Free Republic

Maybe it was not the most important case before the Supreme Court of the United States. But still it was a galling example of the way some justices casually wave aside the rights of ordinary people for the sake of some special interest that they favor. The case involved a village in Ohio that required door-to-door solicitors to get a permit before going to the homes in that village. Jehovah's Witnesses challenged that ordinance in the courts and, just a few days ago, the Supreme Court overruled their convictions for violating that ordinance. Anyone who has been pestered by door-to-door...

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- The first war of the 21st century has been a resounding success for the United States. Thus far, operations have claimed fewer than 250 U.S. combat casualties, and, for the most part, U.S. Special Forces in Afghanistan are being positively portrayed by the media. Hollywood has, at least temporarily, stopped denigrating the armed forces and is producing films that honor fighting men. Recent documentaries, books and novels are capitalizing on the pro-military sentiment that Americans have always had, but the cultural elite denied. Yet, the Class of 2002 has graduated from America's high schools and colleges, and...

Most people should spare themselves the torment of viewing the video of Daniel Pearl's murder. The ghoulish tape is now available on the Internet -- a "commercial," as The New Republic rightly notes. The tape is intended not for the likes of you and me -- civilized human beings who recoil from the very idea of viewing a beheading -- but for Islamists around the world, thirsty for American and Jewish blood. Scenes of Pearl's final interrogation are interspersed with footage of the Intifada and snapshots of Ariel Sharon and George Bush. Pearl, as we had heard, was required to...

A YOUNG pilot described yesterday the last moments of a decorated SAS veteran who deliberately leapt 5,000 feet to his death from a light aircraft. The inquest in Oxford heard that Charles Bruce, 45, a veteran of the conflicts in the Falklands and of Northern Ireland, committed suicide by jumping without a parachute from the plane as it flew over Oxfordshire last January. Mr Bruce, who joined the Parachute Regiment aged 17, and who had been a qualified skydiver, leaped from the Cessna 172 Skyhawk leaving his friend and business partner, Judith Haig, 29, to land the plane alone at...

Does anyone think it somewhat odd and curious that the New York tabloids eulogized the death of organized crime boss John Gotti for page after page, but those very same tabs saw fit to trash successful businesswoman Martha Stewart over a relatively modest stock sale? Gotti, who pursued a life of crime on a full-time basis, was convicted of murder and racketeering in 1992. He was sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole and sent to federal prison in Marion, Ill., where he remained until his recent death from cancer. Stewart, a rags-to-riches success story that is as...

Once there was a little offshore oil platform named Davey the Derrick. Davey was shiny, and new, and proud. Oil company executives loved Davey because he extracted barrels of oil every day off the California coast. Little children waved at Davey as their parents drove on the Pacific Coast Highway. They listened raptly as their fathers explained that, without Davey, the family station wagon couldn't run. The governor loved Davey because oil companies paid taxes to California for the oil Davey produced. Mackerel and bass liked to hide from mean predators behind Davey's girders. Clams and mussels thrived as they...

Terry Barton, a U.S. Forest Service worker, was charged this week with intentionally setting the largest wildfire in Colorado history. It is a black mark on the beleaguered federal agency. But it's not the blackest mark. Last summer, four young firefighters died at the Thirtymile Fire in Washington state's Okanogan National Forest: Tom Craven, Karen FitzPatrick, Jessica Johnson and Devin Weaver. Craven, 30, was a father of two and an eight-year veteran with the Naches Ranger District. FitzPatrick, 18, was a newly minted high school grad and had been with the Forest Service for three weeks. Johnson, 19, was a...

<p>NEW YORK — The trouble started in the Barbie aisle at a Toys "R" Us in Brooklyn.</p> <p>While shopping, Donna McGrath and two other self-described transsexuals, Tanya Jinks and Tara Lopez, claim employees greeted them with a chorus of laughter and insults.</p>

<p>Don't give antiterrorism a bad name. And do prevent smallpox.</p> <p>The results are in, a consensus is forming, we want you onboard.</p> <p>It appears we hit a nerve last week when we asserted that Homeland isn't really an American sort of word but a European, or rather Teutonic, sort of word, and should be retired as the name of the government's new antiterrorism agency. In the past year no one has wanted to make an issue of this when other things, such as whether terrorists planned to blow up the Brooklyn Bridge, seemed more pressing. But if we wait for a perfect time to stop Homeland we'll never do it. And it must be done, because words matter.</p>

w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m A near-death experience While her co-bomber exploded himself in Rishon Letzion, Arin Ahmed was to wait nearby for the panicky people who would flee toward her, then detonate her bomb. Like Rasan who was to blow himself up in Tel Aviv, she never went through with her mission. Last week, the two were paid a visit in jail by none other than Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer A young female Palestinian terrorist sits in a detention room opposite the Israeli...

The average Twin Cities commuter spent 54 hours sitting in rush hour traffic in 2000 and in the process burned up $1,050 in wasted time and fuel, according to the Texas Transportation Institute’s 2002 Urban Mobility Report, an annual study of traffic congestion. The metro region placed second, tied with Atlanta and behind San Antonio, in a ranking of cities that experienced the highest rate of congestion growth. The institute, part of Texas A&M University, used 2000 data, the latest available, to determine how roadways in 75 cities were performing. The usually renowned study, a trusted resource for transportation policymakers,...

Hospitals are usually eager to tout their expertise in treating various diseases. But there is little upside, it seems, in becoming St. Smallpox.Across the country, state and local officials developing smallpox-response plans at the behest of the federal government are discovering that hospitals are reluctant to be tapped for the duty. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that planners identify a "Type C," or facility for contagious smallpox patients, in each community or region, to be activated in the event of an outbreak. Such centers would house confirmed and probable cases.Hospitals, though, see little advantage in being designated...

RAWALPINDI, Pakistan — Before recounting how President Clinton burned alive dozens of Christians (this feint is known in the column trade as baiting the right), let me offer a quick historical quiz: What religion were Muhammad's parents? You might think that they, like most people in Arabia in the sixth century, probably worshiped tribal gods and idols. It might seem difficult for anyone to have been a Muslim before Muhammad.If that's what you think, bite your tongue — if you visit Pakistan.Dr. Younus Shaikh, a teacher at a medical college, sits in a brick prison here, after being sentenced to...

I heard on Lee and Melanie this morning that there is a Pro-America, Pro-Israel rally this Sunday at Justin Herrmann Plaza SF, at 11:00. I didn't hear them say who was instigating it. Time to make OUR voices heard!

<p>WASHINGTON — They began years ago, and from the start were raucous celebrations of gay culture, from the drag queens who did sendups of pop tunes to the hundreds of dancing partygoers who found comfort in numbers.</p> <p>Today, "circuit parties" have become weekend-long bashes in cities across the USA and Canada. They attract thousands of mostly young gay men who dance until dawn and whose admission fees raise millions of dollars for AIDS-prevention groups and gay charities. At the Old Post Office Pavilion here in April, about 2,500 shirtless men packed the dance floor during a circuit party called "Cherry 7."</p>

<p>A radio ad that calls Sen. Paul Wellstone "money-grubbing" because he opposes repeal of the estate tax is being called a vicious lie by the Wellstone campaign.</p> <p>The 60-second spot, sponsored by Americans for Job Security, started airing Monday on WCCO-AM and radio stations in rural Minnesota. Michael Dubke, president of the Virginia-based group, said it would run through the middle of next week.</p>

AMERICAN BORDER PATROL ­ A NEW INIATIVE FOR HOMELAND SECURITY A NATION WITHOUT A BORDER IS NOT A NATION President Reagan said, "A nation without a border is not a nation." Should America continue as an independent, sovereign nation? Every poll answers with a resounding YES! Americans want their border protected and, if necessary, they want the military to help. President Eisenhower stopped illegal immigration by enforcing our laws. President Bush could do the same thing. WHY CAN¹T WE STOP THE INVASION? We are the most powerful nation on earth. Yet, we have been unable to stop millions of illegal...

<p>An immigrant -- documented or not -- who agrees to learn English, get a job and pay taxes should receive the same health, education and welfare benefits as any other California citizen, an independent, bipartisan government advisory panel said Tuesday.</p>

po-lem-ic (pelem'ik) n-1 an argument, dispute, etc., especially a written one, that supports one opinion or body of ideas in opposition to another (The New Scholastic Dictionary of American English). Excerpts from the article: "Beloved, while I was very diligent to write to you concerning our common salvation, I found it necessary to write to you exhorting you to contend earnestly for the faith which was once for all delivered to the saints" (Jude 3). With Luther, we must say, "Unity wherever possible, but truth at all costs." In his battle with the modernists earlier this century, J. Gresham Machen,...

<p>Anura Si-Asar, a Minneapolis firefighter, can trace his ancestors six generations, to a Tennessee woman who came to Minnesota in 1846.</p> <p>Then he runs into a roadblock: slavery. Like most African-Americans, he can only wonder where in Africa his ancestors came from, before slavery cut their ties to the past.</p>