Presidential Candidates: Deregulation and Lobbying

Dr. Roy Schestowitz

2008-11-03 16:15:20 UTC
Modified: 2008-11-03 16:15:20 UTC

“Did you know that there are more than 34,750 registered lobbyists in Washington, D.C., for just 435 representatives and 100 senators? That's 64 lobbyists for each congressperson.”

--CIO.com

Direct link

This video is relevant because a lot of the issues we explore here (d)evolve to exploration of issues more political than technical.

"Geeks like to think that they can ignore politics, you can leave politics alone, but politics won't leave you alone."

--Richard Stallman

The Brand 'Watsonx' is a Terrible Name for IBM 'Hey Hi' (Chatbots) Because Watson Agreed With Adolf Hitler: Almost a century has passed and IBM still believes that selling "intelligence", chatbots in particular, should be done under the name "Watson"
Digg's Latest Incarnation Already Failed, It's Infested With LLM Slop: Many submissions go to slopfarms and some get summarised by slop
Microsoft-Controlled Media With Embargo and Press Operatives: This won't be the last example of media manipulation for narrative control or face-saving "damage control"
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part III - It's in His Eyes: Workers are free to draw their own conclusions
Former Debian Project Leader Branden Robinson Cautions Against Cover-up and Censorship in Debian: Debian drama. Again.
Techrights Has Over 1,000 Good Articles 'in the Tank': Drafts, notes, and lengthy documents
New Article Challenges Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) for Choosing the Wrong SLAPP Cases to Investigate: The one point we can agree on is that SRA does not know how to correctly select the worst culprits/offenders
Why IBM is Still Scary and Dangerous: Keep a distance from "Big Blue" Bully
Measuring the Growth of Our Mission and Community: Something between experiment and prototype
Richard Stallman in the United States - Part III - Georgia Tech Did a Fine Job Upholding Free Speech Principles: The real problem was social control media (toxic)
Debian's Master is Deleting Criticism of SystemD and Other Things (On-Topic and Published by Debian Developers), Resorts to the Excuse Messages Are "Too Long": Censorship serves nobody except the masters that control this censorship
Gemini Links 21/02/2026: Veganism and DeskPi RackMate T0: Links for the day
On The Web, XBox Already a Dying Breed: Down to about 0.05% on large machines, based on statCounter [...] Microsoft will never publicly admit or say how many billions it lost on the XBox
2026 a Year of 'Top-Down' Microsoft Layoffs (Management First): Stay tuned for what comes next
Your "Likes" Aren't Yours and They're Mostly "Worthless Clicks": Social hermits are not popular, irrespective of how many "Facebook friends" or "likes" they get
Waggener Edstrom/Frank Shaw Lied, There Are Definitely Microsoft Layoffs: Microsoft never issued a formal statement, it made allusions by proxy
Slop Hype Makes Our Core Technology Less Reliable and Far Less Resilient (We Pay for the Catastrophe That Follows): Only slop-free projects can be trusted
Going for 1,000 (Days of Uptime): universal records are vastly better
Firefox is No-Go in China, Not Even 1% "Market Share" Anymore: Given Mozilla's utterly rubbish marketing these days (politics over technical aspects), set aside the cheerleading for slop, there's hardly a chance of Mozilla Firefox reaching or exceeding 10% again
Links 21/02/2026: Tensions Over Iran and Illegal Cheeto Tariffs, Presidential Approval Sags: Links for the day
Links 21/02/2026: "Moving Away From Cloudflare", Many Layoffs or Shutdowns in Games (Including XBox/Microsoft): Links for the day
GNU Linux-libre is a Grown-Up Today: "before that, every distro that wanted to respect its users' freedom had to remove itself all of the binary blobs that were distributed as part of the kernel Linux's so-called sources"
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, February 20, 2026: IRC logs for Friday, February 20, 2026
Gemini Links 21/02/2026: "The Evil of Action" and Slop Bots Causing Great Harm Online (Not Just the Web): Links for the day
Like a Shell: Overreactions can backfire
Not Only Leaders of XBox Got Sacked (Layoffs): Phil Spencer and Sarah Bond got laid off
9PM on a Friday Night: Microsoft Says the Layoffs Are Not Layoffs: We've said for a long time that XBox is doomed this year
Gemini Links 20/02/2026: Misfin Server and Magic in Programming: Links for the day
analytics.usa.gov Reckons Windows "Market Share" Fell to Just 38%, Vista 11 Not Even a Third of Windows Users: This coming summer Vista 11 turns 5
The New Digg.com is Slop: Slop "summaries" and Serial Sloppers are drowning out the site with fake 'articles' (plagiarism)
Linus Torvalds: Bill Epsteingate Good Enough for Me to Wine and Dine With: Torvalds is more connected to Jeffrey Epstein than Richard Stallman ever was
Our Uptimes Are Always Better Than Any Site That Uses Clownflare: Clownflare as a company operates like a cult
GNU/Linux Apparently Rose to 6% in Uzbekistan: If accurate, this represents a new problem for Microsoft and a big win for Software Freedom
Sponsored Videos and 'Articles' in The Register MS, Stenography as a Service/Product: They should more accurately label these actors
It's Friday Again and Many People Leave IBM for Good (IBM Should be Reported for Illegal NDAs That Hide Layoffs): we very seldom see anyone deviating a lot from the "template-like" narrative, let alone mentioning "layoffs" or "RA" or some other term that implies non-consensual departure
The Little Clique of Sloppers/Spammers About "Linux" Got Even Smaller: Thankfully there are still genuine and legit GNU/Linux sites out there
Links 20/02/2026: Microsoft Intentionally Kills Older Hardware, "The Story of XBox" Shows How Defective Microsoft Hardware Really Was: Links for the day
Turkmenistan One of Many Countries Where Microsoft Fell to Distant Third in Search: We expect many layoffs in Bing some time soon
Don't Wait for "Red Hat Layoffs" Because After Bluewashing They're IBM RAs and Don't Wait for "IBM Layoffs" Because They're Perpetual: IBM layoffs are silent and "forever" (small trickle that never ends and is widespread - after all IBM is a very global and ubiquitous firm)
Links 20/02/2026: Standards, Science, and Politics: Links for the day
What Do People Ever Buy From Microsoft Anyway (Not PCs)?: Microsoft sells two things these days: 1) vapourware/promises. 2) its stock.
Gemini Links 20/02/2026: "Mainstream Unix, Underground Unix", Slop Staging DDoS Attacks Against Small Sites: Links for the day
IBM Inclusivity: Red Hat Summit is for Rich Sponsors Like Microsoft and Rich Guests Who Pay $500 a Day: Nothing signals societal tolerance more than paying a large military contractor
GNU/Linux Adoption is Higher in Richer Countries: Is it because freedom is actually expensive - something that only privileged people can pursue?
Links 20/02/2026: Windows TCO Versus Deutsche Bahn, Europe Seeks More Independent Digital Future: Links for the day
IBM, Red Hat and Fedora: Don't Say "Master", It Offends People. Also IBM, Red Hat and Fedora: "Master Podman".: The hypocrisy at Red Hat and Fedora shows no boundaries
IBM Layoffs Aren't Just in IBM 'Proper': Who is still using Lotus after the HCL move?
The Register MS Gets Paid by Gartner to Promote a Ponzi Scheme for Gartner, Microsoft, and Others: The credibility of that site will suffer because it tries to sell a major scam to its audience
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, February 19, 2026: IRC logs for Thursday, February 19, 2026
Gemini Links 19/02/2026: "Towards a Gemini Famicom Resource" and Dumping Microsoft: Links for the day
IBM Behaves Like a Company Looking for Loose Change Between Sofa Cushions: Chasing laid-off workers for dollars and even pennies, making excuses and devising loopholes (such as PIPs) to flout severance obligations
Microsoft Found Another Bailout Opportunity: Killing People: Good thing that Nadella is not racist!
No "Smart Mobs" (Social Control Media) in BRIC?: It looks like the "Social" "Media" sites tracked by statCounter see little from (or of) BRIC, and moreover it is declining fast
The Few Slopfarms We Saw Today: The sentiment has changed a lot
Links 19/02/2026: Protecting Framework Laptop 13, Hardware Drive Shortages: Links for the day
In Africa's Second-Largest Nation, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Opera 10 Times Bigger Than Firefox (and GNU/Linux Now at 5%): This will become an accessibility problem
Links 19/02/2026: "A.I.pocalypse" Inevitable and "Butlers to LLMs": Links for the day
An Inherently Royal (Monarchs') Legal System Where Size Matters (Big Capital Eats the Small): This reinforces the notion that justice is only for those who can afford it
These Statistics Should Keep Microsoft Shareholders Awake at Night: Windows is, in general (all versions collectively), declining over time
Economic Failure and Other Harsh Realities Have Nothing to Do With Slop 'Innovation': Advanced propaganda, not advanced 'AI' [...] They attack workers while insulting their intelligence
Spaniards Shutting Down MElon's Digital Weapon of "Smart Mobs": Are the Spanish people already acting based on gut feeling and shunning/shutting out the provocation vector?
Bitcoin: government engagement contradictions: Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock
Richard Stallman in the United States - Part II - "Haters Gonna Hate": we shall carry on with this series at the right pace
Typical! Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) Tells Victims of Fraud to Wait 10 Weeks: justice delayed is justice denied
EPO Union Leaders in Rijswijk Explain Where EPO Strikes Stand and How to Prepare for Next Week's: We have some revelations to share in a few days
statCounter: Only One in 350 Iranians Would Use Microsoft for Web Search: Microsoft is trying to fake "demand"
Slides Shown a Week Ago by the EPO's Staff Committee Ahead of the Second Very Large Strike: This coming weekend we'll drop a 'bombshell' of sorts
EPO "Cocaine Communication Manager" - Part II - Illegal Drug Addicts Mobbing the Wrong People, This Will Definitely Backfire: This year may well be the last year of Team Campinos. Nobody will hire them after that.
Mass Layoffs (But Silent Layoffs) Still Happening in IBM, You Need Only Look Closely (There Are NDAs, PIPs, 'Early Retirement' Sweeteners and IBM - Like Microsoft - Skirts the WARN Act): the layoffs are definitely happening
Microsoft's "AI CEO" (Slop Propagandist) is Projecting, Many Microsoft "Jobs to be Replaced With All-Indian Low-Paid Staff in 12 Months": Windows is perishing
Very Little Slop: We are not finding much slop anymore
Links 19/02/2026: Illegal Kangaroo Court for Patents Attracts Aggressive Firms, Public Domain Review Grows: Links for the day
Gemini Links 19/02/2026: Taxing the Rich, Raspberry Pi 4 Tinkering: Links for the day
Over at Tux Machines...: GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, February 18, 2026: IRC logs for Wednesday, February 18, 2026

Presidential Candidates: Deregulation and Lobbying

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