In this crowd of dark-suited D.C. office workers, it wasn’t hard to spot a supermodel–not least because a huge cardboard display, featuring a photograph of Frederique and the Capitol File logo, had been placed prominently at one end of the room. But no one seemed to know who Billy Campbell was. “That guy, maybe?” offered […]
Zachary Roth
Posted inMagazine
Viewer Discretion
Fully 86 percent of Americans are very or somewhat concerned about what children see on television, according to a Pew Research Center study released earlier this year. And two-thirds say that television entertainment is worse than it was five years ago, with indecency overwhelmingly cited as the reason. Congress is considering increased fines to address […]
Posted inPolitical Animal, Politics
Pro-Choice at the FCC
PRO-CHOICE AT THE FCC….That was quick. Just weeks after the publication of this piece in support of an a la carte cable system (which would require cable companies to let customers select individual channels, instead of being forced to pay for entire packages), FCC chair Kevin Martin has officially come out in favor of a […]
Posted inMagazine
The Italian Job
But that didn’t prevent hairdresser and hairdressee from bonding. “Rehnquist is a very, very special friend,” Diego D’Ambrosio recounted from his salon on 19th and Q streets in Dupont Circle, the day before the chief justice died, as his small staff buzzed purposefully around him. “When I cut Rehnquist’s hair, we joke all the time. […]
Posted inEconomy, Magazine, The Monopolized Economy
The Monopoly Factory
In 1993, Purdue Pharmaceuticals of Stamford, Conn. applied for the first in a series of patents on a drug it called Oxycontin— a painkiller to which Rush Limbaugh would later become addicted. The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (PTO) granted those patents based on the manufacturer’s contention that the drug contained a novel innovation: It had been engineered so […]
Posted inMagazine
The Patent Bubble
But Millennium soon found out that COR’s patents were so weak as to be unenforceable in court, and bore little relation to Millennium’s underlying business. “It turns out that what they bought for $2 billion was nothing,” says David Martin. “[Millennium] looked online and got a patent count and said, oh yeah, COR really has […]
Posted inMagazine
Patent Troll Menace
Two years later, Shalton had a chance conversation with a friend who was about to become a nun. “She was aware of my technology,” Shalton recounts in his genial Texas twang. “And she said ‘hey listen, churches have money–they’re not rich but they have a budget–and pastors love to talkWhy not take your technology and […]
Posted inMagazine
Senior Moment
A graying, bespectacled man with the pleasant, genial demeanor of a school-teacher, Naylor is the chief lobbyist for the AARP, the organization formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons. A Republican-backed plan to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare had just been passed by Congress, after a crucial endorsement from AARP. The endorsement […]
Posted inMagazine
Monster Truck Rally
In Washington, as in physics, every action has a reaction. So it came as little surprise when, last July, a new ad appeared in USA Today, funded by an outfit known as the Sport Utility Vehicle Owners of America (SUVOA). Critics were asking the wrong question, the ads suggested. The right question was “What Does […]
