The Bigsibling Blog

In Ayn Rand’s novel “Atlas Shrugged” all of the industrialists, the movers and shakers of the world, went on strike. They just up and quit doing business, and withdrew from the world into a secreted mountain valley. They did not sell their businesses, rather, they simply chained the doors and walked away. They went away until such a time as the world, without rational, logical, thinking people to work in it, simply fell into chaos.

They were driven to this desperate act by the governments. All of which (with the exception of the good ol’ US of A) were referred to as People’s Republics, i.e. “The People’s Republic of Argentina”, “The People’s Republic of Mexico”, “The People’s Republic of France” etc etc etc. The problem occurred because there was so much interference with business by the governments that it was nigh impossible for the industrialists to get anything accomplished. The governments were too worried about competition, about alms for the poor, about making sure that everyone got a piece of everything. And then they were surprised when it all fell apart. They couldn’t understand why a person would not be motivated to produce more and better items when the actions and policies of the government amounted to what was essentially a “success tax” or punishment for achievements.

The EU is heading down that road, and it seems in a hurry. A smallish web-browser company named Opera is suing Microsoft in the EU, under EU anti-trust provisions, because Microsoft has its Internet Explorer browser integrated with its Operating System. Opera doesn’t think this is fair, and believes that the EU should force Microsoft to sell versions of its OS without an integrated browser. This comes on the recent heels of the EU determining that Microsoft, by integrating and bundling its Windows Media Player, with its Windows OS, was giving itself an unfair advantage, and required that Microsoft make available a version of the Windows OS without the media player to residents of the EU.

Microsoft complied and, shockingly, very, very few people are purchasing the version of Windows that does not include the media player. The anti-trust folks in the EU have gone even farther in their recommendations of late. As far as to say that no company should enjoy more than 50% of the market share. As far as to recommend that any computer – desktop or laptop – sold in the EU be completely free of any and all operating systems. Yes, that’s correct, no company would be allowed to sell a computer with an OS pre-installed. I am assuming this includes Apple. Which, if they want to talk unfair choices, the only OS you can get from any manufacturer on an Apple brand computer is the Apple OS. At least with the normal PCs, HP and Dell are now offering a flavor of Linux pre-installed. And when I bought the kinder a new PC several years ago from MicroCenter, it came with Lindows pre-installed. Of course, that was wiped pretty fast as none of their games will run under Linux.

Oddly enough, the EU commission putting forth this recommendation claims that by giving the consumers no operating system on their new computers, they are giving the consumers more choice. The amount of newspeak the EU commission uses, in order to exact some control over how much one company can hold onto, is an anathema to the capitalist way of thinking. “No Options are More Option” ranks right up there with “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength”.

Back in the late 90’s, when Microsoft was being dragged over the coals here in the US, I touched on Rand’s concept of a strike, but didn’t even know it at the time. I hadn’t yet read the book. My thought was; ‘If I were Bill Gates, I’d just say to hell with it all. Buy and island and lock the doors. Then let everyone try to get along with out Microsoft as there whipping boy.’ This is, exactly, what the industrialists did in “Atlas Shrugged”. She wrote from experience having migrated from fled Communist Russia in 1926. She was there as it happened. Watched the country mediocre itself into chaos and abject poverty. The EU, it seems, is hell-bent on doing the same thing to Europe.

I’m back to that same idea I arrived at in the ’90s. If I were Bill Gates, or Michael Dell, or the chairman of HP, I would have the inkling to thumb my nose at the Europeans, and simply not do business with them. I would have to wonder if it was worth being so severely crippled to do business with those type of people.

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Technorati Tags: EU,Microsoft,EU Competition Committe,Big Brother,Newspeak,Orwellian,Ayn Rand,Atlas Shrugged

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Ever since a couple of weeks ago when Kathy Sierra was “cyber-bullied” into canceling an appearance, people have been debating on how to combat this type of activity. I even heard a PSA on the radio yesterday about cyber bullying.

Now Tim O’Reilly is creating what he calls a “Blogger’s Code of Conduct“.
I’m not going to go into it’s nuts and bolts. There are plenty of places around the web – both for and against – which dissect the code.

This is a knee-jerk reaction to someone getting their feelings hurt and being afraid. Seriously. I feel for Ms. Sierra. I am not a woman, so I could never imagine what it would be like to receive the kind of threats she has had to deal with. And I am in no way meaning to diminish what she has had to go through in this ordeal.

How can anyone really believe that this code of conduct thing would prevent this from happening in the future? How will a blogger subscribing to this code of conduct keep the blogger, or anyone else for that matter, safe and sound? Bloggers have the ability to moderate, edit and delete comments on their own sites.

Some of these comments were on Ms. Sierra’s own blog. She would have had to read these things if she moderated her comments anyway. Just because they don’t make it out into the general public, does not mean that they were not made.

Of course, what do I know? I’m just a bloke in fly-over country with a couple of readers and an opinion. But it does sound to me that a blogger handing control of their content over to a third party is rather…anti-American.

Technorati Tags: Kathy Sierra, Tim O’Reilly, Code of Conduct, Blogs, Bloggers

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Some may remember, back in the mid to late 1970’s, it seemed that everything caused cancer.  Milk had some cancer causing enzyme.  Saccharine killed lab rats by the dozens and was eventually banned.  Car fumes caused cancer.  Too much sun caused cancer.  Coca-Cola caused cancer.

Now, it is global warming.  It seems that everywhere one turns around, there is another factor that is causing global warming.  First it was the aerosols.  Then the cars, then smoking, now it is eating meat.  All of this, combined with the attempts to silence anyone who believes that global warming is a natural occurrence, and not solely man-made, makes one believe less and less in these ‘experts.’

“Arguably the best way to reduce global warming in our lifetimes is to reduce or eliminate our consumption of animal products,” writes Noam Mohr in a report for EarthSave International.

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Reading the StartNewsOnline.com headline “Republican: Scripts need reviewing” set off all kinds of warning lights in my brain.  Red rotating flashers like what was on top of the old police cars, accompanied by the blaring woooOOOT..woooOOOT..woooOOOT sound of the Enterpises ‘red alert’ claxon.

WTF is this?  A republican senator wants the government to vet hollywood scripts?  What kind of socialist propagandizing censorship is this?  Once past the first paragraph, my blood pressure starting returning to normal…a little.  

The senator in question is not a U.S. Senator, but rather state Senator Phil Berger of North Carolina.  And he doens’t want the government to approve all Hollywood scripts, and not even all scripts for films shot in North Carolina. Only scripts for films that seek the state’s filmmaker incentive.  The state has a program whereby tax money would refund as much as 15 percent of what the production companies spend in North Carolina.

While this seems on the surface, to be almost, but not quite censorship, in reality it is just that.  Censorship is defined as “deleting parts of publications or correspondence or theatrical performances.”  What Sen. Berger’s bill would do is give the government control over what they deem to be acceptable, before the film is even completed.

The current law that entices filmmakers with the kick-backs already has a provision for denying the benefits based on the content of the finished product.  If the content is obscene or what-not, the production company will not receive the money.  Seems to me that the problem Sen. Berger wants to fix is already fixed in the current law.  A new law will only cost more tax dollars as one would have to figure the state is going to pay someone to go over the script.

It seems that Sen. Berger is offering a knee-jerk reaction to outrage by some people about a scene in a film they have not even viewed.  Sure, the scene’s description sounds horrific (Fanning is raped by a man…and it is Fanning that is acting throughout the scene).  And sure, by the current law this filmmaker will probably not get any of the tax supplied kick-back money.  And so the system works.

Go to North Carolina, make your film, apply for the kick-back, and if the government believes the film is a worthwhile venture that will not harm or degrade the public interest, then you’ll get your kick-back, otherwise you won’t. No harm no foul.

The next logical step in the Senator’s plan, would be to deny the fimmakers who make films with which he and his cronies disagree, the priveledge of filming in North Carolina.  And by proxy, deny the business and other individuals and entities their fair share of the Hollywood dollar in the process.

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Tech Tags: North Carolina film industry Hollywood censorship Hounddog

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Coming soon to a radio near you, stuff you don’t want to hear anyway.  Radio is a business.  Radio station owners are in the business to make money.  If they don’t make money, they don’t survive.  The way radio stations generate income is by advertising.  They can charge for advertising, whatever the market bears.  

The ad prices are determined by how many listeners the radio station has at any given time.  For instance, if the radio station holds 250,000 listeners during the 12:00 to 14:00 time frame, they can charge more for their advertising than they can for the 20:00 to 22:00 time slot which only holds about 75,000 listeners.

This all makes perfect sense to anyone who has a radio station, or a product to sell.  If one wants to reach the maximum amount of people at any given time, they have to pay a premiumm.

Enter Congressman Dennis Kucinich.  This guy wants to revive the “Fairness Doctrine.”  The Fairness Doctrine was eliminated in 1987 because it was…well…unfair to radio station owners.  Basically, the Fairness Doctrine states that for every hour of opinion it broadcasts on one side of a subject, it must broadcast an hour of the opposing viewpoint.

This, on the surface, seems like it might be (stealing from Fox News) Fair and Balanced.  Now, everyone knows that talk radio is bombarded with right wingers.  From Rush, to Sean, to Levin, to who knows who else.  And there was a liberal radio network setup over a year ago called “Air America”, which failed miserably because they couldn’t generate the ad revenue because not enough people listened to it.

But it doesn’t matter to the likes of Kucinich.  His real goal is to shut up the likes of Rush and Hannity and Levin and how ever else is out there spouting stuff he doens’t want the rest of the country hear.

Look for his future bills to be announced soon, including the “Equalization of Opportunity Act” which will restrict how many industries any one person can be involved in.  And the “Anti-Dog-Eat-Dog Bill” which will dictate that if someone has a somewhat profitable business in one location, a competing business cannot open up shop to compete with the established business.

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The secularlists are at it again.  They are pressuring Philadelphia to punish the Boy Scouts of America for excercising the rights granted to them by the Constitution.  The Philly city council says since the Boy Scouts don’t accept homos as leaders or scouts, then they have to vacate the building that they have been operating out of since 1928.
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Here is the kicker, tell me if you find this at all ironic – back in 1928, the City of Philadelphia built the building, named the “Bruce S. Marks Scout Rescource Center” for the specific purpose of giving the Scouts a place of their own.  The Scouts have enjoyed the facilities rent-free.
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But, because they stand for moral values and dare to make moral judgements, the Scouts are penalized.  In a world that is increasingly dominated by the secularist ‘anything goes’ crowd, this is to be expected.  It rings of something that might have been written by Ayn Rand.

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