The Decline and Fall of the American Empire

The Decline and Fall of the American Empire
Where are we going, and what are we doing in this handbasket? It sure is getting warm...

Updated: 5/19/03; 12:59:25 AM.

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Monday, May 20, 2002

Smoke a joint and your future is McDonald's. A federal law passed in a burst of drug war fervor denies financial aid to the country's neediest students. [Salon.com]
10:24:03 PM

Why Copyright Term Extensions Rob the Public [Dan Gillmor's eJournal]
10:22:44 PM

"cheney rejects broader access to terror brief." [Daypop Top 40]
10:21:43 PM

This Modern World. A Republican's guide to debating the Enron scandal. [Salon.com]
10:20:20 PM

The best defense is a good offense. The White House fires back at Democrats -- singling out Hillary Clinton -- while trying to limit further inquiries. [Salon.com]
10:15:16 PM

Bush is still running from 9/11. The president's recent evasiveness calls to mind his dodgy behavior in the hours after the terror attacks. It's time for the White House to come clean on how much it knew before Sept. 11. [Salon.com]
10:14:52 PM

One of the topics at last week's conference was the shadowy Broadcast Protection Discussion Group, a collaboration between Silicon Valley and Hollywood to make our personal computers work the way Hollywood wants them to. Dan Gillmor tried to get into the discussion group, but was turned away. Cory Doctorow works for the EFF and maintains the Consensus At Lawyerpoint weblog to cover the BPDG. He urges us to get in touch with Microsoft, Apple, IBM, Intel, etc and encourage them to keep making the kinds of computers we like, ones that copy our material from our desktops to servers, or include them as email attachments, or move pictures from our digital cameras to our hard drives (or servers) or distribute them through Gnutella. Anyway, I wonder if what's going on in that discussion group is legal. What if I wanted to start a computer or chip or OS company to compete with Intel or IBM or Microsoft that didn't follow their rules? If I can't, it seems they have an antitrust problem. Our legal system is set up so that no group of competitors that form a major portion of a market can meet and erect barriers that keep out newcomers. Intel is not a legislative body, neither is Time-Warner. I am not a lawyer, but if they want that kind of power, it seems they should get the laws changed first. [Scripting News]
7:45:15 AM