Free Republic

<p>CAIRO — The country's most notorious prisoners appeared on the front page of a major weekly newspaper last week, raising questions about whether they might win an early release.</p> <p>The photos of the six jailed leaders of the Gamma Islamiyah, or Islamic Group, convicted in 1981 for the assassination of President Anwar Sadat, accompanied a 19-page interview with the men in the government-owned Al Musawwar on June 21.</p>

Is there any reference to God in the US Constitution? I have watched many news shows lately and have heard many say that God is not mentioned in the Constitution. However, I have found a reference to God that these people have overlooked or just plain ignored.Below is the last paragraph of the Constitution prior to being signed. Done in convention by the unanimous consent of the states present the seventeenth day of September in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty seven and of the independence of the United States of America the twelfth. In...

<p>Until 1995, Cleveland public schools were a disgrace. Students left them with the worst record of academic performance in the state of Ohio, and among the worst in the nation. They had a dropout rate of almost 70 percent. As a result, most families that could afford to pulled their children out of the public schools, leaving mostly children from low-income or minority families sentenced to a life of poverty and ignorance. To solve this problem, Ohio created a financial-aid program that enables parents to lift their children out of this swamp by giving them vouchers to pay tuition at private schools. A group of Ohio taxpayers sued to block the program, arguing that it illegally provided financial aid to religious schools. The federal courts found that the program had the primary effect of advancing religion in violation of the Constitution and blocked it. On Thursday, the Supreme Court disagreed, upholding the Cleveland vouchers program in a decision that will transform American education.</p>

News Saturday June 29 - TTR will be at the Capitol all day on Saturday starting at 9:00AM. There is a good possibility that a vote will be taken. PLEASE join us.

<p>FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III yesterday encouraged the American Muslim Council to cooperate with the FBI to prevent future terrorist attacks and criticized some of the organization's members for their past support of terrorism.</p> <p>In a speech in Alexandria that had been criticized by some organizations because of the AMC's history of supporting terrorist groups, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, Mr. Mueller — the keynote speaker for the group's 11th annual meeting — called on the members "as Americans to continue working with us to defeat terror."</p>

<p>The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power may have engaged in Enron-style trading schemes when it sold power to the state during the energy crisis, a state Senate hearing revealed Thursday.</p> <p>Based on transcripts of telephone conversations between energy traders and a Nov. 12, 2000, e-mail message from Pacific Gas and Electric Co.'s trading arm, Los Angeles' municipal utility engaged in a trading practice referred to as a "ricochet" -- a practice it had previously denied using.</p>

Duke Energy Corporation Stock Purchasers Represented By Schatz & Nobel In Class Action Lawsuit HARTFORD, Conn., June 28 /PRNewswire/ -- A lawsuit seeking class action status has been filed in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on behalf of all persons who purchased the common stock of Duke Energy Corporation, ("Duke Energy" or the "Company") (NYSE: DUK) from July 22, 1999 through May 17, 2002, inclusive (the "Class Period"). Named as defendants in the Complaint are Duke Energy, and certain individual officers of the Company. The Complaint alleges that the defendants made materially false...

<p>In addition to all of the scholarly reasons educators and others give for why they fear parents having power over how their children are educated, here's one not discussed: Everyone has relatives.</p> <p>People can all think of a relative or friend who either is a bad parent or makes bad decisions in other aspects of their lives. And we can be sure that the relative or friend will become no more intelligent once he or she has a school voucher.</p>

<p>HEBRON, West Bank — Israeli forces blew up the fortresslike Palestinian headquarters today, leaving only rubble and apparently ending their 4-day-old standoff with wanted Palestinians who the army says were holed up inside, nearby residents said.</p> <p>The Israeli army would only say its operations were continuing in Hebron, but Palestinians living in four homes around the hilltop compound all said the building was no longer standing.</p>

<p>NEW YORK — U.S. diplomats yesterday rejected a European compromise and threatened to end the U.N. civilian mission in Bosnia-Herzegovina unless the Security Council agrees to exempt peacekeepers from prosecution by the new International Criminal Court.</p> <p>The council's 14 other members continued to oppose the exemption last night, and scheduled more discussions for tomorrow evening — in the shadow of the midnight deadline to extend the Bosnian mission.</p>

Why we should be worried about George W Bush 29jun02 THE world outside the US is now getting used to the fact Americans have a fraudulently elected nitwit as their president, but George W. Bush excelled himself this week with a "long-awaited" definitive speech on Middle East policies that stretched even the weirdest imaginations. BRUCE WILSON in London reports: US embassies around the world moved to "explain" the batty future Bush saw for Israel and Palestine, but nothing could disguise that the bedbug was running the White House and anything could happen next. Hey, look. Even Tom Cruise is worried....

<p>Rosie O'Donnell recently told an audience she's feeling the heat for fighting to legalize homosexual adoption in Florida. She was referring, she explained, to a medical association's decision to un-invite her to speak at its convention. "They were afraid of protesters," Miss O'Donnell told her audience. "I'm not used to being considered controversial."</p>

<p>The Supreme Court yesterday stayed a ruling by a federal judge who ordered the government to end secret immigration hearings for foreign terrorism suspects.</p> <p>In a victory for the Bush administration, the high court blocked the ruling by U.S. District Judge John Bissell in Newark, N.J., who concluded that the government violated the Constitution by ordering a blanket policy closing the detention and deportation hearings to the public and the media.</p>

<p>President Bush yesterday vowed that the Justice Department will hold responsible business executives who mismanage their companies, lie to stockholders and cheat investors, as Republicans and Democrats blamed each other for the recent wave of scandals.</p> <p>"Corporate America has got to understand there is a higher calling than trying to fudge the numbers, trying to slip a billion here or a billion there and hope nobody notices," Mr. Bush said at a $500,000 fund-raiser for Rep. Constance A. Morella, Maryland Republican.</p>

Opinion Has the Time Come to Consider Making Celibacy OptionalIn the Western Church? In the wake of so many scandals which have brought such pain to the Church and to so many victims all over the globe in recent years, more Catholics are beginning to wonder out loud whether the time has not come to end mandatory celibacy in the west, and, as with our sister churches in the East, consider allowing married men (1) into the ranks of the priesthood if they are already married when they present themselves for ordination, per precedent in Church history. The choice...

Please keep adding 6/29/02 Elizabeth Smart dated updates to this thread... Remember to keep checking back to this thread today for today's developing news on the Elizabeth Smart Kidnapping. Some people may consider today to actually be day 25, but I count 1 day for each 24 hours that have passed since Elizabeth was kidnapped. Elizabeth was taken from her home at about 1:30am on the morning of June 5th, 2002. Brigette's Ping List - (How To Join & How It Works)If you would like on my Elizabeth Smart Ping List, Please send me a "Private Reply" with your request......

I have one standing dating rule, 'When it comes to cooking, never let a dot.com woman come anywhere close to the kitchen, unless she wants to do the dishes'. By Oyunga Pala According my philosophy, and several near-death food poisoning experiences, I have finally come to the conclusion that domesticated, kitchen-savvy women of our mothers' generation are a dying breed. Most young women today can't cook. I don't know whether to describe this as a national tragedy or the coming of age of the equality wars fought by feminists in the sixties and the seventies. Now before all you women...

State rep cheated on taxes, feds say A grand jury indicts Rep. Suzuki, charging him with hiding foreign accounts -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Debra Barayuga dbarayuga@starbulletin.com A federal grand jury has indicted state Rep. Nathan Suzuki for allegedly lying on his federal income tax returns and for allegedly failing to disclose that he had control over overseas accounts linked to the defendant in one of the largest tax evasion cases successfully prosecuted in the United States. The indictment handed down in U.S. District Court yesterday charged Suzuki, 54, with three counts of filing false personal income tax returns for 1996, 1997 and...

w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m Analysis / Palestinian schoolbooks fan the flames of hatred In the first years after the Oslo Accords, discussions about Palestinian incitement against Israel were deemed as borderline annoying, and the press did not take much interest in the subject. Bearing in mind Shimon Peres' propechy of "a new Middle East," picking through Palestinian schoolbooks and listening to declarations made by senior Palestinian officials seemed an exhausting act, if not completely irrelevant. However, the wave of violence seen in the...

The Who to Resume Tour Without Entwistle Fri Jun 28, 7:32 PM ET By Steve Gorman LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The two surviving members of veteran rock band The Who will carry on with their North American tour despite the death of the group's bassist, John Entwistle, the group said on Friday. In a surprise announcement issued by their management, lead singer Roger Daltrey and guitarist-songwriter Pete Townshend said the tour would open on Monday at the Hollywood Bowl in Los Angeles "as a tribute to John Entwistle and to the loss of an irreplaceable friend." "The Entwistle family is...