Free Republic

FBI, State seek 4 missing Scouts The Washington Times www.washtimes.com FBI, State seek 4 missing Scouts Guy Taylor THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      The FBI and the State Department yesterday took over the search for four foreign Boy Scouts reported missing from the National Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill in Bowling Green, Va.      The four Scouts, ranging in age from 14 to 17, were part of a group of nine Scouts from Tanzania and were last seen by their scoutmaster Sunday afternoon.       "It's pretty definite that [the boys] just left," said FBI spokeswoman Mary Johlie in Richmond. ...

First lady announces National Book Festival The Washington Times www.washtimes.com First lady announces National Book Festival Andrea Billups THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      First lady Laura Bush, a onetime school librarian, has translated her love of reading into a first National Book Festival, set for Sept. 7-8 in Washington.      Mrs. Bush joined Librarian of Congress James H. Billington and NBA star Ray Allen yesterday to announce plans for the free two-day event, which will feature readings, book signings by nearly 50 well-known American authors and musical performances. She also announced the creation of her own library foundation to help ...

July 31, 2001 Too many old people Dick Boland      A company that distributes prescription drugs has determined that 50 percent of drug expenditures can be traced to 5 percent of its members. This is not sitting well with the drug-dispensing company. Don't these sick people realize that they are driving up the cost of health care? The sick are considered high-cost if they are responsible for a minimum of $174 a month. I find this hard to believe, because one prescription for a number of frequently prescribed drugs can reach that amount.      Most of the high-cost patients have serious ...

Inside the Beltway The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Inside the Beltway John McCaslin THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01     Go figure      Can you "kill" something if it's not alive? Rep. Jerrold Nadler, New York Democrat, seems to think so.      If not, the congressman might want to clarify his remarks during last week's markup of H.R. 2505 -- the Human Cloning Prohibition Act of 2001 when the full House takes up the measure today.      Inside the Beltway has obtained a House Judiciary Committee transcript of the markup, held last Tuesday, during which Mr. Nadler broached the ultimate right-to-life question: Is an embryo ...

July 31, 2001 Stem cells without benefit of embryos Michael Fumento      "Bloody rotten timing," as the Brits might say. On July 24, researchers in Rostock, Germany, announced that two weeks before they had successfully transplanted stem cells into the heart of a man whom, they report, is now doing well.      The problem? The cells came from the man's own marrow. No embryos were harmed in the making of this miracle.      What bloody awful news. It does nothing to help the full-court press to force the Bush administration to lift the funding ban on embryonic stem cell experimentation.      Which is ...

July 31, 2001 WTO edict requires global tax repair by Daniel Mitchell      The World Trade Organization recently ruled that a tax provision designed to aid U.S. exporters is a subsidy. This means the European Union, which brought the case against the United States, can impose up to $4 billion in compensatory import taxes on American exports.      For better or worse, the WTO probably made the right decision. America imposes tax on the worldwide income of corporations. But in an attempt to reduce the anti-competitive impact of this system, U.S. policy-makers created a provision of the tax code to help ...

July 31, 2001 Why the death tax just refuses to die Stephen Moore/Greg Kaza      There was no more frustrating feature of George W. Bush's tax cut enacted last month than what happened with the death tax. Those who fought to get rid of this unfair extraction are hopping mad -- and they should be. The new law phases out the death tax from its current 55 percent rate down to 45 percent in 2009, then repeals the entire tax in 2010, then reinstates this onerous tax at 55 percent in 2011.      This is a tax that penalizes people for ...

U.S. protests editing of Powell by China The Washington Times www.washtimes.com U.S. protests editing of Powell by China Published 7/31/01      From combined dispatches      The United States criticized China yesterday for editing out comments on Taiwan and human rights from an interview with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell aired Sunday on China's state-owned CCTV.      "We had a clear and explicit agreement with them, as we sometimes do with you and your colleagues here, to air something in its entirety, without edits," State Department spokesman Charles Hunter said. "They chose to renege on that agreement, and we think that was ...

July 31, 2001 Agendas in the classroom Linda Bowles      There was a time, let's call them the good old days, when parents could send their little children off to school with full confidence they would be in good hands.      Sadly, the good old days are gone.      It is appropriate that most of the criticism of government schools deals with academic failure. But that is only half the wretched story. Contrary to what many parents think, most of those responsible for the education of our children are not socially and politically neutral. They are ideologues with an agenda.      While a ...

July 31, 2001 Not the place to send personnel Frank Gaffney Jr.      President Bush campaigned for his present job on a platform that promised to end inappropriate overseas deployments of U.S. personnel. He expressed concern that such endeavors represented unwarranted drains on national resources and unjustifiably put Americans in harm's way, especially since it was not clear their presence was actually contributing to a real peace in the region.      At the time, of course, he was talking about the Balkans. During his recent visit to Kosovo, though, he declared that the United States "went in together [with our allies] ...

July 31, 2001 Is this lawsuit necessary? Bruce Fein      A Dickensian caricature of the law ala Jarndyce vs. Jarndyce in Bleak House unfolded last week in the U.S. 4th Circuit Court of Appeals. A schismatic three member panel upheld the constitutionality of a Virginia "minute of silence" statute over the fuming of the Virginia chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union and sister proselytizers for an impermeable Chinese Wall of separation between church and state.      Writing for a slim 2-to-1 majority in Brown vs. Gilmore (July 24, 2001), Judge Paul Niemeyer insisted that 60 seconds of quietude as a ...

Inside Politics The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Inside Politics Greg Pierce THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      'A tough sell'      Rep. Joseph M. Hoeffel, Pennsylvania Democrat, is trying to rally constituents in his well-to-do suburban Philadelphia district in a bid to keep the Republican-controlled state legislature from making him the odd man out in redistricting.      The state will lose two of its 21 U.S. House seats as the result of population losses in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.      "Hoeffel isn't about to go quietly. He's making it his summer project to, as he puts it, 'keep the issue front and center,'" Philadelphia Inquirer ...

U.S. eyes military alliance in Pacific The Washington Times www.washtimes.com U.S. eyes military alliance in Pacific Ben Barber THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      U.S. and Australian officials talked yesterday about closer military cooperation among themselves, Japan and South Korea as a counterweight to China's growing military power, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said.      Mr. Powell and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld were in Canberra for annual security talks with the conservative-led Australian government, one of the few to wholeheartedly support the United States on missile defense and opposition to the Kyoto protocol on climate change.      Both American officials ...

EDITORIAL • July 31, 2001 Capitol Hill killer is no faker      The insanity defense, as it is known in popular jargon, is not looked upon favorably by most because it has become a caricature. The idea of allowing a legal "out" for a stone-cold killer who probably knew precisely what he was doing – as in the infamous "Twinkie defense" used by the murderer of a homosexual San Francisco politician in the 1970s – rightly offends our sense of justice.      However, in the case of Russell Weston – the paranoid schizophrenic who shot up the Capitol three years ago, ...

July 31, 2001 Where we went wrong Kenneth Corbin      Without incentive, action of any sort becomes an improbability. Restated in the words that are the mantra for William Easterly's compelling new book, "people respond to incentives." Drawing on the benefit of four decades of economists' application of intrinsically flawed theory to policy, "The Elusive Quest for Growth" endeavors to outline a fresh approach to remedying the economic woes of the Third World.      Mr. Easterly, senior adviser at the Development and Research Group of the World Bank, argues unequivocally that without adequate incentives for the underprivileged, any policy initiative to ...

Clinton office opening not a blockbuster event The Washington Times www.washtimes.com Clinton office opening not a blockbuster event Liz Trotta THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 7/31/01      NEW YORK -- Former President Bill Clinton went home to Harlem yesterday, embracing this storied black enclave for its past electoral loyalty.      But while some treated him as a returning conqueror, others said it was just another case of "there goes the neighborhood."      The former president officially opened his new office on 55 W. 125th St. and attended an outdoor celebration that had all the red-white-and-blue markings of a political rally.      "Now I feel ...

July 31, 2001 Whose NATO? By House Editorial      If the ethnic Albanians had their way, NATO would be a tool to create their Greater Albania, an ethnically pure homeland which would expand Albania to parts of Macedonia, Montenegro and Kosovo. The United States would lead the alliance in the Balkans and remain in the role of big brother, getting them out of scrapes when they become involved in excessive paramilitary violence. Macedonians and the Serbs waver between protesting the U.S. presence and pleading with them to disarm the ethnic Albanians. Europeans have considered it more convenient for the United ...

SINGAPORE, July 31 (Reuters) - Sinopec Corp and Royal Dutch/Shell are expected to complete negotiations to build a chain of retail gasoline stations in the east of China by end 2001, industry sources said on Tuesday. Sources said the companies were still ironing out a series of joint venture agreements to form the chain that will service the eastern province of Jiangsu. The joint venture, which was originally slated to be established by July, should now be up and running by the end of the year, they said. ``Sinopec aims to have an official launching ceremony in early September, but ...

July 31, 2001 The suicide treadmill Shaazka Beyerle      Israel and the Palestinians are perilously close to war. The sad irony is that both sides are locked in a mortal embrace in which there seems to be no strategy other than to inflict harm upon the other, while both deeply long for peace. It should now be clear that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat are not alone able to prevent the current conflict from erupting into a bloodbath.      It is imperative that the United States and Europe take the lead to bring the Israelis and ...

EDITORIAL • July 31, 2001 The Russians' rapid missile      Given the latest U.S. intelligence revealed yesterday by The Washington Times, the White House must be particularly pleased that President George W. Bush was able to strike such bonhomie with Russian President Vladimir Putin at last week's G-8 meeting in Genoa, Italy.      Bill Gertz, a reporter for The Times, divulged that Russia has conducted a test of a long-range SS-25 missile that may be designed to scuttle U.S. missile defenses. The missile's engine, a supersonic-combustion ramjet, is just as powerful as it sounds, and can generate speeds of five times ...