Free Republic

Investigators find severe computer security holes at Commerce Department By D. Ian Hopper, Associated Press, 8/2/2001 17:48 WASHINGTON (AP) The Commerce Department's computer networks, which contain some of America's most valuable business secrets, have security holes easily accessible to Internet criminals, federal investigators say. Senior department officials are scheduled to face lawmakers about the problems on Friday. A report, prepared by the General Accounting Office and obtained by The Associated Press, states that the department as a whole was put at risk by the security holes. ''Individuals, both within and outside Commerce, could gain unauthorized access to these systems and ...

Palestinians sentence collaborator to death Associated Press JERUSALEM -- In the courtroom, Palestinian judges sentenced four Palestinian men to death this week for helping Israel's army carry out lethal attacks, including a 50-year-old convicted today in a case lasting just 90 minutes. And on the streets, three Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel have been gunned down in recent days, and a militant Palestinian group promised more shootings were on the way. The recent Israeli military raids, such as Tuesday's helicopter assault that killed eight Palestinians -- including two top leaders of the militant Hamas group -- have angered many ...

Stop Buggle-ing Us!Buggles Half Gets Sub-Star Treatment at MTV Bash By Vinny Marino Aug. 2 — So, MTV had its big 20th anniversary party Wednesday night, but not everyone had a good time. As late as 4 p.m., Geoff Downes — one half of The Buggles, the group that wrote and performed "Video Killed The Radio Star," the first video ever played on MTV, 20 years ago — did NOT have tickets to MTV's party. MTV's entire campaign for the anniversary gig was based around that first video, but the guy that wrote the song couldn't get tickets to the ...

August 2, 2001 Maryland trooper regains status By Margie Hyslop THE WASHINGTON TIMES Maryland State Police yesterday reinstated Sgt. Michael R. White's police powers — an authority the department took away 4-1/2 years ago when he was charged with mail fraud. A federal jury found Sgt. White not guilty on Dec. 17, 1999, after hearing weeks of testimony about whether he conducted secret salvage inspections for a business that sold cars rebuilt with stolen parts. State Police officials reinstated Sgt. White yesterday within hours of a Charles County Circuit Court judge's ruling ordering the department to stop administrative proceedings against ...

.....Billy Jack was groundbreaking for another reason—one which had nothing to do with martial arts. It was in marketing. Believe it or not, Billy Jack was the FIRST movie to use television as a method to mass market itself via commercials. Amazingly, this idea had not been tried before Billy Jack. You would figure that some producer who hung out at showbiz delis, reading Daily Variety on a regular basis, and shmoozing with fellow producers would have come up with this marketing idea which seems so obvious today. Instead it was some karate chopping guy wearing a dopey black hat ...

The United Nations is attempting to resolve another Middle Eastern conflict revolving around a disputed piece of territory, the result of colonial politics and involving local separatism. The Spanish colony of the Sahara was turned over to Morocco in 1975, but the independence of the region is claimed by the Algerian-backed, separatist Polisario movement. Morocco’s King Mohammed VI, speaking on the second anniversary of his ascension to the throne on Monday, said that the solution to the Sahara issue must not compromise the Kingdom’s sovereignty, national unity or territorial integrity. While making it clear that a Polisarian state is not ...

A Palestinian "court" in Shechem handed down the death penalty today to three Arabs accused of providing information to Israel which facilitated its Tuesday strike against the Hamas headquarters. The trial lasted ten minutes. The three were arrested yesterday, and PA Prosecutor-General Khaled El-Kidwa says that a week of such arrests and trials will follow. Several hours later, a fourth man, 52, was sentenced to death for the same offence. Former MK Atty. Elyakim HaEtzni commented on the PA's judicial proceedings: “An enraged mob broke into the Shechem jail and threatened, ‘We’ll kill them on our own if you won't ...

The IDF has temporarily lifted the curfew over Hebron's Palestinian neighborhoods in order to allow residents time to purchase food and basic supplies. The curfew has been lifted until 1 p.m. Palestinians in Israeli-controlled sections of Hebron, known as H2, have been under periodic curfew since the outbreak of violence last October. About 700 Israeli Jews and 20,000 Palestinians live in central Hebron. Between 6,000 to 7,000 Jews live in Hebron and adjacent Kiryat Arba, and 80,000 to 110,000 Palestinians live in both Israeli and Palestinian Authority-controlled sections of the city.

Washington, D.C. black activist Kevin Martin and Los Angeles civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson called for a nationwide boycott of CBS News on Wednesday, over an alleged racial slur uttered last month by "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather. "We are calling on all groups to join myself and Rev. Peterson in a boycott of CBS News and Dan Rather," Martin told NewsMax.com Wednesday. As part of the Rather boycott, Martin said black colleges should not grant CBS News any interviews, but added, "We're calling on all groups not to grant CBS any type of interviews until such ...

A lot of jaws dropped on hearing word that a major tobacco company had commissioned a study touting early death as a benefit of smoking. Mine was not one of them. It's outrageous that Philip Morris Co. would suggest that the premature deaths of smokers is desirable because it's good for the Czech Republic's bottom line. It's a stunning display of hypocrisy from an industry that has for so long denied the obvious fact that its product kills. But it's not really new. I first heard the notion that tobacco does society a favor by killing people before they hit ...

KEVIN GERMAN / THE SEATTLE TIMES This colt owned by rancher Joel Kretz may not survive its recent mauling by a cougar. WAUCONDA, Okanogan County — Evening cloaks the hills and tinges clouds over the distant Cascades pink, just as Maggie, Joel Kretz's best cougar hound, catches the scent of a cougar. She hits the ground running as Kretz lets her loose with a younger hound, Tina, right on her heels. Tina is eager for the hunt despite a gaping flesh wound in her chest that may have been made by a cougar's claws. The dogs tear into the ...

Jewish residents of Hebron have taken over an abandoned Palestinian building near the Tel Rumeida Jewish neighborhood. They told Army Radio that since the mobile homes they live in are not safe against terrorist sniper attacks, they decided to move to a solid structure. They said they will stay there until permanent housing is built for them and the IDF takes over the hills from which snipers are firing at them.

Harare - White farmers, most facing confiscation of their land and violence from ruling party militants, estimated on Thursday that their overall production of food and tobacco will fall by more than 25 percent this year. The Commercial Farmers Union, representing about four thousand white farmers, said its members' harvests of corn, the staple food, would slump by about 25 percent from 510 000 tons last year to about 384 000 tons. In the large scale commercial farming sector "every aspect of production is affected by the current lawlessness on farms and the orchestrated violence," said the union's deputy director Jerry Grant. ...

Johannesburg - A South African judge's court order prohibiting smoking near a one-year-old child, has had international exposure and a World Health Organisation (WHO) request for a court transcript. The newspaper Beeld reported over Judge-President W Steenkamp's finding ten day ago in the Northern Cape High Court. Steenkamp, for the first time in South Africa - and it now appears world-wide - forbade the boy's parents, family and friends from smoking in a room or car where the child is present. Greer van Zyl who is a member of the health section of the South African branch of the WHO ...

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The scene of a fiery meteor streaking across the daytime skies of the northeastern United States this summer gave a once-in-a-lifetime thrill to those lucky enough to witness it. But one day, scientists warn, a similar celestial display over a highly populated region of Earth could be a harbinger of death and devastation for millions on the ground, if the meteor happens to be an asteroid as small as 99 feet in diameter. ``It would destroy a city just like a nuclear bomb would, but for a lack of radiation,'' said Jim Scotti, a planetary scientist ...

The House voted by a wide margin to ban cloning, not only for reproduction but also for medical research. WASHINGTON, July 31 After an impassioned debate that pitted the promise of cures for disease against the horror of making babies that are genetic replicas of adults, the House of Representatives voted by a wide margin today to ban cloning, not only for reproduction but also for medical research. The bipartisan 265-to-162 vote came after lawmakers ... ... Therapeutic cloning is legal in Britain. The far-reaching bill the House adopted, which is backed by President Bush, would not only prohibit it, ...

The Al Ahram Weekly has reported on the sporadic warfare that has erupted between forces loyal to the Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Yasser Arafat and those opposing him. On Saturday, the PA sent an armed force to arrest rebel Fatah members and to order the dissolution of the grassroots Popular Resistance Committee militias, composed of members of Fatah, Hamas and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine. More ominously for local opposition groups, Hamas activists were, according to their leadership, targeted by Palestinian policemen, who shot and wounded three of them as they returned from a Saturday night attack ...

Washington, D.C. black activist Kevin Martin and Los Angeles civil rights leader Rev. Jesse Lee Peterson called for a nationwide boycott of CBS News on Wednesday, over an alleged racial slur uttered last month by "CBS Evening News" anchorman Dan Rather. "We are calling on all groups to join myself and Rev. Peterson in a boycott of CBS News and Dan Rather," Martin told NewsMax.com Wednesday. As part of the Rather boycott, Martin said black colleges should not grant CBS News any interviews, but added, "We're calling on all groups not to grant CBS any type of interviews until such ...

The President The White House Washington, DC 20500Dear Mr. President:In recent months, the United States has backed out of efforts by the world community to fight global warming, opposed international negotiations to curb the production of biological weapons, and announced its intention to abrogate the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Now it appears that the United States is also seeking to undermine world efforts to negotiate an international agreement to reduce tobacco use.Specifically, I have obtained previously unreleased minutes and other documents from the second negotiating session of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), sponsored by the World Health Organization. This ...

Should the United States drill for oil in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge?