Free Republic

It's hot out. Very, very hot. It's so hot I can barely leave my house. Instead I feel compelled to stay inside with the TV and air conditioning blaring. It's way too hot for me to exercise or get professionally dressed or even to shave. Oh, wait a second. I could be describing early February. All right. All of those things would apply to a healthy person. That's right: It's so hot today -- it renders everybody into a potential G-Filer. There's something about Washington hot that's different from New York hot or Boston hot. It's certainly different from, ...

Texas Public Policy Foundation’s Policy Action Update Vol. 3, No. 12 May 25, 1999 Texas School Districts Reject "Fuzzy Math" Textbooks -- Major Defeat for Statewide Systemic Initiative According to an analysis of recent math textbook selections, Texas school districts have overwhelmingly rejected the latest fad in math instruction. Sometimes called "fuzzy math," "whole math," and "new new math," textbooks based on this pedagogical approach received only 4% of the textbook orders for second grade math, 2% for fifth grade math, and 5.6% for seventh grade math. Ironically, those promoting this approach refer to it as "standards-based math." This rejection ...

If the second-quarter results for the presidential fund-raising contest show anything, it's that the country is tired of Bill Clinton. Donors are voting with their dollars for Bill Bradley and George W. Bush - and against Clinton. Consider what's happened in the race for money since the first quarter. Gore had raised more than double what his Democratic opponent Bradley had - $8.9 million to $4.3 million. Now Gore leads Bradley by only $18.5 million to $11.5 million. Think of it. A sitting vice president, with all the trappings of office and a respected party veteran who's been running for ...

Hillary’s listening tour: All ears or in one, out the other? Does Hillary Rodham Clinton care about the average New Yorker? (2039 responses) 9% Yes. She'll be all ears. 91% No. She doesn't care about New Yorkers. Vote Here

The 20,000 laws already on the books couldn't stop the Columbine massacre, and one more won't either, but liberals just don't get that. The other day I picked up a phone message from a woman concerning a charity event for homeless youngsters that I was helping organize in Hollywood. The woman is a liberal, and she said she had found a friend who was willing to volunteer her home for an event we had planned for the children -- then she paused -- "but not if Charlton Heston comes." Then she paused again. "In fact," she said, "none of my ...

Here's her schedule, as complete as I can make it. If you feel left out, she'll head to Westchester county early next week. Here's the schedule, for all you freepers: First Lady of the United States of America, Candidate for the Senate in New York, Hillary Clinton WEDNESDAY, July 7th: New York 10:15 am -- Clinton scheduled to announce formation of an exploratory committee for her "possible" candidacy for senator from N.Y. It will be announced at departing N.Y. Sen. Patrick Moynihan's farmhouse in Delaware County. Morning -- The first lady will fly into Binghamton to begin her "listening tour." ...

"I'm done. I did my last flight yesterday." With those words, Air Force Reserve Capt. Hans Reigle told me June 26 about the end of his years as an instructor pilot of the huge C-5 Galaxy transport. A part-time reservist who is also an airline pilot, Reigle is leaving the military cockpit because of his reluctance to receive shots inoculating him against anthrax. The Pentagon has made the anthrax vaccination mandatory, starting with those deemed most likely to be where biological weapons are used. As pilot of a cargo plane at Dover Air Force Base, Del., Reigle belongs to that ...

It's doubtful Defense Secretary William S. Cohen ever anticipated all the problems that might arise from his decision to inoculate all service members against anthrax poisoning. The move was well-intentioned. And according to most -- but not all -- researchers it's also well-reasoned. But lingering concerns about the safety of the anthrax vaccine, coupled now with questions about the financial well-being of the vaccine's sole manufacturer, continue to threaten the program. BioPort Corp., the Lansing, Mich., company that makes the vaccine, is five months behind in production and out of money. Its solution: Take advantage of its monopoly and triple ...

SEOUL — North Korea is building an underground missile launching site close to its border with China in an apparent effort to shield it from possible attack, a Seoul newspaper said Wednesday. The site at Yongjudong, 13 miles from the border with China, is one of three underground missile facilities under construction in North Korea, said The Chosun Ilbo, a national daily. Quoting an unidentified Seoul government source, the paper said the facility poses a new problem for the United States, Japan and South Korea, which are trying to persuade the North’s communist government to restrict its missile development. The ...

Washington DC -- Less than a year after the US Department of Defense (DoD) created rapid response units to respond to weapons of mass destruction (WMD) attacks in the USA, their role has become the subject of debate between federal agencies. DoD officials, backed by the Clinton administration and Congress, insist that only specialised military teams have the training and resources to adequately respond to a catastrophic nuclear, biological or chemical attack in the USA. They are opposed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), currently the lead agencies for domestic terrorist attacks. ...

Late last week, Y2KNEWSWIRE broke the story of the "power industry template documents," exposing the word-for-word copycat statements contained in numerous power industry press releases. This duplication of common phrases points to a common source. Over the holiday weekend, Y2KNEWSWIRE obtained documents and interviews that now prove the origin of these template documents: NERC. (North American Electric Reliability Council). NERC is the industry organization charged with whipping power companies into full Y2K compliance. For full text of article see http://www.y2knewswire.com/19990706dll.htm.

NATO Supreme Allied Commander Europe & Commander-In-Chief US European Command NATO's air campaign against Yugoslavia was a success insofar as the alliance appears to have realised all of the objectives it laid down at the outset. However, the politically-constrained and incremental approach by which NATO forces were forced to prosecute the war may not be suited for future conflicts, according to NATO's Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR) US Army Gen Wesley Clark. "I think that the conflict was fundamentally successful in that it ended on the terms we prescribed: the Serbs out [of the Yugoslav province of Kosovo]; NATO in; ...

Radar Shows 'Getaway Boat' Fleeing Flight 800 Crash by Philip Weiss The third anniversary of the crash of Trans World Airlines Flight 800 is July 17, so it's a good time to look into what even the Government reluctantly concedes is a mystery about the crash: "the 30-knot track." The 30-knot track is the radar trail of a boat that was the closest vessel to the 747 when it exploded and that then headed out to sea on a beeline from right under the burning wreckage. "That boat is extremely suspect," said William S. Donaldson, a retired Navy commander ...

Is the soul of the New York State Democratic Party so dead that, even with Chuck Schumer's triumphant win over Al D'Amato last year, it can't come up with one Democratic New Yorker to fill Daniel Patrick Moynihan's Senate seat? There are 18 New York Democrats in the House, 25 in the State Senate and more than 100 in the Assembly. There are Democratic mayors in cities throughout the state and a sprinkling of county executives and other elected municipal officials. (Al D'Amato was only a town supervisor when he won his Senate seat.) This vast army of elected Democrats ...

Jeanne Kirkpatrick, U.S. ambassador to the United Nations in the Reagan administration, is in trouble with the law. Apparently, she left her poodle in her automobile while going into a shop. Worse still, she did so despite a sign posted right where she had parked the car. It reads: "Pets Die in Hot Cars! It's Against the Law. If You See It, Report It! Call 911 Immediately." Forty years ago, when I arrived on these shores, Americans regularly poked fun at Germany's proclivity for prohibiting all manner of normal human activity -- from walking on grass to taking pictures near ...

Hooray for Hillary. Her decision to form an exploratory committee is the most exciting development of the 2000 race, at least on the Democratic side. And it's not just because revenge is sweet. Fair is fair: For the last six years, Hillary has stood by her husband through thin and thinner. Of course, her poll numbers zoomed for doing so, but that was a measure of how hard it was, not how easy. The public rewarded her with good numbers because they appreciated the pain it must have caused her -- prisoners of war tend to be very popular. Now ...

The Army of the Saints THE OTHER DAY I picked up a phone message on my answering machine which concerned a charity event for homeless youngsters I was organizing with some liberals in Hollywood. The voice was female and said she had found a friend who was willing to volunteer her home for a fund-raiser we had planned for the children—then she paused—"but not if Charlton Heston comes." Then she paused again. "In fact," she said, "none of my friends’ homes will be available if Charlton Heston comes." It was unnecessary for her to tell me, as she did under ...

One can remember when the Clinton-Moynihan relationship seemed scarcely less hostile than that of Montague-Capulet. Hillary's Got a Fella—Pat Moynihan by Tish Durkin Maybe it’s just because he had major back surgery last spring, but Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan has been getting one hell of a massage from Hillary Rodham Clinton. Soon after the First Lady phoned Johns Hopkins Medical Center in Baltimore to wish him a good recovery from his March 31 operation, Mr. Moynihan sent her a letter on the subject of Kosovo that, the story goes, arrived when she was traveling. Sifting through mail upon her ...

After months of leaks and partisan rhetoric about Chinese espionage at Los Alamos National Laboratory, the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board has finally spoken, trying to inject some semblance of balance into the superheated debate. "Opinions expressed in the media and elsewhere have ranged from one extreme to the other," the little known but heavy-hitting panel said in its recent report on Department of Energy weapons labs, "Science at Its Best, Security at Its Worst." "On one end of the spectrum is the view that the Chinese have acquired very little classified information and can do little with it. On ...

The Washington Times - News India, Pakistan 'close to the edge'By Ben BarberTHE WASHINGTON TIMESFighting in Kashmir raged unabated yesterday in spite of President Clinton's intervention on the weekend, and analysts say the peacemaking effort may have served only to destablilize the government in nuclear-armed Pakistan.     "The crisis has only just begun," said Stephen Cohen, a former White House official and expert on Pakistan's military who is currently with the Brookings Institution.     "Pakistan's army thinks that having nuclear weapons equalizes its relations [with the larger and more powerful India] and therefore they can push and poke the Indians without a full war ...