Blocking Bill's Gateway
The government's recent proposal to break up computer monolith Microsoft brings to mind the 80's breakup of AT&T. If one looks at what's happened to telecommunications since then, it makes one wonder if this is such a good idea.

Sure, some competitive pricing was stimulated in the manufacturing sector, but the bloodthirsty competition for our long-distance dollars has resulted in prices that are only significantly lower if you actually have time to wade thru the mountains of junk mail and ads that besiege one daily. That is, if you can get away from the cold-canvass salesman from MCI who's blathering in your ear about how if you use your VISA card to pay your bill with your automatic on line payment plan via Earthlink, you can apply those points to your Northwest miles and receive 5 Camel dollars, which can only be applied to your next purchase from Amazon.com.
The illusion of a former monopoly doesn't fool anyone who takes the time to notice that the default choice for long distance with your phone company (almost certainly a subsidiary of ATT) is, you guessed it, ATT. We're more concerned about the scenarios likely to occur in the aftermath of the decision to split Microsoft into two companies, one providing the OS, the other providing the browser. Something like:

Module "A" IE6.0

You go over to the Micro store to buy module "A", which is plastered with notices stating that it will only function if you buy module "B" from the "soft.

Module "B"

store, and then run it with a third-party application that has a happy penguin on the box. Now, we here at the Liberal Elitist use the Windows OS enough to know how crash-happy it is,(Click here to see what we mean.), and are a little doubtful about the prospect of it working in cooperation with another system, especially that of its former arch-enemy.

A Kinder, Gentler OS

Three.Word.Tagline. Media.Media.Media.

Other Business News:

RJR Nabisco quietly buys all the remaining corporations in America, cleverly omitting their company's image from the "Uberlogo":

Nike Pulls University of Michigan Sponsorship

Hey, we're not big sports fans anyway, but what in the world is this about college students pressuring that other monopoly, Nike, into disclosing factory locations and working conditions worldwide? Don't they know a lot of fringe Islamic groups are still upset about that "Air" logo Nike tried to sneak past us a few years ago?

And what about our beloved Wolverines? Where are they going to find another company with a "swoosh" in their logo? (Click here to review some possibilities.)

The loss of $600,000 dollars in sponsorship dough is no problem, at least. The U of M Hospital could easily sell one of their $1.5 million dollar helicopters.

In our view, this whole situation reeks of a nostalgic hippydom in which laptop-toting, Peace Corps wannabe coeds struggle to save the world from American Imperialism, get their MBA, and grow up to be nasty Republicans that perpetuate that same imperialistic mentality. We'd be willing to bet that a lot of those same protesting students have NO idea where their cell-phone was manufactured, or any of their other modern luxury items, for that matter.