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WASHINGTON - If there is a Supreme Court vacancy this summer, President Bush may look no farther than the Capitol for a member of Congress who can be confirmed quickly. Past presidents have done it, more than two dozen times. While admittedly long shots, GOP Sens. Jon Kyl of Arizona and John Cornyn of Texas are being talked up by some conservatives as possible nominees for the high court. Seen as most likely to step down is Chief Justice William Rehnquist, who at 80 is fighting cancer. Retirement also might be attractive option for Justices Sandra Day O'Connor, 75, and...

LOS ANGELES - The international Cassini spacecraft has spotted what appears to be an ice volcano on Saturn's planet-size moon, a finding that may help explain the source of Titan's thick atmosphere. Infrared images snapped by the orbiting Cassini reveal a 20-mile-wide dome that appears to be a cryovolcano, a volcanic-like vent that spews forth ice instead of lava. Scientists theorize the volcano at one time spat out icy plumes that released methane into Titan's atmosphere. The findings appear in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature. Titan is the only moon in the solar system that has a significant atmosphere...

Koreans protest possible job cuts at U.S. bases By T.D. Flack and Seth Robson, Stars and Stripes Pacific edition, Saturday, May 14, 2005 T.D. Flack / S&S South Koreans riot police watch South Koreans who work on U.S. military bases in the Seoul area stage a protest Thursday near Yongsan Garrison. Seth Robson / S&S South Korean base workers protest near Uijongbu train station on Thursday. T.D. Flack / S&S South Koreans who work on U.S. military bases gather near Yongsan Garrison to protest U.S. Forces Korea's announcement that it might cut up to 1,000 jobs. T.D. Flack / S&S...

The Bush administration's push for quick democracy in the Middle East has an increasingly clear implication: if Islamist organizations such as Hamas are to be likely electoral winners, Western powers should stop classifying them as terrorists and instead come to terms with them. This conclusion follows from such efforts as those led by Alastair Crooke and his Conflicts Forum; the European Union's exploration of opening a dialogue with the Islamists; and an astonishing statement in which the White House spokesman referred to Hamas members as "business professionals." Before this whitewashing of Hamas proceeds too far ahead, it bears noting that...

RIVERSIDE, Calif. - A major shift in the century-old policy for suppressing the wildfire danger in Southern California's national forests could be coming this summer. Unchecked growth has left the region's woodlands dangerously overgrown and the new plans will be part legacy of 2003's deadly firestorms, part science and part popular opinion. U.S. Forest Service planners have worked three years on the new management guidelines and they are now poring over nearly 11,000 separate concerns contained in more than 3,000 letters and e-mails sent in response to an initial draft released last year. Plans for the San Bernardino, Cleveland, Los...

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has run out of time in his bid to redraw California's legislative and congressional districts for the 2006 elections, even some supporters of his effort say. "The governor's office just dilly dallied around for too long," said Tony Quinn, a former adviser to Assembly Republicans on redistricting. "You can't do it when there's not enough time." The Republican governor is pushing both a legislative constitutional amendment and a ballot initiative that would take away the Legislature's power to draw the districts and give that duty to a panel of retired judges. Both measures would require...

"Dangerous" global warming possible by 2026-WWF 30 Jan 2005 00:01:26 GMT Source: Reuters By Alister Doyle, Environment Correspondent OSLO, Jan 30 (Reuters) - World temperatures could surge in just two decades to a threshold likely to trigger dangerous disruptions to the earth's climate, the WWF environmental group said on Sunday. It said the Arctic region was warming fastest, threatening the livelihoods of indigenous hunters by thawing the polar ice-cap and driving species like polar bears towards extinction by the end of the century. "If nothing is done, the earth will have warmed by 2.0 Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels...

WASHINGTON - President Bush has ordered plans for temporarily disabling the U.S. network of global positioning satellites during a national crisis to prevent terrorists from using the navigational technology, the White House said Wednesday. Any shutdown of the network inside the United States would come under only the most remarkable circumstances, said a Bush administration official who spoke to a small group of reporters at the White House on condition of anonymity. The GPS system is vital to commercial aviation and marine shipping. The president also instructed the Defense Department to develop plans to disable, in certain areas, an enemy's...

The purpose of FreeRepublic.com's multiple message boards is to limit the topics for each board to particular topics. Posting the same message on all the boards defeats the purpose of multiple-boards for special topics. It is very annoying to see the same message on every bulletin board. PLEASE! DO THE READERS A FAVOR. STOP CROSS-POSTING YOUR MESSAGES!

Here's a short list of who might be on deck for the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court is shaping up as the first defining issue of a second Bush term--and that's before there's a nominee or even an opening. Consider the gauntlet thrown down last week by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist at the Federalist Society's annual conference. Speaking of Democrats' unprecedented filibuster of 10 appeals-court nominees, Sen. Frist announced his intention to go "nuclear" if they try the same tactic again. Under the "nuclear option," Senate rules would be reinterpreted so that 51 votes, not a supermajority of 60,...

N.C.'s flu disaster plan 10/5/2004 3:45 PM By: News 14 Carolina Staff The North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services has a flu disaster plan. Officials are preparing to respond to a possible worldwide flu pandemic. A pandemic is illness and death worldwide, caused by a resistant flu strain. Researchers are working on developing vaccines. Health officials said people can help by getting their flu shot and limiting travel during a flu epidemic. North Carolina predicts a pandemic would cost an estimated one million doctor visits, 22,000 hospitalizations and almost 5,000 deaths.

WASHINGTON -- Despite repeated assurances from the Bush administration that there are no plans to reinstitute conscription, a national survey released Wednesday found that nearly two-thirds of adults are concerned that the country "could be headed for a draft in the near future." Among those of draft age, 32 percent of those questioned said they would not serve if they were selected in a draft, and 20 percent said they would actively seek deferments. The telephone survey of 1,028 adults was conducted Aug. 2-8 for the Alliance for Security, a project of the Vietnam Veterans of America Foundation, a humanitarian...

FBI Warns Of Possible Terror Link To Storage Units Ohio Storage Facilities Have Been Alerted POSTED: 7:39 am EDT August 13, 2004 UPDATED: 9:35 am EDT August 13, 2004 COLUMBUS, Ohio -- The FBI is taking an interest in public storage facilities across Ohio, NBC 4's Elizabeth Scarborough reported. Self-storage units have already been searched in Toledo, and alerts have gone out in several cities, including Columbus, Scarborough reported. Managers of self-storage units in the Columbus area say that in the past two weeks, they've received warnings from several different agencies, including the FBI, to be on the lookout for...

Forecast: Record Lows Possible Overnight Beautiful Weekend In Store POSTED: 4:37 pm EDT August 6, 2004 COLUMBUS, Ohio -- Record lows are possible Friday night in Central Ohio, according to 4 Warn Storm Team chief meteorologist Jym Ganahl. Skies will be clear Friday night, and the temperature could drop to 49 degrees in Columbus and into the mid-40s in southeastern Ohio, Ganahl said. Columbus' record low is 51, set in 1994. Saturday will be sunny with a high of 76. It will be sunny again Sunday with a high of 81 and a low of 55. Clouds will increase Monday...

FBI warns of possible attack on media vehicles 7/23/04 BOSTON -- There's a new warning of possible attacks at the Democratic National Convention next week in Boston. The FBI says the targets could be news media vehicles. And the attackers could be a radical domestic group. In a statement, the agency says there are unconfirmed reports that a domestic group will try to disrupt the convention "by attacking media vehicles with explosives or incendiary devices." TV stations were warned yesterday. Satellite trucks are already stationed at the FleetCenter, where the convention begins Monday.

The Saudi minister of the interior Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz, yesterday admitted for the first time the possibility that Saudi fighters sneaked to Iraq. But he denied that any of those fighters went there " through a direct way." In a press conference in Riyadh following a session for the Saudi Shoura council during which "the violence phenomenon" was discussed, Nayef said that Riyadh was not notified officially that Saudis are in Iraq. But he added " certainly there are Saudis.. But the number and how this had happened is not available to us now." He also denied that...

Cabbies Blast Convention Voucher Plan 1 hour, 56 minutes ago Boston cab drivers spoke out Thursday about Mayor Tom Menino's plan to give $10 cab vouchers for each delegate that attends this summer's Democratic National Convention. NewsCenter 5's Janet Wu reported that the drivers said that trips from Logan International Airport to hotels in the Back Bay cost a whole lot more, and they'd rather take the week off. Drivers thought they were going to make a killing the last week in July -- or at least make up for the rest of the summer if it turns out to...

N.C. Democrats Honor Edwards At Jefferson-Jackson Dinner Edwards Again Mentioned As Possible VP Choice For Kerry POSTED: 9:48 am EDT April 25, 2004 UPDATED: 10:01 am EDT April 25, 2004 CARY, N.C. -- North Carolina Democrats celebrated their rising star, Sen. John Edwards, on Saturday, excited that his fund-raising skills and popularity may rub off on their own electoral hopes in November. The state Democratic Party gathered at a local hotel to honor Edwards, who ran second to Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry in many presidential primaries and won two states before endorsing the presumptive nominee last month. "What an extraordinary...

"When ex-President Clinton told the 9/11 Commission last Thursday that he never admitted to turning down an offer for Osama bin Laden's extradition to the U.S., the Commission had already obtained a videotape of him making those remarks to the Long Island Association in Woodbury, N.Y., during the group's annual luncheon in February 2002..." (continued)

The Future According to Professor Paul Davies "Scientists have no doubt whatever that it is possible to build a time machine to visit the future". Since the publication of Einstein’s Special Theory of Relativity in 1905, few, if any, scientists would dispute that time travel to the future is perfectly possible. According to this theory, time runs slower for a moving person than for someone who is stationary. This has been proven by experiments using very accurate atomic clocks. In theory, a traveller on a super high-speed rocket ship could fly far out into the Universe and then come back...