August 2005 Archives

Earlier, Shep quoted (and Wince endorsed) this piece from Peter Daou at Salon. I figure anything both of these guys like must be worth reading.

And it is:

The unbridgeable divide between the left and right’s approach to Iraq and the WoT is, among other things, a disagreement over the value of moral and material strength, with the left placing a premium on the former and the right on the latter.

The right (broadly speaking) can’t fathom why the left is driven into fits of rage over every Abu Ghraib, every Gitmo, every secret rendition, every breach of civil liberties, every shifting rationale for war, every soldier and civilian killed in that war, every Bush platitude in support of it, every attempt to squelch dissent. They see the left's protestations as appeasement of a ruthless enemy.

For the left (broadly speaking), America’s moral strength is of paramount importance; without it, all the brute force in the world won’t keep us safe, defeat our enemies, and preserve our role as the world’s moral leader.

Wasn't it Machiavelli (or maybe it was Michael Corleone) who said that it was better to be feared than to be loved because love fades, but fear does not.

This 45-second video was shot out the window in our office at home in Baton Rouge. It was taken Monday morning at about 7:30 am. You can see our house in the lower right corner and our neighbor's house at the bottom center.

Listen to the wind.

The trees are about 70-80 feet tall. If and when some of those branches break and land on the power lines, well, that'll be that for a while. Until then...

P.S. We're expecting Katrina to formally arrive around here around noon or so.

“Moral hazard” is the term economists use to describe the notion that insurance can change the behavior of the person being insured...and not always for the better.

Malcolm Gladwell:

[For example,] if you have a no-deductible fire-insurance policy, you may be a little less diligent in clearing the brush away from your house.

Insurance can have the paradoxical effect of producing risky and wasteful behavior...

Fear of moral hazard, [writes John Nyman in his book The Theory of the Demand for Health Insurance,] also explains “the general lack of enthusiasm by U.S. health economists for the expansion of health insurance coverage (for example, national health insurance or expanded Medicare benefits) in the U.S.”

If you think of insurance as producing wasteful consumption of medical services, then the fact that there are forty-five million Americans without health insurance is no longer an immediate cause for alarm. After all, it’s not as if the uninsured never go to the doctor. They spend, on average, $934 a year on medical care.

A moral-hazard theorist would say that they go to the doctor when they really have to. Those of us with private insurance, by contrast, consume $2,347 worth of health care a year. If a lot of that extra $1,413 is waste, then maybe the uninsured person is the truly efficient consumer of health care....

[Bush's] Health Savings Accounts represent the final, irrevocable step in [this] direction...

Malcolm Gladwell, again:

Americans spend $5,267 per capita on health care every year, almost two and half times the industrialized world’s median of $2,193; the extra spending comes to hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

What does that extra spending buy us?

Malcolm Gladwell:

• The leading cause of personal bankruptcy in the United States is unpaid medical bills.

• Half of the uninsured owe money to hospitals, and a third are being pursued by collection agencies.

• Children without health insurance are less likely to receive medical attention for serious injuries, for recurrent ear infections, or for asthma.

• Lung-cancer patients without insurance are less likely to receive surgery, chemotherapy, or radiation treatment.

• Heart-attack victims without health insurance are less likely to receive angioplasty.

• People with pneumonia who don’t have health insurance are less likely to receive X rays or consultations.

• The death rate in any given year for someone without health insurance is twenty-five per cent higher than for someone with insurance.

• Because the uninsured are sicker than the rest of us, they can’t get better jobs, and because they can’t get better jobs they can’t afford health insurance, and because they can’t afford health insurance they get even sicker.

Citizen Lehew:

So here's a thought. The Democratic Party should push for a constitutional amendment clearly stating our "right to privacy". Now there's an idea worth touching the constitution for!

Even if the push is unsuccessful, it will not only force Republicans to reap the political benefits of coming out on the WRONG side of personal privacy, especially considering that even the staunchest conservatives are pro-privacy on a range of issues, it will help define in the public's mind exactly where Democrats stand.

G2Geek has some ideas to keep in mind when drafting the guidelines as well as a draft of the amendment itself.

Looks like the Iraqi Constitution will enshrine Islamic law as absolute. That's not good.

But...Islam will be "a main source" of legislation rather than "the main source" of legislation. That's good.

But...another clause says that no laws are allowed that will go against Islam. But who gets to decide that? Why, it's the mullahs who will sit on the equivalent of their Supreme Court. That's not good.

But...there is also a clause that states no law may contradict democratic values. That's good.

Sound confusing?

Christopher Allbritton of Time Magazine promptly rolls over and begins reciting what (I think) is going to be the conventional wisdom on the Right:

Of course, such contradictions aren't unique to Iraq; in the years following the ratification of the U.S. constitution there were whole classes of Americans (women, slaves) who were not given equal treatment, and the Iraqis may in time find a balance between Islamic law and democracy.

I can't decide whether this is idiotic or insulting.

Fact: Our system of governance did not mandate that the clergy have the final word on what was constitutional. Despite what the Justice Sunday crowd would like to see, we have always had a tradition of strict separation of church and state.

So when the reporter says that Iraq "...may in time find a balance..." I simply can't decide if he's being obtuse or ignorant.

I cannot say this enough:

There will never, never, never, EVER be any balance as long as the mullahs sit on the Supreme Court. If God is the highest authority in their system of governance, by definition it is not a democracy. Period.

Yesterday, Bush attempted to "catapult the propaganda" and explain again what the noble cause was for which our forces fought and died:

"We will finish the task that they gave their lives for. We will honor their sacrifice by staying on the offensive against the terrorists and building strong allies in Afghanistan and Iraq that will help us... fight and win the war on terror."

Bush said the Iraqis were doing their part by moving toward independence.

"The establishment of a democratic constitution will be a landmark event in the history of Iraq, in the history of the Middle East," Bush said.

He was paraphrasing Lincoln who said this:

...[W]e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

An Islamic Republic with the mullahs controlling the Supreme Court is not government of the people.

Our country spent -- continues to spend -- its blood and treasure to see the Iraqi people freed from tyranny. But the establishment of an Islamic Republic in Iraq is an insult to the memory of the men and women who died to make Iraq free.

I understand that Bush addressed the VFW convention in Utah today. The speech was going to be about Iraq. By the time you read this, perhaps you'll have heard what he said. I haven't, yet.

Maybe he talked about what he believes is "the noble cause" that we're fighting for in Iraq. I'm pretty sure he'll reiterate his message that "freedom is on the march."

But what does that mean, really? Do you know?

Lincoln was also a war President and I believe he said it best:

...[W]e here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

These are familiar themes. Lincoln's hymn is our hymn. And this administration can sing from that hymnal....almost.

They sing about the honored dead. They sing about freedom. But when it comes to singing about government, they've already closed the book sat down.

So here's where I'm coming from:

I ask those of you who believe that this President needs defending -- what would you think if all of our blood, all of our treasure birthed an Islamic Republic of Iraq? A Islamic republic that was in the orbit of the Islamic republic of Iran?

Would you feel that all of this had been worth it? Or would you feel that our honored dead had perhaps died in vain?

And if you saw it happening, this Islamic republic, and your son was already among the dead, wouldn't you be pretty bitter about it?

I'm just saying.

Sandra Day O'Connor:

At a time when we see around the world the violent consequences of the assumption of religious authority by government, Americans may count themselves fortunate: Our regard for constitutional boundaries has protected us from similar travails, while allowing private religious exercise to flourish...

I read again today that Chistian conservatives will be very unhappy with this administration if they think that an Islamic Republic might emerge in Iraq.

Well, like they say -- pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.

I think we all better look behind the curtain -- where there is a real possibility that a Christian Republic might be emerging in the US, one where it's OK for Supreme Court judges to answer to a higher authority than the US Constitution.

O'Connor again:

Those who would renegotiate the boundaries between church and state must therefore answer a difficult question: Why would we trade a system that has served us so well for one that has served others so poorly?

Up to now, I've been an agnostic on the topic of global warming.

On one hand, it makes sense that massive hydrocarbon emissions must surely have some effect on the climate. But on the other hand, the huge emissions from volcanoes, for example, seem hardly to make a dent at all.

Then there's the whole issue of long-term records of average temperature. We've only got a century or so of data and the accuracy is somewhat suspect, given the crude level of technology during the first half of that period.

But sometimes common sense is the best guide. Why not just go to the coldest parts of the planet and look around with your own eyes? You know -- if you find glaciers melting, if you find permafrost de-frosting, that would have to count for a lot, wouldn't it?

I mean, really now -- do you have any idea how much heat it would take to melt an ice cube the size of the Sears Tower? Answer: approximately a lot.

That's what Senators McCain, Clinton, Graham and Collins did and here's what they said when they were done:

Senator McCain:"We are convinced that the overwhelming scientific evidence indicated that climate change is taking place and human activities play a very large role."

Senator Graham: "If you can go to the Native people and listen to their stories and walk away with any doubt that something's going on, I just think you're not listening."

Senator Collins: "I don't think anyone who has talked to these individuals as well as the scientists would have any doubt that [global warming] is a real and growing problem."

Senator Clinton: "I don't think there is any doubt left for anyone who actually looks at the science. There are still some holdouts, but they are fighting a losing battle. The science is overwhelming, but what is deeply concerning is that climate change is accelerating."

The best comment came from Senator Graham:

[He]couched the argument for climate change, as well as another major Alaska issue, petroleum drilling of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, as a national security measure. Continued dependence on foreign fossil fuels makes America vulnerable, he said.

"The sooner we get started with alternative energy sources and recognize that fossil fuels makes us less secure as a nation, and more dangerous as a planet, the better off we'll be," Graham said.

Let's be real: the negative impact from oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge will probably be far less than the damage we've already done (and continue to do) from global warming. So if Graham is putting both on the table, I'll take global warming in return for oil-drilling any day. Especially since oil-drilling is a done deal.

Summary: this is sooooooooo a natural issue for progressives, liberals and (one would think) Democrats. And smart Republicans.

Senator Clinton knows that:

Opponents who ignore evidence of humans contributing to climate change, Clinton said, are participating in a trend of turning Washington, D.C. into what she calls an "evidence-free zone."

"You just keep saying something no matter how untrue and unfactual it might be, over and over and over again, and try to drive the politics to meet your ideological or commercial agenda," she said. "That is a grave disservice to our country."

How's that for framing the opposition?

Ezra:

[W]e like to imagine Iraq's current Constitutional Convention as an analogue, at least of sorts, to the one attended by our own Founding Fathers.

But that's a bit off the mark. It's more as if our Founding Fathers had to also deal with powerful, represented contingents of newly freed black slaves and politically empowered Native Americans.

Could they do it?

It's one thing to create a democratic republic of basically similar white people, but quite another to deal with ethnic groups who you've traditionally subjugated (or have traditionally subjugated you) and apportion the country in such a way that your dominance is accepted by their leaders. That's what Iraq is going through right now.

Ezra also quotes Harold Meyerson who says this:

It looks increasingly as if President Bush may have been off by 74 years in his assessment of Iraq. By deposing the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein, Bush assumed he would bring Iraq to its 1787 moment -- the crafting of a democratic constitution, the birth of a unified republic. Instead, he seems to have brought Iraq to the brink of its own 1861 -- the moment of national dissolution.

Dr. Rice you get the last word:

We are witnessing democracy in Iraq.

Damn -- is there anything about this war that Bush doesn't have some lame excuse for? Even one single thing?

Someone once said, you can be good at making excuses or you can be good at getting results. You hardly ever see someone try to do both.

P.S. Yeah, I know: it's all the Iraqis' fault. We should double-invade their asses!

Quiddity provides the PowerPoint summary of this article from the Post:

The Bush administration is:

• significantly lowering expectations
  
• shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning

The Bush administration is acknowledging:

• the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned
  
• we will have some form of Islamic republic
  
• they misread the strength of the sentiment among Kurds and Shiites to create a special status
• When we finally depart, it will probably be for us [and not for the Iraqi's]
  
• most damage was from looting [after the invasion][and not Saddam], which took down state industries, large private manufacturing, the national electric" system.

The Bush administration no longer expects:

• a model new democracy
  
• a self-supporting oil industry
  
• a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges
  
• Iraq's oil revenue paying many post-invasion expenses
  
• the ability [of Iraq] to build a robust self-sustaining economy

The Bush administration's goal is:

• a constitution that can be easily amended later so Iraq can grow into a democracy, U.S. officials say.

Now what was that about a "noble cause?"

As part of another discussion on universal healthcare, Wince stated flatly that, "You can have safety or freedom."

Well, I disagree. The fact is, you can have both.

Here's how it works (parphrasing Kevin Drum):

real choice means (requires!) a universal healthcare plan that genuinely allows everyone to choose the doctors and hospitals they like best.

Everyone is covered by a basic (not gold-plated) level of coverage. And everyone has a choice. You can even choose to augment your universal plan with more insurance if you find that to be cost-effective. I'm sure there will be numerous insurance vendors (like this one) that will be happy to sell you (or your employer) supplementary insurance.

Safety and freedom. It can be done.

Of course, Wince (and other conservatives) hate this because it means a significant expansion of government, even though this is what people want.

Instead, conservatives like that kind of "choice" which is represented by the The Health Care Choice Act, sponsored by Rep. John Shadegg of Arizona.

Again, Kevin:

If that plan is signed into law, people would get their choice of private healthcare plans, alright -- but it does so by allowing insurers in one state to sell in any other state, thus obliterating state regulation of insurers.

Hey Wince: I'll take my plan any day, because it protects everyone (not just the insurance companies) and it gives everyone a choice.

Who said this?

I recognize no power in the institutions of my church to interfere with the operations of the Constitution of the United States or the enforcement of the law of the land. I believe in absolute freedom of conscience for all men and in equality of all churches, all sects, and all beliefs before the law as a matter of right and not as a matter of favor. I believe in the absolute separation of church and state.

Dan Champion died last night. He was fond of saying, "Cancer is a jerk and I hate it." But I don't think the cancer got him. I think what finally got him was the news that Bobby Knight was going to get his own reality TV show.

Dan was a sensitive and funny guy. He was just as likely to go on (and on) about a painting by Edward Hopper as he was to show us a picture of a little Korean baby stuffing a puppy's head into his mouth. And you know what? I bet if you asked him which picture he liked better, he'd have thought about it for a minute before answering.

Once, I asked this question on my blog: "What is the worst psychological torture you can imagine suffering?" You know, it was one of those blog-posts that you put up when you can't think of anything else to write about. I got the usual responses -- but Big Dan had a snappy come-back: "Knowing every morning that I'm going to visit your blog, but not having the will-power to stop myself." Hee.

Please don't get the idea that Dan wasn't a serious guy. He was a mature grown-up (rare in this world), with solid values and high standards.

After the last Presidential election, I posted a map showing an odd correlation between the old Confederacy and 21st century Red states. Dan cried foul, yanked my name off his blogroll and demanded an apology which, shaken, I provided. I valued his friendship and his opinion.

And after the Iraqi elections in January, he told me he was proud of something I had written. It was high praise and I'll never forget it, or him.

Dan's cat Elwood died a few months ago and he was very sad. I told him that I believed that when you finally get to heaven, all the pets you ever had would be there to greet you. This morning, that's a thought that makes me smile.

Rest easy, man. You earned it.

A few months ago, James Dobson's Family Research Council organized Justice Sunday: Stopping the Filibuster Against People of Faith. I found it insulting, to say the least, that the filibuster of a self-professed Christian was being pitched as a battle between the God-fearing and the Godless.

And not only insulting, but beside the point. Here's what I said back then:

This battle is most certainly NOT about religion. This is about the Constitution and whether we, as a people, will continue to pledge our allegiance to it.

In short, you are either for the Constitution or you are against it...

As soon as we surrender the Constitution to a higher authority, as soon as we accept some higher authority in our self-governance, the moment we pledge ultimate allegiance to the church or the synagogue or the mosque or the temple, and not the Constitution of the United States of America, in that moment we will lose the essential liberties and freedoms that this country was born to protect.

Now comes Justice Sunday II: God Save the United States and this Honorable Court! Among the speakers will be Phyllis Schlafly, who says this:

What the Supreme Court does is of tremendous importance to all Christians. We know, as Chief Justice (William) Rehnquist has said, that the Supreme Court is demonstrating hostility to religion, and we want to bring that to a stop....it is important for the Congress to act on its Article III power to take away jurisdiction from the court on those areas where we don't trust them -- starting with the Pledge of Allegiance, the Ten Commandments, the definition of marriage and the Boy Scouts.

Here's the thing: Not only do I think she's wrong, I think her view is destructive to our way of governance.

So, Phyllis, if you want our government to answer to Jesus instead of the Constitution, if you believe that our government should take its marching orders from fundamentalist clergy, then go live somewhere else. We fought a war in Afghanistan to topple the Taliban, and I'm hoping (praying!) that we don't see the mullahs hijack the new Iraqi constitution.

Hey -- I know! -- why doesn't Phyllis go live in Iran!

On the other hand, I think the following people are right:

Chuck Currie, a United Church of Christ (UCC) seminarian in-care of the Central Pacific Conference of the UCC:

[Justice Sunday II] is a gross misuse of the Christian faith for partisan political purposes and as such should be condemned by all Christians and people of faith despite party affiliation or ideology.

Rev. Dr. Robert Edgar, General Secretary, National Council of Churches USA:

It is damaging to the legitimacy of the confirmation process to suggest that the necessary and comprehensive examination of a nominee's record, as well as support for or opposition to a nominee is in any way religiously motivated.

Ms. Mirin Kaur Phool, President, Board of Directors, Sikh American Legal Defense and Education Fund

The judiciary has long upheld the Constitutional guarantee of free exercise of religion and separation of church and state that make our nation the most religiously diverse and robust democratic country in the world. It is troubling when people of faith are calling for the courts themselves to break down the wall separating church and state that has protected the right to freely exercise their beliefs.

Rev. Bill Sinkford, President, Unitarian Universalist Association:

No person or group can honestly claim to represent 'the' single authentic faith perspective on a given issue. Americans of faith and good will differ on the issues facing our country today, but those differences should never be cause for questioning another's faith or patriotism.

There are not two sides to this issue.

Or to paraphrase John Rogers: "Everybody who believes that the Constitution is the highest authority in our system of governance, over here. Everybody who wants to follow the orders of fundamentalist clergy, over there. Thank you very much. Good luck with that."

(HT to Frederick Clarkson)

If I'm a Democrat running for Congress, I'm making it "us against them," i.e., research and development versus intelligent design.

Kevin Drum:

Technological development is at the core of increasing productivity, and everyone benefits from it regardless of where the basic research is done.

Still, the places that do the research get the lion's share of the benefit, and if you were a scientist, where would you rather be? UCLA or Stanford on the one hand, or someplace where the locals try to ban the teaching of evolution and think that biotech laboratories are symbols of moral degeneracy?

Seems like an easy choice.

If our children are going to have a secure place in the world of the 21st century, we're going to have to get serious about science and dump the nonsense about creationism (and everything it represents) in the science classroom

The Brookings Institution has come out with its most current issue of the "Iraq Index," which tracks variables of reconstruction & security in post-Saddam Iraq.

If you're concerned about American casualties, the news is generally good.

But if you're concerned about the kind of "new life-style" we've introduced into Iraq via our invasion, or if you want to believe that "freedom is on the march," well then, the news is pretty grim.

Click the thumbnails below for more detail...

Iraqi military & police killed monthly

Iraqi Civilians killed as a result of acts of war since May 1, 2003 (i.e., "Mission Accomplished")

Car bombs in Iraq (lethal and non-lethal)

Multiple casualty bombings

Iraqi killed and wounded in multiple casualty bombings

So I have two questions:

1. Even if the MSM won't show images of carnage in Iraq, is it too much to ask that they show the graphs and charts instead?

2. For Bush apologists who think "we're rounding the bend" and "the next six months are pretty much make-or-break for the entire experiment," and who STILL can't decide if it is "going to work, or is it time to completely re-evaluate everything?" I'd ask them this: where on God's earth have you been living for the past two years?

As for that last question, why do I even bother asking? These are the same people who refer to everyday life in Iraq as a "Carnival of the Liberated."

Andrew Leonard, in Salon:

If you're looking for examples of the downside of globalization, China offers them in abundance. China's low-cost workers are depressing wages for manufacturing employees all over the world. Its incredible appetite for raw materials and energy has warped commodity prices and raised fears of a global struggle for resources that could lead to the 21st century's defining showdown.

Now, China has moved into the semi-conductor/computer chip industry in a big way.

Andrew Leonard thinks this is a good thing. Read the article and decide for yourself.

Hint: Presently, China's present production capacity is one-seventh of its domestic demand for computer chips. And demand is growing faster than supply. Not only that, but China's production capacity is mostly at the lower end of the technology -- un-sophisticated chips. Powerhouses like Intel are doing the necessary R&D to produce chips at the cutting-edge, high-end.

Speaking of R&D, the semiconductor industry is one of the few in this country that HAS continued to spend on research and development. Andrew Leonard points out that it is what has left the industry in a strong position globally.

So what about other domestic industries -- which ones could or should be spending on R & D? Leonard identifies three (nanotechnology, biotech and/or alternative energy) and asks whether it might or might not be a good idea for the US government to plow some money into R&D. Like, now. The Chinese government would and probably will, at it's first opportunity.

"The U.S. economy should focus more on developing cutting-edge technology and investing in science and engineering, getting universities on track, and worry less about the world catching up," says Amir Sharif, a product manager at Cisco Systems, who co-organized and led a tour of China for venture capitalists in 2004.

"Because the rest of the world is catching up, and that's a good thing. The competition is not us against the Chinese. It is a symbiosis; the more we advance our own technology and the more we depend on our partners, the more we can promote a peaceful coexistence."

Lots to consider in the article. Read it, if you fancy yourself a futurist figuring out our place in the world (and our children's place) in the 21st century.

From The Post:

The Clinton brand is a powerful asset and a divisive force. As Bush showed when he ran for president in 2000, an attractive brand and past association with a presidency is not sufficient to win the White House.

Bush's first presidential campaign may have been motivated by a desire to avenge the defeat of his father at the hands of Bill Clinton, but he did not run as the political twin of his father's administration or as the instrument to resurrect his father's agenda. He traded on the Bush name but did not allow it to restrict his vision.

How Sen. Clinton plans to deal with this, if she becomes a candidate in 2008, is far less clear.

Bill Clinton presented himself as a New Democrat, Bush as a compassionate conservative.

The senator has been a workaday legislator without a defining imprint of her own. In her DLC speech last week, she offered a description of an ideal America in 2020, which many in the audience regarded as an appealing vision, but it was not intended as the kind of hard-choices agenda that DLC leaders may envisage.

I like that Hillary is at least thinking about what an ideal American might/should look like in 2020.

And/But even though I've been saying (for over a decade, in fact) that Bayh is the future of the party, well, I don't see him -- or Vilsack and Warner for that matter -- as ready for prime time yet.

I've said some things on numerous occasions that people have interpreted to mean that I think copyrights should be treated as a meaningless exercise.

This is odd because I consider myself to be a content creator. Of course I want to protect my creations against unfair use. But perhaps I haven't always made myself clear on what I consider to be fair use.

Scott Kleper, inspired by Electronic Frontier Foundation's blog-a-thon, has done a better job than I at explaining the underlying principle of what some are calling "copyfighting:"

Copyfighters aren’t saying that information should be free.

We are saying that as consumers of media (film, television, software, literature, etc.) we have certain rights that we would like to protect.

One of these rights is Fair Use. Fair Use means that you can reuse copyrighted work without permission as long as you are commenting on it, or copying/parodying the original. Fair Use is what allows you to quote song lyrics when writing a review of a new CD.

Another right is First Sale. First Sale means that when you buy something, you own it and are thus entitled to sell it to someone else. First Sale is what allows you to buy a book, read it, then sell it on half.com for someone else to enjoy.

Most of all, we simply want the right to use the products we buy in the way that we see fit. We don’t want to be sued by a manufacturer for opening up a product to see how it works or sued by a media company for moving a file from one device to another.

We believe that when we buy a CD, we should be able to convert it to another format to play on another device. We shouldn’t have to pay again to turn it into a ring tone.

Originally, copyrights were envisioned by Jefferson and the other framers to promote creativity not stifle it.

But because copyright protection has gotten progressively stronger over the years, whole avenues of exploration and development are closed off because the copyright or patent holder (usually a large corporation) controls so much. Maybe too much.

For example, does Microsoft deserve 3,000 new software patents -- this year, alone?

(HT to Cory)