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Ambassadors: Progress on U.N. Language by ALEXANDER G. HIGGINS Associated Press Writer GENEVA (AP) -- More than 100 countries preparing for a U.N. conference against racism have moved toward dropping clauses against Zionism from key documents as demanded by Israel and the United States, ambassadors said Wednesday. In an informal session of delegates chaired by South African Ambassador Sipho George Nene, only Syria held out against an agreement to eliminate the allegation that Zionism equals racism, Israeli Ambassador Yaakov Levy told The Associated Press. ''The chairman expressed the sense of all participants but one that there were no room at ...

Wednesday, August 01, 2001Gray Davis’ Million-Dollar Consultants ‘Invest’ for the FutureBy: Hugh Hewitt, TCS CorrespondentIf you do not know the name Chuck Quackenbush, you can be forgiven. Until June 28, 2000, he was the elected Insurance Commissioner of California. Quackenbush resigned that day, following a series of disclosures concerning his management of claims against insurance companies in the aftermath of the 1994 Northridge earthquake. The Los Angeles Times went after Quackenbush with a fury, as did Democrat-led committees in the Democrat-dominated State Senate and Assembly. The key charge was that Quackenbush entered into self-serving settlements with the companies, the proceeds ...

WEST VIRGINIA -- To keep her 16-year-old grandson safe, Patty Deal of Danville says she had to send him 90 miles from home to live with a gay couple she hardly knew. Patty had raised Justen since he was a baby, and wasn't ready to give him up. He doesn't need to be turned loose at 16, she said. "He's got to have a boss to finish raising him with a hand," she said. Ryan McKenzie and Steve Hayes of Huntington heard that Justen needed a place to live as soon as possible. They'd talked of raising a child someday, ...

Software for Police, Others Stirs Privacy Concerns By Robert O'Harrow Jr. Washington Post August 1, 2001 A company that touts its facial identification system as a powerful new tool for security and crime fighting has received millions of dollars in federal funding to improve its surveillance technology for military and intelligence uses, according to documents and interviews. Visionics Corp. of Jersey City, N.J., specializes in systems that use cameras linked to computers to scan faces and automatically compare them with electronic photographs stored in databases(For the rest of the Washington Post story please click on the link above.)-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Biometrics use ...

The RNA World: A Critique - Origins & Design 17:1. Mills, Gordon and Kenyon, Dean Review Article Origins & Design 17:1 The RNA World: A Critique Gordon C. Mills Department of Human Biological Chemistry and Genetics University of Texas Medical Branch Galveston, TX 77555 Dean Kenyon Department of Biology San Francisco State University 1600 Holloway Avenue San Francisco, CA 94132 Introduction One of the earliest published suggestions that RNA-catalyzed RNA replication preceded and gave rise to the first DNA-based living cells was made by Carl Woese in 1967, in his book The Genetic Code1. Similar suggestions were made by ...

DEAR ABBY: My lover, "Jim," and I are gay and have been together for more than 10 years. Jim is deeply involved with Republican politics. He belongs to several local and state-wide Republican organizations. When Jim and I go out together, sometimes people approach Jim and say, "Hi." They are usually acquaintances he knows from his political activities. Although I stand right next to Jim, he never introduces me. When this first started happening, I would stand there and smile at the person. They'd usually give me a "Why are you listening to a private conversation?" look, so I would ...

Any freepers out there enjoy customizing their vehicles? I only know of a few.

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Fox News rode its 'All Chandra Nearly All the Time' line-up to ratings gold, as its year-to-year July prime time ratings doubled to 0.8 and its HHs increased 136% to 532K. To emphasize the Chandra spike, Fox News saw ratings increases of 40% and 50% the previous 2 months. For total day, the net experienced a 100% rating increase (0.4/274K). Competitor CNN saw its prime time ratings jump 40% (0.7/580K HHs), and total day was up 33% (0.4/294K). MSNBC saw no change in prime time, while total day was up 50% (0.3/195K)-similar to how the net's been performing the ...

WASHINGTON -- President Bush demonstrated anew Tuesday that he is not one to hold grudges. In his first encounter with former President Carter, who lambasted him in an interview last week for a Georgia newspaper, Bush brushed off the criticism even as Carter sought to explain. Read an account of their meeting in the Oval Office yesterday...

Free Republic has a rich history of activism -- we pull together when the going gets rough, and we’re making headway! On behalf of Jim Robinson, who has so kindly consented to authorize this thread for the Breaking News category, I would like to invite you all to take five minutes from your very busy lives and make a phone call, send a fax or write an e-mail -- or do all three. Pertinent phone and fax numbers and e-mail addresses will be listed together at the bottom of this article post. You can call the White House. Ask for ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Military personnel at Fort Lee, Va., were searching the 14-square-mile Army base, following up on a tip that a body was buried in a parking lot under construction there, the FBI said Wednesday. Police and the FBI, which is also involved in the Chandra Levy search, were headed to the scene. By late Wednesday afternoon, the FBI said it could not confirm whether the tip was genuine or -- if it eventually turned out to be genuine -- whether the body could be connected to the Levy case. Fort Lee, a community of about ...

In October, then-Gov. Bush appeared at the thank-you banquet for his campaign staff in Austin, and was going table to table to shake hands with the 1000+ campaign volunteers. He got to one lady, who by a brief comment she made, indicated she was a Christian. She was there with her 16 year old son. Gov. Bush asked him if he was a believer, too. He said he didn't think so. Gov. Bush then asked, "Do you mind if I tell you how I came to know Christ as my Savior?" The boy agreed, and Gov. Bush pulled up a ...

Our daily post of "word for the day" in order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities. Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the "word of the day" in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review thread link will be posted for your edification. ;-) Practice makes perfect.....post on.... keffel; noun 1. A worthless or clumsy person. 2. A worthless old horse.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) said on Wednesday that Israel's attack on a Hamas building in the West Bank city of Nablus was ``too aggressive'' and helped to escalate Middle East violence. In an interview with CNN television, Powell also denied any difference between the State Department and the White House on how to deal with Israeli-Palestinian violence. The State Department deplored on Tuesday the Israeli attack on the building, which killed eight Palestinians including two children and a high-level official of the Islamist group. The Washington Post detected a different response at ...

ISRAEL said it killed six members of the hardline Islamic group Hamas to protect its own people from bomb attacks the men were allegedly planning and to prevent the 10-month Palestinian uprising from transforming into a regional war. Ranaan Gissin, spokesman for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the slain Hamas men were part of a network planning to target "places where young kids are, schools, discos and recreational centres in Jerusalem and its vicinity". The Israeli army strike destroyed the Hamas office in the West Bank town of Nablus, killing two of the movement's senior leaders and four other activists ...

Just happened to catch a little snippet of news yesterday while passing through the airport at MSP. There was a thing on the bottom of the Headline News screen that said: North Carolina: What Was He Thinking? Man busted for reporting the theft of 27 marijuana plants to police. Do any NC FReepers have more to this story?

JERUSALEM (August 1) - Security forces are maintaining a high state of alert around the country, as warnings of plans by terrorists to carry out attacks unprecedented in size and scope - and not necessarily in Jerusalem - have been received by the security establishment. Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Shaul Mofaz warned that the Palestinian Authority is preparing for a lengthy conflict, stockpiling weapons and coordinating with the various Islamic groups and Palestinian security services in a unified effort to escalate violence in the region. In the capital, several hundred policemen, border policemen, and soldiers were deployed in ...