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WASHINGTON - Both political parties are to blame for the impasse on confirming President Bush (news - web sites)'s judicial nominees, says Arlen Specter, Republican chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee (news - web sites). "No one wants to back down and no one wants to lose face," Specter said Thursday in his first interview with Washington reporters since disclosing he has Hodgkin's disease. Specter will initiate this year's confirmation battles between Bush and the Democrats by holding hearings on the nominations of former Interior Department Solicitor William Myers on Tuesday, a nominee who was blocked last year, and U.S....

"We now know that he (Al Gore) would have won Florida," proclaimed Ronald Prescott Reagan, son of the late President Ronald Wilson Reagan. Ron made this incredible declaration during MSNBC"s Chris Matthews' show, as they reported about former Vice President Al Gore's speech at the Democratic National Convention. When asked by Matthews how does he know this, Ron remarked that there was a "consortium" of newspapers who counted the votes in Florida and determined that Gore would have won. Matthews incredibly confirmed this by saying Gore would have won the election if he requested a statewide vote recount in Florida....

Editor's note: Readers may also be interested in Iran: The Invisible Revolution. During the U.S. presidential campaign, debate over Iran policy received unprecedented attention. The reasons are multifold. With Iran on the verge of developing both nuclear and intercontinental ballistic missile capability, Washington policymakers can no longer ignore the Iranian threat, especially when confidants of Supreme Leader Ali Khomenei lead televised chants of "American will be annihilated," as Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati did last June. American concern over a nuclear Iran is multifold. The danger is not necessarily that Iran would conduct a nuclear first strike, although former president Ali Akbar...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Gal Luft is executive director of the Institute for the Analysis of Global Security in Washington, D.C. He is a specialist on strategic issues and energy policy with a PhD in strategic studies from Johns Hopkins University. A former lieutenant colonel in the Israel Defense Forces, his writings have appeared in Commentary, Foreign Affairs, the Los Angeles Times, Middle East Review of International Affairs, the Washington Post and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Luft addressed the Middle East Forum in Philadelphia on October 27, 2004. Introduction In both World War Two and the Cold War, the side best deploying scientific...

Critics: Dean-backed tax-cut program is like Bush's By David Gram The Associated Press MONTPELIER -- Democratic presidential contender Howard Dean criticizes President Bush for giving unneeded tax breaks, but as Vermont governor, he supported a program critics say did much the same for corporations. The Vermont Economic Progress Council, which Dean signed into law in 1998 to provide tax credits to businesses promising to expand, has approved more than $80 million in such credits, according to a report by the state auditor. Companies had claimed about $25 million of those credits by the end of the 2001 tax year. Both...

'You go in there with both barrels. You let them know they are taking on the US army and you crush them' By Oliver Poole with the Third Brigade Combat Troop, Kuwait (Filed: 18/03/2003) The battle flags were unfurled yesterday as the troops who will spearhead an invasion of Iraq gathered in formation at dawn to be told by their commanding officer to prepare for an advance to the border. US tanks from the 3rd Brigade Combat team fire at a practice range in northern Kuwait Divided into their three companies, each with unit banners held aloft in the early...

Mitochondria can be inherited from both parents 17:01 23 August 02 NewScientist.com news serviceMitochondria may not be inherited solely through the maternal line, according to new research that promises to overturn accepted biological wisdom. If confirmed by other researchers, the findings could have huge implications for evolutionary biology and biochemistry. Robert Sanders Williams, from Duke University Medical Center in North Carolina, says the findings are "remarkable and unanticipated. This is more than a mere curiosity. It asserts the principle that it can occur in humans. It could have significant implications for the study of human evolution and the migrations of...