Free Republic

Hartford-AP Sept.20,2002 7:30 AM) _ Five white Hartford police officers walked out of a recent multicultural training session because they say the black instructor was biased. The officers say the sensitivity seminar's leader was biased against the United States, authority figures and whites. The seminar became a shouting match between the leader and officers. The session was led by Margaret Steinegger-Keyser of the Center for Conflict Transformation in Hartford. She's a native of South Africa. The officers say she told the gathering that her country has become more of a true democracy, and isn't as repressive of minorities. Steinegger-Keyeser says...

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX FRIDAY SEPT 20, 2002 08:51:37 ET XXXXX WHITE HOUSE GAME SHOW: MURDOCH NET PLANS 'PEOPLE'S CANDIDATE'; WINNER TO RUN FOR PRESIDENT '04 Move over American Idol. Here comes American President. A Rupert Murdoch game show which may choose the outcome of the next White House occupant! Cable channel FX is set to mount an ambitious two-year endeavor that will culminate in the American public choosing -- a "people's candidate" to run for president of the United States in 2004. MORE The final episode will be an "American Candidate" convention, held on the National Mall in Washington...

GOVERNMENT SCHOOLS …. ANOTHER OUTRAGE Yes, as a matter of fact I do like to rag on government schools. They’re simply horrible. Every time I talk about another idiotic outrage from the wonderful world of government schools another parent somewhere in this country dedicates themselves to the cause of getting their child out of the clutches of government and into a private school for an actual education. This time it’s my alma mater. Pensacola High School. I graduated from PHS (by the skin of my teeth) in 1963. Teresa Elenz is a sophomore. She’s a member of the International Baccalaureate...

While not the same level of sway it held in previous years, the church has a lot of influence in the world. As the most clearly God-instituted body on earth, people look to it for standards of morality, even if their copy of Holy Writ sports a layer of dust as thick as the lunar surface (actually, usually because of it – too lazy to look for themselves). In recent years, of course, the church's ethical high-bar has served as a robust target for hypocrisy-nigglers, but it is only because of its position as the "arbiter" of morality in society...

© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com WorldNetDaily's poll last Saturday concerned whether pot should be legalized. The final tally of respondents was 56 percent pro and 43 percent con with variation among those answers. An unqualified yes hit the charts at 32 percent. One percent answered "other." While not scientific and prone to problems, the response didn't surprise me much. There has always seemed a receptive attitude regarding changes to our current drug policies among WND readers. Since my first column on the subject, I've received overwhelmingly positive feedback to criticism of current policies and recommendations for change. But it's not all whistles...

If David Duke ruled his own kingdom, would President Bush invite him and his envoys to socialize at his ranch, praise them publicly and permit his advisers to do so? Not likely. And yet one would have to be a Duke-style neo-Nazi (or the genuine, German article) to spew the anti-Semitic venom that routinely simmers within Saudi institutions. Even if 15 of the 19 September 11 hijackers were not Saudis, and even if Riyadh did not finance madrassahs that teach anti-Americanism, Saudi Arabia's flamboyant anti-Semitism alone should dislodge it from its place at America's table and banish it to Uncle...

Let's get one thing straight from the outset: The U.N. sucks. And before you start talking about the starving babies it saves and the thorns it pulls from cuddly creatures' paws, please remember that all sorts of awful institutions do good things. Hamas funds hospitals, Hitler built highways, Stalin improved literacy, Baywatch helped people with tired blood by providing uplifting, and uplifted, torsos to look at. One can be in favor of many of the things the U.N. does without being in favor of the U.N., just as being in favor of regular garbage collection doesn't mean I have to...

Move to OK pot ripped Drug czar sees threat to U.S. health in Canada proposal DETROIT -- The U.S. drug czar on Thursday criticized a movement to legalize marijuana use in Canada, saying it would threaten public health in this country and reverse recent efforts to streamline border security. "I don't think there's any mistake about it: We intend to protect our citizens. We would have no choice," said John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy. His comments came a week after a Canadian parliamentary committee called for legalizing marijuana use among adults, increasing pressure...

E-Mail Bookmark Print Save INS This week, the Justice Department launched an ambitious new fingerprint system for foreign visitors that will supposedly check visitors' fingerprints against the federal government's various terrorist databases. Will the new procedures save lives? If the Immigration and Naturalization Service's track record is any indication, the prospect for increased national security as a result of the new initiative is doubtful. The INS, Customs Service, State Department, and major law enforcement offices operate dozens of lookout databases on terrorists, deportees, and criminals. Despite this vast multi-billion dollar computer network, terrorists and other undesirable foreign visitors have been...

...the Underground Empire today has more power, wealth, and status than many nations. It flies no flag on the terrace of the United Nations, but it has larger armies, more capable intelligence agencies, more influential diplomatic services than many countries that do. - James Mills, "The Underground Empire,"1986 When crime is a transnational, organized force, we need to think differently about its reach. Most people think of computers and crime in terms that only scratch the surface. Hacking into a bank? As cyber-criminals would say: been there, done that. Criminal syndicates have long used technology for controlling their far-flung empires,...

Dear Tareq, I suspect my husband is cheating on me. Yet I have no solid evidence. Should I confront him, or perhaps do a little snooping around on my own? Worried in Worcester Dear Worried, How can you not be certain that you have not provoked your husband into this situation with your constant posturing and disregard of his sovereignty? You can not! Your proud and ever defiant husband draws his strength from your bullying and attempts to isolate him! Eventually he will bring you to your knees trembling before his mighty power! But I digress. Your husband is probably...

WASHINGTON -- The nation's drug czar is annoyed again. This time it is with me. Without mentioning me by name, a guest column by John P. Walters, director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, in the Sept. 1 San Francisco Chronicle held up one of my columns as an example of how journalists can be "fed misleading advocacy information that they swallow whole." The result is "a lack of accurate information" that plagues the public debate over marijuana. He recounts how a columnist described his claims of increased potency in today's marijuana as wildly overstated "whoppers." I knew...

Not only did Larry Wall answer your questions, but he said they were excellent questions. You've got to love Larry Wall, not just because he's a nice guy and created Perl, but also because he is the first Slashdot interview guest ever to send his answers preformatted in squeaky-clean HTML. We appreciate this like you wouldn't believe. They're great answers, too -- straightforward, heartfelt, and entertaining. Enjoy! 1) Perl as a "scripting" or a "programming" language by Marx_Mrvelous I've been using perl for a very long time, but primarily as a scripting language. I indeed mostly use it for extraction...

Executive Summary The 2000 presidential election was widely understood to be a battle for the courts. When George W. Bush finally won, following the Supreme Court's split decision in Bush v. Gore, many Democratic activists simply dug in their heels, vowing to frustrate Bush's efforts to fill vacancies on the federal courts. After Democrats took control of the Senate in May of 2001, they began calling explicitly for ideological litmus tests for judicial nominees. And they started a confirmation stall, especially for circuit court nominees, that continues to this day. Thus, 8 of Bush's first 11 circuit court nominees went...

By Special to the Star-Telegram ARLINGTON - Police are asking businesses to voluntarily participate in a program to take customers' fingerprints if they pay by check. Operation Thumbs Up, scheduled to begin citywide Sunday, aims to help authorities identify check theft and forgery by obtaining a source of identification that can't be stolen or faked - fingerprints. The system is similar to those used by banks that require fingerprints on checks. "No longer can we rely on the driver's license as a valid form of identity when passing a check," Detective Kyle Gibson said. "We can't expect clerks to memorize...

The transnational blatherfest otherwise known as the World Summit for Sustainable Development in Johannesburg has drawn to a close, and it's striking that, for all of their posturing as "progressive," there was something medieval in the thinking of many of the attendees. For hundreds of years, the educated world in the West believed that all the planets, and the universe (including the sun) revolved around the earth. The ability of this belief to continue to hold sway in the face of inconvenient facts (such as apparent retrograde motion of the planets) was due to the long-lasting work of a mathematician,...

Mobile/PDA | Print Edition | Text Version VOLUME 38 ISSUE 32 4 SEPTEMBER 2002 Front Page News   Previous Issue Archives OAK PARK, IL—Fearful of the prospect of class-action lawsuits, seven of the nation's largest fast-food chains voluntarily agreed Monday to place cheese limits on their own sandwich items. "With Americans becoming increasingly health-conscious and litigious, the restaurant industry felt it necessary to protect itself with a self-imposed cheese cap," said Paul Conklin, president of the National Association of Fast-Food Retailers. "Gone are the days when we could load a burger with seven slices of fatty, cholesterol-laden American cheese...

Yesterday, after two months in Mexico, I flew from Guadalajara International back to the sprawling gringo asylum above the Rio Grande. I wouldn’t have, except I had to go back to Washington, the heart of all darkness, to rent my condo before relocating to Guad. I guess I was in a philosophical mood. Or maybe jalapenos are mildly hallucinogenic. “How reasonable is this?” I thought, an hour into the flight. “I’m flying at six hundred miles an hour in an aluminum box, seven miles in the air. It weighs tons. Probably it doesn’t belong here. It may not stay.” My...

Fewer adolescents are first-time marijuana users than in previous years, but those that are risk succumbing to long-term drug addiction, according to a federal report released Wednesday. John P. Walters, director of the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, released the report after touring The Village, a drug treatment center in Miami. The study, based on the 1999 and 2000 National Household Surveys on Drug Abuse, indicates that first-time marijuana use among the young is often a pathway to marijuana addiction or addiction to more potent drugs such as cocaine or heroin, Walters said. "Marijuana is not the...

In 1972, almost twenty years ago, President Nixon started a war on drugs-the first intensive effort to enforce the prohibition of drugs since the original Harrison Act. In preparation for this talk today, I re-read the column that I published in Newsweek criticizing his action. Very few words in that column would have to be changed for it to be publishable today. The problem then was primarily heroin and the chief source of the heroin was Marseilles. Today, the problem is cocaine from Latin America. Aside from that, nothing would have to be changed. Here it is almost twenty years...