Free Republic

Voters in Oak Bluffs went on a public health rampage this week. Not only did they reinstate the ban on smoking in town bars, but they also cut back on the number of mopeds that may be rented in town and made sure to put a halt to the presence of bicycles, Frisbees and hacky-sack playing on downtown streets. Town officials ranging from selectmen to the police chief convinced voters at the special town meeting that their backing of such measures would improve the safety and health of both residents and visitors. There was little argument from the 163 voters...

Police say 44-year old Wanda Tappin was traveling on Baseline road just before eight this morning. Witnesses say she was talking on her cell phone and apparently didn't notice the guardrail across the tracks, signaling a train was approaching. Tappin ran through the guardrail and was struck by an Amtrak train, which was traveling about 75 miles an hour. The train pushed her car, a maroon Toyota Camry, about a quarter mile down the track. The 144 passengers and crew of 11 on board the train were not injured.

CHICAGO, June 23 (IslamOnline) - Illinois Republican gubernatorial candidate Jim Ryan spoke to the Muslim community at the Islamic Foundation’s annual fair Sunday, June 23. Ryan, who currently holds the office of state’s Attorney General is facing stiff competition from Democratic heavyweight Rod Blagojavic, and the Muslim vote might prove crucial to his election. Ryan visited the fair at the invitation of Moin Moon Khan, founding president of the Republican Minority Caucus and president of the American Muslims for Peaceful Co-existence. Khan told IslamOnline that the purpose of inviting Ryan was to highlight the positive aspects of the Islamic community....

A clip: “Broadband Internet access via cable modem is not subject to the same Soviet-style regulatory constraints placed on Digital Subscriber Line (DSL) providers like AT&T, SBC and Verizon. These constraints, placed on DSL providers by the idiotic Telecommunications Act of 1996, forced their networks to share their infrastructure and provide 'open access' to their less well-funded competitors. In essence, if SBC spent $100 billion to build a DSL network that blankets the whole of the United States, a guy with some company letterhead that reads 'BubbaTel' in Hope, Arkansas would legally be able to charge his customers to use...

The latest news in the War on Terror – and CNN’s Lou Dobbs is right to call this the War Against Islamists – is all bad: 1) One of Osama’s chief lieutenants has announced that a new video will soon be broadcast on our Fourth of July showing Osama bin Laden and his right-hand man, the Egyptian doctor Zwahiri who masterminded the Anwar Sadat assassination, alive and well and still running Al Qaeda. 2) They have also said that there will be new attacks “on America” – perhaps on July 4th. 3) Whoever manufactured last fall’s anthrax and mailed it...

President Bush Discussed Middle East in Rose Garden Address The Rose Garden 3:47 P.M. THE PRESIDENT: For too long, the citizens of the Middle East have lived in the midst of death and fear. The hatred of a few holds the hopes of many hostage. The forces of extremism and terror are attempting to kill progress and peace by killing the innocent. And this casts a dark shadow over an entire region. For the sake of all humanity, things must change in the Middle East. It is untenable for Israeli citizens to live in terror. It is untenable for Palestinians...

US President George W. Bush said tonight that a Palestinian state will not be possible until wide-ranging reforms are implemented in the Palestinian Authority. Among the steps Bush called for were open democratic elections by the end of the year. He also termed as necessary the streamlining of the legislative structure and security authorities in the PA. Bush did not mention PA Chairman Yasser Arafat by name, but clearly was referring to the Palestinian leader when he cited "official corruption" as an impediment to a peaceful solution. "Peace requires a new and different Palestinian leadership so that a Palestinian state...

<p>ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- An audiotape from an al Qaeda spokesman hints at the release of a new Osama bin Laden videotape, saying he "will soon appear on television screens."</p> <p>But in the audiotape, which was played Sunday on the Qatar-based Al Jazeera TV network, Sulemain Abu Gheith never mentions a date for the bin Laden tape's release.</p>

I am working on a project and need funny or scary pictures of liberals such as the Clintons, Reno, Jackson, Arafat, Albright, Gore and more. Anyone know of a site or just post them here. thanks.

<p>When San Francisco police said they couldn't spare an officer to arrest a man suspected of stealing Tom Van Lokeren's credit cards and checks, the 47-year-old North Beach tax accountant took matters into his own hands.</p> <p>Van Lokeren bought a large fishing net at Fisherman's Wharf, some pepper spray and a stun gun at a military surplus store and then lured the suspect into a trap on a busy downtown street.</p>

America has a health care problem that has developed into a full-fledged epidemic. Over 40 million Americans currently lack health insurance. Skyrocketing health care costs eat up about 15% of the nation's total productivity. Thousands of businesses have dropped their employee health care benefits. How did the American health care system become so diseased? Prior to the 1960s, America had a health care system that many considered the best in the world. Most Americans could afford to pay for health insurance; hospital procedures didn't cost a week's pay; charity hospitals were available for the poor and indigent; and doctors even...

<p>A leading Israeli government minister told a San Francisco audience last night that as long as Yasser Arafat heads the Palestinian people, there will be no peace in the Middle East.</p> <p>"War is the only answer as long as Arafat is there," Israel's Housing and Construction Minister Natan Sharansky said in a forceful speech at Temple Emanuel. "The desire to make Arafat a partner is an illusion."</p>

Why did you decide to spend so many years writing this book about Saddam Hussein? Why did you decide to spend so many years writing this book about Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein is the most methodical Arab leader of the twentieth century. He's organized. He's a day dreamer. And also, he had the following. He was popular. But Saddam Hussein is a planner. And he has affected the Middle East so considerably that we need to understand him. Why did you decide to spend so many years writing this book about Saddam Hussein? Saddam Hussein is the most methodical Arab...

<p>Phoenix police shot and killed Pete the Dog on Thursday, leaving the pet's 10-year-old owner horrified.</p> <p>"He never bit anybody in his life," said a teary-eyed Phoebe Quigg, who was standing less than four feet from the dog when an officer shot him twice in the head Thursday afternoon, killing him instantly.</p>

Osama Bin Laden Found Cayman , Special to the Sulekha Indus Inquirer Orlando, Jun 20, 2002 Over the past several months, the US Special Operations force has been combing the caves of eastern Afghanistan for clues about the whereabouts of Osama Bin Laden, the elusive mastermind behind the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Recent discoveries in the ruins of the Ministry for Superior Islamic Education have thrown up new clues. A search party led by Sgt. Al Cayda has stumbled upon box loads of colorful brochures, advertising a new college in Kabul, with branches in Kandahar, Herat and Jalalabad. Snippets from the...

The Right to Keep and Bear . . . What? The Second Amendment Definition of "Arms" by Alo Konsen II. Emerson and the definition of "arms" To define "arms," we can turn to any of three main schools of constitutional interpretation that currently hold sway in American law. To line up with most commentators I will call them the "living document" school, the "framers' intent" school, and the "textualism" school. The Emerson court subscribes to the textualism school, and I think rightfully so.The "living document" school arose in the 1930s, and advanced the idea of a "dynamic, living Constitution, which...

Father Al is dying of liver cancer. But is doesn't stop his evangelizing. http://www.presentationministries.com/dbread/dbread.asp

The email sent out last month by Laurie Zoloth, director of Jewish Studies at San Francisco State University, was chilling on its face. "I cannot fully express what it feels like to have to walk across campus daily, past maps of the Middle East that do not include Israel, past posters of cans of soup with labels on them of drops of blood and dead babies, labeled 'canned Palestinian children meat, slaughtered according to Jewish rites under American license,' past poster after poster calling out Zionism=racism, and Jews=Nazis," she wrote -- and the details only became more shattering from then...

This weekend marks the 30th anniversary of Title IX and, hopefully, the end of me screaming at the TV. As a policy geek and pundit, I'm used to yelling at C-Span or CNN the way some people yell at the Super Bowl. I've been known to exclaim things like, "That's not how Social Security works, ya moron!" on more than a few occasions. But watching my wife debate a coterie of feminists and professional liberals has been especially exasperating. The Missus, Jessica Gavora, is the author of "Tilting the Playing Field," a controversial book on Title IX, the 1972 civil...

Paper: Italian Church Attack Plotted Sun Jun 23,10:21 AM ET ROME (AP) - Suspected Islamic militants were plotting an attack on a northern Italian church that has been the subject of protests by Muslims in the past, a newspaper reported Sunday. The Milan daily Corriere della Sera said the San Petronio basilica in Bologna was targeted apparently because it contains a 15th century fresco that depicts Islam's prophet Muhammad in Hell, being devoured by demons. Last year, a group of Italian Muslims appealed unsuccessfully to the Vatican ( news - web sites) to have the fresco by Giovanni da Modena...