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While looking for the grave of a particularly brave Marine, I noticed a great number a headstones marked only with "Civilian" on them. The account below resolves the mystery. From a contemporary press report: 1997 Most people who visit Arlington National Cemetery know ahead of time at least a couple of the memorials or grave sites. But how many people know that in the southern end of the cemetery, formerly part of the Arlington Estate, there used to be a village for fugitive and liberated slaves? Tucked away on the other side of the cemetery, in Section 27, near the ...

In the world of politics, power is a zero-sum game. The Founding Fathers were quite specific about delegating which powers each specific branch of Government could claim as its own. Moreover, any powers not specifically enumerated in the Constitution or Bill of Rights were reserved for the States or We, The People. Make no mistake. Every single time We, The People, willingly relinquish any little bit of power to the Federal Government, we cannot, at a later time, decide to demand it back. Once it's gone, it's gone forever; once gone, the Federal Government can and will use that relinquished ...

Dammit, I tried to tell you people on the last Mars probe that failed. Now, listen closely: When the Mars probe got close to the Red Planet today, the Martians shot the damned thing down! It's time for the hand-wringing to stop.

Americans could learn more about the degree to which the secretive National Security Agency -- the government body charged with cracking codes and protecting critical information -- has been spying on U.S. citizens, if a suit filed on Friday by the Electronics Privacy Information Center garners results. "The charter of the National Security Agency does not authorize domestic intelligence gathering," said Marc Rotenberg, director of EPIC, in a statement on Friday. "Yet we have reason to believe that the NSA is engaged in the indiscriminate acquisition and interception of domestic communications taking place all over the Internet." The questions ...

WTO summit leaves only discontent: From delegates to protesters, few in Seattle are happy By Kari Huus MSNBC SEATTLE, Dec. 3 — As a turbulent week surrounding World Trade Organization meetings lurched to a close, it was hard to find a soul who was pleased with the proceedings. Protest groups decried the “police state” that had locked up hundreds of their members. Downtown merchants complained behind boarded windows about the cost of the mayhem. Seattleites groused about the inconvenience. And WTO delegates battled to agree on a common agenda to launch a new round of talks. BLEARY-EYED trade ministers continued ...

Slowed economy is Greenspan's ace in                hole                December 2, 1999                BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST                From the mysterious inner recesses of the Federal Reserve Board comes credible                word that Alan Greenspan has changed sides. Does President Clinton's failure to                clearly signal a fourth term for the Fed chairman mean Greenspan will apply the                brakes to the economy?                Nobody is suggesting that Greenspan would let personal pique guide his                much-applauded direction of monetary policy. Nevertheless, friends of the chairman                (including some former colleagues on the Fed) see the president's silence ...

WASHINGTON -- Texas is pulling ahead of almost all states in the race toward the ambitious education goals set by top state and federal officials for the year 2000, according to the National Education Goals Panel. But the bipartisan panel also reported Thursday that neither Texas nor the nation will reach those goals next year. Texas was singled out for "outstanding progress" toward world-class levels of student achievement. Together with North Carolina, Connecticut and Maine, it was praised for across-the-board progress toward most of the educational goals. Just below those four states were eight others that made "outstanding progress" in ...

ISRAEL'S occupation of south Lebanon has taken its toll on the discipline of some of the country's most renowned military units, amid allegations of incompetence by officers in the field which have undermined morale. At least 24 members of Battalion 13 of the Golani Brigade, which won its battle honours when it took the Golan Heights from Syria in 1967, were jailed for up to two months on Tuesday after they abandoned a training exercise on the Heights and returned to their tented camp in protest against what they alleged was mismanagement by some of their officers. The men, ...

URGENT--Seattle Update/ Pregnant Woman Miscarries After Beaten, Gassed by Police John Prukop of Citizens for a Constitutional Washington (CCW) sends us this latest update on events in Seattle, and a very disturbing one it is, too. A sickening, horrifying and heartbreaking example of the vicious, brutal tactics being employed by Seattle police against not ONLY anti-World Trade organization protesters but against defenseless citizens in general is the news that a four-months pregnant woman, who along with her husband was leaving her job in downtown Seattle, was beaten by police and pepper-sprayed/tear-gassed as she exited the hotel where both worked. The ...

Seattle Cools Down (CBS) Anti-World Trade Organization protesters in Seattle called Friday's march a celebration, CBS News Correspondent John Blackstone reports. They say they accomplished their goal, telling the world that free trade threatens jobs, health and the environment. Two protesters got through security to take their message directly to reporters in the World Trade Organization pressroom. "Help us by simply telling the truth," one screamed as he was taken away from the scene. While there was no repeat of Tuesday's trouble on the streets, city officials continued to fend off criticism of tough police tactics earlier in the week. ...

A Hong Kong demonstrator confronts riot police using pepper spray at the height of the clashes yesterday Photograph: HO CHAK/REUTERS Hong Kong's residency rule sparks riots FROM OLIVER AUGUST IN BEIJING HUNDREDS of civil rights campaigners fought street battles with Hong Kong police yesterday after a court ruling confirmed the power of the Chinese Government to change the constitution drawn up under British rule. Protesters stormed police barricades outside a government building before being repelled by tear gas. Chief Superintendent Mike Francis told rioters last night that the situation could worsen, leading to more heavy-handed police tactics. "I warned ...

Kosovo is the cotton candy war. If you try to take a bite, it simply melts away. We've long known that allegations of Serbian genocide against Kosovar Albanians were mostly 'spin'. Now, we're digesting the Pentagon's belated confession that the Serbs really did down that F-117 Nighthawk stealth fighter back in March -- a claim dismissed at the time as 'propaganda.' The facts have emerged at all only because some reporters at the El Paso Times invoked the Freedom of Information Act to squeeze the truth out of the Air Force. (Most of their journalistic colleagues are still waiting ...

In an obit that stretches 2/3 of a printed page on Saturday:

Abstract: Knowledge of the complete genomic DNA sequence of an organism allows a systematic approach to defining its genetic components. The genomic sequence provides access to the complete structure of all genes, including those without known funcrtion, their control elements, and by inference, the proteins they encode, as well as all other biologically important sequences. Furthermore, the sequence is a rich and permanent source of information for the design of further biological studies of the organism and for the study of evolution through cross-species sequence comparison. The power of this approach has been amply demonstreated by the determination of the ...

IMF Halts Release of Loan to Moscow By Steven Mufson Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, December 4, 1999; Page A1 The International Monetary Fund held back a $640 million loan installment for Russia yesterday in a move that many economists and Russian officials interpreted as a reaction to political pressure from European nations upset about the war in Chechnya. After IMF Managing Director Michel Camdessus met with senior Kremlin economic adviser Alexander Livshits yesterday, IMF spokesman Thomas Dawson cited Russia's failure to enact economic reforms as the reason for delaying the payment, the second installment of a 17-month, $4.5 billion ...

by Jim Desyllas Note: The author is a student in Portland Oregon. This report was called- in from a pay phone outside Seattle. Wed., 7:30 pm Pacific time. I just spent 4 days in Seattle. The "information" people are getting from the mass media is false. This was not, as Pres. Clinton claims, a peaceful protest marred by the actions of violent protesters. This was a massive, strong but peaceful demonstration which was attacked repeatedly by the police with the express purpose of provoking a violent response to provide photo opportunities for the Western media. I know because I ...

Gov. Tony Knowles and BP Amoco president Rodney Chase on Thursday signed the final agreement on what the oil company would sell to get the state's blessing on its $30 billion takeover of Atlantic Richfield Co. The agreement would allow Alaska's two big oil companies to combine. But it requires BP to sell about 15 percent of North Slope production to another company along with large tracts of exploration land. The takeover still needs Federal Trade Commission approval before it can go ahead.

With President Clinton issuing a blizzard of overreaching executive orders and Congress federalizing hundreds of crimes that are properly in the jurisdiction of the states, we must depend on the Supreme Court to stand for the Constitutional principles of federalism. The chief reason Americans have retained their liberties through two centuries of governance by power-seeking politicians is the separation of power between the states and the federal government, and then among the three branches. The case that puts this to the test is Brzonkala v. Morrison, which is before the Court in the current session. It tests the constitutionality ...

Trade Policy on AIDS Drugs Hurts Africans By Karl Vick Washington Post Foreign Service Saturday, December 4, 1999; Page A1 NAIROBI – The body of Josphat Nyakundi features a concise history of the century's three great plagues and the world's responses to them. Just below his left shoulder is the faint circle left by a smallpox inoculation. In the recesses of his memory lingers the taste of the sugar cube placed on his tongue with the drops that would protect him against polio. And swimming in Nyakundi's spinal fluid – inflaming the lining of his brain, keeping him braced in ...

WASHINGTON -- Hillary Clinton's decision to cast off the confining costume of the first lady, don a Yankees cap and jump into the New York Senate race had a tangible impact this week, when communications director Marsha Berry resigned to take a job with the U.S. Export Import Bank. Berry's departure has not been announced, but sources close to her told Salon News she has been trying to leave the White House for many months. She waited until Clinton got her New York Senate campaign staff together, and when the hiring of campaign manager Bill de Blasio was announced ...