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Israel Proposes Exile for Arafat Tue Apr 2, 8:15 AM ETBy JASON KEYSER, Associated Press WriterJERUSALEM (AP) - Israel has proposed that besieged Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat (news - web sites) be flown into exile by European diplomats, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (news - web sites) said Tuesday, raising such a possibility for the first time in public. Photos AP Photo Slideshows Audio/Video (AP) Palestinian officials said Arafat would never agree to go into exile.Israel's Cabinet decided last week to confine Arafat to a few rooms at his headquarters in the West Bank town of Ramallah, but left open the...

U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly delivered her order during a conference call between the parties, potentially expanding the amount of source code available to trustbusters. The states had access to some Windows source code during the liability and settlement phases of the trial. Access to the newest version of Windows, which was not included in the original trial, potentially ups the ante in the nearly 4-year-old antitrust case. Following a June appeals court ruling, which upheld eight separate antitrust violations against Microsoft, state attorneys general talked tough about including Windows XP in a remedy--a position from which they later backed ...

Prepare yourself for a bizarre story... A friend's wife is visiting a friend of hers in California. This friend has a daughter who is about to have a baby she doesn't want and wants to give it away. My friend and his wife want the baby. (Thank God the baby wasn't aborted.) Knowing that California has its share of crazy laws, I'm warning them that they're running the risk of getting attached to a child and later having it taken away by a mother who's changed her mind or the State of California or whatever. Is there anyone here who ...

I'm putting together this week's church bulletin and at the last moment was asked to do a cover depicting a theme of the sanctity of life. I have a brochure showing a painting called "I Will Hold You in Heaven" by Ray Harvey that would be great, but I haven't been able to locate it anywhere online. If anyone knows of suitable art they can point me to online, I'd sure appreciate it. I will of course get permission to use the piece if there's any question on that front. Thanks... MM

Can Taliban Kid Get a Book Deal? Agents Reach for 11-Foot Poles by Rebecca Traister and Ian Blecher When 20-year-old San Anselmo, Calif., native John Walker headed to Afghanistan to fight with the Taliban, he presumably renounced the commercial,capitalistic impulses that have contributed to the United States’ bad reputation abroad. But even before the prison ship U.S.S. Bataan unloads its notorious cargo in Cuba and the next step of Mr. Walker’s fate is decided, the media is working overtime to determine if his family will turn to good old-fashioned American commercialism—in the form of a book or film deal—in an ...

Here I am again, back in the best research facility on the Internet, hoping to get a couple of questions answered. Many thanks for any help you can provide.MM Assuming a USN carrier group was providing support for an operation in Israel, what would the most likely location of the carrier group be? Assuming U.S. military helicopters were providing transport of special forces from location to location (inland), what helicopters would most likely be used, and would it be feasible for those helicopters to be based on the carrier? What's that mean close-support gunship aircraft, the one that circles an ...

Steve Spurrier can now take an NFL coaching job. Florida Gators football coach Steve Spurrier has resigned, ESPN has confirmed. Spurrier gave no reasons for his decision. The school is expected to issue a news release at 2 p.m. and hold a news conference at 5 p.m. ET. Earlier today, the Gainesville Sun reported on its website Spurrier would resign today to make himself available for an NFL head coaching job. no debate: The Hurricanes are champions. Miami clobbered Nebraska 37-14 in Thursday's Rose Bowl to complete a perfect 12-0 season, showing this might be the best of the 'Canes' five ...

U.S. Navy corpsman HM1 Russell Scott, from Brooklyn, NY, takes a break from cleaning a damaged mosque for a moment of prayer, at Kandahar International Airport December 29, 2001. (Rob Curtis/Pool via Reuters)

I come to you, my fellow Freepers and Christians, asking for your earnest help. My young adult son is straying far from the path that we thought we had amply laid for him as he was being raised. His upbringing may not have been perfect, but it was sincere, always loving, church going, disciplined, and promoting of Christian principles. His current behavior barely resembles the son I thought I knew. Womanizing, drinking, wild living, and numerous other things of a wayward life have his mother and me just about at the end of our ropes. We've both talked until we're ...

Just wondering why we haven't seen any more headlines on the Arafat situation. His big trek to Bethlehem should certainly be underway shortly, shouldn't it?MM

Bush Predicts 'War Year' in 2002 Photos Reuters Photo Slideshows AP Photo Terrorism & Sept. 11 Attacks Audio/Video Firefighters, Cops Join Troops (ABCNEWS.com) IN Security Council OKs Afghan Force (AP)   By Peter Graff and Charles Aldinger KABUL/WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A provisional government on which the world has pegged its hopes for a peaceful Afghanistan (news - web sites) prepared on Friday to take power, but U.S. President George. W. Bush warned that 2002 would still be a ``war year.'' A disputed U.S. attack on a convoy of suspected Taliban or al Qaeda leaders marred the run-up to a ceremony ...

This is a vanity post. I'm still working on my novel and once again my research needs have led me back here to FR, where I am most often able to get my questions answered. I've posted this question in aviation forums but have gotten no replies so I thought I'd give it a shot here. I'm a private pilot myself, but not active and even when I was active it was usually in a Cessna 172 flying within a few hundred miles of home. One of the characters in my novel, however, is fortunate enough to own a ...

I found myself in a lengthy discussion the other day about the possibility that we are in or near the Biblical end times, and I'd love to hear the thoughts of some of you who have studied this issue. What end times signs do you think have played out or are playing out now or will play out in the very near future? Respectful request: this thread is intended to be a discussion between those who do believe in the Bible and its end times prophecies. While anyone is of course free to post, I sure would appreciate it if ...

I haven't had a cigarette since January 23rd. Unfortunately, I still crave cigarettes constantly. Some of that is due to the fact that I've remained addicted to nicotene gum or patches or inhalers or whatever my nicotene du jour is. Another part of it is that a small majority of the time, smoking was actually a very pleasurable thing. Only a few cigarettes a day really felt good; the others were sheer, utter habit. Contrary to all the assurances, I don't feel wondrously better. My breathing has not improved much at all. My sense of taste is the one big ...

Involves what I believe to be a blatantly illegal arrest that I can quickly describe via e-mail or freepmail.Thx...MM

I'd normally never post anything about a football game as the reason for a thread here, but just got home and had to pass on a couple of thoughts to those of you who are football fans who didn't see this one tonight on ESPN2.Just got home from the game between the Ole Miss Rebels and the Arkansas Razorbacks, where my Rebels came up two points short in a 58-56 loss in the seventh overtime. Prior to tonight, the most overtimes in the history of college football was four. The game also set a record for the total number of ...

I stumbled across this Xerox program yesterday, applied, and got an approval last night. I've been told that the threshold you need to meet is around 2100 pages printed per month.The gist of the program is buy the color ink from them, meet the minimums, and you get the printer free. (If you buy the printer from Xerox it's $3399.) They furnish the black ink free. You do have to fax in monthly usage reports on the printer, but that's not a big deal.There's positively nothing in this for me. The link above is not a referral link. I ...

Doctors Say Bio-Attack Would Overwhelm Hospitals CHICAGO (Reuters) - A biological attack with anthrax or another agent could quickly overwhelm an already overburdened U.S. health care system, hospital emergency room physicians said on Tuesday. While the number of U.S. hospital emergency departments has shrunk by 20 percent in the past decade, they are treating 14 percent more patients, said Dr. Michael Carius, president of the American College of Emergency Physicians (news - web sites). ``A biological or chemical attack could push us over the brink,'' Carius told a news conference during the group's annual convention. ``We have to build the ...

Cheney Suspects Bin Laden Link in Anthrax Cases Photos Reuters Photo Slideshows AP Photo Tracking Anthrax Audio/Video Giuliani Announces Anthrax Precautions (ABCNEWS.com) Anthrax Case Confirmed in New York - (Yahoo! Finance Vision) New Anthrax Case Reported in NBC (Associated Press)   By Grant McCool NEW YORK (Reuters) - A fourth case of the potential germ warfare agent anthrax was discovered in the United States on Friday and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) said there could be links between the cases and Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). Hours after officials said an employee of NBC-TV ...

Friday October 12 1:07 PM ET U.S. General: Bombing Halted for Muslim Holy Day WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. warplanes on Friday stopped blasting at least some targets in Afghanistan (news - web sites) for a day in deference to the Muslim holy day, the top U.S. military officer said. ``We are not operating today ... as Friday is the Muslim holy day,'' Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters at a Pentagon (news - web sites) briefing. He said the halt would involve ``preplanned'' fixed targets such as air fields but did ...