Free Republic

ROME (Reuters) - A top Italian politician called on Saturday for the castration of rapists in the wake of a series of rapes in northern Italy. "It is an intolerable situation. To avoid these shameful crimes there is only one solution -- the physical castration of these delinquents," Roberto Calderoli, the vice president of Italy's Senate (upper house), said in a statement. "Once upon a time one spoke of chemical castration, but personally I tend more toward simpler methods: scissors, and ones that are not necessarily sterilized," Calderoli, a member of the rightist Northern League, added.

I'm not sure what this thing is, except it's way cool. If you've got Macromedia Flash installed, check this out...

MIDI - OB LA DI OB LA DA Martha Stewart pulled a nice insider deal Even though she didn't need the bucks Now her broker says he's gonna turn on her And she is screaming that the weasel really sucks Wearing stripes…nice wide stripes would be fitting Martha would look chic in stripes In a cute-as-a-pin jail cell sitting Martha would look chic in stripes Martha is another of the Clinton friends She, of course, thinks she's above the law She learned all her lessons well from Sinkmaster The ones that he invented back in Arkansas Wearing stripes…nice wide...

WASHINGTON (AP) - At least three small airplanes intruded into airspace over Camp David this weekend while President Bush was at the mountain retreat in Maryland, including one escorted to a nearby airport by fighter jets, the Secret Service said Sunday. Spokesman Jim Mackin said Secret Service agents questioned the pilots of all three planes - one of them an ultralight - determined the intrusions were inadvertent and took no action against them beyond referring the cases to the Federal Aviation Administration for possible administrative action. He said a fourth plane - also an ultralight - possibly was involved in...

Russia To Dump Aussie Launch Center In Favor Of Kourou Deal Sydney - Jun 30, 2002 After decades of neglect and disinterest by the Australia government, private industry attempts to relaunch Australia's space industry look like coming to naught. This week's edition of the industry newspaper Space News reports that the Russian operators of the Soyuz rocket will pull out of a joint venture with Asia Pacific Space Center to work instead with ArianeSpace and its South American spaceport at Kourou in French Guiana. The development is not surprising as ArianeSpace with the support of the European Space Agency...

St. Pius priest leaves after threats 06/30/2002 By SUSAN HOGAN/ALBACH / The Dallas Morning News A Dallas priest who apologized to his congregation last month for a suggestive message he had posted on an Internet site for gay priests will no longer serve St. Pius X Catholic Church because of threats against him, church members were told Sunday. The Rev. Clifford Garner, the church's assistant pastor, received two "threats against his life" last week that had been reported to the police, Monsignor Lawrence Pichard said at the end of a morning service. "He will no longer be here at St....

RODEO FIREGreen group lawsuit blocked forest thinning BY MARK FLATTEN AND DAN NOWICKI TRIBUNE Plans to cut fire danger by thinning trees in an Arizona forest now being destroyed by the nation's largest active wildfire were blocked for three years by a Tucson environmental group, a Tribune investigation has found. The U.S. Forest Service approved a plan to thin trees and remove volatile debris in parts of the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest on the Mogollon Rim in September 1999, according to court records. The plan was halted after the Center for Biological Diversity appealed the decision, then sued in May...

Intro By Fr. James McLucas: The great encyclical of Pope Paul VI, many would argue, was the catalyst that brought the Modernist Revolt within the Church out into the open. Catholics presently are living amidst this insurgency within the Church. It is, therefore, impossible to write a competent and dispassionate history at present. However, not a few have already asked, and are investigating, how the Modernists breached the bulwark of the Church's defenses with such effortless rapidity. It is becoming apparent that the present agony was long in the making. Little embraces of a "new theology" led, step by step,...

Note: Free Republic will be down between 1 am and 3 am (pacific) tonight

Accounting concerns focus on GE With every major US corporation apparently now in the crosshairs of investors suspicious about accounting practices, the spotlight is now in US industrial and financial icon General Electric. The company, nursed to near-legendary status by former chief executive Jack Welch, reportedly made $2.1bn (£1.4bn) in profits from its pension fund in 2000 and 1999 - despite the fact that the fund has been losing money thanks to sliding stock markets. The practice has become common among large corporations, and helps them to meet Wall Street's expectations for earnings, but it is now coming under fire...

Just heard that J.C. Watts has decided to retire. There will be a formal announcement by Watts tomorrow.

At a time when many authorities, from the U.S. Supreme Court to state governments, are rethinking aspects of capital punishment, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft is aggressively pursuing the federal death penalty and frequently overruling his own prosecutors in the process, according to records and public officials. Since taking office early last year, Ashcroft has reversed the recommendations of federal prosecutors 12 times, ordering them to seek the death penalty in cases where they had recommended against doing so, according to statistics compiled by the federal capital defense bar. These include at least one case in which a tentative plea...

WASHINGTON, June 30 — The Bush administration has designated 33 toxic waste sites in 18 states for cuts in financing under the Superfund cleanup program, according to a new report to Congress by the inspector general of the Environmental Protection Agency. The cuts, imposed because the cleanup fund is hundreds of millions of dollars short of the amount needed to keep the program on schedule, mean that work is likely to grind to a halt on some of the most seriously polluted sites in the country, confronting the surrounding communities with new uncertainty over when the work will resume, how...

Coloring Climate Change By Nick Schulz 06/28/2002 TCS To get a sense of how compromised and politicized climate science has become, you don't have to look far. Just examine the lengths to which key documents were doctored to distort public perceptions. The most recent example to come to light regards The National Assessment of the Potential Consequences of Climate Variability and Change, or NAS, for short. The NAS, developed during the Clinton administration, attempted to forecast what will happen if global warming occurs. It has served as the basis for parts of a National Academy of Sciences' report to President...

The potentially explosive political row about Mexico's huge water debt to the United States has been at least temporarily settled by an agreement which should provide some relief to drought-stricken Texan farmers. Under a 1944 agreement Mexico must let a certain amount of water flow down the Rio Bravo into Texas every year, and the US must divert five times as much into Mexico from the Colorado river. The water is measured in acre-feet: the amount needed to cover an acre of land to the depth of a foot, equal to about 1.23m litres. Mexico has not met its obligation...

Local Priest at St. Pius X - steps down - saying he got death threats - because of what he said on a Gay-web site. CBS 11 KTVT (Channel 11) - promo - says they will have story at 10:00. (in 25-minutes.)

American pair narrowly escape death in new attack Further evidence of a bombing campaign against westerners in Saudi Arabia emerged yesterday when the US embassy revealed that an American couple had narrowly escaped death when an explosive device was attached to the car they were driving. The incident, on Saturday, came only nine days after a British banker was killed by a car bomb shortly after driving away from his home in Riyadh. Saudi officials have often blamed the attacks on internecine strife among expatriates over illicit trade in alcohol, which is banned in the kingdom. A Guardian investigation earlier...

Gay Pride Parades Held Around U.S. Sun Jun 30, 8:25 PM ET By MARGIE MASON, Associated Press Writer SAN FRANCISCO - Thousands of rainbows appeared under the blue sky Sunday as an estimated half million people lined the streets to celebrate diversity and progress during the city's 32nd annual gay pride parade. The people were just as colorful as the flags they waved — gay, straight, young and old. Some wore leather, feathers, or held balloons while others sported little more than a smile. The Dykes on Bikes, a rumbling motorcade of several hundred women on motorcycles, kicked off the...

Seattle Catholic is not affiliated with the Archdiocese of Seattle A Journal of Catholic News and Views 7 Jun 2002 Home Articles Letters to the Editor Assistance Needed Further Reading Links & Resources St. Michael the Archangel, defend us in battle... Archbishop Weakland's Legacy   by Peter W. Miller The liberal liturgist's shameful departure On May 23rd, Catholics across America started their Thursday mornings with another in a long string of shocking revelations as Paul Marcoux went on ABC's "Good Morning America" and accused longtime Milwaukee Archbishop Rembert Weakland of sexual assault. Additionally, Marcoux revealed that in 1998 Weakland paid him...

NEW YORK (June 27, 2002) -- The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, or GLSEN, today expressed grave concern over the U. S. Supreme Court’s decision to uphold a Cleveland private-school voucher program. According to GLSEN, the Court’s ruling in Zelman v. Simmons-Harris undermines efforts to ensure the safety of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) students.GLSEN noted that virtually all of the schools participating in the Cleveland program are religious and that such schools are routinely exempted from complying with laws that protect LGBT students from harassment and discrimination. “The Court has affirmed a voucher program that allows badly...