There are three topics you just can't bring up in polite company without
spoiling for a fight: politics, religion, and Microsoft. All three involve
power, influence, wealth, and potential suffering. And all three can leave
rationality and fairness in the dust. So it was a major break for Microsoft when
the U.S. Court of Appeals recently let the company off the hook a bit and
blasted Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's breakup plan and his character.
Recently, in a 7-0 vote, the Appeals Court excoriated Jackson for
"deliberate, repeated, egregious, and flagrant" comments to reporters during the
trial that compared Microsoft to drug gangs, and Bill Gates to an arrogant
Napoleon and a mule who needed to be "whopped . . . upside the head." (It
probably didn't help that Jackson earlier branded U.S. Court of Appeals judges
as supercilious, inexperienced, and superficial.)
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