Free Republic

When Nancy Reagan received the Presidential Medal of Freedom at the White House last summer, she cast her eyes demurely downward as President Bush praised her 1980's "Just Say No," campaign against teenage drug use. Mr. Bush did not cite Mrs. Reagan's current and far more divisive cause ? federal financing for embryonic stem cell research, which anti-abortion groups oppose. Last year Mr. Bush sharply limited such research. At 81, the former first lady is obliquely but persistently campaigning ? through friends, advisers, lawmakers and her own well-placed calls and letters ? to reverse the president's decision. Mrs. Reagan believes...

Want to Try Out for College Sports? Forget It By BILL PENNINGTON A gymnast since the first grade, Jason Lindberg had just one goal in his athletic life: to compete for the gymnastics team at the University of Oklahoma. Oklahoma did not offer him a gymnastics scholarship when Lindberg was a high school senior in Tulsa last spring, but he chose to enroll there anyway. Lindberg figured he would be a freshman walk-on in gymnastics. Celebrated in the movie "Rudy," walk-ons are plucky, unrecruited undergraduates who walk on to practice and make a team filled with elite scholarship athletes. They...

Hershey Trust Halts Auction Despite Offer of $12 Billion By ANDREW ROSS SORKIN he charitable trust that controls the Hershey Foods Corporation abandoned its auction late last night even though it was on the verge of accepting a $12.5 billion cash-and-stock offer from the Wm. Wrigley Jr. Company, executives close to the negotiations said. After a 10-hour board meeting in the Philadelphia suburb of Valley Forge, the trust said it had asked company executives to end their search for a buyer. Ten of the board's 17 members voted to halt the auction, a person close to the board said. News...

<p>Last Wednesday, the president was everywhere. But on the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, FDR worked quietly in the White House as America battled Japan on Guadalcanal, U-boats on the Atlantic, and Rommel in Tunisia. In the previous 365 days we had quadrupled defense spending and military production, doubled military manpower, turned the Battle of the Atlantic, invaded North Africa in history's then largest amphibious assault, begun the Burma Road, engaged Hirohito's air force, bombed Tokyo, checked the expansion of the Japanese Empire, and triumphed at Midway and in the Coral Sea.</p>

Searching vehicles a matter of security DEAR DESI By BOB DESIDERIO Why are your car and trunk searched when you use the short-term parking lot at Daytona Beach International Airport, but you can drive up to the front of the terminal to drop off someone or pick up someone, all without a search? NEW SMYRNAN "The reason why is the federal mandates now permit this arrangement when blast analysis shows that constant surveillance will accomplish the required level of security," said Steve Cook, director of marketing for DBIA. "When you pull up to the curb, a deputy sheriff has you...

Yes, Mommy: A Well-Regulated State We tell ourselves that in America we are the Free People. I wonder whether we might not better be called the Obedient People, the Passive People, or the Admonished People. I doubt that any country, anywhere, has been so regulated, controlled, and directed as we are. We are bred to obey. And obey we do. It begins with the sheer volume of law, rules, and administrative duties. Most of the regulation makes sense in isolation, or can be made plausible. Yet there is so much of it. Used to be if you wanted a dog,...

We wouldn't have believed it if we hadn't gotten it first-hand from the embattled manager of the College Park Airport himself. Lee Schiek, manager of the nation's oldest continuously-operating airport (in College Park, MD), received a call, Tuesday, from an FAA Flight Service Station ordering him to close his airport, "immediately." The order was to apply to both College Park (CGS) and Potomac Airport (VKS), as well as Hyde field... which has already been closed for an extraordinary period of time--a move which has nearly decimated those associated with that airfield. Schiek's story is amazing: "At 8:20 (PM/Tuesday), I was...

WORLD TRADE CENTER Gordon McCannel Aamoth, 32, New York, N.Y. Maria Rose Abad, 49, Syosset, N.Y. Edelmiro (Ed) Abad, 54, New York, N.Y. Andrew Anthony Abate, 37, Melville, N.Y. Vincent Abate, 40, New York, N.Y. Laurence Christopher Abel, 37 William F. Abrahamson, 58, Cortland Manor, N.Y. Richard Anthony Aceto, 42, Wantagh, N.Y. Erica Van Acker, 62, New York, N.Y. Heinrich B. Ackermann, 38, New York, N.Y. Paul Andrew Acquaviva, 29, Glen Rock, N.J. Donald L. Adams, 28, Chatham, N.J. Shannon Lewis Adams, 25, New York, N.Y. Stephen Adams, 51, New York, N.Y. Patrick Adams, 60, New York, N.Y. Ignatius Adanga,...

What will you be doing tomorrow at the time of rememberence? (For those who are curious, I will be taking an end-of-course checkride for my Commercial Pilot's License).

Mourning As A Performing Art Migraine Television Home Columns September 9--We’re going to do it, I know we are. We’re about to celebrate Bin Laden’s Victory Day. By all indications, it will be a media circus, like when Princess Di did—a grand battle in the ratings wars. We’ll wallow in mawkishness, and whimper, and humiliate ourselves. Watch. There will be manufactured solemnity, factitious reverence, sorrow by Disney, and an unremitting ooze of therapy. Heaven help us, we’ll probably get in touch with our feelings, and Heal. Maybe booths will sell cotton candy. It’s embarrassing. I suppose I have a bad...

Bush to OK Guns for Airline Pilots By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 6:37 p.m. ET WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Senate voted overwhelmingly Thursday to allow commercial pilots to carry weapons in the cockpit after the Bush administration dropped its opposition to the idea. The administration, though, said a number of safety and logistical issues needed to be resolved. In a letter to two senators, the White House recommended giving pilots lockboxes for the weapons so they won't be left in the cockpit. It also said only pilots who volunteer to carry weapons and receive extensive training should be armed....

An 'Ally's' Contempt for America By WILLIAM MCGURN "Any American woman in Saudi Arabia who wants to leave will be free to do so." So spoke Prince Saud al-Faisal on Sunday afternoon, according to Indiana Republican Dan Burton. The setting was a hotel room in Jeddah, in a meeting with a U.S. congressional delegation there to press the cases of Americans who remain trapped in the kingdom there by Saudi law, which does not allow women or children to leave without the permission of a husband or father. At a time when the Saudis are desperate to improve their image...

Friday, August 30, 2002 Strike out By By Tim Keown If we've learned anything over the last week, as baseball's strike countdown gradually claimed its own little corner of our television screens, it's this: There is perhaps no issue galvanizing our nation quite like the distasteful notion of young, able-bodied men making millions of dollars playing baseball. We have no problem, however, with old-guard patricians making millions of dollars owning baseball teams, maybe because we accept their status as the ultimate owners of everything, with baseball merely a logical extension. But these young guys -- the ones fans pay to...

TSA Wants YOU -- Yeah, Right More Experience, From a Reader Despite the fact that the TSA says it's hiring lots of new screeners, our readers' experiences invariably point in an opposite direction. This reader, replying to yesterday's article, essentially a plea from the TSA for recruits, points out several problems the TSA is manufacturing for itself. Here's what he said: **My recent application,test, and interview to become a screener with TCA is apparently very similar to others you have reported. Even though I have had 18 years of law enforcement experience and been a commercial pilot for 30 years,...

TSA Admits It Didn't Train Workers Charging for Work Not Performed is a Crime, Unless the TSA Does It CNN has noted that, "The Transportation Security Administration has confirmed that dozens of screeners inspecting baggage at Norfolk International Airport in Virginia were not trained to do the job." The original story was blown open this weekend by the San Francisco Chronicle, which noted that TSA-trained workers hired as long ago as the Spring had as little as 15 minutes' training in bomb recognition and related equipment training. One of the TSA's crack troops told the paper, "They handed us a...

Fighter Jet Escorts Plane to Maryland By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 5:27 p.m. ET LINTHICUM, Md. (AP) -- Two military jets escorted a US Airways flight to Baltimore-Washington International Airport after a ``miscommunication'' Tuesday between the pilot and air traffic controllers, officials said. ``The pilot said something to the control tower that was perceived as a possible security threat. What he said I don't know,'' said David Castelveter, a spokesman for US Airways, calling it a ``miscommunication.'' The miscommunication came shortly after Flight 1814 took off at 8:07 a.m. from Charlotte, N.C., for BWI, Castelveter said. Two F-16 jets...

As a result, expect more of what Fleischer presented yesterday. "The president enjoys the prince," he said. "Prince Bandar is a very seasoned diplomat. He is the dean of ambassadors in Washington, D.C. He is ambassador to a very important country, a country that the United States has worked closely with both in bringing peace to the Middle East and in the war on terror. The president enjoys his time with Prince Bandar. He's a very affable fellow, very good humor, speaks English better than most Americans. The president looks forward to visiting with him tomorrow."Full article here

NEW YORK -- A federal court hearing that was to be held Friday to consider fraud charges against five former executives of Adelphia Communications Corp. -- including founder John Rigas and two of his sons -- has been postponed until Sept. 23.A magistrate judge in Manhattan granted a 30-day extension on the mutual consent of defense attorneys and the Manhattan U.S. Attorney's office.The Rigases and two nonfamily former executives were charged last month in a criminal complaint with defrauding investors out of billions of dollars by using Adelphia as their "personal piggy bank."Postponements of such hearings are typical and may...

Caption please.

The War on Women By LASHAWN R. JEFFERSON After the Sept. 11 attacks, the U.S. government threw its full energies into combating terrorism emerging from militants in the Islamic world. But it has done little to expose and condemn the ways some states are using radical interpretations of Islamic law, or Shariah, to subordinate and exclude women. The U.S. should be equally concerned about the consequences of these interpretations on Muslims as well as non-Muslims. Just this week, an appellate Shariah court in northern Nigeria upheld a "death by stoning" sentence against a woman for having sex outside marriage. The...