Groklaw has the story. Stewart Rules: Novell Wins! CASE CLOSED. What follows is a complete wrapup of the long standing case of SCO vs. Novell regarding intellectual property rights to Linux code. SCO has been maintaining that Linux users owe them licensing fees. They say that Linux is based on UNIX code that they, SCO own. See the Groklaw story for complete details of the ruling.

Could SCO appeal? Not too likely since SCO is in bankruptcy and they would have to get permission of the bankruptcy judge to spend any more money on this case. So it seems that a stake has been driven through the heart of this particular vampire.

In reporting this story Yahoo! Finance headlined SCO to Sponsor Next Season of “The Biggest Loser”. Their story is by John Paczkowski The author says this case may finally be over See the Yahoo! Finance article for their details

A good overall view, though dated may be found Wikipedia article on SCO-Linux_controversies One of the strangest parts of this melodrama was when SCO announced that they would not be suing its own customers. Good to know, huh?

Photo Credit: http://taliesinttlg.blogspot.com

Posted by The GNUinator

Financial Services Lobbyist

The Center for Media and Democracy has awarded Scott Talbott of the Financial Services Roundtable its Golden Throne award.

Following is the press release announcing the award.

PRESS RELEASE: November 12, 2009
CONTACT: Mary Bottari at (608) 260-9713 or mary@prwatch.org

“GOLDEN THRONE” AWARD PRESENTED TO SCOTT TALBOTT OF THE FINANCIAL SERVICES ROUNDTABLE

The Center for Media and Democracy and BanksterUSA — http://www.banksterusa.org — are pleased to present a Golden Throne Award to Scott E. Talbott, the Senior Vice President for Government Affairs at the Financial Services Roundtable.

The Golden Throne Award salutes the behind-the-scenes lobbyists and spinmeisters of the financial services sector who have done their utmost to hold off any meaningful reform of their industry, even after collapsing the global economy and sending the U.S. unemployment rate above 10%. It invokes fond memories of the $1.2 million office renovation — with its $35,000 commode — ordered by Merrill Lynch’s CEO, John Thain, shortly before the firm lost $27 billion and was rescued from extinction by Bank of America.

Scott E. Talbott is a top lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable. The Roundtable lobbies on behalf of 100 of the top banks, credit card companies, insurance and securities firms operating in the United States. Its membership includes many bailed-out banks including: Citigroup, JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Wells Fargo, and PNC Financial Services Group, Inc.

“Few have done more to earn this place of honor. Through his work in the Financial Services Roundtable, Scott Talbott has been an influential advocate for the special rights and privileges enjoyed by the American Bankster,” said Mary Bottari of BanksterUSA.

The Financial Services Roundtable traces it roots back to 1912 when it was called the Association of Reserve City Bankers. It represented banks until the November 12, 1999 repeal of the depression-era Glass-Steagall Act. This repeal, 10 years ago today, tore down the fire walls between commercial banking, insurance and investment banking and created mammoth “too big to fail” firms. After fighting for the repeal of Glass-Steagall, the Roundtable transformed itself to also represent the largest securities, investment and insurance firms. Today the Roundtable is a powerful force against financial services reform in Congress and represents many of the largest bailed-out firms and financial institutions from around the globe including France’s AXA, London’s Barclays, Switzerland’s UBS and Germany’s Allianz. Click here to see its members.

TALBOTT’S LOBBYING

Talbott views his role as an important, even historic, one. “Washington is making changes that will affect the industry for the next 100 years, so we’re seeing a lot more interest from the C-suite. And our role is now more important than ever, because we’re in uncharted territory,” he told an admiring reporter who detailed his day including his 3:30 a.m. workout and his 1,000 calls. According to the report, Talbott is one of the few, the proud and the brave: “As finance lobbyists gird for one of their biggest battles, their ranks are growing thin. Slightly fewer than 2,600 people are now making the case for U.S. banks, insurers and investment shops — 300 fewer than last year.”

These few brave souls appear to be making quite the salary. According to Common Cause, commercial banks, finance and credit card companies spent nearly $42 million on lobbying during the first six months of 2009, about $1.6 million a week. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, Talbott’s group, the Financial Services Roundtable, has spent $5.1 million on lobbying so far in 2009. These recent efforts include undermining caps on executive compensation, fighting transparency requirements for risky derivatives trading, destroying various bills to help families facing foreclosure, preventing caps on credit card interest rates and bank fees, and of course leading the fight to kill the Obama administration’s signature pro-consumer reform — a Consumer Financial Protection Agency.

TIDBITS FROM TALBOTT

Subtlety is not Talbott’s strength. With regard to the Obama administration’s landmark reform proposal, a Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Talbott told the American Banker publication, “Our goal will be to kill it, or make it the least-worst way to do the wrong thing.” — American Banker, July 1, 2009.

While appearing on C-Span to discuss the Consumer Financial Protection Agency, Talbott was asked what type of regulation the Roundtable would support. Talbott let slip, “We’re not for any regulation.” — The Wonk Room, July 8, 2009.

Oblivious to the fact that the “too big to fail” banks held disproportionate responsibility for the financial crisis, Talbott fought to shelter them: “We think that it’s outrageous to disproportionately and unevenly impose the cost of new regulation on the top banks.” The largest banks, he added, “should not be forced by the government to … pay the larger share of the funding costs of the Consumer Financial Protection Agency and regulatory oversight.” — The Washington Post, August 14, 2009.

As the Roundtable geared up to do battle against a bill to limit overdraft fees bank fees which amounted to $38 billion last year, Talbott showed his sympathy for recession-battered consumers: it’s “unfortunate that low- and moderate-income Americans find themselves (using) overdraft services more often.” — USA Today, July 9, 2009.

When Congress discussed placing limits on lobbying for bailed-out institutions so that taxpayer money would not be used to lobby the government for more funds, Talbott wrapped the lobbyists in the American flag: “Our concern is with the limitations and new restrictions on free speech and the constitutional right to petition your government.” — The Hill, September 11, 2009.

Opposing breaking up the biggest banks, Talbott romantically opined that big banks — just like people — dream the American dream: “They provide a number of benefits across the globe. We have a global economy, and these institutions can handle the finances of the world. They can also handle the finances of large, non-bank institutions like General Electric or Johnson & Johnson. They need these institutions [that] can handle the complex transactions. Simply breaking them up … then you’re discouraging a company from achieving the American Dream, working hard, earning money, producing products, and getting bigger.” — The Baseline Scenario, October 12, 2009.

Talbott predicted calamity if the results of bank “stress tests” were revealed to the public (which they were): “I’m worried about the overreaction — people selling every bank short and pulling out all their deposits and hiding their money in the mattress.” — USA Today, April 24, 2009.

Talbott successfully fought against executive pay restrictions proposed for the 2008 TARP bank bailout bill: “We support the bill, but we are opposed to provisions on executive pay,” said Talbott. “It is not appropriate for government to be setting the salaries of executives.” — New York Times, September 23, 2008.

On the same topic, Talbott told ABC News that bank executives might quit their jobs if they were only paid only $500,000 per year. “The pay scale for Wall Street is different for the pay scale for America … I don’t think the issue is a dollar amount. It’s being paid what you’re worth …” — ABC News, February 4, 2009.

Fighting to kill a bill which would allow people facing hardship to discharge student loan debt as part of bankruptcy proceedings, Talbott said forgiving student loans: “will increase the cost of tuition.” — UPI, May 13, 2009.

ABOUT US

BanksterUSA — http://www.banksterusa.org — is a new project of the Wisconsin-based Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). CMD was founded in 1993 as an independent, non-profit, non-partisan, public interest group focusing on exposing corporate spin and government propaganda. CMD brought you the book “Weapons of Mass Deception” before the Bush team failed to find weapons in Iraq, and we exposed “Fake News” in the media and the “Pentagon Pundits” on cable news. With this new effort, we will debunk the spinmeisters of the powerful financial services industry and help ordinary Americans take positive action on the financial crisis and the real economy. CMD’s first Golden Throne Award went to lobbyist extraordinaire Edward Yingling, of the American Bankers Association who, for over 30 years, has been a top lobbyist and front man for the banking industry.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

Santa loading toys produced by slave labor.

Senator Max Baucus [D-MT] has introduced a bill, S1631, which among other things would ban the import of goods produced by child labor, convict labor, or slave labor.

The bill is co-sponsored by Senator Charles Grassley [R-IA] the ranking member of the Senate Finance Committee.

Business groups and the Heritage Foundation are working to relax this ban. A story by David Sirota gives the details. Search the Library of Congress website for text of the bill and its status.

Thanks to Rachel Maddow TRMS for bringing this to our attention.

The American people are smart enough to know that the goods they buy come from the store. So how could they be produced in any of these bad ways?

If you have moral objections to goods produced with child, convict, or slave labor, you might want to support this bill. If you believe goods produced this way compete unfairly with American workers, you might want to support this bill.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

The End of Days

Tim LaHaye, co-author of the popular Left Behind series of novels appeared on Friday, Febuary 27, 2009 on the Rachel Maddow Show. Tim and Rachel discussed our new president Barack Obama and the assertion that he is moving the U. S. toward socialism. Mr. LaHaye said the Obama is definitely not the Anti-Christ because he is not popular enough.

By this measure, certainly Microsoft Corporation must be the Anti-Christ as many in the open source software movement suspected all along.

Posted by Gypsy Chief

NYSE: MCD 3 Month Chart

There is an Internet spoof going on. Do not fall for it. You get an email promising to add $200 to your account for filling out an eight question survey. As with email like this I turned on full message headers and forwarded it to spoof@mcdonalds.com. Two days later I got an unknown user message from the MAILER DAEMON. There is no email user at mcdonalds dot com known as spoof. Thinking this strange I logged on to McDonaldsto take a look. Buried deep within the site is a notice that McDonald’s is aware of this Internet spoof and is ‘investigating’ . This tells me that McDonald’s does not seek the public’s help in tracking down these criminals.

What Corporate Social Responsibility?

McDonald’s has zero corporate social responsibility for the spoof. This does not mean that they do not have a problem. By not enlisting the public’s help it seems to me that McDonald’s management exhibits a tone deafness to the real world we live in. It sure would not take much action for them to create an email user known as spoof to provide a place for the public to forward spoof emails.

Tracking Down Criminals

Win $200 With McDonald’s
Monday, February 9, 2009 6:31 AM
From McDonald`s Mon Feb 9 14:31:38 2009
Return-Path:
Authentication-Results: mta191.mail.mud.yahoo.com from=McDonalds.com; domainkeys=neutral (no sig); from=McDonalds.com; dkim=neutral (no sig)
Received: from 222.227.72.67 (EHLO ns.sjc-sendai.co.jp) (222.227.72.67) by mta191.mail.mud.yahoo.com with SMTP; Mon, 09 Feb 2009 06:43:25 -0800
Received: from User (static-70-100-8-246.br1.blu.wv.frontiernet.net [70.100.8.246]) (authenticated) by ns.sjc-sendai.co.jp (8.11.6p2/8.11.6) with ESMTP id n19EfLa15109; Mon, 9 Feb 2009 23:41:21 +0900
Message-Id: <200902091441.n19EfLa15109@ns.sjc-sendai.co.jp>
From:
“McDonald`s”

This is a portion of the full message headers I got.
Here is the actual link. Note that it does not point to McDonalds.
To access the form please click the link below :
“nofollow” href=”http://paupas.com/McDonalds/index.htm” target=”_blank”>http://www.McDonalds.com/online.survey/index.html
Who are they? In any event, I hope someone shuts them down. Sorry to see that McDonalds does not seek our help.

AARP Weighs In
Here is a good story from AARP with some details of this and other scams.
AARP Scam Alert
There are several good links as well.
Posted by The GNUinator