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Tuesday, August 20, 2002 |
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Houston Police Arrest 278 People Outside Kmart. On Sunday, "scores of Houston police officers swarmed onto the Kmart parking lot in the 8400 block of Westheimer about 12:30 a.m. Sunday and arrested about 425 people for criminal trespassing, a misdemeanor." In a follow-up, the number of people arrested is reported as 278, lower, but still quite a few. Apparently, the reason behind the raid was to arrest illegal drag racers. Upon getting there though and finding no drag race or racers, the captain in charge, Mark Aguirre, gave the "utterly, utterly senseless" (in the words of an officer at the scene) order to round up everyone... [kuro5hin.org]
Fairly interesting to note that this took place in Texas, which seems to have more than its share of senseless, and even abusive, law enforcement excesses.
11:16:40 PM 
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In the shock wave that followed the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, many Americans found themselves asking why so many people in Muslim countries hate the United States. But the anti-American sentiment has turned into a contagion that is spreading across the globe and infecting even the United States' most important allies. Here in Britain, the United States' staunchest friend, snide remarks and downright animosity greet many Americans these days. It's not just religious radicals and terrorists who resent the United States anymore.
10:13:46 PM
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Top Republicans Break With Bush on Iraq Strategy Leading Republicans from Congress, the State Department and past administrations have begun to break ranks with President Bush over his administration's high-profile planning for war with Iraq, saying the administration has neither adequately prepared for military action nor made the case that it is needed. [Daypop Top 40]
5:54:46 PM
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Fog of War All of these are legitimate rationales, but each would require a different U.S. military and diplomatic strategy. If the Bush team is serious about Iraq, it needs to zero in on one clear objective, produce a tightly focused war plan around it and then sell it [~] with a simple bumper sticker [~] to America and the world. If the Bush administration's different factions [~] which are as divided as the Palestinians' [~] can't do that in advance, they shouldn't move. [Daypop Top 40]
5:43:02 PM
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Students Say MS Buys Curriculum. Microsoft gives money to the University of Waterloo in a research partnership. The school offers a new course in the company's programming language. More than a coincidence? Charles Mandel reports from Canada. [Wired News]
Another example of the unsavory things that Microsoft does with their excess cash. Their $40+ billion dollars is the biggest weapon they have. With it they can buy anything, either by throwing money at the problem, or using money to delay, delay, delay, until it doesn't matter any more (their tactics in the antitrust trial).
It's a simple idea, a simple solution: force Microsoft to pay a dividend to their shareholders. A biiiiiig dividend. It's a structural remedy that requires no oversight.
5:02:37 PM
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Rumsfeld key player in Iraq policy shift State Department cables and court records reveal a wealth of information on how U.S. foreign policy shifted in the 1980s to help Iraq. Virtually all of the information is in the words of key participants, including Donald Rumsfeld, now secretary of defense. [Daypop Top 40]
4:56:31 PM
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Taiwan expands Microsoft investigation. As a follow-up to the previous story on Taiwan's investigation into Microsoft's market abuses, this article reports on the current developments. Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission (FTC) has expanded the scope of the case and is looking at the Microsoft licensing practices and constraints on competition and constraints placed on consumers. The FTC's approach is an attempt to avoid the experiences of American and European regulators focusing on the monopoly issue with no visible results. [kuro5hin.org]
4:45:43 PM
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"Open Letter to America from a Canadian" Dark, evil operations run rampant in the secret corners of your government institutions. A dubiously constituted government pursues war at will anywhere on earth, discussing nuclear options that become points for cheerful chatter over lunch. Your military and intelligence agencies employ terrorist tactics around the globe even as they insist that such tactics are necessary in the fight against terrorism. [Daypop Top 40]
This guy is just a little angry. The problem is, he's got good reason.
10:19:08 AM
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When it comes to overreaching, the Bush administration's assault on liberty may be in a recent class by itself. The grotesquely misnamed ``USA Patriot Act'' could not have become law without a spinelessly complicit Congress, but John Ashcroft and his constitutional wrecking crew are insisting that U.S. citizens have no right to fundamental due process.
9:50:21 AM
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"Joint Chiefs planned US Terror" In the early 1960s, America's top military leaders reportedly drafted plans to kill innocent people and commit acts of terrorism in U.S. cities to create public support for a war against Cuba. [Daypop Top 40]
9:00:02 AM
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© Copyright 2003 Michael Alderete.
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