Free Republic

WASHINGTON -- Chased by reporters the past three months, Ceres Rep. Gary Condit starts the congressional recess Friday with at least three other groups waiting to hear from him: his family, his constituents and the distraught family of missing Modesto woman Chandra Levy. So far, he is not scheduled for public meetings, although his lawyer and chief of staff said that could happen. Nor is he scheduled to meet with the Levys, a family member said. "I think he needs to talk to our family … and to answer all our questions," Chandra Levy's aunt, Linda Zamsky, said Wednesday. "His ...

In an earlier thread and in private email, I asked MAW some questions. IRT the ref below, post 170. Below are the answers MAW supplied me. Re: Bush Calls Scout Values 'America's Values' did go to the source. I told you folks what the source said, and I was called a liar. So I asked people to explain to me how it was that I was a liar. So if that's a waste of time, why did you even bother with me? I must of missed this. If it was me, and I went to a couple sources such as ...

Russia's Alternative to Dollar Elena Kiseleva The Chervonets, the replica of gold coins that circulated in Russia in the 1920s, has made a historic comeback after the Bank of Russia put them in circulation on Tuesday. The Chervontsi that have cluttered the shelves of the Bank of Russia's depository since the 1980 Moscow Olympics have been declared to be a legitimate payment means on the territory of Russia together with coins issued after January 1, 1998. As a result, Russia has got a new financial instrument that may soon become a serious alternative to the U.S dollar. Kommersant reports that ...

Former Washington, D.C., U.S. attorney Joseph DiGenova confirmed details Thursday morning of former Clinton girlfriend Monica Lewinsky's physical assault late last year on his wife and law partner, Victoria Toensing. In an appearance on the "Imus in the Morning" program, the former federal prosecutor says the irate ex-White House intern "whacked" his wife with a shopping bag as she boarded a train in New York. IMUS: The big story initially was this confrontation between Miss Toensing and Monica Lewinsky. What do you know about that? DIGENOVA: Well, Victoria was up in New York. The election had not been decided yet. ...

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexico will shut its border to U.S. truckers if Washington does not grant Mexican trucks greater access to U.S. highways, President Vicente Fox said on Thursday. Weighing in on the trucking controversy between the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) partners, Fox said efforts in the U.S. Congress to hinder Mexican access will lead to U.S. truckers being kept north of the Rio Grande. "If there continues to be resistance and there is no agreement, it will simply mean Mexican trucks will not go over there because they are not permitted or wanted," Fox told a ...

Clinton, other lawmakers push to name building after Robert Kennedy By Associated Press, 8/2/2001 14:15 WASHINGTON (AP) Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and other lawmakers want to rename the Justice Department building after former New York Sen. Robert F. Kennedy. Reps. Tim Roemer, D-Ind., and Joe Scarborough, R-Fla., planned to introduce the measure in the House on Thursday. Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., and Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, were expected to introduce similar legislation in the Senate. The bill would name the department's national headquarters in Washington after Kennedy, who was attorney general from 1960 to 1964, while his brother, ...

WASHINGTON -- Rep. Gary Condit gets some of the finest legal advice money can buy, but it still is unclear how he is paying for it. The Ceres Democrat's new campaign statements show no payments to the two attorneys who have represented him in the case of missing Modesto woman Chandra Levy. The statements likewise show no payments to others working on his behalf in the Levy case, including his Washington public relations expert. Condit reported raising $185,877 in the first six months of the year, most of it before Levy's disappearance became public in May. During the last ...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI on Thursday discounted an anonymous tip to an Internet site alleging that Chandra Levy's body was buried under a parking lot near a Virginia military base 130 miles south of Washington. The FBI investigated the tip that alleged the missing intern was buried near Fort Lee, an Army training base south of Richmond, said Mary Johlie, an FBI spokeswoman in Richmond. "The FBI, in concert with Fort Lee officials, have determined that there is no site on or around the Fort Lee military base that corresponds with information provided in the anonymous tip," Johlie said ...

WASHINGTON — Civil conflict in Macedonia has prompted the Pentagon to move all nonessential military and civilian personnel from Camp Able Sentry in Macedonia to Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo, Pentagon spokesman Rear Adm. Craig R. Quigley said Tuesday. So far, 109 uniformed and civilian personnel have been transferred from Able Sentry to Bondsteel, with another 100 individuals scheduled to move by the end of the week, Quigley said. “It’s being done for force-protection reasons,” Quigley said. “The commanders on the ground felt that they could reduce their posture by removing to Kosovo all nonessential, nonemergency personnel.” The soldiers, contractors and ...

Israel-solidarity assembly tonight in Copenhagen An assembly to express solidarity with Israel is planned for this evening in Copenhagen. It comes in response to anti-Israel sentiments in the Danish media in recent weeks sparked by the appointment of former General Security Service head Carmi Gillon as ambassador to Denmark. The demonstration is to take place in the city's largest square, Israel Square, and is being sponsored by Christian parties and supporters of Israel, Israel Radio reported.

San Bernedino County, CA county officials are undermining a federal desert protection pact- even inciting vigilante violence. The EnviroNatzis compare the Sheriff to McVeigh. The judge will get them for contempt. Click on Source for this LaLa Times article.

The August 2001 issue of Scientific American has an interesting article ("Go Forth and Replicate", by M. Sipper and J. A. Reggia) on machine replication. (Unfortunately, it is not available online). The article describes attempts to develop a general understanding of self-replicating systems, with its roots in the work of John von Neumann, Stanislaw Ulam, and others. The article covers research into cellular automata simulations before moving on to describe more recent work by the authors and others that often employ evolutionary methods, including self-replicating systems that do not include an explicit self-description. They also mention the pioneering 1980 NASA ...

The dimmest Kennedys Yesterday's news that William Kennedy Smith -- best known for his 1991 acquittal on rape charges -- has decided he won't run for Congress in the near future brings to mind a recent debate in The Scrapbook section of The Weekly Standard: Ever since the New Republic labelled Joe Kennedy, the now-retired Massachusetts congressman, "the Dumbest Kennedy," family-watchers have fiercely debated: Can this possibly be fair? After all, competition for that distinction is stiff. Indeed, The Scrapbook has always been partial to representative Patrick Kennedy, trasher of yachts, mauler of airport security guards, son of Teddy ...

Disappearing Christians The begins its eighth year with its first issue devoted to a single topic-that of disappearing Christians in the Middle East. The transfer of power of Bethlehem from Israel to the Palestinian Authority just before Christmas 1995 inspired a spate of articles on Bethlehem's diminishing Christian presence. They noted that a place not long ago 80 percent Christian is now but one-third Christian. For the first time in nearly two millennia, the most identifiably Christian town on earth has lost its Christian majority. The same changes have taken place in two other famously Christian towns, Nazareth and Jerusalem. ...

We Have a Small Problem & It’s Green by Ed Cobb There are mean-spirited people out there. People with agendas. You know the type: low down, dirty special interests. And they don’t care.about the children. You are stirred to action, right? I can feel it through the broadband. What can we do, you ask? How can we protect.the children? What unfeeling special interest is mounting this heinous, mean-spirited attack? Are the Republicans refusing to give the little ones free Ritalin? Is some conservative objecting to mandatory government pre-school beginning at viability? Is the Christian right threatening to withhold condoms ...

House Republicans push toward quick vote on patients' rights after agreement with Bush By Associated Press, 8/2/2001 14:16 - By DAVID ESPO AP Special Correspondent WASHINGTON (AP) President Bush and congressional Republicans celebrated their freshly minted compromise on patients' rights legislation on Thursday as GOP leaders eagerly steered the bill toward a quick vote in the House. ''Get it done,'' Bush encouraged fellow Republicans as he joined Vice President Dick Cheney and the GOP rank-and-file in the Capitol. Democrats vigorously attacked the bill as failing to offer patients enough leeway to sue HMOs and win monetary damages to enforce the ...

Submit your nominations for the 2001 "Gimme" Awards You've heard of the Emmy Award for outstanding television. I would like to present yet another award..... The "Gimme" Award This award will be limited to those engaging in any activity that could potentially result in the further erosion of our individual liberties. It could be given to incumbent politicians, candidates running for office, political or social activists, political parties, non- and for-profit organizations, etc. Please submit one nomination per category, and try to limit your nomination to someone/something that made headlines this past year. Also include a sentence stating the reason ...

State energy official's stocks draw fire Commission chairman denies knowing of holdings in power companies. August 2, 2001 The Associated Press SACRAMENTO -- The chairman of the California Energy Commission held up to $510,000 of stock in several energy companies that had business before the agency, yet continued to vote despite a potential conflict of interest. William Keese is the latest prominent player in California's energy crisis found to have financial holdings that could create ethical conflicts while deciding how to spend taxpayer money. Public records show Keese's financial advisers traded shares of U.S. and European energy companies at ...

THURSDAY AUGUST 02 2001 Russia's bargain supercomputer The Times (London) FROM GILES WHITTELL IN MOSCOW RUSSIAN scientists have defeated an American embargo on exporting supercomputers by building a machine of their own that could be used to model nuclear explosions. In theory it would enable new nuclear powers to develop weapons in secret without testing them. The £7 million MVS 1000M computer, whose designers say it is the most powerful in Europe, is capable of performing a trillion (1,000 billion) calculations per second and is said to have cost the Government a tenth as much to build as similar computers ...

Is Dan Rather a racist? Article examines the hullaballoo surrounding CBS-TV national newsanchorman Dan Rather's use of the term "the buckwheats," to describe his bosses' fear that he would appear on the national radio talk show, Imus in the Morning, without having first forced him to do a segment on the Chandra Levy story, which he had for the eleven previous weeks refused to do. Article quotes at length demands from civil rights leaders the Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson (B.O.N.D.) and Kevin Martin (Project 21), and the Rev. Jerry Falwell, demanding that Rather apologize, or be fired by CBS, for ...