Free Republic

Are Black Reparations Constitutional? Two things that were called to my attention this week connected to provide a clear position on the issue of black reparations. The first came about as a result of a conversation with my brother-in-law, which included his daughter and her boyfriend. My niece’s boyfriend is a political major and had impressed my brother-in-law and me with his answer to a constitutional question. The discussion turned to black reparations with the observation that black spokesmen had altered their position regarding the meaning of the confederate flag. The reason proffered by the black leaders to bring down ...

<p>Sacramento -- With the end of the legislative session a week away, Gov. Gray Davis called on the Assembly and Senate yesterday to iron out differences over a plan to rescue California's second largest utility.</p> <p>The Assembly narrowly approved a bill late Thursday to help Southern California Edison back to fiscal health.</p>

<p>Do New Yorkers - private schools, in particular - have the right to depict city public schools as violent?</p> <p>Rep. Anthony Weiner (D-Brooklyn), apparently, thinks not.</p> <p>Weiner was outraged - outraged! - when a girls school in Brooklyn put up posters showing a student with a gun to his head and asking parents if they felt their kids were safe in public schools.</p>

Student says guns offer best protection By Jenn Farrell JenniferFarrell@coloradoan.comSept. 8, 2001 While some Colorado State University students are arming themselves with martial arts skills or pepper spray in the wake of a series of sexual assaults around Fort Collins, a meeting on campus Friday was designed to draw attention to firearms as another option. "We're simply saying there is an alternative to Mace, there is an alternative to karate, and that is a firearm," said Ray Hickman of Rocky Mountain Gun Owners. "No one has discussed the true equalizer." Hickman, and a student who would only be identified as ...

<p>Young women terrified of a serial rapist in the college city of Fort Collins, Colo., have taken their safety and protection into their own hands — arming themselves with handguns and joining the ranks of gun rights advocates.</p> <p>"I don't want to live in fear, I don't want to be afraid about going out at night. I just want him to know not everyone is going to be submissive," a 23-year-old college student said Friday as she announced she had obtained a .38-caliber special revolver.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Music and record industry lobbyists are quietly readying an all-out assault on Congress this fall in hopes of dramatically rewriting copyright laws. With the help of Fritz Hollings (D-S.C.), the powerful chairman of the Senate Commerce committee, they hope to embed copy-protection controls in nearly all consumer electronic devices and PCs. All types of digital content, including music, video and e-books, are covered.</p>

The United States walked away from the United Nations Conference against Racism in Durban, South Africa last week, which, along with the U.S. rejection of the Kyoto Protocol, demonstrates more political backbone than we've seen in a decade. Thank you, Mr. Bush! The walk-out brought immediate condemnation from the Islamic world and from most of the developing nations – and from Jesse Jackson, of course. Jackson claims that the United States is unwilling to face up to its responsibility to pay blacks today for the slavery in America's past. The Durban draft document included language to endorse reparations for slavery. ...

Bailout of Edison utility could ignite voter battlePOWER CRISIS Consumer advocates say if the bill to help the utility passes they will try to overturn it with a ballot measure next year ON THE WEB Read the bill, SB78xx: www.senate.ca.gov The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights: www.consumerwatchdog.org By Jennifer ColemanASSOCIATED PRESS SACRAMENTO -- As lawmakers advance a plan to rescue Southern California Edison from bankruptcy, consumer advocates are gearing up for the ballot-box fight to overturn it. That could mean the plan that passed the Assembly late Thursday and is moving toward Gov. Gray Davis' desk may not ...

For reasons unknown, a few nights ago I watched American Hot Wax, a 1978 film purporting to tell the story of radio legend Alan Freed. I suppose it was because nothing else seemed worth watching (there was no baseball game being telecast), inasmuch as I knew of only too many discrepancies between the film and the actuality of its subject. (Exhibit A: The Chesterfields, a fictitious group set as an obvious stand-in for Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers - in the Paramount Theater show sequence, the Chesterfields are introduced by Tim McIntire's Alan Freed as, "They don't have a hit ...

DURBAN, South Africa (AP) -- The World Conference Against Racism ended Saturday as tumultuously as it began, with a declaration and program of action that was immediately cited as groundbreaking and momentous, hurtful and disastrous, and everything in between. The eight-day U.N. meeting went into a ninth day when compromises on the two dominant issues -- the Middle East conflict and the legacy of slavery -- failed to materialize. Even when deals on both issues were struck Saturday morning, last-minute attempts to add several thinly veiled references to Israel deadlocked the conference and sent diplomats scurrying. Only the imminent departure ...

<p>A Beaver County man was charged with homicide yesterday for allegedly selling the Ecstasy pill that killed an Ambridge Area High School student in May.</p> <p>Greg Ludwig, 19, of Rochester was arraigned on charges of third-degree murder and drug delivery in the death of Brandy French, 16.</p>

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; Sun, September 09, 2001 &nbsp; HUMANITY WRAP: Slavery is alive but a cheque will do fine &nbsp; What a great week's viewing. Board purges and bomb hoaxes shook THAI faster than a rat chewing Semtex, while hot money and bad toxics went through a rinse-and-spin cycle before being washed down the sewer. There were high-level talks with a low-level neighbour in mid river, that went so well they were swapping all kinds of vows by the time the karaoke finished; mind you, it's only Sunday. Those two loveable young rogues were cleared as feared, with a quickly taken ...

VLADIVOSTOK NEWS ONLINE :: VN.VLADNEWS.RU // ')(' September 7, 2001 Remains of World War II U.S. crew found in Kamchatka &nbsp; By Anatoly Medetsky U.S. experts have found the remains of at least two Americans who died when their Navy bomber crashed on a volcano in Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula during World War II. Fending off fierce winds and roaming bears at the remote site, the experts sawed through the mangled mass of the plane's wreckage during a month long expedition. They announced their findings Wednesday. The remains will be sent to the United States for identification - ...

THE Strategic Grain Reserve, which is administered by the Grain Marketing Board, currently has 300,000 tonnes of maize, 200,000 tonnes short of the required amount. Zimbabwe has an annual consumption of 1.24 million tonnes of maize and the available grain is not sufficient to meet the needs of the country. Despite Agriculture minister Joseph Made's dismissal of experts’ warnings of imminent food shortages, the country needs to import at least 750,000 tonnes of cereals to avert a self-made disaster. The Southern African Development Community (Sadc) regional early warning unit has said Zimbabwe, the former bread-basket of the region, must ...

Forget the Snap-On Tools truck; it's never there when you need it. Besides, there are only ten things in this world you need to fix any car, any place, any time. DUCT TAPE: Not just a tool, a veritable Swiss Army knife in stickum and plastic. It's safety wire, body material, radiator hose, upholstery, insulation, tow rope, and more in one easy-to-carry package. Sure, there's a prejudice surrounding duct tape in concourse competitions, but in the real world everything from LeMans - winning Porsches to Atlas rockets - uses it by the yard. The only thing that can get you ...

By Bradley PerrettLONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. military may have conducted serious research into anti-gravity based on Nazi studies, a top defense journalist suggests in a new book.In ``The Hunt for Zero Point,'' journalist Nick Cook says, based on a decade's research, he believes by the 1950s the U.S. was seriously working on anti-gravity ``electrogravitics'' technology, which would lift and propel vehicles without wings or thrust.``I feel intuitively that some vehicle has been developed, particularly given that there is this wealth of scientific data out there, and the Americans have never been slow to pick up on this sort of ...

State authority to work for green power sources POWER CRISIS By Mike TaugherCONTRA COSTA TIMES The newly formed California Power Authority gave a boost to environmentally friendly energy sources Friday, deciding to begin negotiating with companies to build new solar panels and windmills. The decision had been anticipated, but it was clear Friday that the state government's newest agency plans to give a higher profile to green energy sources. "We're actually ready to take renewables seriously," said Linda Chou, the power authority's spokeswoman. The power authority plans to line up an additional 1,000 megawatts of renewable electricity by next ...

EFEI, China — Liu Minghe paused in a hospital room here to let a nurse take his blood pressure, which had surged dangerously in the few minutes since he began talking about how he had won his freedom from China's death row. After she left, he begged off recounting in greater detail the torture that he said had led him to confess to a murder he did not commit. "Let's just say it was `forced interrogation and confession under duress,' " Mr. Liu said, his speech slurring slightly because he is missing several of his lower teeth, which he ...

NYC97SA193 NTSB Identification: NYC97SA193 . The docket is stored in the (offline) NTSB Imaging System.Scheduled 14 CFRPart 129 operation of Foreign SWISSAIR TRANSPORT CO. LTD (D.B.A. SWISSAIR )Incident occurred Saturday, August 09, 1997 at NEW YORK, NYAircraft:Boeing 747-300, registration: HBIGFInjuries: 3 Uninjured. This is preliminary information, subject to change, and may contain errors. Any errors in this report will be corrected when the final report has been completed. On August 9, 1997, about 1707 eastern daylight time, the flight crew of a Boeing 747-300, Swiss registration HB-IGF, and operated by Swissair as flight 127, reported an unusual sighting while in ...

An Urgent Appeal From Chairman Ed Meese Dear Friend of Scouting: I am urgently asking you to take a few minutes to help in an important effort. Very soon, a House-Senate conference committee will vote on a provision that is critically important to defending both the Boy Scouts and some of our fundamental Constitutional rights. We have set up a special Web site, www.VoteForScouts.com, which gives complete information on this issue and what you can do to help. Briefly, however, this provision, the "Helms-Hilleary Amendment" to the education bill in Congress, would cut off federal funding to any school ...