The Microsoft Case Shortly after Microsoft was faced with federal antitrust charges, full-page newspaper ads supporting Microsoft's claim of innocence were run by the Independent Institute. The ads took the form of a letter signed by 240 academic experts and purported to be a scholarly, unbiased view of why the government had gone overboard in its case against the company. According to an article published in the New York Times, Microsoft had not paid for the ads, but was in fact the single largest donor to the Independent Institute, a conservative organization, that has been a leading defender of the company since it first came under fire from federal prosecutors.

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Corporate Money and Politics The fact that corporate money is seeking to influence public policy is nothing unusual. From the different ways of how private money helps to shape politics the first, and most familiar is direct campaign contributions to political candidates and parties, which is especially widespread in the United States. While the second great river of money goes to underwrite lobbying apparatus in diverse state capitals, the third form of attempts to influence public policy making is less well-known, but nearly as wide and deep as the two others - it is money which underwrites a vast network of public policy think tanks and advocacy groups. Although tried to be labeled in another way, unmistakably, these donations are naked attempts by corporations and other donors, to influence the political process.

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Examples of Mainly Corporate Funded Think Tanks: Cato Institute Founded in 1977 the Cato Institutes 1998 budget made up US$ 11 million. Its funding consists of corporate and private donations (especially from corporations and executives in the highly regulated industries of financial services, telecommunications and pharmaceuticals industries) and sales of publications. Catos corporate donors include tobacco firms: Philip Morris (Rupert Murdoch sits on Philip Morris board of directors) and R.J. Reynolds. Financial firms: American Express, Chase Manhattan Bank, Chemical Bank, Citicorp/Citibank, Commonwealth Fund, Prudential Securities and Salomon Brothers. Energy conglomerates: Chevron Companies, Exxon Company, Shell Oil Company and Tenneco Gas, as well as the American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Foundation and Atlantic Richfield Foundation. Furthermore the Cato Institute is funded by pharmaceutical firms: Eli Lilly & Company, Merck & Company and Pfizer, Inc., foundations, like Koch, Lambe and Sarah Scaife and companies from the telecommunications sector: Bell Atlantic Network Services, BellSouth Corporation, Microsoft, NYNEX Corporation, Sun Microsystems and Viacom.

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Amoco Corporation American petroleum corporation that was founded in 1889 by the Standard Oil trust to direct the refining and marketing of oil in the Midwestern states. By the late 20th century, American operations still accounted for more than half of Amoco's total assets, though the company has been active in some 40 other countries in the areas of production, refining, and marketing. In addition to refining crude oil, Amoco is one of the largest producers of natural gas in the North American continent.

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Java Applets Java applets are small programs that can be sent along with a Web page to a user. Java applets can perform interactive animations, immediate calculations, or other simple tasks without having to send a user request back to the server. They are written in Java, a platform-independent computer language, which was invented by Sun Microsystems, Inc. Source: Whatis.com

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Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero († 1980) was elected archbishop because he was very conservative. But when he saw how more and more priests and definitely innocent people were murdered, he changed his attitudes and became one of the sharpest critics of the government. He gave shelter to those in danger, never stopped talking against violence and his Sunday sermons on the radio where moments to tell the truth to the Salvadorians, also mentioning the names of the disappeared or killed persons. As Romero got extremely popular and dangerous for the population he was killed by death squads, while reading a sermon.

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