Respect My Authority!

Story: Ballmer repeats threats against LinuxTotal Replies: 5
Author Content
number6x

Feb 21, 2007
6:40 AM EDT
Steve Ballmer.

Hmmm

So that's what Cartman will look like when he's all grown up. Inquiring minds want to know.
jimf

Feb 21, 2007
11:32 AM EDT
Not to be pickey, but that should really read 'Respect My Authoritah!" :D
vainrveenr

Feb 21, 2007
12:29 PM EDT
----- Just "Bully" Ballmer doin' his thing.

U.S. President Teddy Roosevelt almost exactly a century ago also used the "Respect My Authoritah!" pitch, not unlike Bully Ballmer. As Teddy Roosevelt did quote "Men with the muckrake are often indispensable to the well-being of society, but only if they know when to stop raking the muck." "An epidemic in indiscriminate assault upon character does not good, but very great harm." "There should be relentless exposure of and attack upon every evil practice, whether in politics, in business, or in social life. I hail as a benefactor every writer or speaker, every man who, on the platform, or in book, magazine or newspaper, with merciless severity makes such attack, provided always that he in his turn remembers that the attack is of use only if it is absolutely truthful." Washington, DC, April 14, 1906

Highly doubtful that Bully Ballmer's muckraking threats against Linux is "absolutely truthful" no matter how much respect this guy yells for.
dcparris

Feb 21, 2007
2:02 PM EDT
Ballmer raking muck? I seriously doubt it. I don't see how anyone can even put him in the same class as such noble folks. Bullying is completely opposite of muckraking.
vainrveenr

Feb 21, 2007
3:33 PM EDT
According to the Wikipedia definition: A muckraker is an American English term for one who investigates and exposes issues of corruption that violate widely held values, such as political corruption, corporate crime, child labor, conditions in slums and prisons, unsanitary conditions in food processing plants (such as meat), fraudulent claims by manufacturers of patent medicines, labor racketeering, and similar topics. In British English however the term is applied to sensationalist scandal-mongering journalist, not driven by any social principles. (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muckraker)

We DO need a serious muckraker in the American English sense to counteract big Bully Ballmer. In that sense you are right on! Few such "noble folks" seem to be currently available to challenge Bully B head on. At the same time, we DO NOT necessarily need muckrakers in the British English sense (journalists?) to keep spinning and maybe even encouraging Bully B's continued threats and tantrums against Linux.
dcparris

Feb 21, 2007
3:48 PM EDT
Aha! I never compared muckrakers with my British buddies when I was stationed in England. We were more interested in comparing terms like "fags", & "shagging" (a dance - performed vertically, not horizontally - on this side of the pond). ;-) Comparing our definitions of muckraking just didn't hold interest.

I studied the better-known US muckrakers in school. That was, to me, an interesting subject. Hence, my adamant position that Ballmer not receive such a noble title. I should have caught on, as I didn't understand why you were using muckraker in a bad sense. Now I do. Thanks for clearing that up. :-)

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