Free Republic

A ticking time bomb? The president's signed order to topple Saddam Hussein, or to kill him in "self-defense," has now been widely publicized. This is like sending a dinner invitation to Charles Manson with the expectation that he plans to use the butcher knife to cut the roast beef only. By gangster rules, Saddam now has the right to hit Bush or the top leadership of the U.S. government. We should not be surprised. Saddam has now had too much time to prepare. If we believe that Iraq poses such a threat, then Richard Perle has been right, we should...

A Bronx jury handed down a manslaughter conviction yesterday for a man who said he snapped when he saw a would-be thief breaking into his car and gunned him down with a .22-caliber rifle. After a two-week Bronx Supreme Court trial, the jury deliberated three hours before finding Victor Vicenty, 54, guilty of second-degree manslaughter for fatally shooting 41-year-old Kevin Bethea in May 2001.Vicenty did not testify at the trial but told a grand jury he had grown increasingly frustrated because his vehicles have been repeatedly broken into and vandalized since 1989."Year after year ... it was just mounting up,"...

Faced with famine, Robert Mugabe orders farmers to stop growing food JUNE in Zimbabwe is midwinter, but because of the country's subtropical climate, its commercial farmers can grow food all year round. Right now, they should be tending the winter wheat, which is usually ready for harvest in September or October, and preparing their fields for warm-weather crops, such as maize, the national staple. But President Robert Mugabe has commanded them to park their tractors and stop farming. With half the people in Zimbabwe on the brink of starvation, this is, even by Mr Mugabe's standards, an exceptionally bad...

<p>July 2, 2002 -- NOW that there's a lawful alternative, under what moral standard will New York City keep forcing poor parents to send their children to failing schools?</p> <p>Last week, the U.S. Supreme Court found school vouchers to be constitutional. Vouchers let parents use their children's share of public-education funding as tuition at a private or parochial school - creating the possibility of a real education for the millions of poor, largely minority children now trapped in failing and dangerous U.S. urban public schools - and a true chance to move out of poverty.</p>

<p>Liberals upset by the Supreme Court's ruling that vouchers are constitutional vow to take the fight against choice to the streets and state capitols. But the truth is this "setback" creates an opportunity for the left to recast the voucher debate in ways that bring more money to poor schools. The question is whether the teachers unions have the imagination at this crossroads to allow new ideas for the children they claim to champion -- as well as for the Democratic presidential aspirants whose agendas they control.</p>

Mugabe's ramshackle cavalry rides on many lies. One in particular seems to serve them well. It is the claim that every white farmer has been allowed to keep one farm and has been encouraged to carry on farming it. This claim is utterly untrue: hundreds of farmers have lost all that they have ever owned already, illegally evicted by Zanu PF supporters. Mugabe's chaotic fast track resettlement process makes no distinction between one of the thousands of farms it would destroy, and another. Mugabe's henchmen and supporters are equally unfettered when they set off into what was once commercial farmland...

Michael Servetus Michael Servetus (1509 or 1511-1553), a Spaniard martyred in the Reformation for his criticism of the doctrine of the trinity and his opposition to infant baptism, has often been considered an early unitarian. Sharply critical though he was of the orthodox formulation of the trinity, Servetus is better described as a highly unorthodox trinitarian. Still, aspects of his theology—for example, his rejection of the doctrine of original sin—did influence those who later founded unitarian churches in Poland and Transylvania. Public criticism of those responsible for his execution, the Reform Protestants in Geneva and their pastor, John Calvin, moreover,...

<p>July 2, 2002 -- Deposed king of Hollywood Michael Ovitz has finally gone off the deep end - blaming gays for his ruination.</p> <p>In a stunning on-the-record diatribe in the new issue of Vanity Fair, Ovitz lashed out at what he called Hollywood's "gay Mafia" for stabbing him in the back and secretly wrecking his deals.</p>

Martha Stewart goes back in front of the cameras tomorrow, but her CBS bosses say they haven't decided whether to turn up the heat in the studio kitchen. Embroiled in the ImClone insider-trading scandal, the embattled empress of good things is slated to make her second consecutive weekly live appearance on "The Early Show."During a bizarre segment last week that at times resembled a "Saturday Night Live" skit, Stewart hacked away at a head of cabbage as she was peppered with questions about her sale of ImClone stock.But it is unclear whether the show's hosts plan to grill her...

<p>We can already feel Ted Kennedy's blood pressure rising. He and New York Senator Hillary Clinton are slowly but steadily trying to build support to nationalize American health care. So when Congress passed Medical Savings Accounts back in 1996, he succeeded in restricting their terms and limiting the total number of policies allowed to 750,000. Suffer your HMOs, he said.</p>

Bread ran out in the shops of Harare yesterday as the consequences of President Robert Mugabe's repressive rule hit his capital, intensifying the misery of residents already reeling from food shortages and hyper-inflation. As food queues grew across the country, a retired doctor turned game rancher became the first American to die in the violence against whites at the heart of the political and economic crisis. Dr Roy Raub, 79, who ran a game hunting ranch next to Zimbabwe's Hwange National Park, was found bludgeoned to death after being kidnapped from his townhouse in the city of Bulawayo. His body...

<p>Fires continue to roar through the West, aided by drought and allegedly in some cases by arson. But as the damage stretches into a million acres and billions of dollars, other culprits are coming in focus -- especially the high-powered environmental groups that have dominated U.S. forest policy for at least a decade.</p>

Watch out, says Al Gore: The Old Al Gore is tanned, rested, clean-shaven and ready to roar back.If you can't recall his many earlier incarnations, remember only that the Old Al Gore was replaced by the New Al Gore and it was that Al Gore (the new one) who lost the 2000 election — or had it stolen from him by five Supreme Court justices, as his die-hard fans still claim.No more earth tones for me, Gore said a few days ago. No more pollsters and advisers. No more constricting scripts. Just Al Gore as he used to be...

New York - A federal magistrate recommended a $73 million penalty against Zimbabwe's ruling party Monday for allegedly torturing and killing political opponents. U.S. Magistrate James Francis issued the 32-page finding in a case brought nearly two years ago by members of an opposition party who say they were attacked or saw their loved ones killed in campaigns by President Robert Mugabe's Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front, or Zanu PF. A U.S. law allows foreigners to sue over international crimes that, because of current conditions, cannot be taken to court in their own countries. Any court-ordered judgment would be difficult...

<p>NCE AGAIN, hatred of the good has reared its ugly head. Those who attack Martha Stewart do so not because of her (easily disproved) insider trading but because she is, quite simply, something they are not. The success with which she runs her life and her business is an unbearable reminder of their own inadequacies.</p>

July 02, 2002 Congress unites in fear of world 'government' From James Bone in New York AMERICA’S conservatives see the creation of the first global criminal court as another step towards a sinister “world government” that threatens US sovereignty. They denounce the new tribunal as a “kangaroo court” set up by a deeply suspect United Nations. “The White House is bowing to conservatives who have a kneejerk reaction to any international body that has even the most remote authority to tell the United States what to do,” The New York Times commented. But the opposition in this case extends across...

<p>MAYOR Bloomberg better be more careful with his whispered asides during press conferences. Modern tape recorders pick up everything. Yesterday, as top cop Ray Kelly discussed July 4th anti-terrorism measures, and fended off security-sensitive questions about police firepower, one reporter pressed the issue by asking if cops were carrying much heavier weapons than in the past. Bloomberg chuckled: "Big enough to blow away the press." The remark went unheard until reporters played back their tape recorders.</p>

<p>July 2, 2002 -- DO YOU support capital punishment, but fear that poor, innocent people are executed in America?</p> <p>Then you've probably fallen for the Three Big Myths that are passed along as gospel by those with a moral or political anti-death agenda.</p>

Knowles signs minimum wage bill into law Governor Tony Knowles today signed a bill into law designed to put more money into the pocket of thousands of Alaskans. The measure raises the state's minimum wage to seven-dollars-and 15-cents an increase of a dollar-50. More than 14-thousand workers across the state earn minimum wage, which currently stands at five-dollars and 65 cents. When the governor proposed the increase early last year, the states minimum wage was the lowest on the west coast. The governor signed the bill today in Anchorage at the midtown job center. Knowles says the new law...

<p>July 2, 2002 -- With new city taxes bringing the average price of a pack of cigarettes to a whopping $7, smokers yesterday began abandoning their usual deli and newsstand stops for cheaper sources - giving merchants a pain in the pocketbook.</p>