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Christian Catacombs May Have Jewish Origin Michael Schirber LiveScience Staff Writer Wed Jul 20, 1:43 PM ET The Roman catacombs are intricate labyrinths of burial chambers that were built roughly between the third and fifth century AD. They are considered among the most important relics of early Christianity. But a recent study of a Jewish catacomb in Rome finds that it was started a century before the oldest known Christian versions. In addition to the 60 Christian catacombs that have survived in Rome, there are two Jewish catacombs, which are distinguishable by the decorative artwork and inscriptions that were used....

Senator Daniel Akaka (D-HI) has introduced a bill called the Native Hawaiian Government Reorganization Act of 2005, S.147. Akaka wants to extend the government's policy of self-governance and self-determination to Native Hawaiians. He, and fellow Hawaiian Senator Inouye intend to do this by creating a race-based and racially separate government for Native Hawaiians. Under S. 147 Native Hawaiians would be under the federal Indian law system and would be designated as a "tribe." This new race-based government would have jurisdiction over 20 percent of Hawaii's citizens as well as 400,000 citizens nationwide. This would be the first time in our...

This Backgrounder briefly summarizes the legal authority upon which state and local police MAY act in rendering such assistance and describes the scenarios in which this assistance is most crucial. The law on this question is quite clear: arresting aliens who have violated either criminal provisions of the INA or civil provisions that render an alien deportable "IS WITHIN THE INHERENT AUTHORITY OF STATES." And such inherent arrest authority has never been preempted by Congress. The source of this authority flows from the states’ status as sovereign entities. THEY ARE SOVEREIGN GOVERNMENTS possessing all residual powers not abridged or superceded...

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As Israel considers allowing Egypt to control the critical Philadelphi corridor along Israel’s border, startling revelations about Egyptian chemical weapons proliferation are coming to light. Egypt secretly helped former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein in his chemical weapons program, according to a CIA report. The report, authored by the CIA’s Iraq Survey Group, says that Egypt sent specialists to Iraq in the 1980s to help him manufacture poison gas. Iraq later used the gas against Iranian citizens as well as Iraqi Kurds. The report says that the Iraqi government paid Egypt $12 million, "in return for assistance with production and storage...

At first glance, the term "gun nut" would appear to be nothing more than an ad hominem against the more enthusiastic weapon owners of this country. However, as one reads the literature espoused by gun nut organizations, the reasoning behind this term becomes startlingly clear. Gun nuts are called as such because they are incontrovertibly insane. The gun lobby has adopted the same attitude toward politics as Rush Limbaugh: "Don't confuse me with facts, I've got my mind made up!" Gun nuts are so obsessed with opposing gun control laws that no amount of factual evidence against their position will...

Braving bullets and bombs, millions of Iraqis cast their ballots yesterday in Iraq's first free elections in half a century. First reports suggested turnout in excess of 70%. While the Independent Election Commission of Iraq will not announce the official results for another two weeks, the encouragingly high voter turnout undercuts the cynicism of a press corps that questioned the election's legitimacy before the first ballots were even cast. The Associated Press, for example, opined, "If the vast majority of the Sunnis shun the polls--either out of fear or lack of confidence in the process--it would undercut the new government's...

Federal Appeals Court Judge Michael Chertoff’s ties to the financiers of the Sept. 11 attacks may prevent his confirmation as Homeland Security Chief. According to a June 20, 2000 article in the The Record of Bergen County, New Jersey, Chertoff defended accused terrorist financier Dr. Magdy Elamir. Elamir’s HMO was sued by the State of New Jersey to recoup $16.7 million in losses. At least $5.7 million went “to unknown parties... by means of wire transfers to bank accounts where the beneficial owner of the account is unknown,” according to the article. Foreign intelligence reports given to then chairman of...

Rallying Species Finds Urban Haven on Potomac Rosilie Island, a spit of land in the Potomac River where bald eagles roost, has a good claim to being the most unlikely wildlife refuge in Greater Washington. It's not a natural island, or even an island at all. Instead, it's an old sand and gravel dump, where enough dirt was piled over the years to create a ragged peninsula. Then there's the noise and bustle of the huge National Harbor construction project, being built on the island's doorstep. And the small matter of the Woodrow Wilson Bridge. Tiny Rosilie holds up the...

Former US president Bill Clinton wins another Grammy nod 2 hours, 9 minutes ago LOS ANGELES (AFP) - Former US president Bill Clinton, movie star Steve Martin, actor John Lithgow and comedienne Ellen DeGeneres won places alongside the world's top musicians as Grammy Award nominees. An unlikely nominee, Clinton won his second consecutive nod for music's top awards in the best spoken word album category for the recording of his best-selling autobiography "My Life." Earlier this year, the former leader of the free world won a golden gramophone statuette for lending his voice to the spoken word recording of Russian...

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!

Terrorists 'could have Iraq's WMD' By Toby Harnden in Baghdad (Filed: 12/07/2004) Foreign fighters battling Iraq's interim government could have seized materials for weapons of mass destruction during the "security vacuum" after last year's invasion, the country's national security adviser said yesterday. Declaring that Iraq would be "a country free of weapons of mass destruction", Mouwaffaq al-Rubaie said 1.8 tons of low-enriched uranium and nearly 1,000 radioactive sources had been transferred to the United States to keep them away from terrorists. But some material might already have been acquired by insurgents after the fall of Saddam Hussein. "There were so...

CLINTON'S PRESIDENCY: WHAT MIGHT HAVE BEEN Sat Jun 26, 8:00 PM ET By Cynthia Tucker Bill Clinton hopes to be acquitted by history. Fortunately for him, though, no subject of history is ever around to hear its verdict. Scholars will probably wonder what drove legions of conservatives to hate Clinton with such fury that they wasted years and spent a king's ransom trying to drive him from office. They will no doubt note that Clinton accomplished much despite the "vast right-wing conspiracy": He righted the nation's finances after decades of dangerous deficits. He drove the initiative that stopped a pogrom...

The killer of a pregnant woman may have been paid by members of her family, her husband told the Old Bailey today. Anita Gindha, 22, was strangled in front of her 19-month-old son two weeks before she had been due to give birth to a baby girl. Three years earlier, Anita had caused anger among her family when she ran away from her Glasgow home to marry Kashmir Ralh. Mr Ralh told the court: “Anita was scared that her family would trace her and kill her or me.” A cousin had told him that on two occasions, people had come...

<p>We can be assured of one thing when it comes to the safety of our food: media hysteria will be inversely proportional to actual risks.</p> <p>Alfred Hitchcock knew a shadowy figure was far more terrifying than a well-lit known villain. Nothing haunts us more than our own imaginations, said Frank Furedi, sociologist at the University of Kent in Canterbury and author of The Culture of Fear (Continuum Publishing, 2002). Likewise today's newspapers and television networks have found that fictitious, sensationalized, "what-if?" scares of hidden dangers lurking in our foods make the juiciest stories guaranteed to capture audiences and sell papers.</p>

We do have the bomb, N Korean envoy says By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor, and Robin Gedye, Foreign Affairs Writer (Filed: 07/11/2003) North Korea's ambassador in London explicitly confirmed yesterday that his nation possessed nuclear weapons and was ready to use them.In an interview with the Reuters news agency, Ri Yong-ho, asked whether North Korea had a nuclear bomb, said: "What we are saying is a nuclear deterrent capability." The ambassador said the deterrent was made with plutonium, most of which was recently reprocessed, and was now ready to use should the United States attack North Korea. Pyonyang has...

Doctor takes ads to say he should have won By Dan Gledhill 11 October 2003 An American doctor has attacked the result of this year's Nobel prize for medicine, saying that he should have been given a share of the award. Dr Raymond Damadian, who owns a patent on magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines, took out a full-page advertisement in The New York Times yesterday and The Washington Post the day before, referring to the prize, which was given to scientists from Britain and America, as "The Shameful Wrong That Must Be Righted". The advertisement said the professors who won...

Why men have more heart attacks September 16 2003 at 07:54AM Sydney - Men have more heart attacks than women because of their sex hormones, researchers in Australia said on Tuesday. They found that male sex hormones, or androgens, activate the genes that stimulate the production of cholesterol in arteries. None of these genes were activated in women. Dr Martin Ng, a cardiologist at Sydney's Royal Prince Alfred hospital, said the finding might lead to gender specific treatments for coronary heart disease. 'Male sex hormones stimulate genes that promote coronary artery disease in men' "Male sex hormones stimulate genes that...

William Ledbetter from New York City shelters a candle from the rain during a memorial service Thursday Sept. 11, 2003 at the U.S. Embassy in Singapore. About 200 Americans and Singaporeans gathered at the embassy to commemorate those who died in terrorist attacks on New York and Washinjgton 2 years ago today.(AP Photo/Ed Wray) A New York City police officer consoles a girl during a memorial service marking the second year since the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, Thursday, Sept. 11, 2003 in New York. (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer) An American flag, known as the 'Flag of Honor,'...

Fact or fallacy: Sexy tree too much for some Westside neighbors By DAN WHITESentinel staff writer A Westside resident called the cops Monday to report an allegedly phallic tree. Officers responded to the Liberty Street home but found no wrongdoing. They said the 20-footer — actually an evergreen hedge of the Luma genus — is protected by its owner’s right to artistic freedom. "We contacted the city attorney," said Sgt. Brad Goodwin. "It could be interpreted anywhere from being free speech to being artistic. It’s really nothing we have control over." All trees can be seen as "phallic," but some...