Free Republic

<p>Our vulnerable schoolchildren, whose self-esteem has long been threatened by the forced learning of such culturally biased concepts as writing and reading, are suffering yet another blow to basic human rights: the Pledge of Allegiance.</p> <p>Turns out that reciting the Pledge isn't just a mindless salute to a society founded on the subjugation of indigenous peoples, as a school board on Manhattan's wacky Upper West Side declared last year. The Pledge is far more insidious.</p>

LONDON -- The founder of an Internet site to provide sperm donors for lesbian couples wanting to have children said yesterday the site was overwhelmed with 8,000 registrations in the first 48 hours of operation. ManNotIncluded.com, launched in Britain on Monday, was set up to provide lesbian couples with sperm for "home insemination." Founder John Gonzalez said 3,000 lesbian couples had already signed up, while 5,000 men had registered to be donors. 40,000 HITS "We have been overwhelmed by the response to the Web site. Over 40,000 people have visited the Web site since it went live on Monday," Gonzalez...

We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail! [President Bush] Good morning!! Do not let the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, nor the brave members of our Nation's military who have given their lives to protect our freedom, die in vain!! In a moment, the news, but first a very special message for the most highly distinguished jurists who sit in judgment on the United States Circuit Court for the Ninth Judicial District: I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE TO THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, AND TO THE REPUBLIC FOR WHICH...

New plan appeals to anti-tax lawmakers Wilder backs 6% flat tax, repeal of state sales levy By Tom Humphrey, News-Sentinel Nashville bureau June 27, 2002 NASHVILLE- A new state tax reform plan surfaced on Wednesday with the strong backing of Lt. Gov. John Wilder and indications that other key legislative leaders would join him. Among them was Senate Republican Leader Ben Atchley of Knoxville, who said he stands ready to retreat from his longtime opposition to any proposal incorporating a state income tax. Wilder's plan, presented to the Senate Finance Committee by state Comptroller John Morgan, calls for a flat-rate...

<p>SAN FRANCISCO (AP) --  The San Francisco health department toned down its campaign to combat rising syphilis infections after the company that owns the city's bus shelters refused to display a male genitalia cartoon.</p> <p>Viacom Outdoor objected to the Healthy Penis 2002 ads on five bus shelters in the city's predominantly gay Castro District, saying they would offend children and families.</p>

I remember 23 September 1976 well. It was one of those occasions, like the assassination of John F Kennedy, where you can clearly remember where you were and what was going through your mind at the time. On 23 September 1976 I was with a small group of friends in Mount Pleasant, Harare. The others were all academics of one kind or another at the then University of Rhodesia. We sat in the study and watched a small television set as Ian Douglas Smith, prime minister for 17 years, came onto the screen to address the nation. Three years before...

"I oppose that little children go to die. It is a horrible thing. At least 40 children in Rafah became cripples after their hands were blown off by pipe bombs. They received 5 Shekels [slightly over $1] to throw them. Who is ready for such a thing to happen to their son or his family? In the end there was a large uproar over the 13 year olds who were sent to the settlements. Why is this done?" Abu Mazen, Arafat's deputy, in an interview in the Kuwaiti daily Al-Zaman, as quoted in the 20 June 2002 edition of ,...

Keating OKs smoking rules 2002-06-26By Jim Killackey The Oklahoman Gov. Frank Keating today signed into law a series of Health Department emergency rules limiting smoking in Oklahoma restaurants, bars, bingo halls, bowling alleys and malls. Restaurants, in particular, can choose to be entirely smoking, entirely smoke-free or effectively smoke-free. In the latter category, restaurant operators with seating capacities of 50 or more must allow smoking only in designated smoking rooms that are enclosed and ventilated so that second-hand smoke is not circulated into non-smoking areas of the establishment. Restaurants with less than 50 seats are exempt. "These rules are...

NEW YORK -- Carey Lorenzo was just a few weeks into her new job at Enron Corp. last fall when she started getting signals that job security might be an issue.Full Article

HAVANA (AP) - Cuban lawmakers voted unanimously to make socialism an ``irrevocable'' part of the constitution in an effort to ensure the nation will remain socialist long after Fidel Castro is gone. More than 500 members of Cuba's unicameral National Assembly voted late Wednesday to declare that ``capitalism will never return again'' to the Caribbean island. Deputies' names were called out in alphabetical order and each one stood up and shouted ``Si!'' into a microphone. Of Cuba's 578 deputies, 559 were present and all voted affirmatively. Deputies grew emotional and almost giddy during the tally, eventually applauding loudly after each...

<p>Sacramento -- Michael A. Newdow has Connie Chung waiting for him, an answering machine full of threats from a new cadre of enemies, and an outraged Congress and president -- but the dishes still need to be done.</p> <p>Newdow, the 49-year-old emergency room doctor who convinced a federal court to throw out the Pledge of Allegiance, nervously rinsed off plastic plates and dishes in his suburban Sacramento house Wednesday while talking to a friend on the telephone.</p>

KANANASKIS, Alberta (AP) - World leaders, wrapping up a summit rocked by a new U.S. corporate bookkeeping scandal and dissension over President Bush's Mideast policy, turned their attention to Africa and a far-reaching program to provide billions of dollars of assistance to the world's poorest continent. Bush, who has lobbied the other leaders to support his new Middle East peace proposal and its demand that Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat be ousted, was to discuss the issue during a meeting Thursday with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Earlier this week, Putin said bluntly that it would be ``dangerous and mistaken'' to remove...

CALGARY -- The protest parade snakes through Calgary's business district, pausing in main intersections to disrupt the morning rush-hour traffic. Not too long. Just for a minute. A minor inconvenience for motorists. As the march passes, a young woman with five nose rings and a sign that reads "G8 Sucks!" apologizes for accidentally bumping into one of the dozens of bicycle police lining the demonstration route, using their two-wheelers as a makeshift barricade. Welcome to anarchy, Calgary-style, a mass demonstration of polite protesters and bicycle cops that so far has been about as menacing as the Santa Claus parade. This...

MOSCOW - Russian scientists plan to rally here Thursday in what organizers call a "scream of despair" over funding cuts and state indifference that have left much of the once formidable ex-Soviet intellectual establishment in ruins. "The worst thing is that we cannot work at the professions we were trained for, no one wants us, and the government has abandoned us," says Sergei Nikitin, an unemployed specialist in experimental mechanics who is among the protesters. But the demonstration is bringing out critics who say that academics and researchers ought to start hustling like everyone else must in the new market...

QUANTICO, VA. - On Jan. 4, while surveying bomb damage from the back of a pickup truck near Khost, Afghanistan, Sgt. Nathan Ross Chapman was suddenly struck down by small-arms fire – the first American serviceman to die in combat during Operation Enduring Freedom. Yet the bullets that felled the seasoned Green Beret came allegedly not from a hardened fighter, but from a 14-year-old boy, according to unconfirmed reports from local Afghan leaders. If true, the incident underscores how the tragic epidemic of child warriors – with an estimated 300,000 now serving as combatants in dozens of conflicts around the...

<p>Washington -- A FRIEND of mine over the weekend was recalling her days as an idealistic child of the '60s. Students sitting around the dorm, amid the water bongs, water beds, strobe lights and Che posters, listening to Led Zeppelin and Dylan, dreaming about remaking the world in their own image, trading nightmares about spying Big Brother and soul-robbing corporations.</p>

artha Stewart now has a target on her back.Federal investigators are focusing their criminal probe on whether the homemaking diva gave the FBI a bogus story to cover up insider trading, two sources familiar with the case said yesterday.The feds are armed with new evidence that contradicts Stewart's version of events in the ImClone scandal, according to these sources.Now they're trying to determine whether there's enough to charge her with lying to an FBI agent — a felony — the sources said.The stunning revelation of the widening probe sent stock in Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia plummeting yesterday by 23.5%.That...

WASHINGTON - Even as the nation launches sweeping reforms to get kids ready for college, new trends signal that hundreds of thousands who make the grade won't be able to afford to go. This trend is hitting middle-income families, as well as the poorest first-generation immigrants. It's not inevitable. But, for now, it's only getting worse. Here's the pattern: Rising college tuition, which has outpaced inflation since the 1980s. Less need- based student aid to pay it. And record levels of personal debt at the end of it. For many families, a college education is a bridge too far. Nearly...

ASHLAND, ORE. - The 20 major fires that have consumed more than 2.5 million acres in nine states raise deep questions about how to prevent and fight such conflagrations. How to reverse nearly 100 years of history during which the basic Smokey Bear approach of full suppression has choked forests with flammable material? How to accommodate the inexorable movement of new homeowners into the "wildland-urban interface," where shake roofs and shade trees are fuel to a hungry fire? Such questions are inevitably controversial. They involve balancing the more natural "let-it-burn" approach with the "active forest management" (i.e., more logging) favored...

BOSTON AND BOULDER, COLO. - Just after a Denver jury pronounced Abraham Hagos guilty of murder in April, the defendant jumped over a table and attacked the prosecutor. It might have seemed that the only bright spot in Mr. Hago's future was that the jury and judge – who witnessed the attack – wouldn't be the ones to decide whether he'd get the death penalty. A panel of judges would do that. But a Supreme Court ruling Monday suddenly leaves the future of Mr. Hagos – and that of many defendants hovering between conviction and sentencing – much more murky....