Free Republic

  WASHINGTON -- Don't waste more taxpayer money on Amtrak, scholar says Amtrak's board of directors was called to a meeting Monday at the request of Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta, who says the government wants to avoid a shutdown of the beleaguered rail monopoly and would consider providing emergency funds. Mineta says one option would be an emergency appropriation of $200 million from Congress. Cato Institute Adjunct Scholar and Amtrak expert Edward L. Hudgins had the following comments on the issue: "Amtrak, which has collected over $25 billion in taxpayer subsidies in its three decades of existence, does not...

A false consciousness of 'Muslim-hood', instead of nationhood or 'Pakistan-first', and jihad as an instrument of foreign and security policies, elevating our status to a 'failed and rogue state', had brought us into conflict with the whole world. Thanks to the successive reversals of our flawed course of militancy spread over three decades, we are out of the woods, but are still suffering from a conflict of ideology and new found pragmatism. A paradigm shift is most warranted, after we have had to abandon our so-called ideological and security straitjackets. But we still live in the ideological past while negotiating...

**GOOD NEWS: Votes on E.S.A.! THIS Wednesday, June 26, votes will be taken in the House of Representatives Resources Committee on a GOOD BILL to improve the Endangered Species Act!!! ACTION ITEMS BELOW. Bill number HR 4840 requires "sound science" - solid, valid, legitimate scientific data - to place a species on the endangered species list. This may sound like common sense to most of us. But the leftwing environmentalists are in a tizzy over this bill - they can't stand the idea of actually having their incomplete and fraudulent scientific data reviewed before a species can be claimed as...

It was six in the morning local time. The aeroplane's in-flight monitor read "Welcome to Ashkhabad". But something was wrong. Because on either side of the airbus as it had taxied to a halt had been burnt out fighter jets and bombed buildings, the wreckage of a relatively low-level but long-term conflict. If this was Ashkhabad, capital of Turkmenistan, we'd all be missing a big story. Kabul remains a city of destroyed buildings. In fact it was Kabul, the Afghan capital. The brass band of the Turkish Army reached up into overhead lockers, fretting over their creased uniforms. And...

Latest Accounts of the Charge -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A Force of Four Thousand Indians in Position Attacked by Less Than Four Hundred Troops--Opinions of Leading Army Officers of the Deed and Its Consequences--Feeling in the Community Over the Disaster -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Special Dispatch to the New York Times RELATED HEADLINES Confirmations of the Disaster: Dispatches From Gen. Terry Received at Sheridan's Head-Quarters--Theories of the Battle--Probably Ten Thousand Sioux in Position--The Attack Condemned as Rash by Officers of Experience--Disposition of the Wounded Dispatches from Gen. Terry: Particulars of the Plan of the Movement Under Custer as Agreed on Before the March The Causes and...

  Public Wants Jail for Complicit Bishops Majority Says Bishops Should Be Charged, Priests Removed From Church Analysis By Gary Langer June 24 — Eight in 10 Americans favor criminal charges against bishops who've failed to act on sexual abuse accusations against priests — a view that underscores the depth of public discontent with the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church. <! -- begin print page / send page box --> In this ABCNEWS.com/Beliefnet poll, even among Catholics, 73 percent favor obstruction or accessory charges against bishops who knew of an allegation and didn't call the police or remove...

FReeper Spiff mentioned he carries voter registration forms with him, and I think that's a great idea. If everyone can post their state's voter registration forms, perhaps we can compile a page with all the proper links, unless someone knows where one is already posted. I'll tell you another thing I've been doing. I've printed out Voter Registration Forms from my State's website and I carry them around with me. I've been able to sign unregistered people up as Republicans and have even got a few to switch from the Democrat Party. I'm with you, we need all the votes...

SYDNEY, Australia -- A man who hammed it up in an Australian bar by donning pork chops as shoes is being sued by a customer who claims he broke his arm when he slipped on the grease. Troy Michael Bowron, 25, is suing the Jannali Inn in southern Sydney, its owner Kelly Wells and patron Ross Lucock over the incident on Nov. 30, 1997. Bowron told the New South Wales District Court on Monday that he had been playing in a pool competition at the bar when he saw Lucock taping pork chops to his feet. He claimed Lucock said...

<p>OKLAHOMA CITY — The tough-talking former prosecutor who will oversee U.S. Catholic bishops' compliance with a new policy on sexual abuse says he will seek neither criminal prosecution nor Vatican action against bishops who cover up sexual abuse of minors by priests. Oklahoma Gov. Frank Keating, a Catholic, says the new national review board he heads will rely on public outrage to force change in the church. He won't seek help from prosecutors or Rome "because I don't think it will have to happen," Keating said in an interview with USA TODAY.</p>

Legislature nears end of fiscal year without budget solution Action on alternative tax plans was deferred Monday while House Speaker Jimmy Naifeh continued looking for the handful of votes needed to pass a 4.5 percent state income tax. Gov. Don Sundquist met with legislative leaders to assess the chances of passing Naifeh's plan, with the end of the fiscal year less than a week away and the state needing $800 million in new tax revenue to keep services at their current level. Failure to pass a budget by Sunday night would shut state government down. "The most encouraging thing I...

A new birth of freedom The Oslo "peace process" was born on the White House lawn on September 13, 1993. It died yesterday in the White House Rose Garden. From the beginning and putting aside the palaver about a New Middle East the strategic calculus that informed Oslo was a simple one: Deputize thugs to take care of thugs. Revive the weakened strongmen of the PLO and they will do Israel's dirty work against Hamas and Islamic Jihad without without fear of cavil from sundry human-rights groups in Israel and beyond. Wash your hands of the Palestinians once and for...

Imagine the excitement last week at the headquarters of GATA — the Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee — when noted Royal Bank mutual fund manager John Embry issued a report referring to a price-manipulation conspiracy in the global gold market. For GATA, which has been preaching that message for years now, it was probably a bit like the U.S. government admitting that yes, there was a top-level CIA plot to assassinate former president John F. Kennedy, and the whole lone-gunman theory was just a crock. Gold conspiracy theorists might not like being compared with the Kennedy crowd — which is so...

Redesigned FrontPageMagazine.com Debuts (As you can see,) the new version of FrontPageMagazine.com has been officially launched. While keeping the same content you've grown to depend on, the new site has an updated graphical look and feel, and many new features. There's a lot that goes into redesigning a site of this size, so if you notice any glitches please bear with us and feel free to report any problems to support@frontpagemag.com. Additionally, part of the transition to the new site means that we need to migrate all of the archived articles from the old site to the new. While many...

Too many humps in the roads, says Goode Other ‘traffic-calming’ measures advocated in the planning process to stem speeding By BRIAN PERRY Staff Writer WAILUKU — Motorists speeding through otherwise quiet, residential streets continues to be a problem, and the solution, so far, has been for the county to install speed humps. But, as Public Works Director David Goode explained to the Maui County Council’s Public Works and Water Committee Wednesday, speed humps are costly for the county to install and other “traffic-calming” measures could be as effective if not more so. Much of the problem, Goode said, is that...

MEXICO CITY -- Banking authorities must give investigators the records from President Vicente Fox's 2000 campaign to determine whether he accepted banned donations from foreigners, a federal court ruled Monday. The Federal Electoral Tribunal ruling ends the standoff between investigators and the Banking and Securities Commission, which refused to hand over the records because it said investigators overstepped their authority and asked for too much data. The seven-judge panel disagreed and gave the commission 10 days to comply. Investigators from the Federal Electoral Institute, the agency overseeing electoral law, requested the records in May. The investigation began after two opposition...

PRESIDENT Bush is being warned by his allies in Washington and London that their support for military action against Saddam Hussein cannot be taken for granted. Republican and Democrat leaders have cautioned him against launching a hasty attack on Iraq. They have also questioned whether the potential scale of a full invasion, involving up to 250,000 US troops, makes it worthwhile. Britain, while sharing deep concern at the dangers Saddam poses to the international community, is also far from offering open-ended support for military operations. As Mr Bush tries to step up the case against rogue states and press home...

ANKARA, Turkey - A top U.S. counterterrorism official opened a regional conference on battling terror Monday and said that global cooperation was vital in fighting groups like al-Qaida. Francis X. Taylor, the head of the State Department's office of counterterrorism, said that security forces have already disrupted planned attacks by Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s al-Qaida network. "I am convinced ... that we are making success against al-Qaida. We are disrupting their networks. We have disrupted plans for attacks and we will continue to work to do that," he said. He gave no details. Taylor, a retired...

Tony Blair arrives this evening in a remote village in the Canadian Rockies to join the other leaders of the Group of Eight industrialised countries in discussing one of the most intractable issues of world development: how to stop Africa sliding ever further into the abyss. For the first time, routine commitments by the rich nations to “do something” about the most impoverished have been codified, costed and put at the top of the agenda. The New Partnership for Africa’ s Development (Nepad) has been likened by its proponents to a Marshall Plan for Africa. It commits America, Japan and...

Webcasting of Hawaiian music likely to end, thanks to new fees By HARRY EAGAR Staff Writer KAHULUI — Webcasting of Hawaiian music from Maui is about to end, victim of both a decision on royalty payments announced on Thursday and the fact that advertisers are not yet ready to support it. That hits both commercial webcasters, like Pacific Radio Group, and non-commercial enthusiasts like L.D. Reynolds of Hawaiian Jamz. Pacific Radio Group’s KPOA Hawaiian station has been webcasting, but President Chuck Bergson says it will suspend the online programming in July. Part of the reason is a royalty decision by...

Sympathy for suicide bombers is a sign of Western moral failure Jack Straw takes his cue from John Donne. Asked by The Times last week what lesson could be drawn from the killing of 20 Israelis by a Palestinian terrorist, the Foreign Secretary invited observers to feel “a degree of compassion” for suicide bombers. Any man’s death diminishes me, Donne wrote, because I am involved in mankind. My colleague Matthew Parris takes his cue from another poet. In seeking to argue that there was something “ennobling” in the suicide bombers’ self-sacrifice, he quoted from Horace — Dulce et decorum est...