Free Republic

Spiritual Bouquet: If you salute your brethren only, what are you doing more than others? Do not even the Gentiles do that? St. Matthew 5:47 "St. Romuald" SAINT ROMUALDFounder and Abbot(906-1027) In the tenth century Sergius, a nobleman of Ravenna, quarreled with a relative over an estate and, in a duel to which his son Romuald was witness, slew him. The young man of twenty years was horrified at his father's crime, and entered a Benedictine monastery at Classe to do a forty days penance for him. This penance led to his entry into religion as a Benedictine monk....

GAZA, June 20 (Reuters) - A statement by Palestinian President Yasser Arafat sent to Palestinian media for publication said on Thursday that he condemns attacks that target Israeli civilians and calls on his people to stop them. Officials said it was unlikely that Arafat would read the speech himself, but that it was distributed to Palestinian newspapers, radio and television stations, and the official Palestinian news agency WAFA. "Out of my concern to our people, their land and their future, I declare my complete condemnation to these attacks that target Israeli civilians," Arafat's statement said. The attacks "have nothing to...

Al-Muhajiroun Leader: Self-styled Sheikh Omar Bakri Mohammed Membership: Refused to reveal numbers One of the largest Islamist parties in Britain. The organisation is banned from campuses of many British universities which it uses as a fertile recruiting ground. Formed after a breakaway from Hizb ut-Tahrir, Al-Muhajiroun ("The Emigrants") has one purpose, establishing the Islamic state. Its members are regularly seen with loudhailers exhorting mainstream Muslims and non-believers to embrace their particular brand of fundamentalism, which calls for those practising homosexuality, adultery, fornication and bestiality to be stoned to death. It now denies that it recruits for jihad but it boasted...

First, understand what I'm NOT saying. I'm not saying I'm a great columnist. I'm not even saying I'm a good columnist. I'm saying only that I've been writing columns for some publication or other since 1950. Thousands of them. And I'm saying nothing I've ever written has ever caused me more pain than this one. Among the things that give me maximum pleasure in the world are my children, football, North Carolina barbecue, Polish music, skinny blondes, and brotherhood. Yes, brotherhood. I quite literally weep with joy at stories of courageous whites preventing white haters in the South from lynching...

RAMALLAH, West Bank, Jun 19, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Israeli tanks and armored vehicles entered Ramallah from two directions early Thursday, witnesses said. Tanks and armored personnel carriers entered the West Bank Palestinian town from Beitunia to the south and from the west, the witnesses said, heading toward the center of town, where Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat has his headquarters. The Israeli military had no immediate comment. Palestinians said about 20 Israeli vehicles entered Ramallah and were heading toward the center of town. The incursion followed the second suicide bombing in Jerusalem in as many days. On...

Jun 16, 2002 (The Tribune - Knight Ridder/Tribune Business News via COMTEX) -- Floyd Lipps was homeless. A drug addict. Hungry. So when two men approached him last fall and offered a place to live, plenty of food and an endless supply of drugs in exchange for his help, Lipps took the opportunity. By November, according to the story Lipps later told the FBI, he had become an integral part of a sophisticated fraud ring run by three men who said they were from Afghanistan. Their scam was netting at least $40,000 a week in fraudulent loans from Valley banks...

CAIRO -- Arab information ministers met here Wednesday to discuss the launch of a 20-million-dollar media campaign against Israel, which also seeks to ban Arab TV interviews with Israeli officials. Ministers from 13 Arab states -- Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen -- took part in the one-day meeting at the Cairo headquarters of the 22-member Arab League. The other members of the organization were represented by lower ranking information officials, and Qatar did not attend because it has abolished its Information Ministry. The meeting, chaired by Syrian Information Minister Adnan...

WALKER, CA (AP) -- There's a new development in the fatal crash of a firefighting air tanker in the Sierra Nevada. The Associated Press has learned that the 1956 C-130-A transport plane owned by the Wyoming-based Hawkins and Powers Aviation Incorporated had undergone earlier repairs to fix wing cracks. The air cargo plane under contract with the Forest Service had just completed a pass over a 10-thousand-acre blaze yesterday when its wings snapped off and the fuselage plunged to the ground, bursting into a fireball in the town of Walker, California. A government document obtained by A-P today shows...

Prominent Palestinians Publicly Condemn Suicide BombingsG A Z A   C I T Y, Gaza Strip, June 19 — More than 50 Palestinians took out a full-page newspaper ad Wednesday condemning suicide bombings, a move that sparked debate at a time when most Palestinians support the attacks as an effective way to hit Israel. The ad in Al Quds, a leading Palestinian daily, appeared Wednesday morning a day after a suicide bombing killed 19 people on a Jerusalem bus, and hours before another suicide attack killed seven more people at a bus stop in the evening.In the ad, the Palestinians...

MARINA DEL REY, CA—Congressional infighting has temporarily prevented a ban on human cloning—but to protect this life-saving technology permanently, we must recognize that it is moral, said Alex Epstein, a writer for the Ayn Rand Institute. "Human cloning is a highly pro-life technology," said Epstein, "but the opponents of cloning perversely condemn it as anti-life." Senator Sam Brownback, the ban's sponsor, says cloning is "creating human life to destroy." President George Bush calls it "growing human beings for spare body parts." Congresswoman Sue Myrick smears it as the "most dangerous and ghoulish enterprise in human history." The opponents of cloning...

Circumcision debate hits state MIKE STOBBEStaff Writer Charlotte homemaker Beth Long started lobbying against circumcision after her firstborn son bled for five days following the procedure. Now she's part of a small but determined group of North Carolinians trying to convince the state to stop paying for Medicaid circumcisions. "I'm amazed they can get away with this -- spend almost $2 million a year to do a cosmetic surgery not endorsed by any medical board in the world," Long said. Swayed by such arguments, seven other states have stopped funding circumcisions. Arizona's Medicaid program quit this month. This week, the...

June 19— By Evelyn Leopold UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - To the dismay of its allies, the United States on Wednesday threatened to withdraw from U.N. peacekeeping missions if its troops were not exempted from the reach of a new global criminal court.As part of a U.S. onslaught against the court, the Bush administration introduced a draft U.N. Security Council resolution that would exclude all missions, military and civilian, fielded by the United Nations or even endorsed by the world body, such as the NATO-led troops in Kosovo or Bosnia."We will not put American men and women under the reach of...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. News from Ren-ai Hospital said that some young English learners in Shanghai demand operations on their tongues in order to utter "pure" English pronunciations, especially those that need a curling of the tongue. This fully shows how enthusiastic and reckless Shanghai people are in learning English, experts say. Sociologist: a lovely stupid action Sociology professor Yu Hai with Shanghai University burst into laughter when he heard the news from reporter. "This is a lovely stupid action!" he said seriously. Don't think it too crazy, Yu said, for this at least reflects...

If you are a Hugh Hewitt listener, you know that they have a lot of fun playing songs that suit the topic Hugh is discussing. When the topic of Clintoon comes up, for example, Hugh plays "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away?" and "Man From Harlem." Or when he was talking about boycotting vacationing in Vermont, they played "Weekend in New England." You get the picture. So take a moment to think of current hot topics in U.S. news and politicians with big mouths, and make your suggestions for fitting music. It could be funny, it...

Just recieved this in an email from a friend. I'm not sure if these signs are actually in the locations stated, but it would be appropriate. Enjoy. Friends don't let friends take home ugly men ---Women's restroom, Starboard, Dewey Beach, DE Remember, it's not, "How high are you?" It's "Hi, how are you?" ---Rest stop off Route 81, West Virginia No matter how good she looks, some other guy is sick and tired of putting up with her shit. ---Men's Room, Linda's Bar and Grill, Chapel Hill, North Carolina To do is to be - Descartes To be is to...

The thought police at Cartoon Network have relented: The fastest mouse in all of Mexico will race again. The network, part of the Ted Turner-infested AOL Time Warner leviathan, had deemed Speedy Gonzalez politically incorrect, but Hollywood loves one thing more than its political posing: money. "With the sudden interest in the show, we decided to rotate it in and see how it does," Cartoon Network mouthpiece Laurie Goldberg told Fox News. Several Speedy cartoons will air in late June and July, the company says. Virginia Cueto, associate editor of HispanicOnline.com, said, "To me it was clear evidence that...

ABOUT two million Zimbabweans living on commercial farms will be displaced countrywide at the expiry of eviction orders being served on white farmers by the government this year, according to a survey by the Zimbabwe Community Development Trust (ZCDT). More than 4 000 of Zimbabwe’s white farmers have been issued with eviction notices under Section 8 of the Land Acquisition Act, requiring them to cease farming and vacate their properties within three months. The commercial farming industry employs about 350 000 workers, each of whom on average has a family of five. Most of these workers will be displaced, although...

Ted Turner, idiot-in-chief of AOL Time Warner, thinks it's so cute when he says something obnoxious and then takes it back the next day after the usual fuss. No doubt he says stupid things on purpose to get the media attention he so desperately craves. So here we go again ... After his remarks Tuesday to a left-wing British newspaper about Israeli "terrorism," tempestuous Ted is eating even more crow than usual. "I regret any implication that I believe the actions taken by Israel to protect its people are equal to terrorism," the notorious globalist and anti-religious bigot said...

2 FBI Whistle-Blowers Allege Lax Security, Possible Espionage [EXCERPTS] By James V. Grimaldi Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, June 19, 2002; Page A10In separate cases, two new FBI whistle-blowers are alleging mismanagement and lax security -- and in one case possible espionage -- among those who translate and oversee some of the FBI's most sensitive, top-secret wiretaps in counterintelligence and counterterrorist investigations.<<<<<<<<<<<<< SNIP >>>>>>"After the attacks, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III issued a plea for translators, and hundreds of people applied."Margaret Gulotta, chief of language services at the FBI, said the bureau has hired 400 translators in two years,...