Greed pays...

... well no.. it doesn't in this case!

Picture a sardonic smile here. The boys at SCO thought that they could badger linux users into paying bogus licensing fees and convinced a few companies to cough up some dough.

Interestingly enough Microsoft apparently loaned SCO some money for reasons murky at best.. but consider that at one point in a meeting a certain officer high in MS administration named linux as being the greatest threat to the dominance of the MS Windows operating system.

Draw your own conclusions.

But then they got greedy and sued IBM and Novell. SCO claims that the code that IBM, (which they had acquired from Novell), donated to the linux community was actually owned by SCO by right of purchase.

But in the end the original contracts signed by SCO were examined by a court.. and testimony was given and it turned out that what SCO had actually bought was the right to license the operating system, but the original owners still owned the IP. Oh dear poor poor SCO. After much dragging of their feet it turned out that SCO's claims were all smoke and mirrors and that their claims of IP theft was a thing of fantasy.

Ohh.. but it gets better, Novell looks at the books and says 'Hey, wait a minute! You owe us fees!' And lo, the court agrees!.

Oh what will poor greedy SCO do? Why declare bankruptcy, of course!

At that point some 'company' appears on the scene and says.. oh we'll give you some money poor SCO.. but then they get a good look at the mess SCO had created and realize none of their goals will ever be realized and they suddenly got cold feet. (So much for raking in money from bogus linux licenses!)

Well.. the court say.. 'ok boys, you've had you fun.. pay the money you owe Novell and stop jerking everyone around' to grossly paraphrase. Does SCO even make a token attempt to pay their debt, they do not.. and so the court has issued an warning.


So why the sardonic smile? Because there's nothing I enjoy seeing more than a pack of malicious greedy dirtbags getting their heads handed to them while they figuratively thrashed before their peers. If only it happened in the financial community too.. sigh.. I can dream.

Wall Street's Pork Barrel Revealed

It's the nitty gritty.

Everyone has been saying that default credit swaps were too complex to explain, or they'd resort to double speak in an effort to cloud the issue.

Apparently it's not really that complex, it's just a really bad idea that people bought into... a Wall Street Pyramid scheme that like all pyramid scheme's leaves the last ones in holding the bag.

If you have the stomach for it read this article. And brace for impact.

Yeee-haaa!

Whoa there little doggies!

Can this be true?

Texans indicting the current VP and former US AG of criminal racketeering, color me flumoxed!

Of course the likelihood of it ever going to trial are about as good as the EU's charges of war crimes sticking.

But still it takes guts to go after someone that unloaded a shotgun in someone's face and got away with it.