Free Republic

Published Tuesday, June 29, 1999 Commentary: Cox report on threat from China is stuff of melodrama Stephen I. Schwartz Which poses the greater threat to the United States? Country A has 10,000 nuclear weapons, half of which could be launched at the United States within minutes. Many are still in operation beyond their expected design lifetimes. Because of a severely deteriorated economy, workers at nuclear facilities go unpaid for weeks or months, security guards leave their posts to forage for food and early-warning systems fall into disrepair, raising the risk that false alarms could trigger an accidental attack. Nevertheless, ...

Your risk of being murdered is one in 16,666. Actually, for most Americans, it is much less than that. The majority of American homicides involve one low-life killing another low-life. Thus, if you stay out of the drug business, which most Americans do, and if you don't hang out with low-lifes or foolishly wander into bad neighborhoods, your chances of becoming a homicide victim are very small. In short, the danger of firearms is greatly exaggerated by politicians and press alike. In 1997, for example, 15,551 Americans were killed by firearms, compared with 28,400 who died in their homes as ...

WEST DES MOINES, Iowa - This is going to be a busy summer in Iowa. There's the ice-cream social in Lidtke Mill, the tractor square dance in Nemaha, the puckerbrush celebration in Forest City, and the buckskinners' rendezvous in Bellevue. And don't forget Watermelon Days in Humeston, Threshing Days in Miles, Pioneer Days in Milford, and Ridiculous Days in Mason City. But by far the most colorful event - by far the most ridiculous day - is scheduled for the ordinarily sober university town of Ames on Aug. 14. That's when the Republican Party holds its Iowa Straw Poll. ...

Current results are based on telephone interviews with 1,016 national adults, ages 18 or older, conducted June 25-27, 1999. Margin of error is +/-3 percentage points. CLICK HERE

I'm worried.Since I wrote last weeks column opposing a congressional amendment to the Constitution outlawing burning the flag, I've been accused of everything from being a pinko to being an anarchist. And that's just what my friends are saying.Oh yeah, a few people appreciated my central point: That it is the Constitution, not the flag, that Americans should revere and protect-- not just from physical desecration, but from the kind of distortion America's guiding charter has endured at the hands of lawyer-politicians over the last 60 years. But many other readers told me I just didn't get it-- I was ...

THE POWER TO DESTROY The truth about the IRS 'Let's settle this once and for all,' says former special agent By Sarah Foster © 1999 WorldNetDaily.com Former IRS special agent Joe Banister had a couple of questions he hoped his congressman could answer. "If the IRS and the 16th Amendment are not legal -- and I've discovered they aren't -- should I file a 1040 form?" he wondered. Banister has been wondering about that ever since he was ousted from his high-level, well-paid job with the IRS last February. In March WorldNetDaily broke the news nationwide of his forced ...

    CAPAC, Mich. -- Students in Capac High School's animal science class thought writing to an animal rights group about shooting stray dogs and cockfighting would be a harmless prank.     But the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals aren't laughing.     Instead, the animal rights advocacy group is asking Capac High Principal Joseph Remenap to discipline the five students who wrote the letters as part of a class assignment. The letters, sent in high school envelopes with metered postage, asked what PETA thought about "eating tender cat meat," dog fights and the elimination of all ...

BRUSSELS--A sleek TGV train whisks you here from Paris in 90 minutes, clocking speeds well above 150 miles per hour. But last week I couldn't buy a Coke in the supertrain's bar car because of the now-famous Coke scare that flared up in France and Belgium when some school kids complained that cans of the beverage they had consumed "smelled funny" and made them sick. Cokes were swept from the market temporarily. The example of the Cokeless TGV offers a microcosmic glance at a modern European paradox. Its engineers and scientists are capable of technological feats, such as high-speed transportation, ...

China looks to blast off into the Space Age By Paul Hoversten, USA TODAY Chinese leaders have long been jealous of other nations' pre-eminence in space. When the Soviet Union launched the world's first artificial satellite, Sputnik, in 1957, Chinese Communist revolutionary Mao Tse-tung reportedly muttered, "China cannot even get a potato into orbit." Now, 38 years after the former Soviet Union and the United States began sending humans into space, China appears close to doing it, too. An unmanned flight is scheduled for October, and a manned flight is expected as early as next spring. China's "Project 921" is ...

To launch the new strip, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS will present its first weeklong, in-depth look at a single subject. INVESTIGATIVE REPORTS: GUNS IN AMERICA premieres Monday through Friday, 9pm ET/10pm PT, starting June 28. GUNS IN AMERICA investigates the gun culture in the United States. Each night delves into a different aspect of gun culture, from children and guns to the manufacture of guns. Mr. Kurtis will meet those people who use guns in their daily lives and explore their reasons for owning a firearm, such as for sport, romance, self-defense, and he'll meet with those who use guns to ...

In a country with inflation so low it's almost gone, it is intriguing to see the Federal Reserve on red alert, with Chairman Greenspan madly signaling that the Fed in its meetings today and tomorrow may tighten money to ward off inflation. Leading inflation indicators have been mixed, with May's flat consumer price report canceling the April alarm. The best argument for a boost, maybe the only one, is that the Chairman wants it. In his 12 years as Chairman, Mr. Greenspan has logged a record solid enough that we're prone to bet he knows what he's doing. The question ...

Special ReportLife gets tougher for TibetansBy Richard S. EhrlichTHE WASHINGTON TIMESLHASA, Chinahousands of Chinese prostitutes line the streets of Tibet's capital, mostly catering to a nonstop influx of Chinese construction crews, soldiers, drivers and service workers.     The bubblegum-blowing ladies, who spit in the street through their makeup, also compete for men in the bleak, dusty streets of Tibet's second-largest city, Xigatse -- also known as Shigatse -- and in the smaller town of Gyantse.     They are just some of the millions of Chinese who have already migrated to Tibet looking for a fast buck and a new place to call home. It's ...

Proverbs Chapter 1 22 How long, ye simple ones, will ye love simplicity? and the scorners delight in their scorning, and fools hate knowledge? 23 Turn you at my reproof: behold, I will pour out my spirit unto you, I will make known my words unto you. 24 Because I have called, and ye refused; I have stretched out my hand, and no man regarded; 25 But ye have set at nought all my counsel, and would none of my reproof: 26 I also will laugh at your calamity; I will mock when your fear cometh; 27 When your fear ...

1.) Gore and the Clinton's are flying on Air Force One. Bill looks at Al, chuckles and says, "You know, I could throw a $100.00 bill out the window right now and make one person very happy." Al shrugs his stiff shoulders and says, "Well, I could throw ten $10.00 bills out the window and make 10 people very happy." Hillary tosses her perfectly hair-sprayed hair and says, "I could throw one hundred $1.00 bills out the window and make a hundred people very happy." Chelsea rolls her eyes, looks at all of them and says, "I could throw all ...

Same thing on this gun issue. This is a huge issue: 13 kids a day get shot and killed. Thirteen -- that's a lot of kids. You say it's a big country? Pretty small country if it's one of yours. And we had this horrible carnage at Littleton -- the whole country up in arms. The Senate passes this range of modest gun restraint measures, getting rid of the big ammunition clips on assault weapons that come in from other countries; saying that if a juvenile commits a serious crime they shouldn't be able to own a handgun when they ...

This is a follow up to the recent arrest near Birmingham, Alabama. On the evening of February 7, 1998, Donnie Guthrie became, quite possibly, the first American citizen ever to be arrested solely for refusing to give a Social Security number to a police officer. At around 9:30 p.m. that Saturday, 27 year-old Donnie and his girlfriend went out looking for his lost dog near his Midfield, Alabama, home. The couple drove up and down the neighborhood streets in his 1977 Chevrolet pickup truck to look for their missing pet. While on their pursuit, they briefly left their hometown of ...

For Editorial and Discussion use only: The Supreme Power he Supreme Court term just ended showed us a phenomenon that this country has not seen for more than 60 years: a band of radical judicial activists determined to impose on the Constitution their notion of a proper system of government. That was the import of three cases decided last week by identical 5-to-4 majorities. The subject was "federalism," which sounds abstract. But the consequence of the decisions is far from abstract. The five Justices in the majority changed the structure of American government. And they did so without a word ...

Lately I have to ask who the real demons are. You know, the dangerous villains whose extremism threatens society. We hear from the media merchandized lies about who these terrorists are everyday. You know: Christians, gun owners, and my heavens, how about the freedom lovers? These people must be bad. The media tells us so! Sorry, Katie Couric, some of us aren't buying. Though I've spent most of my life as a conservative moderate, I've always been an independent thinker - never influenced by popular trends, the media, or even so-called undisputed facts when parroted by others. If I hadn't ...

A national scientific initiative programme is to be established with five billion yuan (HK$4.6 billion) to be invested in the scheme by the end of next year, Xinhua reported yesterday. An official from the Ministry of Science and Technology was quoted by the news agency as saying the plan would take China into the top 10 countries in the world in terms of scientific competitiveness by 2010. The Chinese Academy of Sciences, the mainland's highest institution in science and technology, has been given the task of organising most of the research projects. A senior academy official said the proposed ...

Fellow Freepers, You may have heard Rush talk about "Long Island Republicans" from time to time. For those fortunate enough not to live here, I offer this sample. It is a constituent form letter from Congressman Mike Forbes, R-NY (1st district). This is the fellow who claims to represent me in Congress. As far as I know, he is not related to Steve Forbes, and it shows. The letter was sent at taxpayer expense, but I'm sure you'll be relieved that it was printed on recycled paper. By way of background: Forbes' district roughly covers Suffolk county, which is the ...