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For the first time since I started my site, a topic has come up that I've received more email about than my Anti-Ford page. I've been asked numerous times about my position on Elian. Look, it's really simple. Parents have rights above all others concerning their kids. So long as the child is not being physically or psychologically harmed, the parent's decisions are the law. So what makes this case different? The father, whether we agree with him or not, wants his son in his custody and wants to take him home.

Kudos to Janet Reno, the woman that put the "general" back in "Attorney General", for going in and getting the kid from his fame-seeking relatives and the wacko that pulled Elian out of the sea in the first place. She upheld the law in fine form.

No one, and I mean no one, should think they have any rights to that boy that override the rights of the father. Now, it's also true that the whole thing became the cause celebe that it did because the media played it up so big, and the politicians involved have gotten a LOT of mileage out of it. But you boil it down to the right and wrong of it and you have an extremely young illegal immigrant whose sole surviving biological parent wants physical custody and the means to bring the boy back to his home country. When in history has such a simple scenario been blown so hugely out of proportion? I say shame on the media for using their power to recklessly magnify the import of the boy's plight and by so doing adversely affect the boy's life and development. And I say shame on the politicians and shame on the "loving" relatives who would deny the father-child bond and the parental rights of the father for no other reason except to get a little air time.

(WARNING: For nerds...) Microsoft entered it's proposed final judgement in the antitrust case that it recently lost. Basically, proposed final judgements give the defendent and the plaintiff a chance to suggest what the final outcome to a case should be. It's like one sibling saying the child that's in trouble should get a world-class spanking and the other saying that it should get a slap on the wrist. By stating that the remedy prescribed by Judge Jackson be limited to forcing Microsoft to allow competing software to be bundled with computers sold by OEMs, Microsoft is not only saying it should get a slap on the wrist, it should be given carte blanche, again, to all the sweets in the cupboard and be allowed to take over any of the other kids rooms and all their toys anytime it wants.

Give me a break.

(Ahem)...

Your Honor, Thomas Penfield Jackson,

Please give Microsoft the butt-whuppin' it so righteously deserves. By the very tone of its final arguments and proposed final judgement, it should be more than clear that Microsoft will engage in *exactly* the same, and perhaps worse, behaviour as it has displayed in the past. Make no mistake, unless the company is broken up so that the applications are permanently separated from the operating system, unless Microsoft is forced to disclose all APIs in the operating system used by its applications, unless Microsoft is disallowed in perpetuity from enforcing restrictions on OEMs, unless Microsoft is likewise disallowed from diluting competing brand names and technologies by producing hamstrung versions of the same and/or giving these products away for free, Microsoft will once again trod roughshod over justice and fair competitive practice and thereby reap the rewards of snubbing the justice system. The precedent you set today will govern the tone of the software industry for many years to come.

Thank you for your time,

Joe Public

Here in California, Gray Davis has taken the $13 billion surplus and divvied it up like so: