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Love Letters: The Correspondence of Andrew Lack and the Honorable Henry Waxman A cordial exchange over what General Electric chairman Jack Welch was doing at NBC News on Election Night gets more heated. by Robert Schmidt Friday, August 03, 2001 These two guys couldn't be more polite. But it was never going to last. On one side stands Andrew Lack, president and chief operating officer of NBC. On the other, U.S. Rep. Henry Waxman, a tenacious California Democrat who isn't afraid of taking on large corporations or the media. At issue are one or two videotapes made by NBC's promotions ...

Vandals have knocked off the head of a marble Christopher Columbus statue at Junipero Serra Hall near the Mission. A motorist noticed the damaged statue about 11 a.m. Thursday. Authorities don't know when the vandalism occurred, however, it was this week 509 years ago that Columbus set sail with the Ni–a, Pinta and Santa Maria on his first trans-Atlantic voyage. While Columbus is hailed as a courageous explorer who discovered America, he is criticized by some who see him as a symbol of the eventual European exploitation of indigenous peoples. Those responsible for the vandalism spray-painted various symbols and ...

Sometimes people do good things, anonymously and with no expectation of reward. Several weeks ago, my beautiful wife discovered her wallet missing after a long trip. We knew we had it in the airport, but didn't make it home with it. Today she received it back in the mail with every penny of cash in it. The postage took 11 stamps - the sender didn't even borrow money for postage. No return address - just a postmark indicating our home town. Please join us in thanking the anonymous fellow citizen who did the right thing - while no one was ...

MILITARY TIES: In a move that could end yearly arms negotiations with Taiwan, the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has given its approval to a new policy that would allow future talks on a case-by-case basis The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday approved a bill that would appear to recognize the George W. Bush administration's plan to replace annual spring arms-sales talks with Taiwan military officials with a year-round series of discussions on specific arms requests. But the bill also eliminated a number of provisions in parallel legislation in the House of Repr-esentatives -- setting the stage for what ...

"Hey, white boy, whatcha doin' uptown?" asked knowing onlookers in the Velvet Underground's ode to scoring in Harlem, "Waiting for My Man." New Orleans police have been equally suspicious of white people in majority black neighborhoods, and now they stand accused of practicing reverse racial profiling. Karen Vingle was white and driving a new Mustang through New Orleans' predominantly black Pigeon Town area when she was pulled over -- for being white and driving a new Mustang in the neighborhood, her lawyer told the Associated Press this week. After police detained Vingle on September 23, 1999, they spotted a syringe ...

TORRANCE, California - The Rev. Jesse Jackson has recently threatened car maker Toyota, for what he calls a racist ad, stereotypically depicting an African American male, having a recent trend known as "tooth art". Jackson was protesting near the carmaker's headquarters, on Thursday, May 24th. The Associated Press describes the ad: "The ad was placed on free postcards and distributed in nightclubs and coffeehouses. The card, which Toyota discontinued May 14, shows a close-up of a dark-skinned man's mouth with an image of a gold RAV4 on one tooth. "The only thing missing is the watermelon," Jackson said after meeting ...

Prepare yourself for an adventure like you have never before experienced. In an unprecedented event... LIVE via webcam access... you can watch me amputate my legs with a homemade guillotine on September 19th! Yes, you read that correctly. Now you may be wondering what kind of demented website you have found. People read the words AMPUTATE and GUILLOTINE and automatically freak. What I am doing may be a little untraditional but that doesn't mean this is some kind of freak show. I just want to run again. How would you like to be there in person to see me amputate ...

Despite warnings given in two detailed memorandums from Mountain States Legal Foundation (and joined by the Center for Equal Opportunity, Landmark Legal Foundation, The Institute for Justice, Northwest Legal Foundation, the American Civil Rights Union, and the National Legal and Policy Center), the Bush Administration today appeared as scheduled at a UN hearing in Geneva regarding the United States' compliance with the International Covenant on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (ICERD). The hearing is based primarily on a characteristically flawed compliance report filed by the Clinton Administration as it prepared to leave office. The Clinton Report suffers ...

Pain Wars I: Utah Pain Doctor Gets Conviction Overturned, Still Facing Legal Hurdles and Career Ruin "The state's main witness, Dr. Brad Hare, is an anesthesiologist who does do some pain work, but is opiophobic," said Weitzel. "But Hare told the prosecutors that if they wanted a real expert on end-of-life pain management, they should go see Dr. Perry Fine at the University of Utah. The prosecutors talked to Fine, he told them they didn't have a case, and they suppressed it. That was potentially exculpatory evidence that the state should have provided to the defense," Weitzel explained. "They did ...

Conservatives Have Scarier Dreams Liberals dream of the bizarre and fanciful, says study By Randy Dotinga HealthScoutNews Reporter THURSDAY, July 26 (HealthScoutNews) -- To sleep, perchance to have nightmares. That may be your lot in life if you're a conservative Republican, while your liberal Democrat friends enjoy nightly flights of fancy. A California researcher says his study suggests that your political views may predict the trends in your dreams. Kelly Bulkeley, an author and lecturer on dream research at California's Santa Clara University, says, "The people on the right were much more likely to have nightmares than people on the ...

Conservatives Have Scarier Dreams Li

Fox invited to speak before U.S. Congress Leo Flores, The News Staff - 8/3/2001 Ending a 12-year dry spell, the U.S. Congress has extended an invitation to President Vicente Fox to address a joint session on Sept. 6. President Vicente Fox plans to open a three-day U.S. visit on Sept. 5. Speaker Dennis Hastert, of the House of Representatives, on Wednesday presented the official invitation to Mexico's ambassador in Washington, Juan Jose Bremer, government news agency Notimex reported. "Fox's presence will give members of Congress and the U.S. people a clear vision of the emotional changes occurring in Mexico," a ...

True Psychic: Nostrildamus In issue number 3 of Sackcloth and Ashes we introduced our new feature, True Psychic. Unfortunately our seer has been sacked. In this issue we hope to provide a more pleasing pundit of prognostication. Rather than relying on the predictive abilities of truisms, deep thoughts, and conditional statements, the prophet of issue 4, in the spirit of Nostradomus, will rely on fantastic visions which will be interpreted after the fact. Though the predictions themselves may seem far too symbolic and obscure to provide any real predictive value yet we feel that in retrospect we will be able ...

House passes patients' rights George Archibald THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published 8/3/01 The House handed President Bush a big victory last night, voting 218-213 for his compromise on patients' rights legislation. Rep. Charlie Norwood, the Georgia Republican who struck the compromise with Mr. Bush Wednesday, wept in the House well as he pleaded for an affirmative vote and thanked all lawmakers who have worked with him on the issue since 1996. "I've been working five years to get a bill signed into law, not just pass a bill," Mr. Norwood said, adding that lawmakers "are deluding themselves if they think they ...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- There was no wiggle room when Rep. Charlie Norwood reached a gentleman's agreement with President Bush on patients' rights legislation. Within minutes of their Oval Office handshake, the GOP maverick was whisked in front of television cameras to pitch a compromise that would enrage his friends. They were working on a bill Bush had threatened to veto. Norwood had thought to phone them -- but the call was never made. And thus his deal with Bush sealed the promise of a presidential signature. ''It was my call to say no, I need to do this face ...

Cisneros, Etefan to be feted Bush to attend Hispanic gala WASHINGTON— President Bush is to highlight the 24th annual Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute gala where former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros and singer Gloria Estefan are to be honored for community service. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have confirmed their attendance at this year’s gala, a nonpolitical event that raises funds for scholarships and programs that benefit Hispanic youths, said Ingrid Duran, CHCI executive director. The event is to be scheduled at the MCI Center here Sept. 26. Cisneros, the former San Antonio mayor who served as Housing and Urban ...

From a secret source deep within the bowels of the White House, I managed to acquire a complete log of how Scumbag spent his 2,922 days in office = 70,128 hours. 1. SLEEP - 11,688 hours (4 hours per day) 2. SEXUAL LIAISONS WITH WIFE - 2 hours 3. SEXUAL LIAISONS WITH OTHER WOMEN - 4,053 hours (undetermined amount non-consensual) 4. WORK ON FOREIGN POLICY - 128 hours 5. FUNDRAISING - 20,932 hours 6. VISITING SINK - 4,730 hours 7. WORK ON DOMESTIC POLICY - 4,220 hours 8. GOLF - a. 20 hours (non-cheating time) b. 1,888 hours (cheating time) ...

Clarity apparently made his last post to Free Republic on the thread sourced above. 1. Does anyone know why? 2. What is the current status of the 9th Circuit appeal that Clarity was handling, and what (if any) effect will his departure have on this matter?

WASHINGTON, DC -- If the Patients' Bill of Rights legislation passed yesterday by the U.S. House becomes law, Americans will be poorer, sicker, and increasingly under the thumb of politicians, the Libertarian Party predicted today. "The Patients' Bill of Rights is a classic case of what happens when Congress decides to create new rights: Prices will go up, quality will go down, and politicians will get more powerful," said Steve Dasbach, national director of the Libertarian Party. "We understand that Congress wants to reform HMOs, which are unpopular with many Americans. But if there is one thing worse than an ...

Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion. Marcos' gold in Swiss bank in late North Korean leader's name: report Agence France Presse August 1, 2001 Wednesday SEOUL, Aug 1 The late Philippine dictator Ferdinand Marcos has deposited multi-billion-dollar-worth gold bars at a Swiss bank in the name of the late North Korean leader Kim Il-Sung, a report said Wednesday. "It remains uncertain whether Kim Il-Sung received any kickbacks from Marcos or was notified of opening the bank account." The secret bank account was opened at the Union Bank of Switzerland ...