Free Republic

  The Poor Democrats Newsweek Web Exclusive Before Bill Clinton confessed, Hillary blamed a "right-wing conspiracy" for all the sex talk about her husband, the president. Now the chatter is back and so is the conspiracy. Only this time the driving force isn't the "right wing" or the so-called mainstream media. It's the Clintons themselves.PITY THE POOR DEMOCRATS, especially the ones running for president. They want politics these days to focus on questions such as: where are the weapons of mass destruction George W. Bush told us about? Where are the child-care credits everyone is supposed to get? But...

  Copyright © 2003 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com Secret of SARS control: Follow those rumors Thomas Crampton/IHT International Herald Tribune Tuesday, June 3, 2003   MANILA To call Rosanne Muller the office gossip queen would not be an insult. It is, in fact, her job. Working from a corner desk in the SARS war room of the World Health Organization's Asian headquarters, Muller spends each day finding, chasing and spreading rumors on the disease. "This is the perfect job for me," Muller said. "I do actually have a history in gossip." In addition to being medical doctor...

<p>WASHINGTON (CNN) --The U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet in Bahrain is reporting that four U.S. soldiers and four civilians aboard two small civilian contractor boats were recovered Monday in the northern Persian Gulf after several hours in Iranian hands.</p> <p>All eight of the passengers were found alive, but the two boat captains are being held by Iran.</p>

6/02/2003 10:20 AM Navy: Four U.S. Soldiers Vanish on Boats in Gulf LONDON (Reuters) - The U.S. Navy said Monday two small boats carrying four U.S. soldiers and at least three civilians disappeared in northern Gulf waters on Sunday. The Fifth Fleet said the two boats were heading toward the Shatt al-Arab waterway from Iraq's Mina al-Bakr oil terminal when they vanished. The navy's Bahrain-based Maritime Liaison Office (MARLO) said in a statement to merchant shipping that the vessels had been on their way to the Iraqi port of Faw to pick up Iraqi oil workers. The cause of the...

Man Who Ran Up Six-Figure Lottery Ticket Tab Gets Jail POSTED: 1:47 p.m. EDT May 9, 2003 PAINESVILLE, Ohio -- An Ohio man is going to jail for buying a lot more lottery tickets than he could pay for. Patrick Murray has pleaded guilty to bouncing three checkstotaling $181,000, while trying to win the Ohio Lottery. In all, he spent more than $1 million on lottery tickets. The lottery commission said one store still owes almost half a million dollars for tickets Murray got but never paid for. Murray says he'll do what he can to make it right. But...

Climber describes how he amputated his own arm The Associated Press GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. -- Hopelessly pinned by a boulder that rolled onto his arm in a remote canyon, adventurer Aron Ralston says he first took a dull pocketknife to his forearm after three days, but couldn't cut the skin. In his first meeting with reporters since he walked, bloody and dehydrated, out of a remote Utah canyon, Ralston described Thursday what it took for him to eventually do the unthinkable -- cutting off his own arm to save his life. "I'm not sure how I handled it," the mechanical...

<p>Bonn, May 6 (Bloomberg) -- Deutsche Post AG Chief Executive Officer Klaus Zumwinkel's plan to boost earnings by expanding the German postal service in the $65 billion U.S. delivery market may be dealt a blow by United Parcel Service Inc. and FedEx Corp.</p>

Latrine duty: a real waste By DANI DODGE Scripps Howard News Service April 18, 2003 BAGHDAD, Iraq - Someone has to do it. Thursday, builder construction man Adam Helschein, 25, and steelworker 3rd class Olivo Guerrero, 19, got the task: Burning the waste - human waste. "The first time," said Helschein, of Las Vegas, "I almost threw up." Getting rid of human waste in the war zone is probably one of the most unglamorous jobs the Seabees do. John Wayne sure wasn't given the mission in the movie "The Fighting Seabees." The Seabees from Naval Mobile Construction Battalion 4 have...

<p>CAMP ASAYLIYAH, DOHA, Qatar — The 4th Infantry Division finally is in the fight. On Wednesday, the 1st Brigade of the Fort Hood, Texas-based division took on the bad guys outside Baghdad, killing some, capturing some and taking control of an airfield.</p>

<p>Camp New Jersey, Kuwait — Leaders of the 4th Infantry Division are preparing to join the campaign in Iraq, planning for an undisclosed mission that could run the gamut from combat to peacekeeping.</p> <p>They will have the advantage of a roadmap, of sorts, provided by the 3rd Infantry Division , which now sits in and around Baghdad after opening the ground war.</p>

<p>NAJAF, Iraq —Gen. Tommy Franks, the commander of U.S. Central Command, visited the 101st Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Monday to present two soldiers with Bronze Star medals for their heroic actions during recent firefights here.</p> <p>Sgt. James Ward of the 1st Battalion and Sgt. Lucas Goddard of the 3rd Battalion had their medals pinned on them while they were surrounded by hundreds of captured weapons and ammunition at an Iraqi military training camp. The camp was overtaken by Company C of the 1st Battalion last week.</p>

<p>DOHA, Qatar – The daring nighttime commando rescue of Army Pfc. Jessica Lynch from captivity in Iraq could hardly have been better scripted by a Hollywood screenwriter.</p> <p>Lynch, a 19-year-old soldier from Palestine, W. Va., had been a prisoner-of-war since Iraqis ambushed the convoy she was riding in on March 23, killing at least eight of her fellow soldiers. On the night of April 1, she lay seriously wounded in an Iraqi hospital under enemy control.</p>

<p>Soldiers with the 507th Maintenance Company did not take a wrong turn in the early morning hours of March 23 when Iraqi soldiers ambushed them near Nasiriyah, a congressman who talked with two sergeants in the trapped vehicles said Thursday.</p>

Police say man kept wife chained in yard From the National Desk Published 4/4/2003 10:54 AM SAN ANTONIO, April 4 (UPI) -- A San Antonio man who allegedly padlocked his wife to a 30-foot dog chain in the backyard was in jail himself Friday. One end of the chain was padlocked to 45-year-old Patricia Thomason's neck, and the other end was attached to a car where her husband Jerry Thomason, 41, was sleeping when police arrested him Thursday at their home. Firefighters used bolt cutters to remove the chain that was wrapped around the woman's neck and padlocked. She...

BIN LADEN'S SONS WILL KILL HIM ON TV From Jeremy Armstrong In Kabul OSAMA bin Laden plans a TV suicide that will trigger attacks on landmarks in London, Paris and the US. His estranged wife Sabiha said last night he would order his elder sons to shoot him rather than be captured. Bin Laden: Appearance on Al-Jazera TV Sabiha, 45, added: "That will be the signal for a new wave of terror. The targets this time would be the Capitol building in Washington, Big Ben in London and the Eiffel Tower in Paris." Her claims were broadcast on Russian television...

<p>DOHA, QATAR — The U.S. military calls it the Karbala Gap, a narrow sandy plain between Lake Buhayrat ar Razzazah on the west and the Euphrates River on the east. On Wednesday, American soldiers raced through the gap on their way to Baghdad, facing only minimal Iraqi opposition.</p>

<p>NORTH OF KARBALA, Iraq —Marines scored a decisive victory against Republican Guard forces today, crossing the Tigris River as soldiers pushed through the storied Karbala Gap by the Eurphrates River.</p> <p>The northward thrust of U.S. ground forces accelerated the push toward Baghdad and possibly a showdown in the capital city.</p>

<p>Marines were sent to rescue wounded members of the 507th Maintenance Company on March 23, the day the Fort Bliss unit was attacked in Iraq, but nine of the Marines who took part in the rescue effort were killed and eight others are missing, Pentagon officials said Sunday.</p>

<p>CENTRAL IRAQ — At least two Iraqi ultralight aircraft flew over a patch of desert Friday where thousands of U.S. soldiers and several command and control facilities are located. The appearance of enemy aircraft over U.S. positions is especially alarming because the military believes ultralight aircraft of the type spotted Friday may be used to deliver chemical or biological weapons.</p>

<p>CENTRAL IRAQ — For a few long, terrifying minutes, Pfc. Adam Small faced every armor soldier’s nightmare: the prospect of burning to death while trapped in his own disabled tank.</p> <p>He was saved, like so many soldiers before him, by a couple of squared-away, quick-thinking NCOs.</p>