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THE DISAPPOINTMENT many conservatives feel over the nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court will not vanish unless and until Miers begins writing solid conservative Supreme Court opinions. In the absence of such opinions, there is little reason to believe that the Miers nomination fulfills President Bush's stated desire to nominate Justices in the mold of Scalia and Thomas. In fact, we cannot even be highly confident that Bush has nominated a reliably conservative vote, as opposed a swing vote in the O'Connor or Kennedy style. Some dispute the latter proposition. They argue that Bush is in the best...

The long-standing relationship between high court nominee Harriet Miers and Texas jurist Nathan Hecht entrances and puzzles their friends. By Scott Gold and Richard A. Serrano, Times Staff Writers HOUSTON — He was a country boy who grew up on a wheat farm, she a city girl who played on her high school tennis team. The lives of Nathan Hecht and Harriet E. Miers began to intertwine in the early 1970s, shortly after they finished law school at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. ADVERTISEMENT Soon, they were rising stars at the same law firm, and their lives seemed to be...

Ciggie cabins plan in pubs   By MICHAEL LEA DRINKERS will be herded into “cancer cabins” if they want a fag with their pint under tough new laws. Bans on smoking in pubs and restaurants serving food are now likely to be extended to ALL boozers. Smokers will only be able to light up in unstaffed separate rooms or cabins in car parks. The move is being championed by Health Secretary Patricia Hewitt who has won widespread Cabinet backing. She met Tony Blair last week, who gave her the OK to move forward with her plans. A health department source...

A ruling in Delaware: The bloggers' defense Monday, October 10, 2005 The Delaware Supreme Court has built a sturdy wall between anonymous political critics on the Internet and the public officials trying to flush them out. It is a victory for robust political debate and the first time any state supreme court has ruled directly on the matter. The Internet contains weblogs on virtually every topic under the sun. If a blogger posts anonymously, it takes a court order to probe the entrails of cyberspace for an identity and, therefore, someone to sue for defamation. That's what an aggrieved town...

Can't post story due to copyright restrictions, but here's a link: http://www.freep.com/news/latestnews/pm6544_20051008.htm posted a vanity about this site a while back. It was call nowthatsf***edup.com. The Pentagon should have cracked down on this guy, not the yokels. Porn-wise, it wasn't anything you couldn't find on a thousand other sites coming out of Florida and everywhere else, but it did have alot of amateur sex pics submitted by military personel. The sordid novelty twist (free access was traded for field snaps of dead terrorists) had Andrew Sullivan pitching a fit last month. The obscenity charge is a joke, but I suppose...

I have changed my mind about Harriet Miers. Last Thursday, I wrote in OpinionJournal's Political Diary that "while skepticism of Ms. Miers is justified, the time is fast approaching when such expressions should be muted until the Senate hearings begin. At that point, Ms. Miers will finally be able to speak for herself." But that was before I interviewed more than a dozen of her friends and colleagues along with political players in Texas. I came away convinced that questions about Ms. Miers should be raised now--and loudly--because she has spent her entire life avoiding giving a clear picture of...

No, I do not intend to wait around for another list ranking the various Presidents of the United States for their intelligence, courage, whatever. I already have my nomination for the dumbest, dopiest, most goofy President we ever elected to office. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you Jimmy Carter! For those old enough to remember this simpleton, he was elected after the debacle of Richard M. Nixon’s famed Watergate mess. There was such a mass revulsion against the criminality practiced by Nixon and the gang of nitwits around him that, when Jimmy came along, the Democrats could not believe their...

BEIJING (AFX) - China will launch its second manned space mission from a remote desert region on Wednesday, an official involved in the launch told Agence France-Presse. "It is Oct 12 at 9:00 am," said an official from the technical department of the Jiuquan Satellite Launch Center. The official declined to be named. Shenzhou VI will carry two astronauts and orbit the earth for five days. The flight comes almost exactly two years after the successful Oct 15, 2003 launch of astronaut Yang Liwei into space, making China only the third nation after the US and the former Soviet...

SOCIALISM was still possible in Latin America, the daughter of Cuba's revolutionary hero Che Guevara has said. Aleida Guevara March, daughter of Argentine-born Ernesto "Che" Guevara, said leftist Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez inspired hope. In an interview 38 years after the death of her father, she said it was still possible to remove the right-wing from the region, specifically in Bolivia, Ecuador, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua and Peru. "All that is needed is a good scalpel," Guevara March, 44, said. Like her father, she studied medicine. Her father joined the Cuban revolution, led by Cuba's president, Fidel Castro, helping to...

Axe falls on Reagan tour guides 'for being too old' By Catherine Elsworth in Los Angeles (Filed: 10/10/2005) Elderly volunteers at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library claim they have been barred from giving tours and welcoming visitors because they are too old - even though many are younger than the former president when he led the US. Nearly 30 of the volunteers learned of their fate in a letter telling them that they were being relieved of their duties. They were awarded "emeritus" status and handed glass globes and certificates signed by Nancy Reagan. Administrators deny that age was a...

Stanley, the Volkswagen Touareg that won a $2 million desert road race all on its own — in a sense — bears a logo that plays off its manufacturer’s slogan. “Drivers not required.” The robotic SUV finished first in a 132-mile trek across the rugged and twisting Nevada desert, in what may be an early step toward getting vehicles to do their own driving for everything from war-zone supply missions to morning commutes.

recently came face to face with a level of Western ignorance that I hadn't encountered since the 1980s, when Russian immigrants were still a novelty to Americans. A British-American asked my father a question that could only come from someone who has known freedom his whole life: "Why did you leave Russia? Your family was there, you had a job, you had free health care. Why did you leave?" The questioner, a former editor with the New York Times, then proceeded to assert that today's Britain and U.S. are no longer free. The exchange reminded me just how out of...

The son of Travis County district attorney Ronnie Earle plans to run for the Texas House. Jason Earle will campaign for House District 47 in Southwest Travis County. The district's current representative Terry Keel said he won't run for reelection. Instead, he is seeking a seat on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Earle will formally announce his candidacy Tuesday evening (10/11/05) at Pease Elementary School in Central Austin.

WASHINGTON - (KRT) - Senators from both parties said Sunday they plan to question whether White House adviser Karl Rove may have given inappropriate "back room assurances" to secure conservative support for Supreme Court nominee Harriet Miers. Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee said his committee "is entitled to know whatever the White House knew" regarding Miers and her views on important legal issues. "If there are back room assurances, and if there are back room deals, and if there is something which bears upon a precondition as to how a nominee is going to vote,...

Transcriber's introduction:The following outline and transcript, created by the poster, are based on an audio recording of Joseph Wilson's evening keynote lecture to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) on June 14, 2003, delivered several weeks prior to Wilson's New York Times op-ed of 7/6/2003 which preceded the controversial Robert Novak article mentioning Valerie Plame's CIA background. Wilson's speech was immediately preceded by that of the other keynote speaker, Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. After their individual speeches Wilson and McGovern held a joint question-and-answer session. Other participants in the forum and their respective topics...

WASHINGTON, Oct. 9 - Not long before Hurricane Katrina made landfall, James Lee Witt, the former director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, and his colleagues called officials on the Gulf Coast to offer their help. Soon after the storm hit, the State of Louisiana signed up with Witt Associates, a disaster consulting firm. Within days, Mr. Witt had become a fixture at the state's emergency operations center in Baton Rouge, advising the governor and sleeping in a trailer. He even figured out a way for FEMA to reimburse the state for his firm's fees, which the company estimates at...

ASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) -- U.S. Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., Sunday criticized President Bush`s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court but said the debate should be civil. 'Number one, a lot of us wanted to see somebody that was a well-formed jurist, so that they had a track record of what they would do in key cases coming in front of the court, and we could have a debate with the country and within the Senate about what this means,' said Brown back on CBS` 'Face the Nation.' 'Miers doesn`t have that track record, and doesn`t seem...

I am 16 years old and in the speech and debate team at my high school. Our current topic for debate is: "Should the United States federal government fund Hurricane Katrina relief and rebuilding by ending President Bush's tax cuts?" I strongly disagree with the proposition, but I need more evidence and reasons to back up my argument. Suggestions and facts would be greatly appreciated!!

A Few of FR's Finest ....Every Day FR is a Treasure Trove of talented, compassionate, patriotic, wonderful people who gather every day to discuss the latest news and issues; salute and support our military and our leaders;  tell a few jokes;  learn a new word;  write poetry;  pray for those in need;  and congratulate those who are deserving. Thank you, Jim Robinson, for giving us the vehicle in which we can express ourselves. Free Republic made its debut in September, 1996, and the forum was added in early 1997.   Over 100,000 people have registered for posting privileges on Free...

While Hughes explores the Late Bronze Age reality behind the story of Helen, she takes in some of the most beautiful scenery of the ancient world, from the magnificent citadel at Mycenae to the spectacular site of the shrine to Helen, high in the hills above Sparta. She also tastes the food of the ancient world -- based on the latest archaeological research -- and discovers how the conflict in Helen's name would really have been fought. Working with weapons experts and accurate replicas of chariots pulled by local gypsy horses, Hughes experiences firsthand how chariots and archers battled beneath...