Free Republic

Mexicans to test voting power Disillusionment, confusion cloud midterm election By S. Lynne Walker COPLEY NEWS SERVICE July 5, 2003 MEXICO CITY – Armando Hernández is going to the polls tomorrow to help elect a new Congress because he's irritated that so little has changed in the three years after President Vicente Fox's historic election. "Promises. Promises. Promises," said the 40-year-old corn farmer in Michoacan state. "Everything is the same." But Hernández isn't giving up on Mexico's experiment with democracy. Like millions of Mexicans from the impoverished south to the affluent north, he hopes his vote can make a difference....

The Baja option Mexico offers relief from high San Diego housing costs By Emmet Pierce STAFF WRITER June 29, 2003 The San Diego region's affordable-housing crisis is becoming an international affair, as increasing numbers of U.S. residents look to northern Baja California for low-cost shelter. Like southwest Riverside County, Tijuana has become a safety valve for San Diego County workers who find themselves priced out of costly apartments and a skyrocketing real estate market, says demographer Rodolfo Cruz Piñeiro of El Colegio de la Frontera Norte. Despite lengthy border-crossing delays since the Sept. 11 attacks, Baja California offers viable housing...

Immigrant smugglers' forgotten victims Compassion, aid lacking for the crash survivors who face physical, financial and emotional trauma By Marisa Taylor STAFF WRITER June 22, 2003 The Dodge van loaded with illegal immigrants appeared on the horizon of Interstate 8 as a black shadow heading straight for Maria Amaya's old Toyota. Moments earlier, the van's driver, panicked by the sight of a patrol car, had turned off his headlights and swerved across the median near Pine Valley. The van careened west into the eastbound lanes at 75 mph. Amaya had only seconds to make her choice. Swerve left, and the...

Into the Politics of Economics WASHINGTON FEW people try to get the attention of the president of the United States by tugging on the bottom of his suit jacket until he looks their way. But Peter Mankiw had an important message to deliver, and he was not going to let diplomatic procedure, or the president's personal space, get in the way. So, after President Bush had sworn in Peter's father, Gregory, as the new chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers last month, Peter, who is 4 years old, made a run for the presidential coat. "Don't be mean to...

Gale Norton Rouses Congress the Bush administration, in particular its interior secretary, Gale Norton, has always wanted to transfer more control of America's public lands to state and local governments and to open them to a wider range of commercial and recreational uses. But Congressional Democrats and some moderate Republicans are only now realizing that what Ms. Norton is trying to engineer is not just a rebalancing of the scales but a revolution in public policy deeply at odds with a long bipartisan tradition of environmental stewardship and more threatening than anything attempted by James Watt, Ronald Reagan's reactionary interior...

<p>WASHINGTON ? After soaring in prestige under former President Clinton, the centrist "New Democrat" movement is struggling to maintain its influence in the party as the 2004 presidential race accelerates.</p> <p>In recent months, New Democrat leaders have engaged in escalating confrontations with more liberal party elements ? battles that could help determine whether Democrats largely follow Clinton's centrist course or tilt to the left in their challenge to President Bush next year.</p>

has anyone used great barrier reef internet service? it's advertised for $9.95/ mo.? currently i'm paying $24.95 for earthlink and i do not think it's worth the money. thanks

DANIEL WEINTRAUB THE SACRAMENTO BEE Blame pension ills on big giveaways May 31, 2003 The public pension nightmare unfolding across California began with one bad decision based on faulty logic in the heady days when the stock market run looked as if it would never end. The decision came when the board of the California Public Employees Retirement System (CalPERS) urged the Legislature and the governor to take $9 billion that was deemed a surplus and use it to boost pensions for retirees and those still working for the state. Those excess earnings in the retirement fund, the pension board...

Special Visa's Use for Tech Workers Is Challenged Richard L. Harbus for The New York Times A flier from the Organization for the Rights of American Workers, which wants to restrict visas that allow companies to transfer workers to the United States. By KATIE HAFNER and DANIEL PREYSMAN AN FRANCISCO, May 29 — With the economy in a slump, a growing number of American technology workers say their jobs are going not only to lower-cost foreign workers abroad, but also increasingly to workers who enter the United States under a little-known visa category known as L-1. In the nearly three...

Argentina's Chief Is Sworn In and Comes Out Fighting By LARRY ROHTER BUENOS AIRES, May 25 — Promising to "reconstruct our identity as a people and a nation" after the worst economic crisis in Argentina's history, Néstor Kirchner was sworn in as president today. He immediately issued strong challenges to foreign creditors, the armed forces and the political establishment, which has opposed his unexpected rise to power. In a 50-minute inauguration speech, Mr. Kirchner, who for the past dozen years has been the governor of a remote and sparsely populated province in Patagonia, took a markedly nationalist tone. He made...

12 Journalists Get Michigan Fellowships twelve American journalists have been awarded fellowships for the coming academic year by the University of Michigan's Knight-Wallace Fellows program. While on leave from their news organizations, the fellows will work on projects of their choosing and receive stipends of $55,000. The group is the 31st to receive fellowships from the university. The program, formerly known as the Michigan Journalism Fellows, was renamed last year after a $1 million gift from the CBS News correspondent Mike Wallace and his wife, Mary, and a $5 million matching grant from the John S. and James L. Knight...

Tuesday May 20th 2003 Demography and the West Half a billion Americans? Aug 22nd 2002 | WASHINGTON, DC From The Economist print edition Demographic forces are pulling America and Europe apart. If the trend goes on, it will fundamentally alter America's position in the world FORGET transatlantic rifts about trade, Iraq, Kyoto, or the International Criminal Court. These have been thoroughly ventilated. One area of difference has not got the attention it deserves: demography. It may prove the most important of all. For 50 years, America and the nations of Western Europe have been lumped together as rich countries, sharing...

they should put a fence around this town and charge admission! i've lived on the east coast, grew up on the great plains and rocky mountains, and lived all over california, but this town is disgusting. the first thing you'll notice about hemet are several dozen riverside county social services buildings, some large--like an abandoned sears building, and some small. the mayors of hemet brought riverside social services to this city for employment opportunities. some of their clients look like they've climbed out of a hole. you'll see some of the most disgusting people that you've ever seen in your...

it is not the case, as those who see communism as the equivalent of or worse than nazism have argued, that leonid brezhnev's russia was stalinist. under communism, people slept more easily in their beds and led happier lives.