Rich but never bitter

Despite suspicions of Reed's influence on Microsoft, the sponsor of the anti-discrimination bill, state Rep. Ed Murray, D-Seattle, said he doubted that Reed was involved with it.

"I believe it's a lot less sinister than it seems," he said last night. "It seems to me the company was not prepared to handle a hot issue in the middle of the culture war. They were caught off guard."

Murray, who said his relations with Microsoft were generally cool, said he believed the company's public opposition was "clumsiness rather than maliciousness."

Ralph Reed is more than a Friend of Bill -- he is a paid consultant, getting $20,000 a month from Microsoft to help shape the software behemoth's image in the global marketplace.

Judging from Reed's past -- he was the former head of the evangelical Christian Coalition -- that means serving up vitriolic viewpoints about gays and lesbians.

Judging from Microsoft's actions -- the company just yanked its support of a legislative bill in Olympia to protect gays -- the Reed brand of insight is shining through.

Microsoft's pitiful stand certainly won't ruffle the FOM brigade.

Those are the Friends of Microsoft -- people such as Ralph Reed, the former executive director of the Christian Coalition and an architect of the rise of religious conservatives in the GOP.

Five years ago, Reed was a senior consultant to the presidential campaign of then-Gov. George W. Bush. Reed was on the payroll of both the Bush campaign and Microsoft. His task as a hired gun was to round up Bush bigwigs who would lean on Bush to support Microsoft, which had taken a whipping in an antitrust suit triggered by the Justice Department.

The Inter-American Telecommunication Commission meets three times a year in various cities across the Americas to discuss such dry but important issues as telecommunications standards and spectrum regulations. But for this week's meeting in Guatemala City, politics has barged onto the agenda. At least four of the two dozen or so U.S. delegates selected for the meeting, sources tell TIME, have been bumped by the White House because they supported John Kerry's 2004 campaign.

Those barred from the trip include employees of Qualcomm and Nokia, two of the largest telecom firms operating in the U.S., as well as Ibiquity, a digital-radio-technology company in Columbia, Md. One nixed participant, who has been to many of these telecom meetings and who wants to remain anonymous, gave just $250 to the Democratic Party.

As paradoxical and absurd as it sounds, it's cheaper for a Hollywood studio to make a big-budget action movie than to make a shoestring art film like Sideways.

Telecommunications giants have mobilized a well-funded army of coin-operated think tanks, pliant legislators and lazy journalists who stand ready to paint community Internet as an affront to American innovation and free enterprise. Their weapon of choice is industry-crafted legislation that restricts local governments from offering public service Internet access at reasonable rates. Laws are already on the books in a dozen states. This year alone, 10 states are considering similar bills to block public broadband or to strengthen existing restrictions.

Police say they arrested 40-year-old Benjamin L. Smith III while he was still on-line in front of the veterinarian’s home. Smith is charged with offense against computer use, a felony.

Investigators are still trying to figure out what Smith was up to. Was he just looking for free internet access, or was he trying to hack into the victim's personal information, or maybe download something that would have gotten the victim, into trouble.

Q: Is the XML community too anal to survive?

A: I should think everything will be just fine...

Just think back to the swamp analogy... the hippos get angry and annoyed with the flies... after a while they get tired and go back to sleep...

Next day... flies and hippos start again on a happy note and it's another day in the swamp..

nobody drains the swamp... life goes on...

So it is with xml...

It's a happy place..

When our government affairs team put together its list of its legislative priorities in Olympia before the Legislative Session began in January, we decided to focus on a limited number of issues that are more directly related to our business such as computer privacy, education, and competitiveness. The anti-discrimination bill was not on this list and as a result Microsoft was not actively supporting the bill in the Legislature this year, although last year we did provide a letter of support for similar legislation.

The Stranger has learned that last month the $37-billion Redmond-based software behemoth quietly withdrew its support for House bill 1515, the anti-gay-discrimination bill currently under consideration by the Washington State legislature, after being pressured by the Evangelical Christian pastor of a suburban megachurch. The pastor, Ken Hutcherson of Antioch Bible Church in Redmond, met with a senior Microsoft executive in February and threatened to organize a national boycott of the company's products if it did not change its stance on the legislation, according to gay rights activists and a Microsoft employee who attended a subsequent April 4 meeting where Bradford L. Smith, Microsoft's senior vice president, general counsel, and corporate secretary, told a group of gay staffers about Hutcherson's threat. Hutcherson also unsuccessfully demanded that the company fire two employees who had testified in favor of the bill.
...
On March 22, Hutcherson testified against the bill in the senate Financial Institutions, Housing, and Consumer Protection committee. He bragged there about his success in moving Microsoft. "You won't hear about Microsoft standing behind H.B. 1515 because I'm dealing with Microsoft on that issue and will be dealing with Gates on that issue…" he said.
...
After meeting with Hutcherson, Microsoft had to make a choice: Maintain its long-standing, progressive support for civil rights or side with reactionary forces advocating discrimination. The company chose the latter. The gay Microsoft employee who spoke to The Stranger concluded, "Microsoft needs to feel the pain of a bad decision here."

A veteran Canadian journalist has launched a campaign to nominate the singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen for the Nobel Prize for Literature.

Thank you for contacting Albertsons Customer Care. We have received your e-mail regarding our Osco Drug store pharmacists.

Osco Drug stores are committed to serving the healthcare needs of our customers, while working in partnership with the State of Illinois Department of Professional Regulations. Our pharmacists have an obligation to take care of our customers. However, in those instances where pharmacists choose to exercise their rights under the Illinois Practice Act, they continue addressing the healthcare needs of our customers by referring them to another pharmacist on duty or to another pharmacy in an expeditious manner.

In this case, an investigation has been conducted and revealed that the pharmacist followed state law and company policy.

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I recently read in the New York Times:

"Two Chicago women, he said, reported in February that they had been turned away from a downtown drugstore when they tried to fill prescriptions for morning-after birth control pills. On Friday, the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation filed a formal complaint against that pharmacy, one in the Osco chain, and said it could face discipline ranging from a fine to the revocation of its license. No one from Osco's corporate offices could be reached for comment on Friday."

I understand that the Osco chain is owned by Albertson's Inc. I do not
believe in giving my business to companies that deny women access to legal
and necessary birth control products. Until there is a clear public
statement from Albertson's repudiating the actions of the pharmacists in
Illinois and elsewhere to deny women access to legal birth control, I will
not be shopping at Albertson's stores in my neighborhood or anywhere else.
Please note that I need to see a widely distributed public statement on
this issue, not a form letter assuring me that this was an isolated
incident. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

Hello, I would like to know your postition on pharmacists electing not to fill prescriptions that are legally written by healthcare providers. Specifically, do your pharmacists always fill contracteptive prescriptions? What is your stand on emergency contracteption, known as
Plan B or morning after treatment?

Thank you for contacting Albertsons Customer Care. We have received your e-mail regarding our Osco Drug store pharmacists.

Osco Drug stores are committed to serving the healthcare needs of our customers, while working in partnership with the State of Illinois Department of Professional Regulations. Our pharmacists have an obligation to take care of our customers. However, in those instances where pharmacists choose to exercise their rights under the Illinois Practice Act, they continue addressing the healthcare needs of our customers by referring them to another pharmacist on duty or to another pharmacy in an expeditious manner.

In this case, an investigation has been conducted and revealed that the pharmacist followed state law and company policy.

Again, thank you for contacting Albertsons Customer Care. If we can provide any information or be of service to you in the future, please do not hesitate to contact us by e-mail or by calling 1-877-932-7948.