Free Republic

Impasse threatens airport projects Vitter and Landrieu planning to meet 08/03/01By Bruce Alpert Washington bureau/The Times-Picayune WASHINGTON -- Rep. David Vitter, R-Metairie, said Thursday he hopes to meet soon with Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., to try and break an impasse that threatens financing for two Louisiana airport projects. The conflict is over language inserted into separate transportation spending bills, Vitter's in the House version and Landrieu's in the Senate version that passed Thursday. Landrieu's would bar federal assistance for a proposed $5 billion regional airport between New Orleans and Baton Rouge until a plan for the facility is worked ...

Big Brother by John Keller The socialist's dream of constant observation as a means of people control is arriving, albeit 17 years behind Orwellian schedule. Like Will Smith, in "Enemy of the State," the g-men know where we are, and what we are doing at all times. Well, not at all times, just when we're in "public". So far Tampa and Virginia Beach are the only two cities stupid enough to announce what they're actually doing. No doubt some cities with "traffic cameras" propped up all over the place have designs or have already linked similar software to track specific ...

Teamsters Turned Tide On Vote For Drilling By LIZ HALLORAN The Hartford Courant August 03, 2001 WASHINGTON - Her voice, a bit raspy and cracking, betrayed her exhaustion, but her words were sharp and straight to the point. "The Teamsters cost us the victory,'' Connecticut Rep. Nancy L. Johnson, R-6th District, said late Thursday afternoon, less than a day after the House approved a GOP energy plan that would open up 2,000 acres of the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil and gas drilling. Johnson had led a cadre of moderate House Republicans who bucked their party and President Bush ...

Substance abusers have a problem the rest of us should be penalized for. That seems to be the liberal view, anyway.  Last Sunday's New York Times Magazine featured a cover story about OxyContin, a wonder drug for chronic pain caused by cancer, other diseases and injuries.  Despite the medication's controlled distribution, some rural-area drug abusers discovered they could get high by crushing OxyContin pills — thereby thwarting the time-release mechanism — and then snorting the powder. The discovery sparked a wave of abuse of illegally obtained OxyContin.  Unverified media reports of deaths attributed to OxyContin abuse surfaced, leading to a new ...

Patients' rights bill ‘circumvents' state laws, critics say But supporters call benefits substantial 08/03/01By Bruce Alpert Washington bureau/The Times-Picayune WASHINGTON -- Opponents of a compromise patients' bill of rights law said Thursday the legislation could preempt laws in Louisiana and nine other states that let injured patients sue HMOs in state courts. But supporters said the opponents are ignoring the significant improvements in patients rights provided in the bill worked out between President Bush and Rep. Charles Norwood, R-Ga. Besides, Rep. John Cooksey, R-Monroe, said, the law that would be overturned by the legislation, adopted by the House on ...

ACCORDING to murkily defined ''administration sources,'' President Bush was about to shout ollie-ollie-ox-in-free to 3 million illegal Mexican immigrants. Bright move: Pat Buchanan, who was packed in Cosmoline and buried after the last election, surfaced to attack Bush from the right. The Democrats hit from the left, wondering why Bush would roll out the carpet for Mexicans but stiff-arm Poles, Ukes, Croats, Aleuts, et al. Moderates wondered why illegals got to cut in front of people who actually bothered to apply for citizenship. Everyone, whatever their political stripes, could only stare agog at this buck-naked vote-buying on display. Let no ...

… A Conservative Case Against Star Wars By Robert Locke Democratic control of the Senate has apparently placed Star Wars in jeopardy, but this may be a blessing in disguise, as there are good reasons for conservatives to doubt whether it is a good idea in the first place.  continue...

IBM joins push to construct next-generation internet By Clive Cookson, Science Editor Published: August 1 2001 19:55GMT | Last Updated: August 2 2001 09:58GMT The movement to build a new-generation internet through a global computer "grid" will receive a big boost on Thursday when International Business Machines, the world's largest computing company, commits itself to the new technology. The grid will be millions of times more powerful than the internet and far easier to use. Its name is based on an analogy with an electrical grid but instead of electricity it will supply immense computing power on tap. So ...

KASHGAR, China -- The old man took off his skullcap in amazement and scratched his shaved pate, while his two grandchildren shrieked at every tank and helicopter gunship that sent the desert dust billowing high. The red flag of an armed Chinese soldier had stopped their donkey cart on the Kashgar road, as a war was under way just behind him. China's People's Liberation Army yesterday began one of the largest ever war games exercises in the country's restive northwest frontier province of Xinjiang, home to at least 8 million Muslim Uighurs, many of whom chafe at the rule by ...

THERE are those who criticize President George W. Bush's strategy of getting a larger market share of Hispanic support and votes. They do so by attempting to confuse the issues by suggesting that they don't see enough potential voters for Bush to appeal to -- to make a difference. They are wrong. Other critics suggest that the largest Hispanic group, those of Mexican origin, don't care to vote Republican or to be Republicans, especially, these critics try to point out, because they are recent immigrants from southern Mexico. They are wrong. Then, there are those who criticize the president's moves ...

Police Seek Fugitive Family After Reported Kidnapping Girls Taken From State Worker At Gunpoint GRANTS PASS, Ore., 9:46 p.m. PDT August 2, 2001 -- Oregon State Police are searching for three girls, allegedly kidnapped at gunpoint by their parents. Police: Parents Are Armed, Dangerous Brian and Ruth Christine lost custody of their daughters, ages 3, 4 and 6, for alleged neglect. The Christines were on a state-supervised visit with their children on Wednesday at the Grants Pass Services to Children and Families branch office. After the visit, a SCF worker took the children to an undisclosed location. When the worker ...

THE Constitution allows the seizure of private property by government for "public use" so long as "just compensation" is given. But cities all over the country are transferring their power to seize land to private corporations that then use it to promote "economic development." A Connecticut trial now underway is shining some needed light on the growing number of eminent domain abuses. Seven residents of New London, Conn. are suing to block the seizure and destruction of their homes to make way for a private real-estate development designed to take advantage of Pfizer Corp.'s adjacent new global research headquarters. ...

The heart of the wise inclines to the right, but the heart of the fool to the left. Ecclesiastes 10:2 Party at Howlin's ALL PREVIOUS THREADS PROJECT DAFFODIL-Updated Summary 7-25-01 In light of the Daffodil Principle where individual efforts over time add up to a mammoth contribution, we use this lesson as we seek to promote conservatism, the Republican Party and the administration of George Bush. Here is the link to the article if you are interested. THE DAFFODIL PRINCIPLE List of suggested projects: Volunteer/Get Involved in Republican Party, in individual campaigns Join GOP groups-Republican Business Women's Assn, become ...

Foes of gun ownership perpetuate many myths Gregory Kane -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Originally published Jul 29, 2001 QUICKLY now, who said it? "The great object is that every man be armed. ... Everyone who is able may have a gun." Most Americans of the liberal/left persuasion, the ones who believe guns are evil, might think it's Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association. These days, lefty anti-gun nuts think of Heston as something akin to the Antichrist. They revile the NRA with a passion previously reserved for the Ku Klux Klan and Nazis. So Heston, of course, would be their ...

Post Oval Office Trash Disorder By Micheal Frank You know you have Post Oval Office Trash Disorder when... 1) You fondly remember those days when a woman's place was between you and the Oval Office floor. 2) Whenever you hear the word genitalia, you wish you could have found an Italian woman by that name to appoint as your ambassador to the Vatican. 3) You think the Constitution was an unfortunate attempt at reasoning. 4) You can't decide whether to entitle your autobiography, "I Fought the Law and the Law Lost" or "What's Law Got to Do With It?" 5) ...

An Aiken man remains hospitalized in serious condition with life-threatening injuries after an early morning home invasion in Nicholson Village. Investigators with the Aiken County Sheriff's Office are looking into a shooting incident that occurred shortly after 2 a.m. today at a residence on the 100 block of Vista Drive, according to Sgt. George Burgess, a spokesperson with the sheriff's office. Authorities said Reginald Dwayne Wheeler, 32, went to the home of Conita Sims, 32, of Vista Drive and demanded entrance into the home. Wheeler reportedly lived with Sims prior to the incident. Investigators said the knob to a door ...

>Barr's a floater until Legislature draws new congressional lines Mary Lou Pickel - Staff Friday, August 3, 2001 U.S. Rep. Bob Barr is something of a squatter nowadays. He sold his four-bedroom Cobb County home in February. And he often sleeps on his office couch in Washington. Barr's waiting for the Georgia General Assembly to redraw boundaries of U.S. congressional districts this month before he moves from his rented Vinings townhouse. The outspoken Republican says he's been targeted by the Democratic-controlled state Legislature. Politicians of either party aren't above drawing lines just shy of a political enemy's street to put ...

Ahh.... summer. Cold Heinekens, warm evenings and a virtual halt to news. I should strike that and say 'little' news. I am ashamed to say I care little about the Levy case. I feel for her family and all that good schmaltz, but, honestly, this just seems like Clinton II to me. The one thing I can say about Clinton is that he virtually dulled my sense of political outrage. Scandal now bores me. So minus Condit, I am alone with my thoughts. I could use this time productively and rewrite the verses to Billy Joel's We Didn't Start the ...