FTC Attorney Joins Microsoft 123
inode_buddha writes "Randall Long, a senior attorney who led several antitrust investigations against Google, has been hired by Microsoft. From the article: 'The software giant told the Wall Street Journal yesterday that it hired Randall Long, an official at the FTC's Bureau of Competition. When he joins the software giant at the end of the month, Long will head up Microsoft's regulatory affairs division in Washington.
Long was involved in FTC reviews of Google's acquisitions of both DoubleClick and AdMob. According to the Journal's unnamed sources, Long was especially outspoken about Google's AdMob acquisition, saying that the FTC should challenge the deal. His reservations were eventually set aside and the deal was approved in 2010.'"
Graft (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Graft (Score:5, Insightful)
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The only part they're hiding is that he worked for M$ from the start. Now he just gets a title and salary.
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The only part they're hiding is that he worked for M$ from the start. Now he just gets a title and salary.
Interesting thing about MS in this context is that they (Bill Gates) a long time ago first wanted nothing to do with Washington or politics at all, unlike most large companies they did not fund or lobby, and Gates was described as openly indifferent to politicians, even when accused, which pissed Washington off. Many who followed this closely commented that Microsoft most likely got a harder antitrust treatment than they otherwise would have because of distancing themselves from politics+money this way - an
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They don't hide it anymore because they don't need to anymore.
Re:Graft (Score:5, Insightful)
Well the US is not one of those places. People are pretty much free to quit one job and take another. Joining government might be harder.
In fact the only place I'm aware of an outright ban is France [wikipedia.org], where a three year waiting period must lapse before quitting government and joining the private sector. How one feeds himself and is family during this three years is not explained.
Other jurisdictions may impose restrictions via NDAs, and there are rules about defense contractor hiring, but only into specific jobs (procurement specialists can't join sales teams upon leaving government).
Besides... He's a lawyer.
Anything he did for the FTC is Attorney Client privileged, and we know Attorneys never violate that now don't we?. *cough*.
Re:Graft (Score:5, Informative)
Well the US is not one of those places. People are pretty much free to quit one job and take another.
Not necessarily. As a random example, if you're an FAA safety inspector you have to wait two years before you can be hired by an airline for a job that involves interacting with the FAA.
http://www.aviationweek.com/aw/generic/story_generic.jsp?channel=mro&id=news/avd/2011/08/30/04.xml [aviationweek.com]
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Well 2 years is a two fold issue. First, as said elsewhere, you need to feed yourself for 2 years. Secondly, in 2 years hopefully most of the existing short term contracts have gone through the system, and it's all new stuff. You can't lobby for a bid already in progress sort of thing (where you were on the inside looking evaluating a bid, and then turn around and tell the company what to do to change it so it's successful).
Sort of by definition you will still know most of the people there and where they
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Sort of by definition you will still know most of the people there and where they fit in the hierarchy, but that's not a huge problem.
That's a lot of nonsense. In those roles you will hear about things *years* out that you wouldn't otherwise hear of. When that information is supposed to be proprietary and you use it anyway, which is SOP, you're breaking the law. That's why we have these laws; people did it anyway.
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Come to think of it, if he uses any information from the FTC to aid MS he'd be violating it and be up for disciplinary action from the DC bar association.
In practice, they're in on it.
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Honestly, it'd be worth the money to pay former government officials a lifetime pension at their salary rate and bar them from working anywhere in the private sector. Write a book, do some speaking, whatever. Join the board of directors of an airline and you were at the top of the FAA? Fuck no.
You idiot (Score:2)
How a politician feeds himself? From having his pay continued. The president of Germany for instance gets payed his full salary for the rest of his live. Serve 4 years, get payed for 40 and counting. Serve a month and get payed for 40. Get thrown out and get payed.
Do you really think politicians loose their income when they loose office? You are a moron.
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Who brought up the word "politician" (before you)?
The grandparent (and the referenced French law) talk about people "working in government" (i.e. bureaucrats + politicians, but the bureaucrats far outnumber the politicians).
Was Randall Long elected to his position at the FTC? No? So, he's not a politician. He's a former bureaucrat. Sure, many bureaucracies have generous pension plans, but they tend to be linked to the number of years served. Thus, your "serve a month and get payed for 40" example is complet
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payed his full salary... payed for 40 and counting... payed for 40. Get thrown out and get payed. Do you really think politicians loose their income when they loose office? You are a moron.
There's a saying about glass houses and stones. It's not very smart to misspell a four letter word (paid) and misuse a word ("Loose" means "set free", you meant "lose") and then call someone else a moron and an idiot.
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Wikipedia gives the link to the actual text of the law; it sounds very reasonable in fact. According to my reading, and giving a simplified translation, the French do not forbid moving from government to the private sector, they forbid taking a job in an enterprise that you were previously overseeing.
Of course, the question is why would Wikipedia summarise the law that badly? Although perhaps that may not be so surprising, given the largely 'teenage libertarian' nature of the editors.
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Well the US is not one of those places. People are pretty much free to quit one job and take another. Joining government might be harder.
In fact the only place I'm aware of an outright ban is France [wikipedia.org], where a three year waiting period must lapse before quitting government and joining the private sector. How one feeds himself and is family during this three years is not explained.
That's because the Wikipedia article provides an over-generalized incorrect summary (although, it does provide a direct link to the French law [legifrance.gouv.fr], so it was easy for me to find the problem -- so it's still better than most newspapers or traditional encyclopedias in that regard).
The 3-year ban only applies to the industry the government employee was supposed to be supervising/regulating, and even then, my own interpretation is incomplete, because it goes into much greater details than that, and provides for som
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How one feeds himself and is family during this three years is not explained.
Simple, you just live off all the bribes and free dinner coupons you collected during your time as a government employee.
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Oh, it is ideal. This is how it was implemented in USSR, and it worked -- corruption was lower than in Czarist Russia and lower than in post-USSR Russia.
Re:Graft (Score:5, Informative)
The U.S. has some rules as well. Since fairly recently [wikipedia.org], federal politicians and high-level employees are restricted from working as lobbyists in their former areas for 1-2 years after leaving federal employment. However it doesn't look like the job Randall Long was high enough up to be covered (it's also not entirely clear if his new job constitutes lobbying, or if he's heading some sort of litigation group instead).
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But this is wrong! It's completely unacceptable for any employee of the government to act like a human, and remember contacts after leaving a job! Like any simple automaton, his understanding of how regulatory processes work and knowledge of who has what influences should be completely erased, leaving a blank slate equivalent to any poli-sci entry-level candidate.
The fact that his prejudices align with the hiring company's only further illustrates that he could never have been prejudiced on his own, but mus
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By all means, let's dissect this further, then.
Randall Long was not a judge. He was an investigator, whose primary cases involving Google ended almost two years ago, didn't do much to hinder the giant, and did very little to help Microsoft (who wasn't really even involved in the cases, either). In his most significant case (the acquisition of AdMob), Mr. Long's recommendation to challenge the deal wasn't even followed by the commission. The FTC's recent investigations have regarded business practices rather
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> He was an investigator, whose primary cases involving Google ended almost two years ago, didn't do much to hinder the giant, and did very little to help Microsoft (who wasn't really even involved in the cases, either).
Oh so it might never happen that company A makes life difficult for company B without appearing directly involved? It happens for lemonade stands, I guess companies who compete on billion dollars' markets do that, too?
> In his most significant case (the acquisition of AdMob), Mr. Long'
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Oh so it might never happen that company A makes life difficult for company B without appearing directly involved? It happens for lemonade stands, I guess companies who compete on billion dollars' markets do that, too?
Of course they do, but Occam's Razor suggests we look elsewhere for motivation here.
The recommendation was pro- or anti- Google? The commission ruling otherwise makes him either wrong or malicious, in the most significant case of his career. Which helps those with the opposite POV than yours.
Mr. Long recommended the FTC oppose Google's acquisition of AdMob. While the commission was considering what to do, Apple entered the market with iAd, relieving concerns of a monopoly. The commission saw that, and allowed the merger. If Mr. Long was actually promised this job to influence the AdMob decision, why would he still get the job after failing?
A system immersed in bureaucracy and inefficiency and laws in excess is the one where things move only when enough pressure is applied. If anything that prevents honest people from accomplishing much, and helps corrupt ones.
My point was to point out the challenges of government, highlighting why
Job over? (Score:2)
What was his reason for leaving the FTC? Is it that Google has been investigated fully and even submitted to a 20 year partnership with the FTC so there was nothing left for him to do, and for making messes with Google he couldn't work there, so he applied for a job with Google's nearest competitor?
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Perhaps he wanted an employer who would agree with his distrust of Google.
Re:Job over? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Job over? (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps he had a prior arrangement with Google's competitor to develop distrust, in exchange for a well-paid sinecure once he was done.
"Never write if you can speak; never speak if you can nod; never nod if you can wink." - Martin Lomasney
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Since Martin Michael Lomasney (December 3, 1859 -August 12, 1933) was a Massachusetts politician, fuck him and everything he ever said or wrote, including the drivel you quoted.
I do NOT like politicians, I would not take their advice. EVER. Why not just quote Charles Manson? He's almost as bad as a politician.
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Since Martin Michael Lomasney (December 3, 1859 -August 12, 1933) was a Massachusetts politician, fuck him and everything he ever said or wrote, including the drivel you quoted.
I do NOT like politicians, I would not take their advice. EVER. Why not just quote Charles Manson? He's almost as bad as a politician.
The Lomasney quote is usually taken as an indictment of the behavior of machine bosses and their corrupt behavior. Your interpretation of it as an attempt at sound advice is novel.
tin foil (Score:2)
Re:tin foil (Score:4, Insightful)
perhaps he was never really working for the FTC to begin with, in fact, I dont even believe that this man exists!
It's easy to dismiss a lot of concerns as paranoia. That's an easy, cheap-shot retort around here. But sometimes suspecting conspiracy is more logical than believing governments/corporations/lawyers at face value.
If I said, "I suspect the Russian elections were unfair," would you shoot back with that same old tin-foil retort?
This hire looks like a duck, it waddles like a duck, and it quacks like a duck. As far as I'm concerned, it's a duck unless someone can prove to me it's an ugly swan. This guy has used his position in government to help Microsoft - whether it was agreed upon or coordinated or whathaveyou is irrelevant because accepting money from them looks shady and is ethically questionable. It looks like graft, the money moves hands like graft, and if money could talk then it would sound like graft, too. I don't consider myself paranoid, just cynical. Especially when Microsoft and the government are involved.
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Re:Job over? (Score:5, Insightful)
I suspect he's been working for M$ for a while now.
it's just official now.
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No one said he was a on a personal cruisade against google just because he worked on that. he's a laywer and an expert in that domain.
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No one said he was a on a personal cruisade against google just because he worked on that. he's a laywer and an expert in that domain.
Not a personal crusade, but surely he has inside knowledge the acquired while working for the FTC that Microsoft (and others) don't have access to. Well, Microsoft does now.
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That's a pretty big assumption. And it assumes that the information he would have is valuable.
He's almost certainly not the first FTC person ever hired by microsoft, directly or indirectly. They probably already know the inner workings of the FTC. The question is whether or he specifically has knowledge of a business plans from google that could damage them somehow, but benefit MS.
More likely he merely adds more man hours to their access to the FTC and their ability to do the proper paper work in the pro
Surprised? Nop (Score:1)
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Surprise! (Score:1)
Hate to piss on your deluded exceptionalism, but -
We have always been just like every other nation, since the very inception of the United States.
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I think the problem is we have given up even aspiring to be better.
Little mystery here... (Score:2)
Microsoft has been beaten up over anti-competitive / anti-trust practices many times in many jurisdictions. Someone with Longs's experience will be highly valuable for both offense against Google and defense on future claims against them. (Could anyone name all the other big PC OS/application vendors that have identifiable market share for generic PC OS sales? . . . . chrip . . . . chirp [youtube.com] . . . )
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I wonder if it ever occurred to Microsoft that one solution would be to not abuse its market position. You know, at least pretend that they're incurable evil sociopaths.
Re:Little mystery here... (Score:5, Interesting)
Little mystery indeed,
We have been joking here on Slashdot about a famous outburst of chair throwing, and about Steve Ballmer yelling that he was fucking going to kill Google. He, however, was not joking.
Microsoft has been beaten up over anti-competitive / anti-trust practices many times in many jurisdictions.
And when he uttered that famous sentence, in what way do you think Ballmer was dreaming of killing a company having earned respect among web users and having as a motto "Don't be evil", if not in pulling Google down in the dirty pool of consumer hate Microsoft was drowning itself? Has anyone not noticed the intense PR campaign-war that has been waged against Google since then, even on Slashdot, and the intense sock-puppeting and shilling each time a Google story comes up?
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Microsoft has been beaten up over anti-competitive / anti-trust practices many times in many jurisdictions.
Not "beaten up", convicted. The only people who have been beaten up are all the competition that were manhandled over the years. Microsoft is still has an applications barrier to entry and is still changing file formats to try to keep it's monopoly intact.
The findings of fact in the USA anti-trust trial really detail things nicely, if you want an education on why they were convicted and why people hold such hard feelings towards them.
Is he likely to have privileged knowledge? (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAL, so I have no idea how likely this is, but -- is it possible that he's seen sealed testimony or other privileged information that could be damaging to Google, and would otherwise not be directly accessible to Microsoft?
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is it possible that he's seen sealed testimony or other privileged information that could be damaging to Google, and would otherwise not be directly accessible to Microsoft?
Absolutely.
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Revolving door (Score:4, Interesting)
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolving_door_(politics) [wikipedia.org] :
In politics, the "revolving door" is the movement of personnel between roles as legislators and regulators and the industries affected by the legislation and regulation. In some cases the roles are performed in sequence but in certain circumstances may be performed at the same time. Political analysts claim that an unhealthy relationship can develop between the private sector and government, based on the granting of reciprocated privileges to the detriment of the nation and can lead to regulatory capture.
True of several (all?) "think tanks" (Score:2)
Microsoft sponsors several so-called "think tanks" which, invariably, support the MS point of view.
Lots of MNCs do the same thing.
More MS "Tonya Harding" tactics against Google (Score:5, Interesting)
Microsoft internal document
“Working behind the scenes to orchestrate “independent” praise of our technology, and damnation of the enemy’s, is a key evangelism function during the Slog. “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour). “Independent” academic sources should be cultivated and quoted (and research money granted). “Independent” courseware providers should start profiting from their early involvement in our technology. Every possible source of leverage should be sought and turned to our advantage.”
http://techrights.org/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/comes-3096.pdf
How not to win friends and influence people
Mar 2nd 2012
The bland-sounding ICOMP [ Initiative for a Competitive Online Marketplace] is openly funded by Microsoft (among others), whose search engine, Bing, competes with Google's. ICOMP’s homepage is littered with attacks on the search giant: “Google’s new privacy policy: unlawful and unfair”; “Google caught with its hands in the cookie jar”; “‘Unfair and unwise’: Google implements new privacy policy despite calls to delay”. Burson-Marsteller acts as the secretariat for ICOMP. Readers may remember the outfit from past flops such as the campaign against Google on behalf of Facebook.
http://www.economist.com/blogs/babbage/2012/03/microsoft-v-google
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There should be a law against this (Score:2)
wondering what the lawyer to developer ratio is at (Score:2)
And this after how many years of them hiring Linux experts only to use them against Linux? I don't see anything different about them hiring government people who showed signs of disliking Google to the point of attempting to block their business operations. Microsoft's high priority business method has always been to block and destabilize their competition over and above besting them in the mar
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Actually, their Legal and Corporate Affairs group took a significant hit (much worse than engineering) in the layoffs during the 2008 recession. This could (I make no claim whatsoever that it *is*, though) be as simple as them hiring back up to strength with people they expect to be useful to them.
Microsoft still has tons of Dev/SDET/PM positions open; many more than legal positions, going by their hiring website. I have no idea what the delta in ratio is, though, or how many of each are currently (or were
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Maybe it seems like they've been bulking up on lawyers because /. covers lawyers more than developers, and because developers that work for microsoft get almost no individual press for their work.
That's in part because MS doesn't let you sell your code on the side, and in part because you work for Microsoft, as part of a team, and externally the team gets credit. You may be clearly listed as part of a team, and credited for the team, but mostly we only see one point person for a team (who blogs or gives ta
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it was nothing more than a 'wouldn't it be nice if we could tell what the ratio was and what changes to it have been over the years'.
LoB
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They seem to have a much bigger product lineup than they used to. Windows isn't just a kernel, it's a whole software suite, and windows 8 seems like it's a lot of development time. The whole azure/cloud service thing, and all of the overhead that goes with that is a lot of work, the security products etc. Even add in .net, silverlight, skydrive, their server stuff, that's a lot more than the company did 15 years ago.
Admittedly, I look at software through the lens of the game business, but to make a piece
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they have always used the same methods to "take over the world" only with their monopoly on DOS based PCs, they could bring Windows in, then MS Office, Internet Explorer, etc. The PC was "the world" back then and they controlled it. Thanks to the iPod and t
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Loved that part about Microsoft getting screwed in the 90s because they were not politically savvy.
LoB
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They have banged the patent drum loudly over the last few years but many predicted this over a decade ago. It would be nice if there was something new going on inside MS besides an office chair getting thrown around. I guess that was different. lol And the Monkey Boy Dance was different too. At least the ARM vs x86 versions of Windows 8 will keep the rags going for a few years attempting to figure out customer reactions. And that locked down boot loader too.
LoB
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Alternative interpretation (Score:1)
He may be getting on payroll now, but _just maybe_ the employer contribution to his 401(k) has started long ago :-) His employment by MS can also be a sign of his lack of success; if he were that valuable as an ambassador to MS interests he could have stayed in his former position :-)
Unlikely to be corruption (Score:2)
There are a lot of people who like movie style conspiracies with brown envelops and shady agreements in back rooms. This is not likely to be the case. It is more a case of "us knowns us". The old boys network. Right thinking people hiring right thinking people.
The president of the dutch national bank was questioned after the crisis about this mis-handling of it all. He still referred to the people who saw the crisis coming as doom-sayers and his advisers and himself who didn't see it as the knowledable econ
What you describe *is* corruption (Score:2)
It is more a case of "us knowns us". The old boys network.
That is still corruption. Anything other than an arms-length transaction is corruption.
Does not matter the actually mechanisms that are used to communicate. It just like organized crime. If the Godfather says "we have a problem in Miami, I need you to take care of" that is really no different than conspiering to commit murder.
Lets not kid ourselves about this. If MS said to Long: "we may have a lucrative position for you at MS, and by the way, how do you feel about these google practises?" Then it's exactl
...and they eat their own young. (NT) (Score:1)
Re:First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
M$ still sucks ass!
Just another reason for the separation of Corporation and State.
Re:First post! (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Fascism/Classic_Friendly_Fascism.html [thirdworldtraveler.com]
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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this is why my two boys refuse to even vote
Your two boys are very misguided.
Haven't your heard the whole "when good men do nothing, evil flourishes" bit? How about getting politically active with someone who's not an outright scumbag? Even if it's just on the local level - county government, city council, hell - school board even, they can effect a change. If they sit on their asses and decide not to vote because the "system is rigged", then they're just as responsible for the state of our country as the people who are voting for these idiots in the
Re:First post! (Score:5, Insightful)
Haven't your heard the whole "when good men do nothing, evil flourishes" bit?
I agree with his boys, actually. Everyone's heard that, but a simple application of logic points out the flaw in your reasoning.
"If good men do nothing, evil triumphs" does NOT imply "If good men do not do nothing[0], evil does not triumph." Instead, it's become empirically clear that "good men doing something" is pretty much "pissing into the wind."
I think I am doing far better than the average voter myself who just checks off the ballot down party lines.
You're not. Simply because you are in the tiny minority, so whatever your doing is basically statistical 'noise.'
[0]Double negatives are valid in symbolic logic. :P
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A good rule of thumb is to consider yourself as a sample of everyone...and pretend that you are representative of the population as a whole.
While statistically unsound with a huge margin of error in reality, it does accurately model what things would be like if everyone did what you did.
That, in turn, should be the true measure of how futile trying to change things really is.
Sadly, that doesn't change anything because people can't vote for candidates that never make it to the ballot. And to do that, you ha
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It implies "evil does not triumph if good men do not do nothing". That is, "evil does not triumph if good men do something".
Not so.
p: "Good men do nothing"
q: "Evil triumps"
"IF p THEN q" :
Truth table
p q "p -> q"
T T T
T F F
F T T
F F T
As you can see from the truth table, if good men do something, then it's pretty much up in the air. And as you pointed out, the self-feeding system is already pretty well armored against interference by the "good men."
The battle's lost. Just live with it and keep your head down until you die and it's not your problem anymore. That's my philosophy the
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Ah, Slashdot. Where people can go from talking about the subject of the post to delving into the grammatical minutiae of a particular sentence for hours.
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Ah, Slashdot. Where people can go from talking about the subject of the post to delving into the grammatical minutiae of a particular sentence for hours.
That first period should probably have been a colon or at least a semicolon.
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And yes, I vote. Yes I'm politically active. I spend a few days researching the candidates coming up for election and choose the one that I think will do what I believe to be best for my city, state, county, or countr
And you want to know the coolest part of this? For every person such as you or me who does his due diligence and takes the time to understand the issues and the candidates... there are a hundred or a thousand who cast their votes blindly, or at best along the lines of whoever has been doing the most advertising, or has the most effective social campaign.
I don't know if it's always been this way or if I've just become more aware of it in the last decade or so, but I am rapidly reaching the point where I rea
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We need to force Congress eliminate every rule that favors the "two party system" over independents (independence). Those rules short circuit the intent of the Constitution. Senators are supposed to represent their state, and Representatives are supposed to represent their congressional district, but instead they represent their party. so instead of having a fifty (presumably both senators from a state would generally act together) viewpoints in the Senate and 435 in the Senate we have two (unless the l
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Why aren't they being subtle about it?
Because they no longer have anything to fear from being caught.
The elite are immune to retribution.
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Meddling in the affairs of the competition in the web services and advertising industry has shown that they are really serious about their "screw Google" campaign.
Who was it who said
"I'm going to f---ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again, I'm going to f---ing kill Google."?
I guess he was serious.
Revolving Door (Score:5, Insightful)
It's another case of revolving door - where a senior government officer getting a high ranking position in the private sector the minute he quit his government job
I'm afraid that in a civil society like what we have, we can't do nothing to this form of corruption
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It certainly appears to be corruption (Score:5, Interesting)
Ronald Reagan insists that US markets stay open to Japan, while Japanese markets are closed to the US. US loses massive market share to Japan. Reagan gets out of office, and immediately flies to Japan to pick up a $2 million "speakers fee."
Absolutely no "proof" of corruption. But what does it look like?
If the corruption could be actually proven, it would never had happened.
Same idea here. A government official mysteriously takes an extremely strong stance against a rival of a company that has been caught red-handed bribing officials. Now that official is suddenly working for the company the official helped. It stinks to high heaven, and we both know it.
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There are much worse cases, also in countries regarded to be of low corruption level.
What about this asshole [wikipedia.org] which got high position in gazprom afrer making high-level international deal for their favor. And now you are not even allowed to say that he colours his hair.
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Do you have any proof of this is it something personal?
Yes. He represented MS interests, and has been directly paid by MS for his services. Which of those facts do you dispute?
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Do you have any proof of this is it something personal?
Yes. He represented MS interests, and has been directly paid by MS for his services. Which of those facts do you dispute?
I agree it is highly suspisious. But is "has been directly paid by MS for his services" a fact? He is currently being paid by MS, but is there any evidence he has been paid by MS when he was working for the FTC?
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That's not how these things usually work. It's more like when he's at the country club golfing with a few MS lawyers, they mention that if the FTC were to somehow hurt Google, there could be a cushy spot waiting for him at MS after.
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is there any evidence he has been paid by MS when he was working for the FTC?
Ethical behavior includes avoiding things which create the illusion of impropriety, even if none exists. He violated ethical behavior if he deliberately acted suspiciously. You seem to be agreeing that it is overtly and explicitly suspicious, which, by definition, is unethical.
Also, your arguement is that the timing of a bribe will change the morality of the bribe. I disagree. A delay in payout does not make it any less immoral.
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your arguement is that the timing of a bribe will change the morality of the bribe
I make no such claim.
The only thing I argued was that "has been directly paid by MS for his services" is not a fact, as claimed by the parent.
It is only a fact if it can be proven to be true and with an absense of evidence it is not a fact.
Only actors deliberately act suspiciously. Everybody else is either wrongly suspected or doing a bad job of acting unsuspiciously. Being suspicious is, by definition, being suspected of being unethical. Not necessarily actually being unethical.
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The only thing I argued was that "has been directly paid by MS for his services" is not a fact, as claimed by the parent.
"Long will head up Microsoft's regulatory affairs division in Washington." Are you asserting that he is volunteering for Microsoft? Otherwise, he did act in the best interests of MS, then was paid for services to MS. The rest is just timing.
Being suspicious is, by definition, being suspected of being unethical. Not necessarily actually being unethical.
Nope, it is explicitly unethical to do something suspicious (depending on your code of ethics).
Re:Revolving Door (Score:5, Informative)
Sure something can be done or at the very least some steps can be taken. Here in Hong Kong retired govt officials have to apply to the Civil Services Bureau before they can take up a new position. The policy is outlined here [csb.gov.hk].
The essence of it lies in the following
(a) civil servants on final leave and former civil servants will not take up work which may:
(i) constitute real or potential conflict of interest with their former government duties, or
(ii) casue well-founded negative public perception embarrassing the Government and undermining the image of the Civil Service, or give rise to reasonable apprehension of deferred reward or benefit by a fair-minded and informed observer after having considered the relevant facts;
(b) the said individuals' right to work after ceasing government service will not be duly restricted; and
(c) the attractiveness of the Civil Service as a career will not be adversely affected and limited human resources will be put to good use.
This has worked sometime and has not worked sometime. It has also been used to harrass individuals who have embarrassed the government while on the job ( one prominent civil servant reportedly did not get clearance for 2 years to work as a journalist because he obviously had some dirt on some senior officials.
Having said that, atleast there is a policy and matters can be taken to court if required.
May not apply to many places like the US.
Re: (Score:2)
Sure something can be done or at the very least some steps can be taken. Here in Hong Kong retired govt officials have to apply to the Civil Services Bureau before they can take up a new position
Thank you very much for the info you've given us !!
I've learn something new today
Re: (Score:2)
Less private money to politicians => less bribes to do things I am opposed to.
Re: (Score:2)
How about if you leave government and get a cushy job at a corporation, you have to pay 50% taxes on all your earnings for 5 to pay back the government for the skills and insider information they gave you that this company is now leeching off of?
How about if you leave an employer and get a cushy job with a new employer, you have to pay 50% of your earnings to your prior employer to pay them back for the skills and experience they gave you that this company is now leeching off of? Gosh, that sounds sort of ridiculous doesn't it...
While I agree that this smells fishy, it's also possible that dude just wanted a better job. He did a lot of work during his time with the FTC; some of it was bound to go in a direction that MS liked. Some of it was boun