Free Republic

Labor leader: unions better without John Kerry 7/27/04 BOSTON -- The head of the largest union in the AFL-CIO says the labor movement is in crisis and might be more motivated to change if Democrat John Kerry is not elected president -- even though he doesn't want to chance it by keeping George W. Bush in the White House. Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, with 1.6 million members, said in an interview Monday with The Washington Post that the effort he is leading to restructure organized labor would lose momentum under a Democratic president. "I don't...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (Reuters) - NASA (news - web sites) is considering whether it can return its space shuttles to flight without making two safety improvements that have so far proved to be high hurdles for agency engineers, top officials said on Friday. After the space shuttle Columbia disintegrated over Texas last year and killed the seven astronauts aboard, the Columbia Accident Investigation Board drafted a lengthy list of ambitious reforms. Among other proposals, the board recommended NASA come up with a way to repair damage to the leading edge of a shuttle's wing, such as the kind that doomed...

While doing my weekly shopping at the Jewel-Osco, I overheard a very unusual conversation. It was between two young baggers who were talking about an article one of them had read regarding President Lincoln. Both men happened to be black. One of them informed the other that President Lincoln cared nothing about blacks and was actually a racist. I was stunned. I wanted to interject a million things to their discussion but I didn’t. Instead, I silently watched the checker ring up my order. The incident immediately brought to mind the old commercial from the seventies where tears run down...

A man clad only in boxer shorts allegedly carjacked a couple driving through Newport in a red convertible last night, and then became the subject of an air and land search. He was finally captured early this morning -- still in his skivvies -- in a Newport alley, police say. Newport Police Chief Tom Fromme said Cincinnati police began pursuing Marlin J. Patton, 27, of Cincinnati, some time before 9 p.m. Wednesday. Fromme said Patton crashed into a car in the 400 block of Columbia in Newport about 9 p.m. and jumped from his wrecked car to commandeer a Chrysler...

Duane Moore, chairman of the Kern County Democratic Central Committee, has a possible cure for Gov. Gray Davis' recall headache. Resign. Quit. Clear out your desk. But leave the lights on for the new guy, Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante. Quitting now would bring the recall effort to a screeching halt and derail Republicans' plans to hijack the governor's office for Darrell Issa, Arnold Schwarzenegger or somebody else with a more conservative bent. It would acknowledge what pundits from both parties have been suggesting for months: Davis' political future is about as promising as Dan Lungren's, no matter what the outcome...

The cases presented in the True Stella Awards are typically selected to illustrate various aspects of the runaway problems in our civil legal system. The aim, over the long run, is to clearly show that there is no one aspect of the problem that needs change to "fix" the entire system;the problems are indeed systemic. It's definitely not just bad lawyers,or too many of them (though that's part of it). It's not just that the medical profession isn't weeding out bad doctors (though that's part ofit). It's not just that insurance companies encourage frivolous claimsand suits by making "nuisance" payments...

In Foreign Parts: City that never sleeps grows uneasy without Rudy By David Usborne in New York 18 January 2003 The other night, we were passing a fancy new apartment block in the Chelsea area of Manhattan (units rent for $6,000 (£3,500) a month) when a large rat zipped across the pavement. Nasty, I thought. It was surely even less pleasant for the tramp sleeping in cardboard boxes across the street. It's only an impression, but Manhattan seems to be getting scruffier again. Every night, honking rubbish trucks disturb my sleep, yet the heaps of bursting bin- bags outside never...