Free Republic

Ann's book is being ripped by libs at Amazon. I wrote a review last night explaining that some reviewers were making Ann's point by attacking rather than arguing. Maybe it wasn't mean-spirited enough for Amazon. If you have read the book, please write a review, and let's see if we can balance this out. Click HERE for reviews

Smoke is reported at the U.S. Capitol and the building is being evacuated. Fire Dept. on scene and in the building.

No further.

Venezuela: Alleged Paramilitary Force Most Likely Fictitious 28 June 2002 Summary A videotape released earlier this week alleges that a 2,200-strong paramilitary group is forming in Venezuela to fight Colombian rebels. Such a development would be dramatic for Venezuela, which has no history of paramilitary activity. The group is more likely a fiction created to put more pressure on embattled President Hugo Chavez. Analysis A clandestine paramilitary organization calling itself the United Self Defense Forces of Venezuela (AUV) announced its existence June 26 in a video broadcast by RCN television network in Bogota. The group's putative leader, using the pseudonym...

WASHINGTON, Jun 28, 2002 (AP WorldStream via COMTEX) -- U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell held firm Friday on excluding Yasser Arafat from Mideast peacemaking. Turning to other potential Palestinian leaders, Powell said "there's a price to be paid for inaction against terrorism, inaction against reform." Powell, in an Associated Press interview, said he had had "the most direct conversations" with Arafat to try to sway him "but we've not seen change or improvement." In fact, Powell said, an attempt to smuggle in Iranian weapons and evidence Arafat authorized a payment to a group that carried out a suicide...

CALGARY - The long-toed salamander (ambystoma macrodactylum), unlike your humble correspondent, enjoys full unfettered access to the woods of Kananaskis. If he is not yet the official mascot of the G8 summit, he ought to be. He is hard to find because he's approximately four to seven inches long, which by strange coincidence matches exactly the latest expert estimates of the amount of real news generated by this summit, though to date real news at this summit has proved a lot harder to find than the long-toed salamander. He is fond of nocturnal burrowing, and thus would make an excellent...

A clip: “Regardless of what some leftist self-appointed libertarian Internet watchdogs and privacy advocates will try to say, the citizens living in the nineteenth century are nowhere close to being as 'free' as those fortunate enough to be alive now. The privacy advocates are right about Microsoft’s vision of Palladium; it is a technology that wants to turn the Internet from lawless Wild West into an orderly suburban neighborhood. You know, gated communities much like those hypocritical privacy advocates live in.”

June 28, 2002 2:15 p.m. They all believe in original intent now. In the frenzy of activity that followed the pledge of allegiance decision, the Senate passed not one but two bills, condemning the opinion from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals and declaring support for the phrase "under God" in the pledge. Both bills, one on Wednesday and one on Thursday, were passed 99 to 0 (the only senator not voting was North Carolina's Jesse Helms, absent because of illness). The first bill, Senate Resolution 292, titled "A resolution expressing support for the Pledge of Allegiance," was written by...

VetsCoR Bulletin - Vol.1, No.3 06/28/2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you prefer not to receive these Bulletins, please send reply with "remove" in the subject line. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VetsCoR INFO:  VetsCoR is pleased to co-sponsor the activism conference in Las Vegas, NV on August 16 & 17, 2002, hosted by Free Republic Network in conjunction with the Leadership Institute.  The conference will be held at the Treasure Island Hotel and Resort offering a special rate of $99 if you mention the conference when booking.  Featured speakers include:  TV commentator Laura Ingrahm;  Chuck Muth, Executive Director for the American Conservative Union;  Rich Galen,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. INMAN, S.C. (AP) — Mettler-Toledo plans to cut 150 jobs within a year at its Inman plant to consolidate operations in Worthington, Ohio, and Changzhou, China. Officials at the Ohio-based company that manufactures weighing instruments announced the cuts Thursday. The company will keep about 30 employees at the Spartanburg County facility for product marketing and research and development activities. Jeff Adams, general manager of the local plant, said the goal of announcing the cuts so early was to give employees as much notice as possible. ``The most important thing for us...

Letter on The Coming Massacres in Afghanistan Richard E. Rubenstein Prof. of Conflict Resolution and Public Affairs October 10, 2001 Dear Friends, Up to this point, the war in Afghanistan seems relatively "clean." This is partly because the primary U.S. targets have been military facilities, most of them outside heavily populated areas, and reported Al-Qaeda camps, most of them empty -- and also because, for obvious reasons, the Afghan government will not publicize the number of soldiers' lives lost in these raids. In addition, we know that there are civilian refugees dying because hundreds of thousands have been forced to...

WASHINGTON--In what is becoming a classic debate of the electronic age, panelists at an e-government show here discussed the difficult balance between privacy and security, particularly surrounding the issue of national ID cards. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani had given the card tacit approval in his keynote speech earlier Wednesday at the E-Gov 2002 conference here. The topic has been hotly debated by privacy advocates and security experts. Today's panel, focusing on the future of e-government, was no exception. "We all benefit from 'practical obscurity,'" said Jay Stanley, who runs the technology and liberty project at the American Civil...

Bike For Life, Co-Sponsored by the Knights of Columbus, Catholic Seton Hall University was ashamed of these orgainzations Dear Pro-Life Friends in New Jersey, Below is an account of an encounter G. Miguel Perez-Santalla had with WSOU radio station of Seton Hall University when he tried to advertise the "BIKE FOR LIFE" which took place on June 9, 2002. I spoke to Mike Collazo - the faculty advisor to WSOU. He denied thisaccount and claimed that Miguel was seeking an endorsement of the event by the radio station. Mike Collazo says that because of the Fairness Doctrine that if Seton...

VetsCoR Bulletin - Vol.1, No.3 06/28/2002 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If you prefer not to receive these Bulletins, please send reply with "remove" in the subject line. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- VetsCoR INFO:  VetsCoR is pleased to co-sponsor the activism conference in Las Vegas, NV on August 16 & 17, 2002, hosted by Free Republic Network in conjunction with the Leadership Institute.  The conference will be held at the Treasure Island Hotel and Resort offering a special rate of $99 if you mention the conference when booking.  Featured speakers include:  TV commentator Laura Ingrahm;  Chuck Muth, Executive Director for the American Conservative Union;  Rich Galen,...

CALGARY - Two Iranian men ''capable of posing a threat to Canada'' scouted a gigantic natural gas facility on the Alberta-Saskatchewan border three months before Sept. 11, the National Post has learned. The sprawling facility, near Empress, Alta., is made up of a series of natural gas processing plants and pipelines and is the key export point for Canadian natural gas shipments to the United States. Canada supplies nearly 30% of all American gas and a disruption could shut down industry, home heating and power generation in vast portions of the United States. Information about the two men, one of...

JERUSALEM, Jun 28, 2002 (AP Online via COMTEX) -- Israel's army released a photograph purporting to show a Palestinian baby dressed like a suicide bomber with ammunition belts and explosives strapped to its body and a head band of the Islamic militant group Hamas. The authenticity of the picture, which appeared in Israeli newspapers Friday, and whether the belts contained explosives could not be verified. In a television interview with the British Sky News network, a man whose identity was concealed said he was the baby's uncle and that the photograph was real. Palestinian Labor Minister Ghassan Khatib said...

Because the 4th of July is near and dear to the publisher’s heart (the country has been celebrating his birthday for many years now), Speakout! believes it is appropriate to salute the bravest people we know. And, without question, Rick and Pam Stanley come first to mind. As the Libertarian candidate for U. S. Senate, Rick Stanley has probably attracted more statewide press than any previous statewide Libertarian candidate for any office in Colorado. This has not always pleased everyone in the party, but, frankly, the party has never been much of a presence in the state. While it would...

By Paul Stuart 28 June 2002 In northern Kosovo, near the town of Mitrovica, sits a huge dilapidated industrial site known as the Trepca mining complex. During the 1980s, it employed 20,000 workers and accounted for 70 percent of all Yugoslavia’s mineral wealth. One economist described Trepca as a “colossal conglomerate composed of more than forty mines, foundries, and subsidiary plants—which [at its height] generated 25 percent of the entire regional industrial production and figured among the principal exporters of the ex-Yugoslavia.” According to the same study, “In the subsoil of Kosovo, one of the richest of Europe, enormous deposits...

Yasser Arafat is a "let down" in the Middle East, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has said. In an attack on the leader of the Palestinian Authority he said: "The difficulty is, and I say this frankly, with President Arafat, is that it's not just the Israelis and Americans who feel let down by him, but so does virtually every foreign minister that I personally have ever spoken to." The comments come on the same day as the Israeli army released a photo of what it claims is a Palestinian infant dressed up as a suicide bomber. Yasser Arafat has come...

<p>MINNEAPOLIS, Minn — A statewide poll shows support remains virtually equal for Senate candidates Paul Wellstone and Norm Coleman in one of the nation's more closely watched races.</p> <p>After months of campaigning, Wellstone, the two-term Democratic incumbent, is favored by 47 percent of likely voters surveyed in the Star Tribune Minnesota Poll. Forty-three percent favor Coleman, a Republican and former St. Paul mayor. A February Minnesota Poll showed Wellstone a Green Party candidate Ed McGaa drew 3 percent, while 5 percent had no opinion. The poll of 812 Minnesotans was conducted June 20 to 24 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.</p>