According to Kenneth W. Starr in his Feb. 19 Op-Ed column, "A stitch in crime," the Microsoft antitrust settlement contains loopholes that allow Microsoft to avoid competing in the marketplace on the merits. Yet rather than attack Microsoft, perhaps Mr. Starr should reorient his gaze to the antitrust laws themselves.

Under the antitrust laws, the government has penalized Microsoft for improving its products, controlling the terms of sale of its own property and earning the loyalty of millions of its customers. In a free market, Microsoft's achievements would be held up as a model of how to create and maintain a highly productive, innovative company. Yet under antitrust laws, these same achievements are criminal.

Never mind that, unlike a government regulator, Microsoft cannot outlaw the competition. Never mind that the only real barriers to competition with Microsoft are technical and business acumen. Under the antitrust laws, Microsoft, by virtue of its success, is a coercive threat to the unsuccessful. The gauge of Microsoft's compliance with the law is how much its competitors are gaining at Microsoft's expense.

It should be obvious that a standard that demands that a company sacrifice itself to its competitors is unjust. Yet, never in the history of the Microsoft antitrust case has there been a loud call for a re-examination of antitrust law itself. Government and industry antitrust attorneys have pored over tens of thousands of documents, looking for instances of Microsoft's transgressions. They have missed the transgressions of a government that criminalizes ordinary business behavior in the name of protecting the marketplace.

NICHOLAS PROVENZO
Chairman
Center for the Advancement of Capitalism
Alexandria, Va.

If you are a philosophically pro-American student, you have to expect every kind of smear from many of your professors. If you uphold the power of reason, you will be called a fanatic or a dogmatist. If you uphold the right to happiness, you will be called anti-social or even a fascist. If you admire Ayn Rand, you will be called a cultist. You will experience every kind of injustice, and even hatred, and you will be unbelievably bored most of the time, and often you will be alone and lonely.

His favorite book is Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. It is an epic novel about a society in mysterious decline, and about the death and rebirth of the human spirit. The book profoundly influenced Vinatieri's feelings about the importance of pride in the work place.

"The book's about commitment," he says. "Whatever you do and whatever you're going to put your name on, whatever you're going to sign as your work, do it to be proud of what you're doing. Do it the best you can and you'll never be disappointed. You'll never have to say, 'What if I had tried a little harder?'"

Such passion for perfection helps explain Mr. Ice-in-His-Veins' occasional meltdowns. You don't want to be near him on the day that a product he just purchased fails to operate. Or worse, a do-it-yourself assembly project with parts missing.

"Or when you're at the airport and your flight is delayed with no explanation," he says. "Or when your flight's been canceled. Or when they lose your luggage."

Some people can roll with these everyday annoyances. Vinatieri cannot. To him, they are an indication that someone didn't put enough pride in his work.

"With our job, everything is done professionally," he says. "Our organization and our coaches expect us to do everything to the best of our ability. And I'm a little bit of a perfectionist in most everything that I do. So when other people don't use the same effort, it makes me angry. I want other people to take just as much pride in what they do, no matter what that is."

Valerie has lost count of the number of times she has seen her husband shake his head and declare, with absolute indignation, "I would never run my business this way!" He knows there are no shortcuts to success, a lesson he learned when he spent summers working on a South Dakota farm owned by his grandfather and uncle.

"I'd be there for three or four weeks, helping them plant and plow and vaccinate cattle," Vinatieri recalls. "It was the hardest month of the year I would spend anywhere. Up at 5 a.m., go to bed at midnight. My uncle would even work later than that and still get up earlier. Even if it rained, you couldn't get out of work because that was a time to fix a fence. There was always something to do."

That hasn't changed. Most kickers spend practice sessions watching and waiting for the special-teams period.

"I go in there and lift weights and run with everybody," Vinatieri says. "Sure, making big kicks to help the team win definitely helps your status on the team. But I want everybody to know that I care about the team as much as anybody."

I went to Congress with the same intelligence Congress saw the same intelligence I had, and they looked at exactly what I looked at, and they made an informed judgment based upon the information that I had. The same information, by the way, that my predecessor had. And all of us, you know, made this judgment that Saddam Hussein needed to be removed.

You mentioned "preemption." If I might, I went to the United Nations and said, Here is what we know, you know, at this moment, and you need to act. After all, you are the body that issued resolution after resolution after resolution, and he ignored those resolutions.

So, in other words, when you say "preemption," it almost sounds like, Well, Mr. President, you decided to move. What I decided to do was to go to the international community and see if we could not disarm Saddam Hussein peacefully through international pressure.

You remember U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 clearly stated show us your arms and destroy them, or your programs and destroy them. And we said, there are serious consequences if you don't. That was a unanimous verdict. In other words, the worlds of the U.N. Security Council said we're unanimous and you're a danger. So, it wasn't just me and the United States. The world thought he was dangerous and needed to be disarmed.

And, of course, he defied the world once again.

In my judgment, when the United States says there will be serious consequences, and if there isn't serious consequences, it creates adverse consequences. People look at us and say, they don't mean what they say, they are not willing to follow through.

And by the way, by clearly stating policy, whether it be in Afghanistan or stating the policy that we expect you, Mr. Saddam Hussein, to disarm, your choice to disarm, but if you don't, there will be serious consequences in following through, it has had positive effects in the world. Libya, for example, there was an positive effect in Libya where Moammar Khaddafy voluntarily disclosed his weapons programs and agreed to dismantle dismantle them, and the world is a better place as a result of that. And the world is a safer and better place as a result of Saddam Hussein not being in power.

The tradition of liberty has advocates in every culture and in every religion. Our great challenges support the momentum of freedom in the greater Middle East. The stakes could not be higher. As long as that region is a place of tyranny and despair and anger, it will produce men and movements that threaten the safety of Americans and our friends. We seek the advance of democracy for the most practical of reasons: because democracies do not support terrorists or threaten the world with weapons of mass murder.

America is also taking the side of reformers who have begun to change the Middle East. We're providing loans and business advice to encourage a culture of entrepreneurship in the Middle East. We've established business internships for women, to teach them the skills of enterprise, and to help them achieve social and economic equality. We're supporting the work of judicial reformers who demand independent courts and the rule of law. At the request of countries in the region, we're providing Arabic language textbooks to boys and girls. We're helping education reformers improve their school systems.

If and when [Clarett] steps on the field to play in the NFL, he'll realize quickly that he's a boy up against men. Clarett couldn't stay healthy in college -- that's a walk through the park compared to what he'll be facing.

I was only 20 my rookie year, and I could tell everyone was much stronger me. My "welcome to the NFL" hit came in practice courtesy of five-time Pro Bowl defensive back Donnie Shell. He hit me so hard, it split my shoulder pads down the middle and knocked my helmet off my head. It was the hardest hit I ever sustained. I couldn't feel my legs; it was all I could do to walk back to the huddle.

SAO PAULO, Brazil -- The Brazilian Antitrust Agency on Wednesday ruled that Swiss food giant Nestle must sell the Garoto chocolate company it bought in 2002 for $250 million.

The agency cited "a high degree of market concentration" in its 5-1 ruling. Under the ruling, Nestle must divest itself of Garoto, although no specific deadline was set.

Furthermore, Nestle must break up the formerly Brazilian-owned company into separate units and sell them to buyers who do not control more than a 20 percent market share for any given product.

Nestle bought Garoto in February 2002, a move that united two of Brazil's three largest chocolate companies and gave Nestle a market share as high as 90 percent for some products.

ESPN has canceled its first scripted series, "Playmakers," and the show's creator says it was the NFL's doing.

The cable sports network announced yesterday that the drama series about a pro football team, which the NFL blasted for its sometimes unflattering portrayal of players, will not return for a second season despite record ratings for ESPN.

"Many considerations went into this decision, not the least of which was the reaction from a longtime and valued partner," ESPN executive Mark Shapiro said in a statement. He was referring to the NFL, with which ESPN has a $4.8 billion contract to televise its Sunday night games.

Shapiro told The Post's John Maynard yesterday that the final decision was solely ESPN's. The NFL "did not put a gun to our head," he said.

The NFL in a statement said the cancellation "was an ESPN decision and now we can all move on."

But "Playmakers" creator and executive producer John Eisendrath said: "The NFL canceled the show. Implicitly or explicitly, [the NFL] let it be known that the future of football on ESPN and [corporate parent] ABC hinged on the decision that they made about 'Playmakers,' " he told Maynard.

"This is an example of censorship. There is no way to sugarcoat it." [Washington Post]

Only days after the firestorm created when Janet Jackson exposed her breast during the Super Bowl, plans to air an episode of "ER" on NBC Thursday evening that includes a view of an elderly female patient's bare breast are raising serious concerns among the network's affiliates.

Some NBC affiliates are so uneasy about the scene planned for the first night of sweeps that at least one station group executive described himself Tuesday as "considering what my options are" should NBC decide to air the hour with the exposed breast. "You're not going to find the stations very willing to take the heat," said the station group executive. "I think people are going to be backing off big-time."
. . .
There is a pending FCC investigation of the Super Bowl incident. Last week some stations were fined for earlier incidents and the White House endorsed a call for a ten-fold increase in fines for indecency on TV. There are already indecency hearings on Capitol Hill scheduled and more being threatened.

In light of the atmosphere of fear which has been created, even a tastefully shot, full-on glimpse of a bare breast in a network primetime show inspires less academic and more fearful discussions and concerns. That context led the group executive to predict that should NBC keep the breast scene in, there could be significant defections by affiliates who won't air the show.

The federal government's gross debt — the accumulation of its annual deficits — was about $7 trillion last September, which works out to about $24,000 for every man, woman and child in this country. But that number excludes items like the gap between the government's Social Security and Medicare commitments and the money put aside to pay for them. If these items are factored in, the burden for every American rises to well over $100,000.

The new Medicare prescription drug benefit will add thousands more to that tab. This benefit is unquestionably popular and will make it easier for some older Americans to afford expensive prescription drugs. But it also comes with a steep price tag that few want to talk about. The truth is that the drug benefit as signed into law is one of the largest commitments ever undertaken by the federal government. Preliminary estimates of its long-term cost in current dollars range up to $8 trillion.

To put that number into perspective: it is about four times the entire federal budget. Long-term simulations from the legislative agency I head, the General Accounting Office, paint a chilling picture. Even before the new drug benefit was enacted, these simulations showed that by 2040 current policy could require a 50 percent reduction in federal spending or a doubling of taxes to balance the budget.

Once the little Martians have studied up on that, they can turn their attention to the commercials, which, for those of you keeping score at home, cost $2.9 million per 30 seconds this year. Imagine for one second if CBS and each of those corporations had agreed to take just $100,000 from each of those spots and had given that money to the homeless; what a difference it could make in countless lives.

Oh wait, that's one of those silly liberal thoughts. Can't have that while we're celebrating the homespun values of American Excess.

Howard Dean, a physician and a Democratic presidential candidate, on Monday dismissed as "silly" a government inquiry into whether indecency rules were broken during the broadcast of the Super Bowl halftime show when pop diva Janet Jackson's bodice was ripped to expose her right breast.

"I find that to be a bit of a flap about nothing," the former Vermont governor said. "I'm probably affected in some ways by the fact that I'm a doctor, so it's not exactly an unusual phenomenon for me."

During the break in the National Football League's championship game, singer Justin Timberlake reached for Jackson as they sang a duet and tore off part of her black leather bustier.

Federal Communications Commission chairman Michael Powell promised a "thorough and swift" investigation of the stunt aired during one of the most popular American television broadcasts, which also attracts a major worldwide audience.

"In general, I think the FCC does have a role in promoting some reasonable standard of decency," Dean told reporters aboard his campaign plane. "However, considering what's on television these days, I think the FCC is being pretty silly about investigating this."

Dean, who does not have cable television at his home in Burlington, Vermont, said Americans could inadvertently turn on "far worse things" while "cruising through cable at regular viewing hours."

"I don't find it terribly shocking relative to some of the things you can find on standard cable television," he added. "I think the FCC probably has a lot of other things they should be pursuing."

CHICAGO (Reuters) - The longer white infants from low-income families are breast-fed, the less likely they will be overweight as young children, researchers said on Monday. The study of more than 177,000 children from low-income families who visited U.S. public health clinics between 1988 and 1992 found that formula-fed infants and babies breast-fed for less than a month were more likely to develop weight problems by age 4 than infants breast-fed for longer periods.

However, the correlation between breast-feeding duration and healthier weight was limited to whites in the study, and did not apply to Hispanics or blacks, who made up nearly one-third of the participants.

U.S. obesity rates among children and adults have been climbing, with Hispanics and blacks the most likely to be overweight.
. . .
Among the possible reasons behind the correlation are that breast-fed children seem to be better able to self-regulate their eating at mealtimes compared to formula-fed children, the report said. Breast-fed babies likely exert more control over when to stop suckling, while babies fed formula might be urged to finish off a bottle or were left wanting more.

Breast-fed children also have been found to make an easier dietary transition to vegetables than formula-fed children, wrote study author Laurence Grummer-Strawn of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta.

And compared to breast milk, formula provokes a greater insulin response that may lead to early deposits of body fat, he wrote.

What is at issue in this dispute? Facing intensified competition, the stores wanted to lower costs by having workers share a portion of the expense for their medical benefits. Knowing that it can refuse with near impunity, the union rejected the proposed labor agreement. What is important here is the stores' right to set the terms of employment, which is abrogated. A rational employer expects to pay wages that enable him to earn a profit?not so high that he has to raise prices and lose customers, but not so low that he cannot attract and retain capable workers.

But unions pride themselves in artificially raising wages beyond the market price for such work. When demanding higher wages, unions do not promise employers that union workers will do a better job or be more productive. They don't have to. The union has a coercive power over employers. The California grocery stores will soon have to compete with Wal-Mart, which plans to open grocery stores in the state. They are right to be worried. At unionized stores in California workers get paid $10 per hour more than those at a nonunion store. Those artificially high wages have an impact on prices: a cart of groceries is 17 to 39 percent cheaper at nonunion stores.

Some of the biggest donors to New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, widely expected to run for governor, are lawyers working for people he is suing.

A BusinessWeek analysis of New York state election filings found that among contributions being received by his Spitzer 2006 campaign organization are some from attorneys representing clients against whom Mr. Spitzer's office has filed charges.

For example, Mr. Spitzer received $1,000 from defense lawyer Gerald Shargel on the same day Mr. Shargel's client, William Kenyon, ex-president of Security Trust, was arraigned for grand larceny and fraud. Mr. Kenyon purportedly acted as a middleman to facilitate market timing for hedge fund Canary Capital Partners.

"On the same day that I'm having heated discussions with his office, [Mr. Spitzer's fund-raisers are] calling, saying, 'Where's my check?' " Mr. Shargel said.

Kramer, Levin, Naftalis, & Frankel, the law firm for Canary Capital head Edward Stern, has given $12,000 to Spitzer — $2,000 before the Canary case and $10,000 after a $40 million settlement with Mr. Spitzer, United Press International reports.

The chief federal regulator of broadcasting said Monday he is "outraged" by the Super Bowl halftime show which wound up with singer Justin Timberlake tearing off part of Janet Jackson's costume, exposing her breast.

Timberlake blamed a "wardrobe malfunction," but Federal Communications Commission chief Michael Powell called it "a classless, crass and deplorable stunt."

MTV, which produced the show, and CBS, which broadcast it, both said they had no idea that their halftime show Sunday night would include such a display.

"CBS deeply regrets the incident," spokeswoman LeslieAnne Wade said.

The two singers were performing a flirtatious duet to end the halftime show, with Timberlake singing, Rock Your Body, and the lines he sang at the moment of truth were: "I'm gonna have you naked by the end of this song."

With that, Timberlake reached across Jackson's leather gladiator outfit and pulled off the covering to her right breast, which was partially obscured by a sun-shaped, metal nipple decoration.

The network quickly cut away from the shot, and did not mention the exposure on the air.

In a statement, Powell said, "I am outraged at what I saw during the halftime show of the Super Bowl. Like millions of Americans, my family and I gathered around the television for a celebration. Instead, that celebration was tainted by a classless, crass and deplorable stunt. Our nation's children, parents and citizens deserve better."

"I have instructed the commission to open an immediate investigation into last night's broadcast," he said, vowing it would be "thorough and swift." Earlier, an FCC spokeswoman, Suzanne Tetreault, said it was launching a routine investigation because it had received complaints.

Messages left with Jackson's record company and her personal publicist were not returned Monday morning.

The FCC has come under fire from lawmakers and outside groups who say the agency hasn't done enough to shield the public from indecent programming on radio and TV.

In February, the Los Angeles City Council is expected to vote on an ordinance that would keep Wal-Mart from opening Supercenters within city limits. Labor interests are working hard to ban these nonunion outlets, which compete with traditional grocery stores. Yet unions will come to regret such limits.

A city ordinance can keep Wal-Mart from opening in Los Angeles, but it will not stop residents from shopping at Wal-Mart. If kept from locating in Los Angeles, Wal-Mart will consider locations in neighboring areas on the edges of the city. As Los Angeles residents shift their spending to Wal-Mart, city tax revenues will be reduced.

Oakland has banned the huge stores, and just last week the West Covina City Council rejected a land sale that would have resulted in a Wal-Mart in their city. In the April 6 Inglewood election, voters will decide whether their City Council's ban will stand.

In Los Angeles, existing community plans and the difficulty in finding large lots make it hard for Wal-Mart to find suitable locations for its Supercenters. The Los Angeles proposal introduced by Councilman Eric Garcetti and drawn up with City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo would prohibit the construction of Supercenters in areas designated for redevelopment and revitalization.

There is tremendous irony in this. Los Angeles, which for years has begged regional supermarkets to locate in areas such as South Central, would ban superstores in the very areas that need them the most. According to an aide to Garcetti, the concern is that a superstore would put existing retail economic development investments at risk. So, in a most bizarre turn of events, the economic development bureaucracy opposes economic development.

If the ordinance passes in February, as expected, it will deprive poor neighborhoods of convenient, low-price shopping and entry-level jobs. Poor communities would remain saddled with ineffective revitalization efforts rather than the market-driven redevelopment that would follow the opening of a Wal-Mart.

LOS ANGELES - The California attorney general's office plans to sue supermarket chains involved in a labor dispute with grocery workers, alleging the companies hurt consumers by forming a financial mutual aid pact.

Attorney General Bill Lockyer contends the companies' arrangement, which they made several weeks before entering collective bargaining with some 70,000 Southern California grocery employees, violates federal antitrust laws, particularly the Sherman Act.

"This action is about protecting shoppers against unlawful, anticompetitive conduct that keeps prices artificially high," Lockyer said in a statement Friday in advance of the suit's filing Monday.

"The grocers' agreement to share costs and revenue hurts consumers by discouraging competitive pricing. The antitrust law exists to prevent that, and I intend to enforce the law."

The federal suit is aimed at Albertsons Inc.; Safeway Inc., which owns the Vons and Pavilions chains; and two chains run by Kroger Co. — Ralphs Grocery Co. and Food 4 Less Food Co. All the chains are in the pact, but Food 4 Less workers are not involved in the labor dispute.

The suit seeks an court order barring the companies from profit-sharing and declaring the arrangement illegal.

Kroger, Albertsons and Safeway issued a joint statement late Friday defending their financial pact and saying the lawsuit was without merit.

"Courts have held that similar agreements are proper under federal labor policy and not subject to claims of antitrust violations," the statement said.

The companies have compared the pact to agreements made in the past among airlines and auto manufacturers to fend off individual targeting by workers during a strike.

The grocery clerks went on strike or were locked out on Oct. 11 at Ralphs, Albertsons and Safeway's Vons and Pavilions stores. Food 4 Less is not involved in the current dispute.

The United Food and Commercial Workers union was "gratified that the attorney general agrees with what we believe is clearly an illegal scheme," spokeswoman Ellen Anreder said.

The chains are seeking to reduce health care and other benefits while holding down wages.

The companies have lost millions of dollars in sales because of picketing but have been able to keep stores open with replacement workers.