Free Republic

On June 20th, a Santa Barbara, California jury found David Attias, 20, who killed four pedestrians and seriously injured another with his speeding car, insane when he committed these second degree murders. Not surprisingly, Tony Bourdakis, father of one of the victims, reacted bitterly when the decision was announced. "You can't know how incredibly disappointed we are in this verdict. Once again, the state of California has shown the nation how you can twist the facts and get away with murder." True enough, Attias will avoid the state pen, and will instead be confined to a state mental hospital...

RAMALLAH, West Bank, June 24 (AFP) - The sun is shining in Ramallah, but the streets are deserted and the shutters on houses are closed, making it look like a ghost town. The only thing you can hear is the rumblings of Israeli military vehicles which have taken over the city. More than four dozen tanks, armoured personnel carriers and jeeps, backed by black-as-night Apache attack helicopters, invaded Ramallah overnight. They have for a third time surrounded and sealed off the battered Muqataa headquarters of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, and imposed a curfew on all the 50,000 residents of...

Some of the responses to my last article, Turning Freedom Into Free Lunch, effectively demonstrated why the public tends to support government growth. In contemporary America, the state is a super-problem solver and if you don´t support government intervention in an area to solve a particular problem, you must be opposed to that problem being solved. One respondent wrote, "Any compassionate society takes care of its unfortunate members--the disabled, the elderly, the children of the poor who aren't able to support them (sic). Any ‘free´ society that permits its powerless citizens to suffer isn't worthy of being called civilized--even...

On this November's ballot, there is a proposed amendment that will ban smoking in all enclosed workspaces in Florida. This will include all restaurants and any connected bars. Smokers will no longer be allowed to smoke while dining or enjoying a cocktail. I am a non-smoker. I think smoking is a dangerous habit. However, I find this assault on our freedom of choice even more dangerous. Business owners have the right to decide how to cater to their customers. If they want to provide a smoke-free establishment, they are free to do so. If they want to cater to the...

Ramallah — Israeli forces surrounded Yasser Arafat's headquarters before dawn Monday, barricading the front gate with debris and fanning out to take control of a sixth West Bank population centre. The latest incursion into Ramallah came as the Palestinian leader ordered Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin placed under house arrest in the Gaza Strip, a move sure to anger supporters of the Islamic group behind many suicide bombings in Israel. Mr. Arafat has been under U.S. and Israeli pressure to crack down on Hamas. Belgian court to rule on war-crimes trial for Sharon 400,000 Palestinians under virtual house arrest...

There are some 2,000 mosques in the United States of America, and the estimates of how many Muslims ranges from 2.8 million, a reliable figure, to six million or more, the figure cited by Muslim organizations who want to be seen as having a population parity with America's Jewish population. There are traitors and dedicated Jihadists living among us, bent on carrying out the worst attacks imaginable. For those who don't like "profiling," you can stop reading now. Nearly eight in ten U.S. Muslims were born abroad. As of 2001, according to the American Muslim Council, no imams, leaders...

Crowds of revellers return to Stonehenge solstice Staff and agencies Friday June 21, 2002 Revellers celebrate the summer solstice at Stonehenge in Wiltshire. Chris Ison, PA Thousands of people gathered peacefully at Stonehenge today to see in the summer solstice. Some danced naked, and others waved St George flags ahead of the England game, although any appeals to spiritual bodies for help went unheeded. Although the world heritage site in Wiltshire is open to the public during the day, all year round, it is only the third time in more than a decade it has been open for solstice celebrations....

CNSNews.com) - If this year's Republican primary for Illinois governor was any indication, pro-life candidates across the nation can expect an onslaught of media attacks from the political action committees affiliated with the pro-abortion Planned Parenthood Federation of America. Planned Parenthood Votes Illinois (PPVI) spent between $220,000 and $250,000 to defeat pro-life gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan in the state's March primary, according to Ryan's campaign spokesman Dan Curry. Ryan, Illinois' current attorney general, won anyway and will oppose Democrat Rep. Rod Blagojevich in the November election for governor. "They're basically an attack arm of the liberal wing of the Democratic...

President George W. Bush and other top officials of the nation, in the wake of September 11th, kept telling us that we should return to normal. We did, and for my money we went a little too far in getting back to normal. It may not be obvious, but there is a war on. We have heard constantly from the president's opponents that they are with him on the war. They disagree with him on domestic issues, but by golly when it comes to the war, they stand with their Commander-in-Chief. Indeed, Democratic political consultants have advised their party...

MANAMA, June 24 (Reuters) - Saudi Arabia launched on Monday a $20 million project to build its own flight training centre after Western countries tightened rules on training foreign pilots following the September 11 attack. "It will be one of the most modern pilot training centres in the world," said Mohammed Abdullah al-Angari, general manager of the Projects and Trading Company, a private firm contracted by Saudi Arabian Airlines (Saudia) to build the centre. Angari told Reuters by telephone from Jeddah the project was expected to be completed within 18 months. Fifteen of the 19 hijackers who commandeered three...

A NEW DRUG DEMOGRAPHIC: SUPERMOMS Drug specialists are reporting an unsettling trend of late: the growing ranks of women who are selling and abusing methamphetamines. And they are not just any women. According to the people who counsel these abusers, a startling number of them are middle-class working moms who are trying to top off their energy so they can make it through a working mom's day. They are women like 43-year-old Debra Breuklander, a divorced nurse from Clive, Iowa, who found herself raising three children on her own in a $150,000 home she could no longer afford. Determined to...

(New York-AP) -- A Queens congressman says New York City schools should be stocked with drugs that could be taken after a nuclear attack. Representative Joseph Crowley made the suggestion in an anti-terrorism plan submitted to the White House. The recommendation is included in a plan to funnel federal money toward preventing more terrorist attacks, and updating New York City's procedures for responding to them.Crowley says potassium iodide should be stockpiled at city schools and hospitals. The drug fights thyroid cancer by blocking radioactive iodine from entering the thyroid.Crowley says the city's law enforcement agencies need better training to respond...

(CNSNews.com) - As the worst wildfire in Arizona history looks ready to consume the town of Show Low, Arizona Gov. Jane Hull is blaming poor forest management for the disaster. "I know this country and I have never seen anything like this fire," Hull said on Sunday. "Mother Nature is saying to Arizona, to the West, that we have to clean up these forests. I hope the message gets across that we need to clean these forests." Forests in Arizona, Colorado and other western states are full of dead wood and underbrush, the result of policies that dictate the...

Palestinian who had second thoughts reveals new profile of suicide bomber JERUSALEM Her face adorns no martyr's poster, but Arien Ahmed, 20, a Palestinian student of business administration, has one of the many profiles of the new suicide bomber. She did not go through months, or even weeks, of indoctrination. She has no connection to the militantly Islamic groups like Hamas and Islamic Jihad that once orchestrated most such attacks. She received little more preparation than a demonstration of how to push a button. Click for Article

Jerusalem (CNSNews.com) - CNN's top news executive Eason Jordan beat a hot path to Israel over the weekend following the furor surrounding comments made by CNN founder Ted Turner, who recently equated Israeli military action with terrorism. In an interview with the British newspaper The Guardian - published on the day that a suicide attacker bombed a Jerusalem bus, killing 19 people - Turner said he would "make the case that both sides are involved in terrorism." Although Turner later softened his statements, the incident appeared to be the straw that broke the camel's back for Israelis, who have...

WHILE President Mugabe's Zanu PF regime lauds itself for liberating thousands of Zimbabweans from poverty by providing them with land under the controversial fast-track land reform programme, it has emerged that a greater number of the displaced farm workers are now wallowing in poverty. The sole representative body of the country's agricultural workers, the General Agriculture and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe (Gapwuz) said affected workers could be divided into two categories: Those stuck at invaded commercial farmers, and those who had ventured into informal activities, such as gold panning in Mashonaland West and Central. Gapwuz grassroots coordinator, Gift Muti,...

<p>AL UDEID AIR BASE, Qatar -- The most unusual feature of this massive air base isn't its 15,000-foot-long runway, which is the longest in the Middle East. Nor is it the hangars, which rise like mountains from the flat desert floor and are capable of providing shelter through a biological and chemical attack.</p>

JUNE 22, 2002 STOCK MARKET WOESThe trouble started when dividends fell out of favour By CHET CURRIER NEW YORK - Much of the misery afflicting the stock market can be laid at the door of a simple misunderstanding. If people in positions of power only had a better grasp of the concept of corporate dividends, we might not be in the fix that plagues us today. Sounds far-fetched, you say? Give me a couple of minutes to state my case. Dividends are a central element of stock investing. A share of stock represents nothing more nor less than fractional...

CHECKUP Liquor use may attract mosquitoes KAREN GARLOCH Karen Garloch Anticipating the usual mosquito bites of summer, Nolan Newton, head of pest management for North Carolina and its expert on West Nile virus, wants people to know about a new study. The headline in the Journal of the American Mosquito Control Association says it all: "Alcohol Ingestion Stimulates Mosquito Attraction." Researchers in Japan recruited 13 men and one woman, including one man who served as the control subject. The authors measured sweat production, skin temperature and ethanol content in sweat before and after ingestion of 12 ounces of beer. The...

GAZA, Jun 24, 2002 (Xinhua via COMTEX) -- The Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) has vowed to take revenge on Israel for its killings six Palestinian militants in the southern Gaza Strip on Monday. Hamas also blasted the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) for putting Hamas founder and spiritual leader Sheikh Ahmed Yassin under house arrest. Israel occupied Palestinian towns, assassinated Palestinians and besieged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's compound (in the West Bank town of Ramallah), while the PNA arrested Hamas members and its police besieged Yassin, said a Hamas leaflet delivered in Gaza. Yassin told reporters from his house that he...