Free Republic

With supplies stocked, Mormons Y2K ready WAYNE PARTRIDGEKNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS NICHOLASVILLE, Ky. -- Dr. Paul Nicholls says he doesn't expect the 2000 computer bug to cause a widespread meltdown of society. But if the world is hurled back to the Dark Ages when Jan. 1 rolls around, as some predict, Nicholls knows his family won't go hungry.    In his rural home, Nicholls has a year's worth of food and other supplies stashed away in a specially insulated cellar.    "It's peace of mind," said Nicholls, an orthopedic surgeon and a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of ...

BOGOTA, Colombia — At least 40 marines were feared dead and 40 wounded after 600 Marxist rebels, firing rockets and homemade missiles, overran a navy base on Sunday on Colombia's Pacific coast close to the sensitive border with Panama, naval sources said. The fighting around the coastal town of Jurado in the northwestern province of Choco came just two days before a formal ceremony in Panama to mark the U.S. handover of the Panama Canal to the Panamanian government. It was one of the heaviest single clashes in more than a year and marked the latest surge in a ...

Cancer patient, 16, gets wish to play with New York Philharmonic NEW YORK -- Sixteen-year-old Johanna Johnson paused at the edge of the Lincoln Center stage, then took her seat among the New York Philharmonic musicians. And for a time Saturday night, her cancer, which had been diagnosed in May, was the last thing on her mind. "I was about to walk into a New York Philharmonic concert, and I couldn't move," she said. "I knew I had to go on." Johanna became only the second nonprofessional to play with the Philharmonic -- the first was entertainer George Plimpton, ...

    'Don't call it a Y2K war room or bunker' So it's not a bunker. Or a war room. But 'it' -- the White House's Information Coordination Center -- is open and ready for any Y2K shenanigans. By Max Smetannikov, Inter@ctive WeekUPDATED December 10, 1999 6:20 PM PT "Don't call it a war room or a bunker," a White House source pleaded. "We are on the top floor of an office building, for Christ's sake." Call it what you will, the Information Coordination Center (ICC) set up by the President's Council on Year 2000 Conversion at 1800 G ...

Who killed Betty Van Patter?A letter from an old friend stirs up passions from one of the most disturbing, yet little-known, crimes of the New Left era. It happened exactly 25 years ago.............By David HorowitzTwenty-five years ago Monday, my friend Betty Van Patter disappeared from a tavern on University Avenue called the Berkeley Square and was never seen alive again.Six months earlier, I had recruited Betty to keep the books of the Educational Opportunities Corp., an entity I had created to run a school for the children of the Black Panther Party. By the time the police fished her battered ...

"Is President Clinton's School-to-Work program good for students? ©Insight Magazine December 20, 1999 ===================== Yes These locally designed efforts create paths to students' success and future careers. By Stephanie Powers, Director of the National School-to-Work Office, a joint initiative of the U.S. departments of Labor and Education. ====================== "What do you want to be when you grow up?" It's a question that has been around for as long as children have dreamt of being firefighters, teachers and astronauts. Just about everyone either has asked or been asked that question. But what if no one ever asked children that question? What ...

The Necessary purging of the Republican Ranks. VannRox Commentary Blue Bay Media 12 December 1999 The Battle. Are we willing to fight for a restoration of our Republic? Well, are we? Don’t be so quick to answer this. I’m not talking about a "Beer and Pretzels" battle. No. I am discussing the most serious of all issues. Our Liberty. So I must ask it again. Are YOU (yes you!) willing to fight for our Liberty? If you are, then read on. Then what will be required of YOU? How will you fit in the grandest scheme of things? Will you ...

Bill and Boris, the battling babushka bombers Sunday, December 12, 1999 Boris Yeltsin is sore at Bill Clinton. And who can blame him? Boris wants to drop bombs on old ladies in babushkas in the province of Chechnya. But Bill Clinton is making speeches proclaiming that would be immoral. In this squabble among prima donnas, fair is fair. So don't you have to take Yeltsin's side?Click here for rest of article

If Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall was right 180 years ago when he observed that "the power to tax involves the power to destroy," then the 19 members of the federal Advisory Commission on Electronic Commerce should ask themselves today: Will taxing the Internet kill this revolutionary medium in the cradle? Regrettably, some members of the commission, appointed by Congress last year to study the feasibility of taxing electronic commerce, appear unconcerned with such questions. Egged on by governors and mayors, they are pushing proposals to start taxing the Internet as soon as a congressionally imposed three-year moratorium on ...

FOCUS-USDA halted from enforcing food safety standards (Updates with reaction from Supreme Beef, para 13) WASHINGTON, Reuters [WN]: A federal food safety program was dealt a stunning setback Friday when a Texas judge ruled that the U.S. Agriculture Department could not punish a beef processing plant that flunked tests for illness-causing salmonella. The decision means that Supreme Beef Processing Inc, a privately-owned company, can keep its doors open and continue to make and sell ground beef. The government said it would appeal the ruling by U.S. Judge Joe Fish in Dallas. The lawsuit has been closely watched by consumer groups ...

A little boy goes to his dad and asks, "What is politics?" Dad says, "Well son, let me try to explain it this way: I'm the breadwinner of the family, so let's call me Capitalism. Your Mom, she's the administrator of the money, so we'll call her the Government. We're here to take care of your needs, so we'll call you the People. The nanny, we'll consider her the Working Class. And your baby brother, we'll call him the Future. Now, think about that and see if that makes sense." So the little boy goes off to bed thinking about ...

GOP resists gun-show checks By Mike Soraghan Denver Post Capitol Bureau Dec. 13 - Requiring criminal background checks at gun shows is, arguably, the one piece of Gov. Bill Owens' gun-control package that could have changed the course of the Columbine High School massacre. But it's also the piece that has the least chance of winning legislative approval next year. No Republican has stepped forward to sponsor a bill to close the "gun-show loophole," as some call it, for the legislative session that starts Jan. 5. "It's hard to carry a bill if you don't believe in it," said ...

Evidence unearthed by Indiana republican Dan Burton shows that president Clintonand his administration brokered a deal with a terrorist when Clinton offered clemency this year to 14 jailed Puerto Rican separatists.If true, the allegation is one of the most serious in a long list of scandals that Clinton has brought upon himself with his egregious behavior and lack of morals.Clinton granted clemency in August to 14 Puerto Rican separatists affiliated with FALN - a Spanish acronym for the Armed Forces of National Liberation - and its sister organization, Los Macheteros. The decision was criticized by many as an attempt to ...

Pro-gun forces want to weaken state program By Mike Soraghan Denver Post Capitol Bureau Dec. 13 - The National Rifle Association and Republicans in the state Legislature want to weaken Colorado's instant background check for gun purchases, and critics say the change could make it easier for criminals to get guns. The issue is what the Colorado Bureau of Investigation does when it finds a potential gun buyer has an arrest record, but can't tell if the person was convicted. Currently, the CBI blocks the gun sale until the person can prove he wasn't convicted. The NRA says that's ...

Please post your short news items, comments, and opinions here. All are welcome!

It was a tricky question. Brit Hume, one of the journalists asking questions at the presidential debate in New Hampshire, asked Gov. George W. Bush what he reads to keep informed. It was an indirect way of gauging whether the Texas governor knew what in the world is going on. After all, he had flunked a mini-quiz on foreign affairs that was popped to him by a Boston TV reporter. Sensing a veiled insult, Mr. Bush bristled. He answered that he reads The Dallas Morning News, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Austin American-Statesman. He added, ...

US student jailed for microwaving pet parrot Updated 12:08 PM ET December 11, 1999 MADISON, Wis., (Reuters) - A court has sentenced a student at the University of Wisconsin to 10 days jail for killing a fellow student's pet parrot by cooking it in a microwave oven. Chad Alvarez, 23, the son of the university's football coach, was also ordered by the court on Friday to be put on probation for five years after he pleaded no contest to felony theft of a domestic animal and intentional mistreatment of an animal. Alvarez put the parrot, named Iago, in the fraternity ...

The President admits that his gays-in-the- military strategy isn't working. But he blames the generals, not his policy. The first step is acknowledging that there is a problem. President Clinton did that Saturday when for the first time he allowed that his famous "Don't ask, don't tell" solution to the question of gays in the military wasn't working out as hoped. At this point, he may be the last person in America to have come to that conclusion. He was beaten to the punch, certainly, by two high-profile developments of recent days: his wife, who came out against the policy ...

WASHINGTON -- For the first time since their fateful friendship and taped conversations set off the investigation of a president, Monica Lewinsky and Linda Tripp will confront each other, this time in court. Ms. Lewinsky is on the witness list for a pretrial hearing, scheduled to begin on Monday in Howard County, Md., where Mrs. Tripp faces charges that she illegally taped their telephone calls.In July, Mrs. Tripp, who had brought her secretly recorded conversations with Ms. Lewinsky about Ms. Lewinsky's affair with President Clinton to the attention of the independent counsel Kenneth Starr, was indicted on two criminal charges ...

Source: Office Of Naval Research (http://www.onr.navy.mil/) Date: Posted 12/13/99 MIT Researchers "Amplify" Atoms Naval Applications Range from Extremely Precise Gravity and Rotation Sensors to Atomic Clocks A team of ONR-supported MIT researchers led by Wolfgang Ketterle report in the December 9 issue of Nature that they have created a device that increases the number of particles in a beam of atoms. Furthermore, the atoms that come out of the device are in precisely the same quantum mechanical wave formation as the ones that went in. This "matter wave amplifier" is an analog of the laser. The striking difference is that ...