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War Crimes Court Comes Into Existence Mon Jul 1, 6:59 AM ET By EDITH M. LEDERER, Associated Press Writer The world's first permanent war crimes tribunal officially came into existence Monday, hailed by supporters as a milestone in international justice that will prevent future Hitlers, Pol Pots and Saddam Husseins — but vehemently opposed by the United States. On the eve of the birth of the International Criminal Court, the United States made the depth of its opposition crystal clear: It dramatically vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution to extend U.N. peacekeeping in Bosnia because it didn't exempt American peacekeepers...

U.S. Park Police and D.C. police are investigating whether law enforcement personnel are responsible for vandalism at the Rock Creek Park site where Chandra Levy's remains were found, authorities said yesterday. The vandalism occurred during the past three weeks while the site was closed to the public and police maintained a 24-hour watch of the area.Hit link for balance of story.

Reaction to the federal court ruling that the words "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance are unconstitutional has revealed not only a national consensus that the decision is wrong, but a national disposition simply to defy it. The controversy presents two strong challenges to America. First, at a time when the war on terror makes principled national unity crucial, the Pledge symbolizes our common commitment to one another, to the country and the ground on which we stand together as Americans. So, the apparent determination of Americans to keep the Pledge, whatever the courts say, means that the judges'...

"I hold it, that a little rebellion, now and then, is a good thing, and as necessary in the political world as storms in the physical." So Jefferson wrote to fellow Virginian James Madison in the year Madison authored his country's Constitution. It's past time for "a little rebellion" against federal jurists who are perverting that Constitution to make themselves petty dictators. On June 26, a panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco declared, 2 to 1, that the Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States is unconstitutional, as it contains the...

Heard the one about the e-mail tax bill that's now before Congress? As the story goes, the proliferation of e-mail is costing the U.S. Postal Service an estimated $230 million in lost revenues. So Congress has introduced a bill to let it tax such messages. The legislation would help recoup post office losses by charging 5 cents for every e-mail delivered. That means the typical e-mail user, who receives an average 10 e-mails a day, would pay 50 cents a day – or more than $180 a year. It's a bold new attempt by Washington to reach into Americans' pockets...

Communism will never triumph in America. Neither will Islamism. Americans defeated communism in the Cold War, and they will defeat the global jihad of Islam as soon as they realize what's at stake and whom they are actually fighting. But America's freedoms are hardly safe. The real threat to our liberties today is from an "ism" you seldom hear much about these days. It's called fascism. We're not only slouching toward Gomorrah, as Robert Bork has written. We're slouching toward Rome. To understand what I mean, most people need to rethink their notions about the political spectrum. At the left...

From the Klickitat Wildlife area of Washington state comes this startling fact about gray squirrels: It seems that male squirrels are eager to mate two-thirds of the year, while females get passionate for less than a day … actually, for six hours. This is the explanation scientists have for the dwindling gray squirrel population. This means that males must cover a lot of ground in search of mates receptive to their advances. Many of them appear to give up. According to a recent report from the Rutgers University National Marriage Project, human males have not given up on mating (sex),...

I am a conservative Republican who is constantly doing battle in the liberal www.Abuzz.com forum. (Same handle.) I need help as I can not find in a search engine nor on the RNC page much on President Bushe's military experiance other than a Nat Guard pilot. I am getting killed with responces of AWOL and no files. Bill Clinton is a educational deferment documented draft dodger but I need information on President Bush. Anyone have anything? Thanks

U.S. law-enforcement officers in the Southwest are convinced that Mexican military units are crossing the Arizona-Mexico border to aid smugglers in carrying drugs into the United States. In one incident, says a senior federal law-enforcement officer, a major in the Mexican army was caught at the U.S. port of entry at Naco, Ariz., carrying a detailed drug-smuggling map among his papers. The Mexican officer, said the official, was "coming into the United States and they found the drug-smuggling maps on him that showed all the drop points and trails" that local smugglers used for bringing narcotics into the United States....

In a new fund-raising letter for the World Federalist Association, former CBS anchorman Walter Cronkite, known for a generation as "the most trusted man in America," calls for the creation of a standing United Nations army and U.S. Senate ratification of the International Criminal Court. The World Federalist Association, directed by former presidential candidate John Anderson, promotes the idea of global government as the solution for many of the world's problems. "The recent terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon have shown that we must stand together, united as citizens of the world, if we are to create...

Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - Less than two days after ruling the phrase "under God" violated the so-called "establishment clause" of the First Amendment, a three-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals issued a stay of its own ruling. Analysts now say the intensity of the public response to the ruling is the result of unresolved emotions stemming from the Sept. 11th terrorist attacks. "Pre 9-11, they would have opened a floodgate on American emotional sentiment," Joseph Grieboski, president of the Institute on Religion and Public Policy told CNSNews.com. "Post 9-11, they blew up the emotional dam." The...

Just breaking... NBC News is reporting that Oklahoma Republican representative J.C. Watts is going to announce that he will not run for reelection after his term expires. J.C. Watts is the lone black Republican in the House of Representatives. He came into office in the 1994 Republican revolution. Any links to this story would be appreciated.

 Palestinian terror suspects caught in ambulances By THE JERUSALEM POST STAFF The IDF today arrested 27 Palestinians in two ambulances suspected of trying to use the vehicles to get from Ramallah to the Gaza Strip.  Military sources said some of the suspects were Gaza residents suspected of involvement in terror attacks against Israelis. The ambulances were in Ramallah when they were stopped, the Itim news agency says.  It is the latest of a series of instances in recent months, in which the IDF has found ambulances being used for non-medical purposes. ______________________June 30, '02 - PRCS condemns Israeli English TV...

CNSNews.com) - Russia betrayed Cuba by forming an alliance with the United States, said Cuba's communist leader Fidel Castro. In a speech reported by the official Communist Party newspaper "Granma," Castro said he didn't blame any one leader in particular. The betrayal of Cuba "was the fruit of Russia's errors and the painful way in which it lost the ideological battle against the Western capitalist and imperialist bourgeoisie," he said on Sunday. As Russia grew closer to the United States after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, it broke all the accords it had made with Cuba...

Gather Ye FlowersDon't Buy The Garden        Were a young man to ask me, "To marry perchance, or remain forever single?" I would, given the hostile circumstances today of law and love, urge caution. "Marriage is a commitment of several years of your life, plus child support," I would say. "Do not make it rashly." The question is simply, "Why marry?" As a young man full of dangerous steroids, your answer will probably be, "Ah, because her hair is like corn silk under an August moon; her lips are as rubies and her teeth, pearls; and her smile...

SEOUL (Reuters) - The South Korean defense minister will meet the commander-in-chief of U.S. forces in South Korea on Monday to discuss Saturday's naval clash between the two Koreas, Seoul's defense ministry said.South Korea has enhanced security after two North Korean patrol ships sailed over the disputed sea border and fired on its boats, killing four and wounding 19 South Korean sailors.Both sides blame the other for sparking the clash, the worst such incident in three years.``Kim Dong-shin will meet Leon LaPorte at 3 p.m. today to discuss the naval clash,'' a ministry spokesman said.LaPorte is also chief of combined...

July 1, 2002 Line in the Sea Still Provokes Korean ClashesBy DON KIRK EOUL, South Korea, June 30 — The shootout in the Yellow Sea on Saturday reflects North Korea's irritation with a border set by the United Nations almost half a century ago that prevents the North's ships from entering valuable fishing waters. In the latest altercation, four South Koreans died when, according to South Korea, two North Korean patrol boats crossed over the disputed border, ignored signals to turn back, and fired on South Korean boats that were protecting fishing vessels. Today the South estimated that North Korea...

t is not easy being CNN in Israel these days.From one side, Israeli protest groups in Jerusalem have handed out "CNN Lies" stickers. The Israeli communications minister, Reuven Rivlin, has called it "evil, biased and unbalanced." An opinion article in the generally conservative Jerusalem Post equates a CNN reporter in Jerusalem, Sheila MacVicar, with "the woman who refilled the toilet paper in the Goebbels' commode."From the other side, Palestinians have flooded CNN with e-mail messages demanding that the network pay more attention to civilians killed in Israeli military campaigns.Other Western media organizations have been caught in a similar whirlwind,...

Palestine is a lock without a key: so it must now be forced open President Bush believes that the key to open a door to peace is to be found well to the east of Palestine – in Iraq By Bruce Anderson 01 July 2002 No wonder President George Bush's speech on the Middle East has attracted so many complaints in Europe. In it, he violated a basic rule of diplomatic discourse. He told the Palestinians the truth and treated them as if they were grown-ups. Though he held out the hope of a Palestinian state, he made it clear...

We will not tire, we will not falter, and we will not fail! [President Bush] Good morning!! Do not let the victims of the attacks on New York and Washington, nor the brave members of our Nation's military who have given their lives to protect our freedom, die in vain!! At least three small planes flew in the airspace over Camp David this weekend while the President was there. None was determined to be intentional violations of the restricted airspace, though one of the aircraft did get sufficiently far into the prohibited zone to cause the Government to scramble F-15s....