Free Republic

PIRAEUS, Greece (Reuters) - A bomb blast at Greece's busiest tourist port injured one man Saturday in what police suspected was the work of urban guerillas. They said it was likely the man was carrying an explosive device, which blew up at the ticket office of the Hellas Flying Dolphins shipping company at the port of Piraeus, near Athens. Police said the attack bore the hallmarks of urban guerrillas but they did not identify any particular group. There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Leftist guerrilla groups have operated in Greece, including the November 17 group which has killed 23...

ALGIERS (AP) — Suspected Islamic extremists attacked a bus on the outskirts of the Algerian capital, killing 13 people aboard and injuring nine, the official APS news agency reported today. The Friday night attack came 24 hours after two people were shot to death and three injured in another bus attack, near the coastal town of Bou Ismael, west of Algiers. In the latest assault, five or six men attacked the bus with machine-gun fire in the town of Eucalyptus, 20 kilometres south of Algiers, the news agency said without providing details. Eucalyptus, a small dusty town, is in an...

This afternoon I went to a local theater to see a movie. The theater -- in an up-scale Boston suburb -- was perhaps half full. For a Saturday afternoon the ticket price was $ 6.00. Among the viewers was a couple with a toddler. The toddler screamed and shouted and fussed the entire time. It became impossible to hear the dialog (quite a feat in a Dolby Stereo theater). Finally, the couple decide that the kid needed some exercise, so they went down front and released the kid in the front of the theater where he continued to scream while...

Rodimer needs to level with his flock Just before Easter, Paterson's Roman Catholic bishop gave his flock some instructions on what to do about sexual abuse by priests. Report it to the cops, said Bishop Frank Rodimer.The bishop's letter stands in sad, ironic contrast to the fix he now finds himself in. Rodimer needs to tell us what he knows about a priest-friend who sexually abused a boy. Otherwise, the bishop looks like he's hiding something.This story begins three decades ago. Two priests rented a beach house at the Jersey shore. Rodimer and his friend, the Rev. Peter Osinski, enjoyed...

GUEST EDITORIAL Clyde HarrisonCEO, Beeland Management Co., L.L.C. & Sponsor Jim Rogers Index Funds Raw Materials - Economics 101by Clyde Harrison June 25, 2002   Whenever a government does something for someone, it must do something to someone. The definition of politics is the advance auction of goods that have not yet been stolen. Some countries offer rule of law. We suffer from rule of lawyers. Lawyers have the right to collect money from U.S. citizens at the point of a gun to pay for their economically illiterate programs. Recently the Congress was taken over by the liberals – the lifestyle police. Using history as...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal appeals court ruled Friday that Libya can be sued for terrorist acts against Americans on foreign soil, rejecting the argument that the country is entitled to due process under the Constitution. In its unanimous decision, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld the Foreign Sovereign Immunities Act, which removes sovereign immunity from some countries, including Libya, when they take people hostage and torture them. ``We hold that Libya, as a foreign state, is not a ``person'' within the meaning of the Due Process Clause,'' Judge Harry Edwards wrote, with Judge...

U.S. Condemns N.Korean 'Provocation' in Naval Clash Sat Jun 29, 4:21 PM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States on Saturday condemned North Korea ( news - web sites)'s "armed provocation" against South Korea ( news - web sites) after a naval clash that killed four South Korean sailors and wounded 19 others. "We regret the loss of life and injuries and we want to express our sympathy for the families," said State Department spokeswoman Brenda Greenberg. "We support the stance of our ally against armed provocation," Greenberg said. South Korean officials said North Korean vessels intruded across their disputed...

Walk past the overflowing rubbish bins and through the crumbling entrance façade of Atomflot, Russia's harbour for nuclear-powered civil vessels in the arctic city of Murmansk, and you are greeted by a set of gleaming white booths. They sit incongruously in the rundown foyer, equipped with electronic sluice gates, cameras and a range of metal detectors and sensors. Completed in April, they are the most visible result of an internationally funded effort to improve protection at a site that is part of the security headache caused by the Soviet Union's nuclear legacy. At this week's G8 summit, leaders agreed to...

House rejects Senate budget 06/29/02 JAMES MAYER SALEM -- Lawmakers worked Friday to reconcile competing budget plans approved by the Senate and House, a dicey undertaking that could mean the difference between going home or digging in for an even longer fight. Both plans reflect delicate political balancing acts, with Republicans gritting their teeth to vote for tax increases and Democrats holding their noses to vote for spending cuts and accounting tricks. And efforts to inject the explosive issue of the public employee pension system into the mix might further complicate the negotiations. The House voted Friday to reject changes...

Clinton fondles Mr. Roger's trolley! http://pbskids.org/rogers/all_ages/aaimages/clinton.jpg

<p>WASHINGTON -- Honda Motor Co. is prepared to airlift 2,000 tons of carbon sheet steel to its U.S. and Canadian factories next month if the automaker can't secure adequate supplies from U.S. steel producers, the company said. The Japanese automaker's plans were prompted by steel-import tariffs of as much as 30 percent that President George W. Bush imposed in March to protect companies such as U.S. Steel Corp. and Bethlehem Steel Corp. As a result of the tariffs, steelmakers are renegotiating contracts, and Honda may face a shortfall. Honda's U.S. factories get more than 90 percent of the steel they use from domestic suppliers. Airlifting that much Japanese- made steel is a costly solution to what the company says it hopes will be a temporary problem. "It's not cheap," said Ron Lietzke, a spokesman for Honda in the U.S. "It's worth it for us to do this for a short time in order to maintain production at our plants in North America." Non-U.S. steelmakers, including Arcelor SA, the world's largest, the U.K.'s Corus Group Plc, and their U.S. customers are trying to avoid the tariffs by seeking a total of 2,000 exemptions for more than 1,300 different steel products. Trying to ship that much steel "would outdo the Berlin airlift," said Alan Wolff, counsel to domestic steel producers such as U.S. Steel, Bethlehem Steel and National Steel.</p>

Pakistani police have published photographs of 10 alleged militants suspected of carrying out recent deadly bombings in the southern city of Karachi. The photos, along with rewards totalling 20m rupees ($320,000) for help in capturing the suspects, appeared in a number of Pakistani newspapers on Saturday.Police say many belong to a banned Muslim group It is the first time the authorities have identified suspects in the 14 June blast outside the US Karachi consulate, which killed 12 Pakistanis, and the 8 May car bombing near the city's Sheraton Hotel, which killed 14 people, including 11 French engineers. But police were...

<p>Sometimes the most subtle forms of prejudice are as revealing as the most blatant.</p> <p>The raised eyebrow, for instance, can be a show of bias no less than the discriminatory hiring policy. The muffled smirk can be a show of bias no less than the discriminatory housing policy. And the artfully chosen adjective can be a show of bias no less than the discriminatory comment about race or gender, character or motives.</p>

BAGHDAD, June 28 (AFP) - Iraq has complained to the United Nations about recurrent Iranian "violations" of the 1988 cease-fire that ended an eight-year war between the two neighbors, the official INA news agency reported Friday. "Iran violated the cease-fire 41 times between the beginning of February and May 15," Iraq's UN representative Mohammad al-Duri said in a letter to Secretary General Kofi Annan. The violations included "numerous overflights of Iraqi positions by Iranian planes and helicopters ... and firing by Iranian troops (at Iraqi territory) that left a number of Iraqi citizens wounded," Duri wrote. Although Baghdad and Tehran...

<p>CRESTVIEW, Fla. — Like other communities across the south, the Confederate flag has caused quite a stir among the residents of Crestview, Fla., but Florida's latest case doesn't revolve around the rebel flag appearing above the state capital, but over its appearance above a Confederate monument.</p>

Tram foes lose out in airspace opinion 06/26/02 JANET CHRIST The Portland city attorney's office says that airspace over a street is part of the right of way and that the city has the right to lease the surface and air. The opinion is the city's position on a petition filed this week by property owners along Southwest Gibbs Street. They don't like that the airspace above their street is a potential alignment for a recommended aerial tramway. The chief deputy city attorney, Linda Meng, said an Oregon statute gives the city the right to lease the right of way,...

<p>An overwhelming majority of Americans — more than four in five — disagree with this week's federal appeals court decision that the Pledge of Allegiance is unconstitutional.</p> <p>On Wednesday, a San Francisco federal appeals court ruled that the Pledge of Allegiance is an unconstitutional endorsement of religion because it contains the phrase "under God," and therefore cannot be recited in public schools. The judge who authored the opinion stayed his decision Thursday, which prevents it from taking effect until a higher court reviews the case.</p>

Perhaps about 3 to 5 weeks ago, a FReeper made a report about some suspicious video filming of the Bank of America Tower in Seattle. The FReeper made a report to building security. Will you please step forward or can someone remember who it was? My company has an interest in talking with security at the property and would like to know exactly when the report was made. Thanks.

I Told You So Alas, a Couple of Bob's Dire Predictions Have Come True Just over three years ago I wrote a column titled "Cooking the Books: How Clever Accounting Techniques are Used to Make Internet Millionaires." It explained how telecom companies were using accounting tricks to create revenue where there really was none. Take another look at the column (it's among the links on the "I Like It" page), and think of Worldcom with its recently revealed $3.7 billion in hidden expenses. Then last August, I wrote a column titled "The Death of TCP/IP: Why the Age of...

WEEKLY ROUNDUP Jun-24-2002 (1,190 words) xxxnBishops start dealing with new rules on sex-abusing priestsBy Jerry FilteauCatholic News Service WASHINGTON (CNS) -- Within days of their historic June 13-15 meeting on clerical sex abuse of minors, some U.S. bishops began implementing the new national charter they established in Dallas. Several priests with past records of abuse who had been restored to ministry or church-related office jobs following treatment were removed from those posts, including eight in Chicago. Some retired priests were informed they could no longer wear clerical garb, present themselves as priests or say Mass publicly. Bishops held planning meetings...