Free Republic

<p>May 12, 2003 -- Business at New York bars and restaurants has plummeted by as much as 50 percent in the wake of the smoking ban - and the drop has already sparked layoffs and left some establishments on the brink of shutting their doors, a Post survey has found.</p>

A truck bomb ripped through a government compound in northern Chechnya on Monday, killing at least 30 people, the regional administration chief said.Sultan Ahmetkhanov, the head of the Nadterechny region where the blast occurred, said a truck filled with explosives had damaged part of an administration building and the headquarters of the Federal Security Service in the town of Znamenskoye, as well as about eight residential houses.At least 30 people were killed and two to three times that number were injured, Akhmetkhanov said. The ITAR-Tass news agency, citing Chechen administration officials, said more than 20 of the injured had...

With the blood of three executed Cuban boat-jackers barely dry and the voices of 75 imprisoned freedom activists freshly silenced, some Cuba-engagement advocates are restarting their misguided campaign to loosen U.S. economic sanctions against Fidel Castro. These engagers continue using the cliché that the ''40-year embargo'' has failed and argue that engagement can still help reform Castro's brutal dictatorship. But recent history clearly has demonstrated that engagement has been a policy failure. Even as one prominent anti-embargo lobbyist group recently closed its doors in embarrassment, other engagement stalwarts continue their crusade. U.S. Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., still believes that the...

Two men try to rob home using butter knife Story by Mike Peters Your daddy may have warned you when you were just a tyke, using these wise words: "Don't take a butter knife to a hammer fight." Or something like that. When Butter Knife Man met The Hammer in Hudson on Friday afternoon, Butter Knife Man lost. Badly. According to Weld County Sheriff's spokeswoman Margie Martinez, two men in their late teens or early 20s arrived at a Hudson home on Third Street on Friday. While one stood guard outside the house, the other went inside, apparently to rob...

<p>May 12, 2003 -- WHILE the United States and its allies debate whether or not to celebrate their victory in Iraq, they are ignoring a possibly more important success in the broader war on terrorism.</p> <p>Those who have to take off their shoes at airports might not believe it. But the fact is that acts of terrorism fell by almost half from 2001 to 2002 - for the lowest figure since 1969.</p>

GENEVA (AP) -- The most blatant discrimination in the workplace has faded in many nations, but prejudice continues to stop most women, ethnic minorities and other groups realizing their potential, the U.N. labor agency said Monday.Releasing a report titled ``Time for Equality at Work,'' the International Labor Organization said most governments worldwide have recognized that discrimination -- especially on grounds of race and gender -- is a problem that creates barriers to employment.``Formal condemnation of discrimination is virtually universal, and action to stop discrimination at work has been taken in many places,'' said ILO chief Juan Somavia.The 136-page study cites...

PRESIDENT CLINTON: When I left office, America had the lowest crime rate in 27 years. You know, Senator, it's not rocket science. When you combine strong laws with more police, smart prevention and tough enforcement, you get less crime. Sadly, this administration wants to eliminate the COPS Program, which I used to fund over a 100,000 police from America's streets. And they want to slash more than $2 billion from state and local law enforcement programs. That will force already cash-strapped cities, towns and counties to lay off police instead of hiring more to fight crime and provide for homeland...

Story last updated at 11:31 a.m. Thursday, May 8, 2003 Christie pleads guilty, sentenced to life without parole By Marsha Miller News Editor Christie Keith Christie ensured his own life Wednesday by pleading guilty to the decapitation murder of his 15-year-old brother. Christie, shackled and wearing an orange county jail prisoner's uniform, appeared in district court with his attorney Debbie Maddox. The 31-year-old man sat quietly displaying no emotion as Maddox told District Judge Tom Walker she had no doubt her client was competent to enter a guilty plea in the case. Christie's father, who watched the proceedings from the...

<p>Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Bob Graham of Florida yesterday accused the Bush administration of "covering up" information vital to protecting the country against future terrorist attacks.</p> <p>"This administration has probably been one of the most secretive administrations in American history. And one of the areas over which they have thrown a particularly heavy blanket has been information about terrorism, including terrorism [against] the United States," Mr. Graham said on CBS' "Face the Nation."</p>

The main drawback of being a professional opinionist is that you're expected to have opinions on everything. When your average moviegoer leaves the theater, he shrugs and says, ''Let's go eat.'' That's not an option available to Roger Ebert, who has to string it out for a few more paragraphs. But just lately, on being urged by various correspondents to weigh in on this or that allegedly burning controversy, I find myself shrugging, ''Let's go eat.'' Example One: Republican Sen. Rick Santorum's thoughts on homosexuality. I won't bother printing the quote, since it's rambling and incoherent, and even when you...

By Barbara Amiel (Filed: 12/05/2003) Margaret Drabble went haywire on these pages last week [opinion, 8 May]. Her state was, she told us, "almost uncontrollable". She deceived herself. It was out of control. "It has possessed me like a disease," she continued. "It rises up in my throat like acid reflux…" Drabble was referring to her loathing of America. Her list of American horrors, apart from the war in Iraq, was standard issue. "I detest," she wrote, "Disneyfication… Coca-Cola… burgers… American infantilism... American imperialism..." and so on. Countering the arguments Drabble advanced to justify her pathology is easy. The lady...

By Sunday morning, Chicago will be in the early stages of a mock terror attack as officials use an imaginary cloud of pneumonic plague to test whether the area is prepared to handle the real thing. According to a scripted scenario, the disaster will unfold over coming days and reach a crescendo on Thursday, when emergency workers will be swamped with made-up disasters, including a plane crash at Midway Airport, a building collapse and a panicked citizenry elbowing for medicine to treat the plague.

The New York Times has acted honorably in dealing with the wreckage of the Jayson Blair scandal. It published corrections, 54 in all, on Blair's inaccurate reporting. When at last it became obvious that Blair was plagiarizing stories, making up quotes and filing stories from places he never visited, the Times applied pressure and Blair resigned. And at this writing, the Times is preparing a long article detailing Blair's checkered career. This is the way newspapers are supposed to behave -- put it all out on the table. But there is an issue that the Times may not be...

<p>They are meeting quietly in heartland cities like Indianapolis — black Republicans with a plan they hope will garner 25 percent of the black vote for President Bush next year.</p> <p>Bolstered by unprecedented Republican overtures to black voters, such as the $15 billion AIDS package to Africa and the Caribbean, appointments of blacks to key Cabinet positions, and the faith-based initiative, black Republicans are convinced they have a viable product to sell.</p>

Bruce Hedderly-Smith's pay expectations could hardly be considered out of line, but this job offer rankled even him: $22,500 a year to sell building materials, plus a 1 percent commission. Oh, and he could expect to put in long hours. "I might as well work at McDonald's," said Hedderly-Smith, 58, a laid-off salesman from Bainbridge Island with 29 years experience. "If you want me out there to sell your product, at least give me a living wage so I'm not thinking of robbing the next bank I drive by." The offer illustrates how high unemployment combined with soaring employee-benefit costs,...

PREDICTABLY, Ken Livingstone's remarks about the President of America have caused widespread outrage in the United States. Ken called George Bush, "a repellent coward with a corrupt administration" (a bit rich coming from a repulsive dullard with an inept administration) and the Yanks are up in arms. American tourist groups are cancelling their trips, American corporations are withdrawing investment from the UK and the British ambassador to Washington has been summoned, his pale knees knocking with terror, to a furious White House. Actually, none of this is true. On the American radar, Livingstone registers slightly less than a speck of...

In order that we might all raise the level of discourse and expand our language abilities, here is the daily post of “word for the day”. Rules: Everyone must leave a post using the “word of the day”; in a sentence. The sentence must, in some way, relate to the news of the day. The Review threads are linked for your edification. ;-) Practice makes perfect.....post on.... As promised, we will once again celebrate EODGUY's birthday today!!! Thank you, Eala for suggesting ophiolatry for today's WFTD! Do you have a word you'd like to see used? Freepmail me, and if...

<p>May 12, 2003 -- WHAT do Howard Dean, Vermont's former governor, and Osama bin Laden have in common?</p> <p>Hatred of America's success.</p> <p>One of the few things more painful to watch than a kiddie talent show is the desperate effort of the Democratic Party's White House hopefuls to gain any traction against President Bush.</p>

What Drove 2 Britons to Bomb a Club in Tel Aviv? ... But the radicalization of the well-educated, thoroughly Westernized Mr. Sharif, 27 — the forces that led him from Derby to Tel Aviv, where he is wanted on charges of helping to carry out a suicide bombing in a beachfront nightclub on April 30 — make a certain sense to the younger, second-generation immigrants born and raised here. Mr. Sharif was angry, they say, for reasons that would be all too understandable to Muslims everywhere. "In a way, I sympathize," said Mohammed Zahid, 23, ... "When you see what's...

TOM TUGEND Jewish Telegraphic Agency LOS ANGELES -- It's not often that a Jewish audience breaks into a standing ovation for an Iranian political figure. But as Reza Pahlavi, son of the former shah of Iran, took the stage at the Simon Wiesenthal Center last week, the overflow audience of Iranian Jews rose waving Iranian, American and Israeli flags, broke into rhythmic clapping and shouted in Persian, "Long Live the Shah" and "We Love You." The heir to the deposed Iranian monarchy had come to the heartland of America's Iranian diaspora to pursue his 20-year quest to rid Iran of...