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"The FBI did not want to pick Hassoun up, preferring instead to continue their surveillance and see where it would lead them. Sources said the bureau's hand was forced when agents monitored a phone call from a Miami newspaper reporter to Hassoun seeking information about the Padilla case and feared that their subject might flee." HERE

A Jewish demographic state Having lodged itself close to the top of the national agenda, the issue of demography is forcing both the right and the left to grapple with the difficult dilemma at the heart of the state's character. Can Israel be a Jewish and democratic state? Is there any such animal?About three months ago Prof. Arnon Sofer sent an urgent letter to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. The subject was the need for separation from the Palestinians. "Most of the inhabitants of Israel realize that there is only one solution in the face of our insane and suicidal neighbor...

Sun Backs Rival's Web Services Security Effort By Richard Karpinski Microsoft, IBM, and Verisign this week submitted their Web Services Security (WS-Security) specification to the OASIS standards body and picked up a new friend along the way -- Sun Microsystems. The jockeying over Web services standards has grown to a frenzied pace. By moving WS-Security over to OASIS, which is the home for many key Web services standards, IBM and Microsoft were able to convince Sun -- and a slew of other companies -- to back the security effort. WS-Security aims to specify how to secure Web services -- including...

One Nation Under God: A Flag Day Oration Rally 'Round the Flag 2002, Cincinatti, OHTrue Blue FreedomBy Dr. Richard Ferrier Flag Day, 2002 My fellow Americans, I’m delighted that you honored me, and the Declaration Foundation by inviting me to address the 2002 Rally Round the Flag Day in Cincinnati Ohio. I’d like to thank Congressman Steve Chabot for being here and I send you personal greetings from chairman of our foundation, Ambassador Alan Keyes. What were you doing when the news of Pearl Harbor came? In my parents’ generation that question was asked and re-asked; it was a day...

There are no atheists. At least no thinkers are atheists. “Freethinkers” rise to that bait more surely than a trout to the fly and snap at it more viciously. But it is equally axiomatic that freethinkers do not think freely. Proof? Well, suppose a freethinker thinks himself into religion. Ipso facto he is rated a renegade and apostate. He is free to think atheism, but not free to think theism. Sometimes a freethinker lets the cat out of the bag. For example, John Stuart Mill says in his autobiography, “It would have been wholly inconsistent with my father's ideas of...

Bradford says he was told to sidestep law BY SETH BLOMELEY AND MICHAEL R. WICKLINE -ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE The state's former computer boss told lawmakers Wednesday that the governor's office wanted him to "skirt" the public's right-to-know law when dealing with critical information about the troubled computer system. Fired Chief Information Officer Randall Bradford also accused Gov. Mike Huckabee of delaying the fix-up to the Arkansas Administrative Statewide Information System, or AASIS, because the governor faces re-election Nov. 5. "Right now you have an election-year situation where costs and problems are withheld from the public," Bradford said. He said "the governor...

In this new (old?) world, an allergy to small, aggressive deployments may be literally self-defeating.The opening shot in the war launched by Al Qaeda was fired not on September 11 but two days before. On September 9, two Tunisian Arabs, posing as journalists and carrying forged Belgian passports, insinuated themselves into the presence of Ahmed Shah Massoud, the leader of Afghanistan's anti-Taliban Northern Alliance. As they began their questioning, they detonated a bomb hidden in a television camera. Massoud died a few days later. With ample reason (though wrongly, as things turned out), Al Qaeda and its Taliban allies believed...

Black political groups feel voters' growing independence By Phillip Rawls Associated Press Writer 06-27-2002 An AP Analysis MONTGOMERY Two black political groups that once could almost guarantee a victory for a candidate in a Democratic primary suffered stinging defeats Tuesday that signal the growing independence of minority voters. From U.S. Rep. Earl Hilliard's defeat in Birmingham to the loss by longtime black political leader Joe Reed in a state senate district in Montgomery, black voters kept up the wave of change that began with the election of a new mayor in Birmingham in 1999. "With 85 percent of the black...

Government hiring inspectors, safety auditors before U.S. roads open to Mexican truck traffic this summer By Matthew Daly, WASHINGTON (AP) The government is hiring dozens of border inspectors and safety auditors and will have trained more than enough to allow Mexican trucks to travel beyond the Southwestern border by midsummer, Transportation Secretary Norman Y. Mineta said Thursday. Nearly 150 new border inspectors and 67 new safety auditors should have completed training by the end of July, Mineta said, as the department significantly upgrades safety checks along the Mexican border. By midsummer, the United States will have more than four times...

Peter Robinson, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, former speechwriter for both Vice President Bush and President Reagan; responsible for writing the "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" speech and devout Catholic was just interviewed on the Hugh Hewitt Show. Robinson hosts a weekly show on PBS entitled "Uncommon Knowledge". This weeks show deals with the crisis in the Church and Robinsons' guests are Father Joseph Fessio S.J., Rod Dreher and Gary Wills. Unfortunately not all PBS stations carry the show. However, you can see if it is on in your market here. Sounds like there was a lively...

BEIJING, June 27 — Meetings between a Pentagon official and various members of the Chinese government fostered a “frank and constructive atmosphere” that could help push the sometimes tense countries toward a smoother, closer military relationship, China said Thursday. PETER RODMAN, U.S. assistant secretary of defense for international security affairs, wound up a two-day visit to China on Thursday by meeting with Defense Minister Chi Haotian, who said China was ready to make efforts to improve military relations. “We hope that the two sides will ... develop military cooperation on the basis of equality, mutual benefit and trust,” Chi said,...

Michael Newdow, whose law suit prompted a federal appeals court to declare the Pledge of Allegiance unconstitutional, plays a tape of threating phone calls he has received at his home in Sacramento, Calif., Thursday, June 27, 2002. Newdow said he knew the court ruling might cause some controversy but he believes he is doing something good for Americans. (AP Photo/Rich Pedroncelli)

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WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate Judiciary Committee sent the nomination of Arkansas lawyer Lavenski Smith for the U.S. Appeals Court on to the full Senate for approval. The panel voted 19-0 on Thursday to move Smith's nomination to the floor for a vote. If confirmed, Smith would serve on the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. That court covers North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Arkansas. Smith is a lawyer and former business professor who served a year on the Arkansas Supreme Court as an appointee of Gov. Mike Huckabee. Smith ran unsuccessfully for...

<p>HONG KONG, China (CNN) -- As Hong Kong nears its fifth Chinese birthday, Beijing has promised to permit the territory to retain its freewheeling way of life.</p> <p>But even as the July 1 handover anniversary approaches, there is growing concern that freedoms may be eroding.</p>

June 27, 2002 8:45 a.m.Civic Education?A nation a world away from the chambers of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court. San Francisco federal judge's decision to ban recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance on the grounds that it is an unconditional endorsement of religion is the logical culmination of a decades-long erosion of the notion of civic education. Legal scholars will haggle over the reasoning of the decision, which unlike past rulings apparently seeks to end the Pledge for all rather than to grant exemption from it for some, as the court has evolved from protecting the rights of a few...

Archerd: Dylan composes for Civil War picture HOLLYWOOD (Variety) - Bob Dylan, who warbled his "Things Have Changed" for "Wonder Boys" and won an Oscar last year, is coming back to compose for another picture, the highly dramatic "Gods and Generals," set in the first two years of the Civil War. Ron Maxwell, who wrote, directed and produced the picture for Ted Turner Pictures and WB distribution, tells me Dylan will sing his song at the film's finale "to further capture the mood of the film -- the tragedy, the American identity. It gives him a chance to look back...

Store owners routinely brandish guns for protection, often in full accordance with state law. It's easy, however, for prevention and self-defense to turn into an unjustifiable killing. Cases in Chatham County are infrequent. In January 2001, a man shot and killed a robber after watching him attack his father with a brick at their Montgomery Street supermarket. That case was ruled a justifiable homicide. But in September 1999, George L. Johnston shot and killed an intruder breaking into a truck outside Beasley Kawasaki on Ogeechee Road. Johnston was indicted by a grand jury for voluntary manslaughter. The rules are strict...

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go read some of his lyrics and read what he says to our beloved Vice President's wife, Lynne Cheney. let me just say it involves the F bomb followed by "you" and then Mrs Cheney. He disgusts me, and he is NOT funny.