July 22, 2003

Wal-Mart lets Web shoppers pay by check CNET News.com - The retail giant is allowing shoppers to pay for purchases at its Web site with encrypted electronic checks. The check is in the email..... 9:18:53 PM

Amazon Plan Would Allow Searching Texts of Many Books NY Times (Free Subscription) - Executives at Amazon.com are negotiating with several of the largest book publishers about an ambitious and expensive plan to assemble a searchable online archive with the texts of tens of thousands of books of nonfiction, according to several publishing executives involved. Amazon plans to limit how much of any given book a user can read, and it is telling publishers that the plan will help sell more books while better serving its own online customers. 9:16:32 PM

BuyMusic.com Offers Tunes for Windows PC World - Windows users now have a place to go for legal music downloads on the fly. 9:08:37 PM

Hopefully the news (and dead bodies) of these two will put to rest the rumor in Iraq that they were working with the US to bring down their father.  The idea that it was a deal with the US that caused the swift downfall, instead of just plain bad leadership on their part has been circulating in the new Iraqi newspapers. 4:13:30 PM

CNN - U.S.commander: Saddam's sons Qusay and Uday confirmed dead in raid on Mosul house. 4:08:46 PM

U.S. troops investigating whether Saddam Hussein's sons Uday and Qusay were killed during firefight in Mosul, Iraq, Pentagon officials tell CNN 10:54:20 AM

UN farce as Libya judges Israeli rights Scotsman.com - ISRAEL will find itself in front of a Libyan ‘judge’ when it appears in the dock at the United Nations this week over alleged human rights abuses. The UN’s Human Rights Commission - chaired by a diplomat (Najat al-Hajjajia) from the North African country that was behind the Lockerbie bombing - will hear Israeli officials defend their country’s record in what is sure to be a stormy encounter in Geneva. I like what Reporters Without Borders said of al-Hajjajia: "Censorship, arbitrary detention, jailings, disappearances, torture; at last the UN has appointed someone who knows what she’s talking about."   9:13:40 AM

Transplant patients linked to SARS spread National Post - Their immune systems weakened by anti-rejection drugs, people who have had organ transplants seem at particular risk from SARS and are more likely to become virus "super-spreaders," reveals a new study by Canadian scientists. 8:07:59 AM

Saudi sweep nabs 16, huge cache of weapons Edmonton Sun - Police arrested 16 terrorism suspects and brought in tractors to dig up an underground arsenal: 20 tonnes of bomb-making chemicals, detonators, rocket-propelled grenades and rifles. Just like Chicago when Al Capone ruled, everyone knew where the booze was, they just didn't go get it. 8:07:09 AM

Cisco and Intel: the alliance the wireless world should fear The Register - The announcement says "Intel and Linksys." But you have to remember that these days, Linksys is owned by Cisco. Together these two giants, Intel and Cisco, are setting up their own little rival to the WiFi Alliance. 8:03:41 AM

Linux advocates doubt validity of SCO licensing scheme InfoWorld - Open source advocates on Monday blasted a Linux licensing scheme that The SCO Group is proposing to address alleged copyright violations in the Linux operating system. 8:02:19 AM