "forced" the computer manufacturers to sign restrictive contracts against their will than they could have "forced" you to give them your money at the ATM. There is a popular quote going around these days: free choice ends at the point of a gun. Only the government uses physical force to impose its will on others ... Microsoft has *never* (to anyone's knowledge) threatened physical harm to computer manufacturers to get them to sign contracts -- they're not the mafia after all (or the IRS for that matter).
The Ezine Directory
Inviting either in is a big mistake...
Or perhaps I've been hitting the Buffy dvd's too hard.
The SPA came after us (another unnamed school). We had our shit together, license-wise. Just about my biggest priority when I came on board. We even had a hardware/software auditing package so we could refuse to use theirs. (Demo version - first one's free! But you can't see the output...) We put a fair amount of effort into turning the data (count of exe's by filename and by workstation) into information. They refused to give us the list of member company executables to search for, so we gave them the raw output. In small font. We didn't give them a dime. We didn't owe them a dime.
Since when is any country's "Fair Trade Commission" anything more than a national protector? Especially for Japan, whose entire export industry is based on favorable exchange rates (hence the egg-laying over the notion of a falling dollar). I see this as merely action between two belligerents, neither of which can be classified as "friendlies".
When I was allegedly testing there, I saw a fair amount of typical weasel-world politics. A coworker's assessment was "snake pit". He blue-badged, so it was an attractive snake pit, I guess.
There was one kick-ass tester with a shitheel boss. She asked to join another team, several team leaders were into it, and when shitheel heard about it, she was frog-marched out. They lost a lot of talent and product knowledge due to his ego. He also spent a day and a half trying to find out what dept. was hiring another guy (my team leader) permanently to try to torpedo it. When the guy got his blue badge, he brought it round to neener the shitheel.
On the other hand, there was one rightious developer. Pretty young guy, he would sit quietly in meetings, let people babble, and then say, "This is what we should do..." (almost always involving more work for him) and it was so. And it was demonstrably right that it be so. He was the only guy there who lived up to the MS self image that I met.
Okay, so the Japanese government thinks MSFT violated their anti-trust laws. I am not a Japanese (or even an American) lawyer. Could someone please explain what the laws on anti-trust are there. Are they the same as in the U.S.?
Probably based on a different sample.
I saw a lot of folks who could describe themselves, with a straight face and without irony, as "overachievers". There was something missing from them, for the most part. Not the implacable, invincible Borg, but essentailly Stepford People. And wannabes. And as ferociously competitive as they are in the industry, I saw unmistakable evidence from the lowly trenches that as an institution they were large enough where intra-tribal competition was sapping it. A small tribe (or company) will tend to be more focussed and unified in the face of external threats. A large entity will have people who see personal advantage in the failure of others, even if the company (or tribe) as a whole suffers from the defeat. Which reminds me of an old joke: How many med students does it take to change a lightbulb? Two: one to do it, and the other to kick the chair out from under him/her.
I noticed that your website has a .nz extension which helps to explain your ignorance of the history of the America's. While the US has supported dictators, it has only been for dubious reciprocal support against communism. Del Monte has been the only company that comes close to doing what you accuse the US government of doing. Del Monte supported several coups to prevent governments from taking their land and other assets. Labor south of the US has always been cheaper (except for half a century before the Great Depression when Mexico GDP was equal to the US). Mexico's GDP is now a fraction of the US's despite being free from US attack and interference (ask any Mexican how well they respond to US pressure or interference). As for the rebellions in Peru, Columbia, Haiti, et al over the course of the twentieth century -- it may have something to do with the fact that the governments in those countries are corrupt, dictatorial, repressive, and unresponsive. There has never been a need to make it cheaper. Name a single country that would invest in an unstable country just for the cheap labor. There are plenty of stable countries with cheap labor that would welcome US companies whole-heartedly. In Nepal, where fair-trade protestors succeeded in driving out US companies who were using subcontractors that relied on child labor, there was a marked increase in child prostitution because the kids had to find a new line of work.
As for the mythical Afghanistan oil pipeline (the vast majority of the google results are from leftists sites full of speculation) - the three countries most in favor of building it are Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Afghanistan because they're the ones with the most to gain from such a project (Saddam would be against it since it would detract from his control over the world's oil supply). The US prefers multiple pipelines to hedge against any monopolies or closures. Back in 1998, it was Unocal that withdrew from participation because it wasn't worth it - their own studies showed that the pipeline would be safe under the Taliban (who would've recieved about $25 million a year in royalties) but the margins were too low. Even now, Unocal remains uninterested. Unocal isn't going to build a pipeline for free.
If there's someone stupid enough to write that tripe, I guess there are also enough idiots to mod it informative.
Mod me down, if you like, but them's the facts.
{taps microphone} Yo, Hollywood! Are you paying attention? This would make a great series just like Mike Moore Corporate Cops would... Hello?!?
[Now, I'm off to lift my le... Um, visit... at another place.]
How about some examples of Japanese domestic corporatism trumping humans rights, for those of us out in the sticks, far from the glaring light of East Asian common knowledge? Forewarned is fourarmed (eight armed is octopus :).
--
make install -not war
whomever does the subject choosing was asleep on this one.
"...everyone one is afraid Bush will get elected next time."
Really? You should get out of our liberal circles hit the countryside. There's reason why the house and senate are (R) - and will continue to be for the next four years or so. I suppose you can claim that there's no representation here (EVERY ballot is RIGGED man!), but I suspect you don't get out enough.
Please stop deluding yourself about a guy (Kerry) who can't make the most basic statements about how he stands on things like: Gay Marriage, Iraq Solutions (not just bitching about it), The Economy (not just condemning Bush), etc. LISTEN to him for Chrissakes - he says NOTHING! That may play now - until the convention - but at some point the man is going to have to own up to his lousy record and state what he actually believes. You may disagree with Bush (or hate him viscerally), but at least you know his opinion on things.
If there is no fear in your camp, why is it that a bunch of Dems protested Nader's run? You didn't see any Republicans there did you? And then there was this bullshit canned statement from the left about how Nader's run was 'self-serving'! What a crock!
Your side's hate - not Nader - is going to help you lose this next election. Hate is not enough to sway most thinking Americans (READ: those without an adjenda). In fact, hate has its root in fear (some would call ignorance). Americans tend to pick leaders who aren't afraid.
Face it, Hillary! is the one you should be pinning your hopes on... For 2008.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
Well, we can agree that one side's result of tree counting will be higher than that of other's side: While business may get higher count (see how many trees there are? why we cant't cut few of them down?), environmentalists may get lower count (see how few trees there are? we have to guard each one of them).
While maybe all the vocal groups are exaggerating, we "in the middle" are doing nothing being content that one those "vocal group" is fighting "for me". Or we are just doing nothing because we are too puzzled by all those misleading data. But in the mean time our environment is changing.
Our children will have final judgment on wherher it is changing for goood or for bad.
IMO for bad. You ...
I think those who like to have house with garden with grass, bushes and trees in it have to do something - it is not that easy to have those if land outside "my property" is spoiled.
hany
timecop[a]japan.ne.jp
heh...