Free Republic

NEW YORK, June 26 (Reuters) - Stocks are set to plunge at Wednesday's open after Wall Street was stung by yet another accounting scandal -- this time from phone group WorldCom Inc., which said it improperly booked nearly $4 billion in expenses. In what could be one of the biggest cases of accounting fraud in U.S. history, WorldCom (NasdaqNM:WCOM - News), the No. 2 U.S. long-distance telephone and data services firm, said it would restate its results for 2001 and the first quarter of 2002 to show net losses. The news sent stocks reeling around the globe: Tokyo's benchmark Nikkei...

<p>Washington -- PRESIDENT BUSH'S Monday statement was the most clearsighted U.S. intervention in the Israeli-Palestinian crisis in the 35 years since the 1967 war, and perhaps in the 54 years since the founding of Israel. It enunciated a policy that makes eventual peace at least conceivable, and meanwhile frees the president to pursue the global anti-terrorism agenda articulated in five other speeches this year.</p>

LOS ANGELES (AP) The Rev. Al Sharpton announced plans Tuesday for a major summit he said would reform the recording industry and end exploitation of artists. The ''Music Industry Initiative,'' is scheduled for the week of July 8 in New York City, Sharpton said during a news conference in Los Angeles. Attorney Johnnie Cochran Jr. is helping Sharpton with the project, which aims to bring together singers, musicians and recording label representatives. Sharpton, a longtime political and social activist, has embraced issues ranging from police brutality to bombing exercises on the Puerto Rican island of Vieques. Earlier this month singer...

The agency that let in all 19 Sept. 11th terrorists should absolutely be a part of the new Department of Homeland Defense--but that's not the plan. The State Department's Bureau of Consular Affairs (CA), however, has proven that it can't be trusted to keep potential terrorists out of the country -- or even to be honest with Congress and the American people. The Civil Service subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee is holding hearings on CA today. I will be testifying, in large part because of my articles on the topic on JewishWorldReview.com, in last week's Post and the...

<p>Sacramento -- In a pair of TV ads debuting today, GOP businessman Bill Simon lampoons Gov. Gray Davis as the denizen of a dusty office jammed with campaign cash, visited by a parade of dollar-laden constituents.</p> <p>The new 30-second spots use parody to stick in the minds of voters while skewering Davis -- the Democratic incumbent who has raised more than $30 million for his re-election campaign -- on the fund-raising issue, where Republicans believe he is most vulnerable.</p>

Pig in a Poke by Paul Hein You never know what you’re buying. It may look, smell, and drive like an automobile, but there’s more. In addition to the car, you’re buying something else, but you don’t know what. You cannot drive off in that new vehicle without paying the sales tax, and that means that some of what you pay is going into the hands of nameless strangers, to be spent as they see fit on projects you can’t even imagine, and certainly wouldn’t support if you could. Possibly this annoys you. It’s a quaint idea, but perhaps the...

Under increasing pressure to do something about the Middle East, the president of the United States has done what any realistic political leader under pressure would do about an intractable problem: He pretended to do something. It was quite a challenge. George W. Bush had to say little while speaking a lot. He had little room for maneuver while unveiling a Comprehensive Solution. His speech Monday required the verbal incoherence of an Eisenhower, the sage duplicity of a Kissinger and the innocent air of a Pollyanna. The dictates of diplomacy require that those willing to be patient must appear impatient,...

LONDON (Reuters) - An Alaskan chicken-hypnotist who cycles around the world with a traveling circus has ground to a halt after a charity clothes shop in Scotland sold her bicycle by mistake while she was in the fitting-room. Emily Harris left the $1,800 bicycle leaning on a mannequin inside the British Heart Foundation shop in Edinburgh while she tried on a shirt. By the time she came out the bike had been sold for $15. "I went into shock. I started shaking and I said 'what a lot of' with some expletives attached a few times," Harris told Reuters on...

Police in Germany have blamed national football coach Rudi Voeller for an increase in speeding motorists.Police in Saarland say every time Germany play in the World Cup they end up with a spate of speeding motorists desperate to get home to see the game.Officers have even produced a report for the Interior Ministry entitled: "Are Rudi Voeller and his boys responsible for speeding?"It quotes examples like a 41-year-old man who was stopped after driving over 130 mph in a 60 mph speed zone.He told police that he was in a hurry because he didn't want to miss the start of...

Martha has now sponsored a new contest to help her with her new magazine set to be released after her court appearance. "Martha Stewart Big House Living." This fashionable new magazine has everything for the recently indisposed small room dwellers who need new snack ideas and decorating tips for their, uhhm, small spaces. SNACK IDEAS Snacks can sometimes be a problem in small confined spaces where you find that you just cant get out as often as you would like: 1. Fumunda Cheese Crackers: A wonderful quick pick-me-up fast energy snakc for the midninght cell walkers to have or...

From the moment the State of Israel has the capability to launch a satellite into orbit around the earth at a height of hundreds of kilometers, it established [its] capability to launch, by means of a missile, a payload to any location on the face of the earth," says the head of the Asher Institute at the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Prof. Moshe Gelman, in the wake of the launch of the Ofek 5 satellite. Avi Har-Even, the director-general of the Israel Space Agency (ISA), explained to Ha'aretz that the Ofek 5 launch has two strategic aspects. The first, he...

<p>ATLANTA (AP) --  A standardized testing company made serious errors in grading exams given to nearly 340,000 Georgia elementary school students, the state Department of Education said.</p> <p>The department sent a letter Tuesday asking schools to destroy score reports for the Stanford Achievement Test Series, called the Stanford 9, a test that is also given in other states.</p>

According to a British media report, the six Palestinians arrested this week near Beit Shemesh were en route to a suicide attack against an Israeli arms warehouse in which nuclear bombs and Jericho surface-to-surface missiles are stored, Army Radio reported Wednesday. It quoted the British Foreign Report as saying that the planned attack was thwarted as a result of information received by the Shin Bet security service and by a large-scale manhunt that resulted in the capture of the six late on Monday. "Within Israel's defense establishment, officials are denying this morning that security information of this nature was indeed...

RABAT, Morocco (Reuters) - Morocco has arrested three more Moroccans suspected of plotting attacks on U.S. and British warships for Osama bin Laden ( news - web sites)'s al Qaeda group, a security investigator said Tuesday. The three men, who include a policeman and court clerk, were arrested during the weekend and are in custody at a Casablanca jail with three Saudis and four Moroccans arrested in recent weeks on suspicion of links to the alleged plot. "We arrested three new suspects linked to al Qaeda terrorist network ... The three are now held in Oukacha prison with the other...

June 19, 2002 - SEAMAN - An appeal of last week's ruling on the Ten Commandments monuments outside four Adams County high schools is likely, according to members of the Adams County for the Ten Commandments Committee speaking at a Monday afternoon press conference at North Adams High School. The Rev. Ken Johnson referred to a quote by Adams County/Ohio Valley Schools Board of Education President Jeff Ryan, who said he is "confident the board probably will appeal" a June 11 ruling by U.S. Magistrate Timothy Hogan of the Sixth District Federal Court that requires the district to remove the...

Martha Stewart Adopts Clinton Lying Tactics On National TV – Is Diane Sawyer Also Involved In Stock Swindle Scandal? Mom’s-work maven Martha Stewart just demonstrated she received some benefit from the millions of dollars she contributed to Bill Clinton and the Democrats. In an interview on ABC’s Good Morning America, the normally perky and bright-eyed Stewart looked as if she hadn’t slept in days. The brown roots of her blonde-dyed hair were so long that looked like maps to Al-Queda tunnels under the Afghanistan mountains. Worst of all were her attempt to deflect questions about her neck-deep involvement in a...

<p>A business and sales tax plan by two middle Tennessee lawmakers advanced out of a state House committee yesterday, while Gov. Don Sundquist said he is assembling a ''state of emergency'' plan to keep government running in case legislators fail to approve a state budget by a midnight Sunday deadline.</p>

APPLETON — Gary Wilke didn’t set out to become a symbol of people’s frustrations when he used a sledgehammer to vent rage over his daughter’s dysfunctional computer. But after he trashed the machine April 1 in the lobby of the Gateway Country store in Grand Chute, he got calls and e-mails from around the world. Wilke’s attorney, Lorn Dilley of Appleton, said his client’s actions struck a chord with people. “People are pretty much powerless. What can they do?” he said. People’s day-to-day frustrations, especially with service-related issues, are as numerous as they’ve ever been, said Gerald Metalsky, a clinical...

ONE CAN GIVE CREDIT to George Bush for restoring dignity of the White House. Done. One can commend George Bush for responding appropriately to the Sept. 11 Islamist attack on the United States. Check. One can even give ol’ George a pat on the back for his personal decision to kick alcohol and live a clean, reverent life. Patpatpat. But one can also draw the line at eating all one’s fruits and veggies just like the President says good Americans should. Bush’s four-day plug for more nutritious eating habits and improved fitness for a Better America has left me wishing...

THE WAR WE HAVE joined is defined by three simple but brutal facts. Our enemy is able to penetrate our borders and strike us in our homes; he can strike us with weapons of mass destruction; and he has made clear his intention is not to change our policies or to force our withdrawal, but to obliterate us and destroy our civilization. Because of these facts, the imperative of defending ourselves as quickly and effectively as possible is more important in this war – by a factor so great as to be impossible to calculate -- than any we have...