Free Republic

The dispute over whether to release water from Klamath Lake for use on farms in the region, or to reserve it for the sake of several species of fish, is fertile ground for recalling several points of practical principle crucial to the prosperity of a free people. Above all, the stand-off should direct our attention to the question of what kind of decisions government is competent to make, and what kind of decisions a free people must make for themselves – and how they must make them. Fred Smith, President of the Competitive Enterprise Institute, has written a brief ...

Saturday, August 04, 2001Tax protester denied rehearing on seizureBy DAVID BROOKS, Telegraph Staffbrooksd@telegraph-nh.com MILFORD – Tax protester Andrew Tempelman has lost another round in his legal battle against the IRS, which wants to seize his home and restaurant for back taxes, leaving only the U.S. Supreme Court to hear the case.A three-judge panel on the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals in Boston ruled Wednesday it would not reconsider its June 26 decision favoring the Internal Revenue Service.That decision upheld a ruling last year by U.S. District Court Judge Paul Barbadoro in Concord, who said the IRS could seize the ...

Nicholson confirmed as Vatican ambassador The U.S. Senate confirmed the presidential nomination of Jim Nicholson as ambassador to the Vatican. Nicholson, a Colorado resident and immediate past chairman of the Republican National Committee, is a devout Catholic. As ambassador, he will work with the Vatican diplomatic corps on issues such as human rights, freedom of religion, human trafficking and drug interdiction. Early in his career, Nicholson worked as an attorney with an emphasis in real estate and water issues. Later, he built Renaissance Homes and developed communities in Westminster, Parker and Castle Rock. A Vietnam veteran, who retired with the ...

OHRID, Macedonia (AP) -- Ethnic Albanian rebels lobbed mortars at police positions near Macedonia's second-largest city Saturday, straining a shaky truce, state-run radio reported. There was no immediate word of casualties, despite the "frequent sniper shots" fired on police on the slopes of Mount Sara, just north of the predominantly ethnic Albanian city of Tetovo, the report said. News of the cease-fire violations came as European Union security chief Javier Solana announced plans to travel to Macedonia to bolster efforts to create a peace plan for the troubled Balkan nation. Solana was to fly from Ukraine to Macedonia on Sunday ...

Link to article page Feds Guarantee Nothing: It's All Lies, Social Security Panel AdmitsPhil BrennanSaturday, Aug. 4, 2001 Americans are wrong in believing a bald-faced lie that they have a legal right to collect their Social Security benefits - Congress can stop paying anytime it wants. The government has been lying about that for years - and it's just one of the whoppers Washington has been telling about Social Security. The government and other apologists for Social Security have been lying to the American people about the system, according to an interim report just issued by President Bush's Social Security ...

Fatally flawed The concept of sustainable development entered the world, officially, through the 1987 U.N. Commission on Environment and Development. The event was chaired by Gro Harlem Brundtland, who once was vice-chair of the International Socialist Party, and who was appointed head of the World Health Organization (WHO) in 1998. The Commission's report said simply, that sustainable development is " … to meet the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The concept was given meaning in 1992 at another U.N. Conference on Environment and Development in Rio de Janeiro. This ...

Beyond the noise of this weekend's Group of Eight Summit in Genoa, Italy, a silent revolution is sweeping Europe. It will transform the continent's political and economic structure as much as any of the wars and upheavals of the past 500 years. The problem is that this European revolution is undemocratic. It is being imposed, from the top down, by a European elite that thinks it knows what's best for ordinary people -- over their clearly expressed opposition. No matter what you think of the European Union's expansion plans, this kind of corporatist revolution cannot be good for Europe, ...

'Car Talk' Gives AAA Backtalk Over Cell Phone Safety Report By Kimberly Hill Wireless NewsFactor August 3, 2001   The AAA study found that just 8.3 percent of car crashes were caused by driver distraction, and just 1.5 percent of that 8.3 percent - a minuscule number - were caused by cell phone use. NPR talk show hosts 'Click and Clack' hotly criticized the study methodology. In This Story: Distracting Details The Feud Unfolds Down to the Nitty Gritty In It for the Money?  Related Stories Tom and Ray Magliozzi, known affectionately to fans of their NPR (National Public ...

EM Forster: exploiter of the poor, claims Naipaul EM Forster has long been considered a master of modern English fiction with his sentimental view of India and gentle satires on the pretensions of the colonial classes. But according to Sir Vidia (VS) Naipaul, novelist and mischievous chronicler of the Caribbean colonial experience, Forster was a sexual predator more interested in seducing garden boys than revealing the truth about India. Naipaul, who has a new novel out next month, also labelled Forster's most famous work, A Passage to India, "utter rubbish" in an interview with the Literary Review, published today. In ...

Slovenia to partially open power market in 2002 LJUBLJANA, Aug 2 (Reuters) - Slovenia will partially open its electricity market to foreign distributors in 2002 to help cover an expected energy deficit, Environment Minister Janez Kopac said on Thursday. "The year 2002 will represent a transition period from a totally closed energy market, as we have now, to a completely open one in 2003," Kopac told a news conference. He added that Slovenia would become an net power importer in 2002, which was why the government set the total quota for imports of electricity at 2,000 gigawatt-hours (GWh) in ...

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- Actor-writer Ben Affleck has entered a treatment facility to undergo alcohol rehabilitation, his publicist said. The actor checked in to the facility, Promises, Friday. "Ben is a self-aware and smart man who has decided that a fuller life awaits him without alcohol," said a statement released on behalf of the 28-year-old actor. "He has chosen to seek out professional assistance, and is committed to traveling to healthier road with the support of family, friends and fans." Affleck shares an Oscar for Best Screenplay for the film "Good Will Hunting" with his good friend and frequent ...

New Jersey joined a growing number of states Thursday that require parental permission before a minor can get a tattoo or body piercing. Acting Gov. Donald T. DiFrancesco signed legislation that requires anyone under 18 to have a parent's written permission and be accompanied by a parent before receiving a tattoo or body piercing, including ear piercing. Violations would be punishable by up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $1,000. New Jersey's new law backs up regulations proposed by the state Health Department in March. Those regulations would go further than the law, setting ...

Could container ships as fast as speedboats soon shorten global supply chains? A transport revolution is waiting to happen. IN A small office on the Philadelphia waterfront, a few entrepreneurs are trying to launch a dream. As they look out of their windows they can envisage a totally new kind of ship coming up the Delaware River after crossing the Atlantic from France. FastShip Atlantic is trying to raise $2 billion to bring shipping into the jet age, with an express container-ship service between the cradle of American democracy and Cherbourg, a faded port in north-west France that was once ...

ASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — The International Monetary Fund said today that it was prepared to lend $15 billion to Brazil and speed financial aid for Argentina as concerns rose that the two nations' financial problems had worsened and begun to spread through Latin America. The long-term aid packages announced this afternoon came with the blessing of the Bush administration, which has supported several large financial rescues even though administration officials have often said they intend to avoid international bailouts like those arranged in the Clinton administration. Troubles in Argentina, Brazil and another recent aid recipient, Turkey, are reminiscent of the ...

Profit repatriation boosts Hungary's June C/A gap By Sandor Peto BUDAPEST, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Hungary's June current account deficit surged to a six-month high of 451 million euros due to an expected repatriation of profits, but analysts said on Friday they were more concerned about an expected slowdown in exports. Central bank data showed that the preliminary June current account deficit surged from a 134 million euro deficit in May. Analysts' consensus forecast had been 457 million euros. The trade deficit widened by 284 million euros in June, compared with a deficit of 177 million euros in May, ...

Palestinian security forces have rounded up 60 suspected collaborators with Israel in response to Tuesday's Israeli attack on Hamas activists. Palestinian Authority Collaborators have been blamed for giving Israelis information which led to the attack in Fara in the northern West Bank which killed eight people, amongst them two leading figures of the militant group. In all, 20 Palestinians have died in violence this week - including six other activists who died in a blast on Monday which Palestinians said was caused by Israel. Meanwhile, US Vice-President Dick Cheney has kicked up a storm with comments apparently in support of ...

Women on the Move Make way, Magellan: women were the true global explorers (genetically speaking). When Virginia Woolf wrote, "As a woman, my country is the whole world," she was speaking out against nationalism but her words, it now appears, were very close to scientific truth. History has always depicted women as habitues of home and hearth, with men the intrepid explorers of the globe. A new genetic study suggests that, overall, the exact opposite is true: women have, over time, traveled far further afield than men. Population geneticist Mark Seielstad of the Harvard School of Public Health reached this ...

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3 — Claiming that an arm of Congress was seeking to "unconstitutionally interfere" with the workings of the White House, Vice President Dick Cheney formally refused to turn over documents demanded as part of a Congressional investigation of the administration's energy plan, according to a letter released today. The decision to contest the inquiry by the General Accounting Office makes it likely that the accounting office, the investigative arm of Congress, will take the White House to court to enforce its demand for documents, which it says it has the authority to review. Bush administration officials came to ...

Latest Privacy Nightmare: Money That Tracks You Wes Vernon Saturday, July 28, 2001 WASHINGTON - It isn’t every day that you learn how to promote the Constitution and trash it in one easy congressional hearing. But that’s exactly what happened this week. A House Subcommittee on Financial Services divided its session Tuesday between praising an idea by young students to print parts of the Constitution on U.S. currency and an anti-privacy proposal to rig that same currency with a device that would allow others to keep track of who has had it and for how long. What’s more, the irony ...

Capitol Hill was consumed in a flurry of activity heading into the August Recess. A seemingly minor exchange in the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday may have prevented an anti-religion procedure from taking root. In an executive session meeting, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) noted that since Democrats had taken control of the Judiciary Committee in June that the oath administered to federal nominees ended without the binding phrase "So help me, God." Committee chairman Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-VT) conceded Sessions' point but claimed the abbreviated oath was an oversight that would be corrected in the future. The National Review reported Leahy ...