Free Republic

Untitled Normal Page Gas prices are now at a ten year high; Oil is at 23 - 25 dollars per barrel. OPEC is continuing to restrain pricing which combined with economic recoveries in Europe and the Pacific Rim ( and the U.S. strong economy ) it is reasonable to believe that gas and oil prices will continue to rise: Lower supplies and higher demands. All this is ironic when reviewing and comparing vehicle selection in the early 70's and the vehicle selection in the mid 90's. In the seventies people drove the big 8 cylinder luxos and the gas ...

CHICAGO, Dec. 7 (UPI) - Three Chicago-area police officers are suing their department so they can avoid working Christmas. The officers, from suburban Villa Park, are challenging a department policy banning holiday vacations due to concerns about the Y2K computer glitch. Villa Park Police Chief Ronald Ohlson outlined the policy in a memo last February, saying officers could not take time off between Dec. 19 and at least Jan. 1. The Chicago Tribune said the officers - Jeff Runge, Tim Ulatowski and Ron Ahrendt - asked to take Christmas Day off in exchange for compensatory time earned during the ...

Touchy Feely! Touchy Feely! Touchy-Feely! This describes most of the Nightline programs nowadays. Nightline used to broadcast a lot of interesting shows in times past but in recent years they are broadcasting mostly incredibly dull Touchy Feely bilge. Hey, why should a hypnotist carry around a heavy watch on a chain when he can just tune in to Nightline to put his clients in a trace-like deep sleep? My guess is that there are a bunch of former NPR types producing Nightline nowadays who actually believe in the pschobabble din. (BTW, George Orwell mentioned about this subject in "1984" ...

Even before an agreement on trade relations between Beijing and Washington was finalized, Secretary of Defense William Cohen announced that the United States will resume military-to-military contacts with China. 1 It would be easy for Americans to assume that normalizing trade relations with China also means normalizing military relations, but this is far from the case. Under this Administration, military-to-military contacts--or "engagement activities"--allowed Chinese military officers broad access to U.S. warships, exercises, and even military manuals. 2 Once it became clear that China obtained U.S. nuclear weapons technology through espionage, Congress felt compelled to caution the Administration to limit ...

CHICAGO (AP) - A judge has refused to throw out a lawsuit alleging that gun makers' marketing tactics contributed to three Chicago deaths, a decision gun opponents hope is part of a trend. ``This is a home run,'' said Lawrence Rosenthal, a lawyer for the city of Chicago, which is among at least 28 U.S. cities and counties that have filed their own separate lawsuits against gun makers. ``We now have a neutral party in a black robe with no ax to grind and this is what she sees looking at Illinois law.'' In a ruling last week, Cook County ...

IT IS with great verisimilitude that we present another installation of ``Ask Mister Language Person,'' the column that answers your common questions about grammar, punctuation and unwanted body hair. This is the ONLY language column to receive the coveted Lifetime Bathroom Pass from The American Society of University Professors Who Are Never in Their Offices. We will commence the onset of today's column by beginning with our first question, which concerns a basic rule of business grammar: Q What is the proper way to begin a formal letter? A The proper beginning, or ``salutatorian,'' for a formal business letter is: ...

LIBERTIES / By MAUREEN DOWD Homes for the Holidays Everybody agrees that something historically momentous has occurred in the White House. But it is not that the first lady is seeking political office on her own. It is that the first lady is moving out of the White House while her husband is still occupying it. Mrs. Clinton is packing her bags for New York and decorating the Christmas tree in Washington. As usual, a Clinton is in two places at one time. But the magnitude of this dissonance is staggering. Even as she ornaments the White House for the ...

Forbes rips taxes, Bush airs ads GOP candidates ratchet up campaigns for state primary By Jon Kamman and Kris Mayes The Arizona Republic Dec. 8, 1999 RELATED ARTICLES More campaign news PRESCOTT -- Steve Forbes embarked Tuesday on two days of stumping rural Arizona with essentially the same flat-tax message that captivated the state's Republicans four years ago. Speaking from the steps of the Yavapai County Courthouse, where the late Barry Goldwater, progenitor of America's conservative movement, launched his 1964 presidential bid, Forbes said the central message of the 2000 election is "No more nonsense from politicians who say it's ...

GOP’s road to nowhere By Peter Roff As political director of Newt Gingrich’s GOPAC, I was responsible for training more than 15,000 Republican candidates and activists over four years. What we did worked because we always made sure to get across the idea that we are a big party full of diverse ideas and opinions and, when we work together, we can achieve great things. There is no idea so stupid or wrong that it cannot at least be discussed. Stay focused on the war, not the battle.     Two Republican leaders have caused me to rethink this strategy. One is ...

The American Spectator, December, 1999 / January, 2000 Darwin's Hostages A decision in Kansas to question evolution dogma has given rise to hysteria and intolerance. by Michael J. Behe; Michael J. Behe, professor of biochemistry at Lehigh University and a fellow of the Discovery Institute, is the author of Darwin's Black Box; The Biochemical Challenge to Evolution (Free Press). In 1995 the National Academy of Sciences, through its National Research Council arm, issued a set of national science education standards calling for "dramatic changes" in the way science is taught in grade schools and high schools. Several years later the ...

RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (AP) — Secretary of State Madeleine Albright's Mideast tour is doomed to fail because the United States is not an honest broker, a Saudi paper said Wednesday. "Albright's visit, as usual, will not have encouraging results and the signs of failure are clearer than ever,'' said the daily Al-Riyadh in an editorial. Saudi newspapers usually reflect the official government position. "The specifications of a just mediator do not apply to the United States. It is the caretaker, protector and financier of everything Israel asks for or imposes,'' Al-Riyadh said, calling on the United States to pressure Israel ...

Albright Sees Progress on Israel-Syria 10.08 a.m. ET (1521 GMT) December 8, 1999 JERUSALEM — Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said Wednesday she had made good progress in Israel and Syria on resuming peace talks and urged both sides to grasp a chance to end more than 50 years of hostility. "From my meetings both here and in Damascus I have a sense that there is a desire to seize the moment,'' Albright said after a working breakfast with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak. She repeated a statement she made after meeting President Hafez al-Assad in the Syrian capital ...

AMERICAN COURT SUBPOENAS LUZHKOV WHAT THE PAPERS SAY Novye Izvestia, December 7, 1999, p. 1 December 8, 1999, Wednesday The Arizona county court has decided to subpoena Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov in connection with the case of the murder of American businessman Paul Tatum three years ago in Moscow. Kimerrer and Lavelle, the law firm which represents Tatum's family, has circulated copies of the court decision to the media. The court also approved accusations against the Moscow Property Committee, the department that deals with property management issues in Moscow. At the same time, the Moscow authorities have flatly refused ...

John McCain had an important advantage going into last night's debate: He wasn't actually there, although that probably wasn't clear to most television viewers. As a result, he was the only candidate looking steadily into the camera at all times. It was also smart of him to ask Gary Bauer a question about campaign-finance reform: Bauer's support of it provides McCain with some conservative cover for his position. That he needs the cover was revealed by the loud applause - by Arizona Republicans, keep in mind - for Alan Keyes's defense of unlimited political donations by individuals. (The other ...

John McCain had an important advantage going into last night's debate: He wasn't actually there, although that probably wasn't clear to most television viewers. As a result, he was the only candidate looking steadily into the camera at all times. It was also smart of him to ask Gary Bauer a question about campaign-finance reform: Bauer's support of it provides McCain with some conservative cover for his position. That he needs the cover was revealed by the loud applause - by Arizona Republicans, keep in mind - for Alan Keyes's defense of unlimited political donations by individuals. (The other ...

John McCain had an important advantage going into last night's debate: He wasn't actually there, although that probably wasn't clear to most television viewers. As a result, he was the only candidate looking steadily into the camera at all times. It was also smart of him to ask Gary Bauer a question about campaign-finance reform: Bauer's support of it provides McCain with some conservative cover for his position. That he needs the cover was revealed by the loud applause - by Arizona Republicans, keep in mind - for Alan Keyes's defense of unlimited political donations by individuals. (The other ...

The poll results - Who is your pick for MVP? MenRonald Reagan126029 James Joyce75624 Charles Lindbergh75531 Pope John Paul II57005 Winston Churchill56471 Billy Graham43656 Carl Sagan37423 Theodore Roosevelt33600 Dwight D. Eisenhower33034 Albert Einstein32963 Thomas Edison29610 Walt Disney29520 Nelson Mandela29344 The 14th Dalai Lama18099 Henry Ford7017 Wilbur & Orville Wright5376 Mohandas Gandhi5131 George Marshall3796 Jacques Cousteau2919 J. Robert Oppenheimer2458 Robert Baden-Powell2404 Albert Schweitzer2344 Sigmund Freud2322 Lech Walesa2308 Alexander Solzhenitsyn2197 Mikhail Gorbachev2168 Pablo Picasso2161 Charles De Gaulle2111 Jonas Salk & Albert Sabin2060 John Glenn2038 Booker T. Washington1815 Jackie Robinson1796 Jomo Kenyatta1750 Muhammad Ali1682 Franklin Delano Roosevelt1673 Martin Luther King Jr.1531 Elie ...

By Michael Romano Denver Rocky Mountain News Washington Bureau original article WASHINGTON -- The National Rifle Association is credited by even its fiercest foes with the biggest political victory of 1999 -- steamrolling gun-control advocates with a powerful mix of political savvy and cold cash. Gun-control proposals, a top priority for Democrats, remain bottled up in the legislative limbo of a conference committee. And it's not certain whether those measures, including three-day background checks on gun-show sales, will be seriously addressed anytime soon. But the NRA's success is only the first battle in a long struggle that began in ...

(CNSNews.com) - Prosecutors say a homeless couple knocked over a candle during an argument, igniting the fire in an abandoned Worcester, Massachusetts warehouse in which six firefighters died last Friday night - a tragedy that's become part of the nation's political debate. The 37-year-old man and 19-year-old woman are being held on $1 million bail, after pleading not guilty to the charges against them. The Worcester disaster comes just a few weeks after another highly-publicized case in New York City, where a homeless man attacked a young woman - hitting her in the head with a brick and almost killing ...

Everybody agrees that something historically momentous has occurred in the White House. But it is not that the first lady is seeking political office on her own. It is that the first lady is moving out of the White House while her husband is still occupying it. Mrs. Clinton is packing her bags for New York and decorating the Christmas tree in Washington. As usual, a Clinton is in two places at one time. But the magnitude of this dissonance is staggering. Even as she ornaments the White House for the holidays, so as to present it to the ...