Free Republic

Houston accountant Mike Willingham doesn't own enough stock to sit on the stockholder committee for Atlanta's bankrupt Mirant Corp. But he's on it, thanks to an unusual campaign he launched when the struggling energy company filed for Chapter 11 protection this summer. Willingham, known as Hammr6 on the Internet, holds the committee's Yahoo seat. He represents Westlurker, JohnGalt, Arizzzona, Oledude and hundreds of other Mirant stockholders who frequent a Yahoo Internet chat room now banished in post-bankruptcy ignominy to a Web site location only the already initiated can find. Through proxies from more than 400 of those Yahoo-ers, Willingham now...

BOSTON - The widely used PSA blood test, designed to detect early signs of prostate cancer, misses 82% of tumors in men younger than 60, a new study found. In men older than 60, the prostate-specific antigen test missed 65% of cancers, today's New England Journal of Medicine reports. Harvard School of Public Health researchers recommended lowering the level of PSA test results considered to be "healthy." The American Cancer Society says a PSA level above 4 but less than 10 indicates a 25% chance of having prostate cancer. If the level goes above 10, the cancer risk is more...

The Tax Cut by AnonymousLet's put tax cuts in terms everyone can understand. Suppose that every day, ten men go out for dinner. The bill for all ten comes to $100. If they paid their bill the way we pay our taxes, it would go something like this: The first four men - the poorest - would pay nothing The fifth would pay $1 The sixth would pay $3 The seventh $7 The eighth $12 The ninth $18 The tenth man - the richest - would pay $59. That's what they decided to do. The ten men ate dinner...

A Cook County Circuit Court judge slammed a south suburban school district Thursday for its "zero tolerance" discipline policy and for expelling a 9-year-old boy who accidentally brought his aunt's box cutters to school with him. Judge Aaron Jaffe ordered the Community Consolidated School District 168 in Sauk Village to let the boy rejoin his classmates in fifth grade starting Wednesday and to give him any tutoring he needs to make up what he missed when he was expelled from fourth grade halfway through last school year. Jaffe suggested the school district might want to rethink its one-size-fits-all policy because...

Cannabis poses a greater threat to health than tobacco, lung experts have warned. The warning comes on the day that Home Secretary David Blunkett is due to make a Commons statement about the future of government drug policy. Many young people are simply not aware that smoking cannabis may put them at increased risk of respiratory cancers and infections . Dame Helena Shovelton: The Home Affairs Select Committee has recommended that cannabis is downgraded from a class B drug to class C. This would mean that possession would lead to a caution, rather than arrest. The British Lung Foundation is...

Democrats assailed on finance reforms Party soft on soft money ban, group says By JULIA MALONE Cox News Service WASHINGTON -- A private, nonpartisan group Friday accused the Democratic Party of undercutting the campaign finance law that the party had publicly championed. Common Cause, a citizen-action organization that had worked closely with Democrats to pass the legislation last March, protested that Democratic lawyers are now seeking to weaken its ban on unlimited "soft money" contributions to the national parties. Common Cause President Scott Harshbarger, standing outside of the Democratic National Committee headquarters, singled out party Chairman Terry McAuliffe for undermining...