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Same-sex couples from states where gay marriage is banned cannot legally marry in Massachusetts, the state's highest court ruled Thursday. The Supreme Judicial Court, which three years ago made Massachusetts the first state to legalize gay marriage, upheld a 1913 state law that forbids nonresidents from marrying in Massachusetts if their marriage would not be recognized in their home state. "The laws of this commonwealth have not endowed non-residents with an unfettered right to marry," the court wrote in its 38-page opinion. "Only non-resident couples who come to Massachusetts to marry and intend to reside in this commonwealth thereafter can...

CAMP TAQADDUM, Iraq (March 15, 2006) -- Most businesses have no need for policemen and radio technicians to get the same job done. Nor would one expect to see a gunsmith's work compliment a truck driver's long journey. In the Marine Corps, cooperation among various job fields like these is crucial to keeping Marines on the frontlines supplied. Every day in Iraq, the 1st Marine Logistics Group sends out combat logistics patrols that leave the relative safety of the base to deliver supplies to Marines throughout the Al Anbar Province. From the Marines who order and load the supplies onto...

Volunteers for déjà vu study wanted. Come again? By Paul Stokes (Filed: 02/02/2006) University researchers are conducting the world's first study into déjà vu - the feeling that something one is experiencing has happened before. They are seeking volunteers who are chronic sufferers of the condition, which takes its name from the French phrase for "already seen". Psychologists from Leeds University are being funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and will attempt to recreate déjà vu in laboratory conditions. The project coincides with "Groundhog Day" which was set as Feb 2 in the eponymous Hollywood film and is...

Covers come off UK spy plane By Paul Rincon BBC News science reporter The Corax, built by BAE Systems, is the UK's first pilotless stealth aircraft Images of the UK's first prototype stealth surveillance aircraft have been unveiled. The unmanned vehicle, which has been built by BAE Systems, is known as the Corax, or as the Raven. The Corax bears some resemblance to a cancelled US military spy plane called DarkStar, analysts have said. Jane's International Defence Review said the unmanned aircraft "indicated a new direction in combat vehicles for the UK's armed forces". Bill Sweetman, the magazine's aerospace and...

Oakland grocers set to fight vandals Police say they will have more details this week in the attacks on two liquor stores By William Brand, STAFF WRITER NATION OF ISLAM minister Tony Muhammad, standing in front of Muhammad Mosque 26 in Oakland on Saturday, says the Nation had no part in the destruction inside two West Oakland liquor stores Wednesday night. (GREG TARCZYNSKI) OAKLAND — The president of the Yemini American Grocery Association said Saturday that grocers have the right to defend themselves if their stores are invaded like two West Oakland markets were hit Wednesday night. The association, which...

10/31/2005 - SOUTHWEST ASIA (AFPN) -- It was to deliver a message of inspiration and support that led five members of the famed Tuskegee Airmen to visit the members of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing here Oct. 29. However, during a question-and-answer session here at their last stop in the region before returning home, the Tuskegee Airmen admitted they were as inspired by the troops as the other way around. “We were asked to bring inspiration to you. Instead, we found something extraordinary here on this trip,” said retired Col. Dick Tolliver, a second-generation Tuskegee Airmen who served from 1963-1989....

Return To New Orleans Is Urged Mayor Travels Louisiana to Tout Work, Housing By Peter Whoriskey and Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writers Thursday, October 13, 2005; Page A01 ALEXANDRIA, La., Oct. 12 -- Amid fears that the effort to repopulate New Orleans is stalling, Mayor C. Ray Nagin hopscotched shelters across the state Wednesday to assure Hurricane Katrina evacuees that the city is beginning to operate again and urged them to "come on home." For the charismatic first-term politician, it was a novel kind of political campaign: not for votes necessarily, but for voters themselves. It is a...

They're soft, strong, and very, very long. Large, transparent sheets of carbon nanotubes can now be produced at lightning speed. The new technique should allow the nanotubes to be used in commercial devices from heated car windows to flexible television screens. "Rarely is a processing advance so elegantly simple that rapid commercialization seems possible," says Ray Baughman, a chemist from the University of Texas at Dallas, whose team unveils the ribbon in this week's Science1. Nanotubes are tiny cylinders of carbon atoms measuring just billionths of a metre across. They are light, strong, and conductive. But for years their promise...

Natan Sharansky is among the world's most consistent advocates of democratization as a basis for foreign policy. Born in Ukraine in 1948, he received a degree in mathematics from Moscow's Physical Technical Institute. A brilliant mathematician and chess master, he entered the limelight as a spokesman for the movement to emancipate Soviet Jewry. Arrested by the Soviet authorities in 1977 for his refusenik activities, he was sentenced to thirteen years imprisonment. President Ronald Reagan interceded and, in 1986, won Sharansky's release as part of an East-West prisoner exchange. In his 1988 autobiography Fear No Evil,[1] he discussed both his emotional...

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!

Kerry claims he received a 'long' voice mail from Reeve the same day he went into cardiac arrest, fell into a coma and subsequently died the next day. I find this incredible!! Who among us believes Kerry was possibly Reeves last phone call of his life? I think Kerry has some splainin' to do. "Kerry, who knew the "Superman" actor for about 15 years through family and dedication to the same causes, said Reeve left him a long voice mail on Saturday thanking him for campaigning on the possibilities of a cure for conditions like his." http://www.dailynews.com/Stories/0,1413,200~20954~2461635,00.html "The star of...

'First Americans' may be Johnnies-come-lately By MIKE TONER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Published on: 08/20/04 Human history is being written —and rewritten — a shovelful at a time on a shaded hillside along the Savannah River. Each summer Al Goodyear's team of archaeologists digs deeper into the riverbank in South Carolina's Allendale County. Each summer the story of the first Americans, the primitive hunters who first populated the continent, grows longer. And more complex. And more controversial. David Tulis/AJC (ENLARGE) Archaeologist Al Goodyear holds a hand-made 'microblade,' one of the hundreds of artifacts unearthed during his team's seven years of excavations...

Come To Think Of It... Just because you "care" (or at least claim to) doesn't mean you know what you're talking about. The measure of success is not directly related to how much money is spent in the process. Winning an election does not make you an expert in something you knew nothing about the day before. Trying hard does not guarantee success, but not trying at all is a sure-fire formula for failure. It's ironic that politicians are hot to persecute Enron for corrupt, deceptive, deficit-driven business practices that have caused financial hardship for millions of Americans.