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News Organizations Agree to Pay Former Scientist By MARK SHERMAN, AP WASHINGTON (June 3) - A former scientist at a nuclear weapons laboratory who was once suspected of being a spy has settled his privacy lawsuit and will receive $1.6 million from the government and five news organizations. Under the settlement announced Friday, Wen Ho Lee, a Taiwanese-American, will receive $895,000 from the government for legal fees and associated taxes in the 6 1/2-year-old lawsuit. Lee had accused the Energy and Justice departments of violating his privacy rights by leaking information that he was under investigation as a spy for...

Following is a working draft of a letter I wrote this weekend, which will be faxed tomorrow to every member of the US House and Senate, and to President Bush. I have relied on FR for news, information and intelligent discussion (and sometimes, laughs!) for around six years now... naturally, I thought that this would be the best place to get feedback and ideas. amnestyam-nes-ty -n 1. a general pardon for offenses against a government Never before in the history of the United States has the House, Senate and the President been so out of touch with the wishes of...

Mickey D's McMakeover By Pallavi Gogoi, with Michael Arndt in Chicago and Abed Moiduddin in Oak Brook A Bold New Look A comfortable armchair. Cool hanging lights. Funky graphics and photos on the walls. Wi-Fi access. Premium coffee. Isn't Starbucks great? Except...this is McDonald's. McDonald's (MCD)? That's right. After 30 years without a major design overhaul, the 51-year-old fast-food giant is adopting a hip new look. The world's largest hamburger chain is redesigning its 30,000 eateries around the globe in a 21st century makeover of unprecedented scale. The redesign is risky and has many franchisees up in arms over the...

Tuesday, May 9, 2006 9:43 a.m. EDT Dems Renominate Patrick Kennedy from Rehab Less than a week after he crashed his car into a Capitol Hill police barrier, rehabbing Rhode Island Rep. Patrick Kennedy received a rousing endorsement from the state Democratic Party, who touted him as a competent, if flawed, public servant at their convention Monday night. In a speech described by the Associated Press as "moving," state Representative Paul Crowley said Kennedy's ability to do his job should not be questioned - downplaying the fact that the he's had two car crashes in the last month, hit himself...

Taiwan Denies Plans To Cancel Arms Deal With US by Staff Writers Taipei (AFP) May 09, 2006 Taiwan's government on Monday dismissed reports it would cancel a planned huge US arms deal after Washington refused to let President Chen Shui-bian make a stopover in the continental United States en route to Latin America. "The defense ministry cannot possibly change the policy carelessly," Deputy Defense Minister Chu Kai-sheng said in response to questions in parliament. "The report is just speculation," he said, referring to a China Times report that an angry Chen is likely to scrap the arms procurement plan. The...

Only about seven of the U.S. Air Force's 21 B-2 bombers are ready to go at any time, and now, a combination of robots, sprayers and quality control are trying to double the readiness rate. But for a long time, the B-2 has been known as a "Hanger Queen" (an aircraft that spends too much time in the hanger for maintenance or repairs). Two years ago, the U.S. Air Force introduced the use of robots to reduce the maintenance efforts required to keep their B-2 bombers flying. The B-2 uses a stealth (anti-radar) system that depends a lot on a...

It was a typical US Internal Revenue back door maneuver. Without hearings, without notice, in the dead of night in late 2004, an obscure provision affecting taxes in the US Virgin Islands was slipped into a 650-page bill that amended US Internal Revenue Code. The USVI provision has caused financial havoc in the islands, a sunny paradise that has been America's little-known offshore tax haven for decades. Many hundreds of wealthy individuals and hundreds of businesses could be driven away and the USVI Treasury could lose upwards of $300 million in annual revenues -- all because some faceless IRS bureaucrats...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (Feb. 24) - A federal judge ordered the Pentagon on Thursday to release the identities of hundreds of detainees at Guantanamo Bay to The Associated Press, a move which would force the government to break its secrecy and reveal the most comprehensive list yet of Some of the hundreds of detainees in the war on terror being held at the U.S. military base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have been held as long as four years. Only a handful have been officially identified. U.S. District Judge Jed S. Rakoff in New York ordered the Defense Department to...

Calvin and Hobbes -- and MuhammadFeb 8, 2006 by Ann Coulter As my regular readers know, I've long been skeptical of the "Religion of Peace" moniker for Muslims -- for at least 3,000 reasons right off the top of my head. I think the evidence is going my way this week. The culture editor of a newspaper in Denmark suspected writers and cartoonists were engaging in self-censorship when it came to the Religion of Peace. It was subtle things, like a Danish comedian's statement, paraphrased by The New York Times, "that he had no problem urinating on the Bible but...

<p>WASHINGTON (Feb. 2) - The White House and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff failed to provide decisive action when Hurricane Katrina struck, congressional investigators said Wednesday in a stinging assessment of slow federal relief efforts.</p> <p>The White House had no clear chain of command in place, investigators with the Government Accountability Office said, laying much of the blame on President Bush for not designating a single official to coordinate federal decision-making for the Aug. 29 storm. Bush has accepted responsibility for the government's halting response, but for the most part then-FEMA Director Michael Brown, who quit days after the hurricane hit, has been the public face of the failures.</p>

Updated: 08:27 AM EST Deployments Stretching Army, Study Finds By ROBERT BURNS, AP advertisement WASHINGTON (Jan. 25) - Stretched by frequent troop rotations to Iraq and Afghanistan, the Army has become a "thin green line" that could snap unless relief comes soon, according to a study for the Pentagon. Andrew Krepinevich, a retired Army officer who wrote the report under a Pentagon contract, concluded that the Army cannot sustain the pace of troop deployments to Iraq long enough to break the back of the insurgency. He also suggested that the Pentagon's decision, announced in December, to begin reducing the force...

Bin Laden Offers Truce in Purported Tape Terrorist Leader Threatens New Attacks Against U.S. By Yara Bayoumy, Reuters DUBAI (Jan. 19) -- Osama bin Laden warned that al-Qaida was preparing new attacks inside the United States, but said the group was open to a conditional truce with Americans, according to an audiotape attributed to him on Thursday. Al Jazeera television, which aired the tape, said it was recorded in the Muslim month that corresponded to December. "The operations are under preparation and you will see them in your houses as soon as they are complete, God willing," said the speaker...

Go to www.google.com, then type in 'French military victories". Instead of hitting search, hit "I'm feeling lucky". Tell everyone to check it out before Google fixes it.

For immediate release: WCCC investigating controversial e-mail Adjunct instructor’s comments gain national attention WASHINGTON TWP. (Nov. 18, 2005) – Officials at Warren County Community College are investigating political comments about the war in Iraq made by an adjunct instructor to a student via an e-mail message. Responding earlier this week to a student’s invitation to attend a student club event, John Daly, an adjunct instructor of Basic Writing and Developmental English, e-mailed the student with a host of his own personal beliefs. The student club event, sponsored by the Young American’s for Freedom, featured Iraq war veteran Lt. Col. Scott...

As many of you have already heard, the National park Service is nearing a final decision regarding a memorial to the passengers of Flight 93. The aircraft would have hit the capitol on 9/11 were it not for the heroism of the passengers, who fought back against their Islamic hijackers. The memorial will be built in the field in Pennsylvania where the plane crashed. Unfortunately, the design which is under final review is far from a memorial to the victims. The winning design, chosen from over a thousand entries, is called “The Crescent of Embrace”. It is a just that......

I watch, and read, a LOT of news during the course of the the day, as I suspect many of us here do. In the last 24 hours I've noticed that most of the MSM television coverage has shifted away from the devastation in New Orleans and is now focused on the outlying areas like Mississippi. In particular, CBS, NBC, and ABC spend about two minutes of their morning broadcasts on the ruinous damage in N'awlins, and the rest of the time on human interest stories of the displaced survivors. Coverage of the unbelievably violent crime and looting are notably...

I just heard this morning that Cindy Sheehan will be protesting/speaking/whining during the Blue Angels show at Brunswick NAS. She will be the guest liar for a protest scheduled for Saturday, September 10. Maine Veterans for Peace is sponsoring the protest. Link to original article is: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1473339/posts?page=1 I would like to get an idea as to who would be able to come out in support of our troops. Please freepmail me, or email me at islandsail@aol.com. In the meantime, I'll find out if she's actually going to show up, what permits we might need, etc. Like many of my fellow...

EU Quotas Criticized As Stockpiles Mount By LAURENCE FROST, AP advertisement PARIS (Aug. 19) - Barred Chinese clothing shipments are piling up at European ports, prompting warnings of retail stock shortages and higher store prices just weeks after the EU moved to stem an import surge deemed a threat to jobs. Amid concern that the European import quotas are doing more economic harm than good, Brussels is facing growing calls for their relaxation, even from France - one of the strongest supporters of the original textiles clampdown. Unless the Chinese quotas are loosened, retailers are warning, consumers could end up...

Former Child Star to Stand Trial for Murder Prosecutors Say Man and Wife Threw California Couple Off Yacht By Tori Richards, Reuters SANTA ANA, Calif. (Aug. 16) - A former child actor and his wife were ordered to stand trial on Tuesday for the murder of a wealthy California couple who, prosecutors say, were tied to the anchor of their yacht and thrown overboard alive, never to be seen again. Orange County Superior Court Judge John Conley ordered 26-year-old Skylar Deleon, who once starred in the "Power Rangers" TV series, and his wife, 24-year-old Jennifer Henderson Deleon, to stand trial...

Watchdog Puts Herndon Planning Commission on Legal Notice Over Citizens' Objections to Proposed "Day Laborer" Site Letter Details Proposal's Planned Violations of Law & Illegal Use of Taxpayer's Funds for Illegal Aliens (Washington, DC / Herndon, VA) Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, said today that it has provided legal notice to the Town of Herndon Planning Commission detailing Herndon citizens' objections to a proposed "Day Laborer" site. The Town of Herndon is currently considering committing public resources to facilitate criminal activity by illegal aliens. Judicial Watch represents concerned residents and taxpayers of the...