Free Republic

Our analysis shows the current half wrath, and the inevitable effect of full wrath TEL AVIV, Friday: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon today announced that Israel would unleash its full wrath against Palestine following another spate of suicide bombings. The escalation is seen as a final acceptance of the failure of their previous policy of unleashing Israel’s half wrath. Today’s move comes as part of a full scale reassessment of the Jewish state’s policy towards Palestine. Amongst other initiatives, President Sharon has now decided that Israel will seek out vengeance rather than waiting for it to find them. Palestinians...

<p>LOS ANGELES (AP) - A phone threat warning that a plane would strike the city's second-tallest skyscraper prompted a voluntary evacuation that included employees of a company that lost workers in the Sept. 11 attacks.</p> <p>The call was traced by the FBI and Monday's threat was found to be without merit, said FBI spokeswoman Laura Bosley. Bosley declined to disclose the caller's name.</p>

The 10th Mountain Division sure isn't the same tough outfit I saw in Northern Italy at the end of World War II, nor the squared-away unit I spent time with during the bad days in Somalia in '91 or the liberation of Haiti in '94. The 10th troopers still wear the Mountain tab – indicating they're mountain-trained – which the men of the division sported so proudly in Italy when they were a superbly conditioned outfit fighting on one of the hardest U.S. battlefields of World War II. "We don't do mountains anymore," a division sergeant told me – which...

Record rainfall in SAN ANTONIO TX with over 10 inches at the airport breaking the all time month record for July in ONE DAY! doppler says 15-20 inches have fallen just north of SAN ANTONIO..roads closed, water rescues in progress. Rainfall rates of 3-5 inches per hour have been fallening in the area just north SAN ANTONIO. New radar shots the last few minutes show Moderate-Heavy rain moving/developing back towards SAN ANTONIO from the northwest. Folks the system has stalled and I believe may be forming a tropical depression over land...How can this be? Well so much rain has fallen...

"I did not choose to be homosexual. I would change my sexual orientation if that were within my power." So wrote Robert Bauman, the powerful, ultraconservative congressman from Maryland. Americans were stunned in 1980 when headlines revealed Bauman had been caught having a sexual rendezvous with a young male prostitute. In his book, "The Gentleman From Maryland: The Conscience of a Gay Conservative," Bauman revealed the conditions that shaped his own tortured double life as a congressman and closet homosexual. At the tender age of 5, Bauman had been sexually seduced by a neighbor boy about 12. Reflecting on that...

Steinbeck's myth of the Okies by Keith Windschuttle John Steinbeck performed a rare feat for a writer of fiction. He created a literary portrait that defined an era. His account of the “Okie Exodus” in The Grapes of Wrath became the principal story through which America defined the experience of the Great Depression. Even today, one of the enduring images for anyone with even a passing familiarity with the 1930s is that of Steinbeck’s fictional characters the Joads, an American farming family uprooted from its home by the twin disasters of dust storms and financial crisis to become refugees in...

Tuesday, July 02, 2002 Group goes door-to-door for gay rights ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- By Cindy Schroeder, cschroeder@enquirer.comThe Cincinnati Enquirer COVINGTON — Members of Northern Kentucky's leading gay rights group say they intend to knock on every door in Covington to seek support of proposed anti-discrimination legislation. Members of the Northern Kentucky Fairness Alliance visited about 200 homes Sunday, said Charles D. King, a Covington resident and a member of the alliance's steering committee. By the end of summer, alliance members hope to visit every house in Northern Kentucky's largest city. “So far the response has been overwhelmingly positive,” Mr. King said. The...

DoD News Briefing Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz Tuesday, June 18, 2002 (Interview with Peter Boyer, New Yorker.) Boyer: I have been at work for, as Kevin says, for some time on a piece about the Army. One way to look at it is a profile of General Shinseki's tenure there, which as you know began with his coming in and declaring that there was a thing called transformation on his mind, and that he wanted the Army to be lighter and more agile and more deployable and more lethal, and they were going to do this, that and...

A "United States of Africa" that would challenge the agro-industrial might of the United States – a dream of late British internationalist Cecil Rhodes – has gained new life as Western powers put their blessing on what might be considered an African "New Deal." At the same time, some African leaders see the program as a scheme for the West to control the region's nations. Last week at the Group of Eight summit held in Kananaskis, Canada, South African President Thabo Mbeki and leaders from Senegal, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria met with top Western power brokers in an attempt to...

» More From The Grand Rapids PressTop Stories'I could never say anything about this until a few years ago'Monday, July 01, 2002By Jim HargerThe Grand Rapids Press GRANDVILLE -- Robert Galt hasn't seen the latest Hollywood movies about World War II code breakers and "code talkers." He doesn't need to. The 82-year-old Grandville resident lived through the tense and shadowy plots that are second nature to high-tech eavesdropping. "I could never say anything about this until a few years ago," said Galt, who was stationed at Pearl Harbor Naval Base from 1943 until the end of the war. "Nobody knew...

<p>BRAD SHANNON THE OLYMPIAN A Thurston County judge fined the National Education Association $800,000 on Monday, finding it intentionally took agency fees paid by nonunion teachers and spent them illegally for political purposes. The default judgment, issued in Superior Court by Judge Daniel Berschauer, came after NEA lawyers failed to meet a court deadline last week to answer a lawsuit brought by the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation of Olympia.</p>

<p>SACRAMENTO - California stood on the brink Monday of creating the most far-reaching rules of any state to combat global warming after the state Assembly narrowly passed a landmark measure to limit greenhouse gas emissions from cars, trucks and SUVs.</p>

DoD News Briefing Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld Thursday, June 27, 2002 (Interview with the Washington Times editorial board.) Q: We thank you for having us over. We've looked forward to it. We do have some questions. I'm going to defer to the experts here, Bill and Rowan, and whatever you want to tell us. We want you to make a lot of news. Rumsfeld: I'm not into the news business. I'm into informing and developing understanding, backgrounding and all of that. Q: We'll do our best. Rumsfeld: I'm not into hard news. [Laughter] Q: I'll start out unless...

<p>Enron, WorldCom and a flock of lesser corporate lights are in big trouble these days for overstating revenues, hiding liabilities and in other ways presenting a false picture of their financial health to investors.</p> <p>And what's the difference between what these corporate miscreants have been doing and what Gov. Gray Davis and Democratic legislators propose in their new budget? Zip. Zero. Nada.</p>

Tuesday, July 02, 2002 Officers sued in sex case ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Woman says police took her home drunk, then assaulted her By Jane Prendergast, jprendergast@enquirer.comThe Cincinnati Enquirer A woman who says two Cincinnati police officers forced her to have sex filed a lawsuit against them Monday, claiming they violated her civil rights while she was too intoxicated to object. Kandy Linthicum said she was celebrating her 40th birthday in early December at Madonna's bar downtown. She'd had a dozen beers and four or five shots when Officers Robert Kidd and Robert Johnson offered to take her to her home, she said...

<p>Below are the results of a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll released Monday that asked Americans their opinions on politics, the economy and terrorism.</p> <p>1. Question: If the elections for Congress were being held today, which party's candidate would you vote for in your Congressional district -- 1) The Democratic Party's candidate or 2) The Republican Party's candidate?</p>

COLIN POWELL and Donald Rumsfeld may have stood shoulder to shoulder as George Bush sweated through his speech in the White House Rose Garden, but the administration is as divided over the Middle East as over anything. Mr Powell and his fellows in the State Department have long argued that America needs to throw its weight behind the creation of a “provisional” Palestinian state. The Pentagon and the vice-president's office have very different ideas. Mr Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, and Dick Cheney, the vice-president, are worried about allowing America to become too entangled in one of the world's most intractable...

<p>Facing revolt from within his own party, Gov. James E. McGreevey yesterday summoned lawmakers back to Trenton for a rare emergency meeting today aimed at balancing a $23.4 billion state budget left in limbo by days of political infighting.</p> <p>The call for a special Senate session followed a grueling, 11-hour legislative marathon that ended around 2 a.m. yesterday when exhausted lawmakers left the Statehouse gridlocked over one bill to revamp the state's corporate business tax and another to build a new sports arena in Newark.</p>

On this day, I call for a new War of Independence. Its objective is to liberate Americans, the world over, from Despair, Chaos, Uncertainty, Fear and Evil. So that never again will Americans need hide their national origin - her flag we will proudly display. Never again will Americans need apologize for her success nor pay ransom to thugs both domestic and abroad - she will be admired and not reviled. Never again will Americans need calm a sleepless child confused and tired by fear of imminent attack - she will be globally respected for her punishment will be swift...