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HONGKONG - The Hongkong government has withdrawn its proposal to impose a reported HK$400 a month (S$92) levy on employers of foreign maids to help fund training programmes for local domestic helpers. Secretary for Education and Manpower Fanny Law said on Monday that the administration had no intention of imposing such a levy 'at this stage'. The about-turn came just a day after employers' groups and the Philippine Consul-General said the levy would amount to a tax on families and that retraining programmes should be paid for with existing government funds, the South China Morning Post reported. The levy had ...

On thin ice John R. Lott Jr. Were votes by black Americans systematically disallowed during the 2000 elections? Mary Frances Berry, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, told the press in early June that this indeed occurred. Miss Berry even felt it necessary for the Justice Department to investigate whether the discrimination was intentional. It is hard to think of more inflammatory charges. The civil rights commission's Democrats asserted that "Statewide, based upon county-level statistical estimates, African-American voters were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected." In addition, blacks were said ...

The jailing of a Texas reporter who refused to give her research to U.S. prosecutors has raised concerns that Attorney General John Ashcroft is reversing a policy that gives journalists wide latitude in protecting confidential sources and unpublished information. At the Justice Department's request, a federal judge jailed freelance writer Vanessa Leggett on July 20 on contempt of court charges after she refused to turn over notes, tape recordings and other material she collected while researching a book on the slaying of Doris Angleton in 1997. Angleton was the wife of Robert Angleton, a millionaire ex-bookie who was acquitted in ...

N.O. asks justices to revive gun suit U.S. Supreme Court urged to hear case 07/31/01By Susan Finch Staff writer/The Times-Picayune New Orleans has asked the U.S. Supreme Court to revive its 1998 lawsuit to make gun manufacturers repay millions of dollars the city says it has spent dealing with the effects of gun violence. The city wants the court to reverse the Louisiana Supreme Court's move in April that killed the lawsuit on grounds it improperly treads on the state's exclusive power to regulate the firearms industry in Louisiana. In throwing out the case, the state Supreme Court retroactively ...

Bush cites N.O. for reducing crime Pennington's strategies praised 07/31/01From Times-Picayune staff reports President Bush singled out New Orleans for special praise Monday, applauding the city and Police Superintendent Richard Pennington for using community-based initiatives to greatly reduce crime. New Orleans is one of six urban areas highlighted in a recently released national report that Bush discussed at a meeting of the National Organization of Black Law Enforcement Executives. In his talk, Bush stressed the importance of police-community partnerships and congratulated the "six safer cities" examined in the report: New Orleans; Cleveland; Newark, N.J.; El Paso, Texas; Lowell, Mass.; ...

Socio-biology and fascism ... (Lewontin article follows ...) How Science is Perverted to Build Fascism: A Marxist Critique of E.O. Wilson's Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge. By Steve Rosenthal For twenty-five years Harvard biologist Edward O. Wilson has put forward the idea that it is human nature to be fascist. In his latest book Consilience (an archaic word that means combining), Wilson insists that sociobiology must be imposed on all academic disciplines. E.O. Wilson is a Harvard professor emeritus of entomology, the study of insects. In the 1970s he updated the old social Darwinist ideology that human societies are ...

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 why you've probably heard ...

The Jimmy Carter-Jerry ("bumped head, one-term") Ford commission calls for combining election day with Veterans Day - - a joint holiday that will make it easier for Democrats who otherwise can't be bothered to go to the polls. My counter-suggestion: Yes, make election day a holiday if you must, but put it on TAX DAY - rather than the farther day away from April 15, as is currently the case. AS they go to the polls, let people be thinking about what government costs them - and which politicians want to raise the cost, and which ones want to lower ...

BATAVIA, IL--President Bush met with members of the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory research team Monday to discuss a mathematical error he recently discovered in the famed laboratory's "Improved Determination Of Tau Lepton Paths From Inclusive Semileptonic B-Meson Decays" report. Above: Bush shows Fermilab scientists where they went wrong in their calculations. "I'm somewhat out of my depth here," said Bush, a longtime Fermilab follower who describes himself as "something of an armchair physicist." "But it seems to me that, when reducing the perturbative uncertainty in the determination of Vub from semileptonic Beta decays, one must calculate the rate of ...

State is ranked 19th on soft money list Parties got $9 million last cycle, study says 07/31/01By Martha Carr East Jefferson bureau/The Times-Picayune Louisiana ranked 19th in the amount of "soft money" contributed to political parties during the 2000 election cycle, according to initial findings of a landmark investigation into soft money contributions at the state level. Contributions to Louisiana political party committees, including those of the Republican and Democratic parties, totaled $9,449,103, according to "State Secrets," a joint project of the Center for Public Integrity and the Center for Responsive Politics, both in Washington, and the National Institute ...

 NEWARK, New Jersey -- A federal judge hearing a case that could set limits on government surveillance techniques has criticized the Justice Department for refusing to reveal how its technology worked. During a hearing Monday, U.S. District Judge Nicholas Politan said he wasn't sure whether he could accept the Justice Department's repeated assurances that its spy technology does not violate Americans' privacy rights. "Must the court itself accept the bare-faced representation as opposed to having a hearing?" Politan asked. The government has charged Nicodemo S. Scarfo, the son of Philadelphia's former mob boss, with masterminding a mob-linked loan-sharking operation in ...

Iraqi Paper Condemns Rice for Remarks on Iraq BAGHDAD (Reuters) - An Iraqi newspaper branded U.S. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) ``the mad woman of the White House'' on Tuesday for saying the United States would use military force against President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s government. ``The world has listened to the remarks of the American National Security Adviser on Iraq which can only be understood as preparation for new military aggression against Iraq,'' Babel, owned by Saddam's eldest son Uday, said. ``The mad woman of the White House has gone even further, telling ...

In what has been mis reported by everone but Fox News, Zogby's internal numbers show GWB at an amazing 81% positive rating showing Fair, Good and Execellent totally 81%.In an effort to mislead voters, the reports added fair, (a positive) and POOR a negative.The DNC must have gone ballistic.

Today is day three of the Petition Online signing, with well over 600 having endorsed the petition so far.With a goal of 20,000 signatures, early indications are that this may well be exceeded, with 62 days remaining. A self-imposed deadline of Oct. 1, 2001, will allow the petition to be presented prior to or during the final session of congress before the end of the year, thereby giving the repeal time to effectively be implimented before the midterm elections of 2002.While the text of the article is simple "The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 is Repealed.", it will take ...

Cooksey raises $450,000 for U.S. Senate campaign The Associated Press 7/31/01 5:44 PM BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) -- Congressman John Cooksey has $450,000 for his U.S. Senate bid, his campaign office said Tuesday. Cooksey, R-Monroe, raised $400,000 from 1,554 contributors and has another $50,000 in his Congressional account for the 2002 election. Cooksey hopes to unseat Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-New Orleans, who has been targeted for defeat by the National Republican Senatorial Committee. The Congressman hasn't officially announced his intention to run for the Senate, but he has a campaign office, adviser and Web site for the Senate bid. Cooksey ...

Were votes by African-Americans systematically disallowed during the 2000 election? Mary Francis Berry, the chairman of the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, told the press in early June that this indeed occurred. Berry even felt it necessary for the Justice Department to investigate whether the discrimination was intentional. It is hard to think of more inflammatory charges. The Civil Rights Commission's Democrats asserted that statewide, based upon county-level statistical estimates, African-American voters were nearly 10 times more likely than white voters to have their ballots rejected. In addition, African-Americans were said to be erroneously included, at a greater rate than ...

A State Agency With the Power to 'Kidnap With Impunity' For Heidi and Neil Howard, giving birth to a terminally ill baby seemed punishment enough. But that was before the Massachusetts Department of Social Services stepped into their lives. The department came knocking at the door to their home in the form of a "home visitor" sent by the hospital when the Howards' first baby girl was born with terminal health problems. According to the Massachusetts News, the "home visitor" was a social worker who found the home in disorder. The kitchen was in the process of being remodeled. Over ...

Danny Williams still does not know the name of his father. He was told by his mother that his father was the governor of Arkansas. Troopers took Christmas presents to Danny on behalf of the governor of Arkansas. Danny's mother, Bobbi Ann Williams, lived a life that we wish on no one. She was a crack cocaine addict and the only work she thought she could do was as a hooker. Unfortunately, she degraded herself by servicing the governor of Arkansas in the bushes while he was out jogging. She had sex with him in his mother's house and accurately ...

Depending on where you are in your journey of faith, you may or may not understand what apologetics is or what place it should occupy in a believer's life. At its most basic, apologetics is the defense of Christian truth and doctrine. "It's about making a persuasive case for faith based on evidence," explains Norman Geisler, noted apologist and president of Southern Evangelical Seminary. Apologists often take one of two approaches: equipping believers to defend their faith against questions and attacks - or explaining to non-Christians why they should believe. Apologists even vary in how they address non-believers: Are ...