IANAL, nor a Constitutional scholar, but "any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding" appears on its face to refer to State constitutions and laws, not to the US Constitution. The law citations I've seen on various sites support this view. According to the Supreme Court in Reid v. Covert, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reid_v._Covert), "this Court has regularly and uniformly recognized the supremacy of the Constitution over a treaty".

Sooo: No, Virginia, treaties cannot serve as an end-run around the Constitution. If I understand the citations correctly, a treaty has status coequal with Federal laws passed by Congress, so a treaty could, for example, supersede a Federal law such as the DMCA; however, it could not do anything (within the US) that Congress couldn't do by legislative means, like overruling an Amendment to the Constitution.

Matter transmission (transporters). I've no beef with using transporters as a plot device, and I see why it was attractive as a way to advance the plot in a 20-minute story line; what annoys me is the total neglect of the major impacts such a technology would have on society, even on such a controlled subculture as a Star Fleet. Given the wide availability of starships and matter transmitters, what do you suppose the inevitable criminal element in a society would think to do with them? Kidnapping, art theft, bank robbery, etc, etc. would be only a few of the impacts; obsoleting most forms of transport, and even such things as outside doors, would be another (at least, as imagined by a short story I read decades ago). However, the whole Trek universe acts as though transporters were merely a fancy elevator, a situation I find rather implausible, even within the fictional context of the Trek universe. (I still enjoy the stories, but a small corner of my being still groans at the glaring oversight.)

You are very probably right; unfortunately, Microsoft has already demonstrated complete willingness, in the OOXML fiasco, to subvert ECMA by every means available, from hiring shills off the street to pack public meetings, to stacking committees with single-issue proxies (who now no longer show up, so that the committees are hamstrung without a functioning quorum) to outright vote-rigging. I really don't think they'd give a dented spittoon for any commitments they signed off on to ECMA.

Except that SCO will shortly be run by a court-appointed Chapter 11 Trustee, most likely a lawyer or retired judge. There's very little chance such a one would go along with that sort of unethical, potentially unlawful, behavior. In fact, there's very little chance the trustee will elect to further pursue pointless and doomed litigation that simply dissipates the bankruptcy estate's remaining assets, either. Not being blinded by greed and mythical beelions of dollars, the trustee (appointed, don't forget, by a not-very-sympathetic Trustee's Office) will do the logical thing: settle both IBM and Novell cases as fast and cheaply as possible, preserve as much assets as possible, then -- seeing that Chapter 11 rehabilitation is impossible -- convert to Chapter 7 and sell off the office furniture for curios and the e-mail records to the highest bidder. (Actually, I'd expect IBM to demand custody of all corporate documents as part of any settlement offer...)

SCO is toast. Look for MS to employ a new and different cat's-paw now that this one has been run into the ground.

in his Lazarus Long series, IIRC. It was called "Delay Mail," and was intended for use by time-travellers; there was an office where one could leave messages to be delivered to a specified person (possibly one's younger self) on a specified date, possibly centuries in the future.

I'm afraid this constitutes prior art (insert clever time-travel remark here)...

IANAL, but the damages amount seems disproportionate to the offense. Does this raise any additional prospect of constitutional appeal for a disproportionate penalty? (Not that the attorney in this case would be capable of mounting such an appeal pro bono...)

If you take as a criteria for a "good standard for office documents" that it have a number of interoperable implementations and provides all generally-required functionality, ODF clearly meets that standard, MSOOXML as clearly fails it on lack of interoperable implementations.

Neither standard is perfect, and there are bugs in the various ODF implementations, but it's obviously usable, as it's being widely used. Not even MS Office actually uses OOXML as documented.

in addition to a) cynicism, and b) ambition, is c) a genuine dislike for the might-makes-right tactics of the RIAA, coupled with the ability (being a licensed attorney) to actually do something about it.

Unlikely as it may sound, there are quite a few lawyers out there who actually have principles and respect for the rule of law. It's entirely reasonable to think that they would dislike seeing the system gamed by the RIAA in this way. Time and events will be the ultimate proof, but don't discount the possibility this fellow is motivated, at least in part, by principled indignation.

Cage that man!