Free Republic

Smoking Ban Hurting Tempe Restaurants Tempe, June 19 (AP) -- It may be a breath of fresh air to walk into restaurants here and not smell smoke, but restaurant and bar owners say they're smothering. They are asking the City Council to do something to ease the financial pain arising from the new, restrictive anti-smoking ordinance. A number of owners say revenue is down by as much as 20 percent since the voter-approved ordinance took effect May 30. They plan to outline their concerns during a council meeting Thursday. "You can either kill yourself with gloom and doom, or you...

Astronomy Picture of the Day Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation written by a professional astronomer. 2002 June 24 The Sun's Heliosphere & Heliopause Credit & Copyright: P. C. Frisch (U. Chicago) et al., U. Indiana Explanation: Where does the Sun's influence end? Nobody is sure. Out past the orbits of Neptune and Pluto extends a region named the heliosphere where the Sun's magnetic field and particles from the Solar Wind continue to dominate. The surface where the Solar Wind drops below sound speed...

<p>We have a Texan in the White House, hundreds of congressmen who fly home for weekends, and terrorists who ram planes into buildings. So why is it we're not allowing pilots to fly with side arms?</p> <p>On Capitol Hill that's not a rhetorical question. More than a few members realize that if the terrorists had struck on a Friday instead of a Tuesday any number of congressmen might have been on the Dulles flight that smacked into the Pentagon. So lawmakers are pushing the issue. Last week the House Subcommittee on Aviation approved legislation to force the Transportation Department to create a program to certify and train up to 1,400 pilots to carry pistols. The legislation would also restrict liability, so that pilots acting in good faith couldn't be sued for shooting a hijacker. The full Transportation Committee is expected to vote on the bill this week. In July it'll likely come before the full House for a vote--it's expected to pass overwhelmingly.</p>

<p>When news broke that Abdullah al-Muhajir, better known as Jose Padilla, the man accused of planning to build a "dirty bomb," was a graduate of America's prison system, I wasn't surprised. I've seen hundreds of potential Abdullahs up close. During 26 years walking the cell blocks of America's prisons, I've encountered a growing Muslim presence. Islam, which offers brotherhood and solidarity, especially for people of color, is for the most part a law-abiding religion. But not always.</p>

TAIPEI: An earthquake measuring 5.1 on the Richter scale shook Taiwan on Monday, the central weather bureau said. There were no reports on damage or casulties. The tremor hit at 09:12 am local time from an epicenter 8.3 km southwest of the eastern coastal city of Hualien, 17.1 kilometers below the earth, the bureau's seismologists said. A quake measuring 6.8 on March 31 killed five people at the construction site of Taipei's World Financial Center. Construction of the building -- which may become on the world's tallest -- has suspended for two-and-a-half months for safety checks. On May 15, a...

Why the Bad Guys of the Boardroom Emerged en Masse The Stock Bubble Magnified Shifts in Business Mores While Watchdogs Napped Every decade has king-size corporate villains. In the 1970’s, Robert Vesco was indicted for looting the Investors Overseas Services mutual funds. In the 1980s, arbitrageur Ivan Boesky and junk-bond inventor Michael Milken went to jail. But the scope and scale of the corporate transgressions of the late 1990s, now coming to light, exceed anything the U.S. has witnessed since the years preceding the Great Depression. Enron Corp.’s top executives reaped hundreds of millions as the company collapsed. Arthur Andersen...

Operation Infinite Freep: Colorado Style June 22, 2002 We grew in numbers this week by the addtion of Freeper, Rattlesnake and his family. I finally got to meet Larry B. (VastRightWC). There were also some new faces from the VFW crowd. One thing that was like poking a stick in my eye was seeing that the anti-war (alQueda support group) crowd was joined by a school bus from www.mexicopeace.org. Please see the picture, get angry and show up next week. Remember the rally goes on every Saturday from noon until 1:00 pm (sharp on both ends). Here's some photos to...

Feuding stars ignore each other at daughter's school show Divorced parents Kim Basinger and Alec Baldwin went to their 6-year-old daughter Ireland's school music show on May 30 — and the ice between them was enough to sink the Titanic. In their first public encounter since several blockbuster ENQUIRER exclusives revealed the nasty secret side of their relationship, the unfriendly pair sat 12 rows apart and gave each other the frosty cold shoulder. "They never even looked at each other," said an eyewitness. "They came separately, they sat separately, and they left separately. They stood in the church lobby, they...

The title of this paper, "The Psychology of Atheism," may seem strange. Certainly, my psychological colleagues have found it odd and even, I might add, a little disturbing. After all, psychology, since its founding roughly a century ago, has often focused on the opposite topic-namely the psychology of religious belief. Indeed, in many respects the origins of modern psychology are intimately bound up with the psychologists who explicitly proposed interpretations of belief in God. William James and Sigmund Freud, for example, were both personally and professionally deeply involved in the topic. Recall The Will to Believe by James, as well...

The disturbing truthNatasa Kandic Humanitarian Law Center 8 March 2002 Judge Danica Marinkovic, formerly investigating judge of the Pristina District Court, reacted to the Humanitarian Law Center (HLC) press release on the murder of Kosovo Albanian politician Fehmi Agani by accusing the HLC and its executive director, Natasa Kandic, of lying. According to Judge Marinkovic, Predrag Nikolic and Zoran Dzeletovic, who were police officers in Kosovo and to whom I referred in connection with the murder, performed their duty "honorably" and Agani was killed by the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA). In her defense of these two ex-police officers, she asserted...

Torture, pain, and (worst of all) feeling abandoned by every other creature and the Creator besides. These experiences of countless victims -- particularly during and since the Holocaust-can hardly be compared with the experiences of well-fed and even overfed consumers in highly developed democratic societies. Whereas the twentieth century is often regarded -- especially by those of us too young to remember most of it -- as a golden era of prosperity, it was also an epochal graveyard filled with the collateral damage of ideological tyrants. Adolf Hitler's "final solution" was the most infamous, but there was also Bosnia, and...

ZAMBOANGA CITY -- Abu Sabaya ordered his men to shoot dead American hostage Martin Burnham if soldiers got too close, a captured Abu Sayyaf bandit was quoted on Sunday as saying. Toto Aluk, also known as "Ayub," was shown on videotape taken by the military saying that Sabaya, the Abu Sayyaf spokesperson who was believed killed in a gun battle on Friday, issued the order to kill Martin Burnham. The US missionary, who was seized at Palawan’s Dos Palmas Resort and held hostage for about a year, was killed in a military rescue operation in Sirawai, Zamboanga del Norte,...

Register-USA poll: Slavery payments a divisive question 06/23/02 By SAM HODGES Staff Reporter When it comes to the question of reparations for slavery, Alabama is a house divided. A new Mobile Register-University of South Alabama survey shows that while 67 percent of black Alabamians favor the federal government making cash payments to slave descendants, only 5 percent of white Alabamians agree. Among the supporters is J.L. Chestnut, a black Selma lawyer who is part of a national legal team preparing to file reparations litigation. Chestnut, a veteran of civil rights battles, said such an effort is justified because black people...

FLORENCE - Terry Joe Runager had just sold an AK-47 rifle to a customer and was hoping a little salesmanship would lead to another sale.Instead, it led to blood.Runager was showing his personal handgun from a side holster, when the weapon discharged, wounding him in his left hand and his stepson in the leg.Runager wasn't a stranger to guns and bullets.The 51-year-old Decatur man was a registered dealer at a Saturday gun and knife show at the Florence Conference Center. He was released from Eliza Coffee Memorial Hospital along with his 25-year-old stepson after being treated for gunshot wounds.Organizers of...

<p>According to Michigan statute, "It shall be the duty of the attorney general, at the request of the governor, the secretary of state, the treasurer or the auditor general, to prosecute and defend all suits relating to matters connected with their departments."</p>

On February 17, 1865, General William Tecumseh Sherman’s Union Troops completed the long march from Savannah and reached Columbia, the capital of South Carolina. T.J Goodwyn, Columbia’s Mayor, surrendered the city to General Sherman, and requested "for its citizens the treatment accorded by the usages of civilized warfare." Also, the Mayor asked the General to provide adequate guards "to maintain order in the city and protect the persons and property of the citizens." General Sherman informed the Mayor that he might have to destroy a few government buildings but otherwise, "Not a finger’s breadth, Mr. Mayor, of your city shall...

Howdy Heart of Texas (HOT) Austin Area Freepers. We're having our next FReeper meeting on June 29. Basil has informed us that "Anglewood" of FR will be visiting and that we will be honored to have her at our meeting. Yaw'l come and meet this very active FReeper from Washington D.C. She has spent many hours and days freeping the Clintoons. I know you will all enjoy meeting her. Also, Dittomom, from Arizona will be in Austin vicinity and will more than likely, be attending our event. Please come join us and meet these wonderful Freepers. We'll be meeting at...

U.S. veto threat 'frontal attack' on law: Canada War crimes court dispute: Americans pursue immunity, UN chief seeks compromise Steven Edwards National Post Saturday, June 22, 2002 UNITED NATIONS - Canada accused the United States of launching a "frontal attack" on international law yesterday after Washington threatened to disrupt international peacekeeping operations in a dispute over the UN's new war crimes court. The Foreign Affairs department called on the UN Security Council to stand firm in the first test of Washington's threat. As a veto-wielding member of the council, the United States could force the closure of a UN policing...

MOSCOW – A new draft law that will enable authorities to ban any organization deemed "extremist" is being rushed through the Duma. The law – proponents argue – is needed to combat the explosive rise of violent acts, such as attacks on nonwhite foreigners by skinheads, an anti-Semitic bombing, and a downtown Moscow rampage by flag-waving soccer fans."People thought Hitler was just a freak, until it was too late," says Boris Reznik, a deputy with the pro-Kremlin United Russia Party. "We need to take action, urgently."But the law has both left- and right-wing oppositionists fearful that the Kremlin is preparing...

Breaking on Fox: A construction worker is being held on unrelated charged in connection with the kidnapping case.