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DrudgeReport.com

• Dick Gephart Misses 85% of 2002 Congressional Votes

• Pentagon Approves Future Combat Systems Program

• One in Five American Children Have Sex Before Their 15th Birthday

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Dealy, Sam, and Chourey, Sarita. “Gephardt skips 85% of House votes.”  The Hill. May 20, 2003.

Rep. Dick Gephardt (D-Mo.) has missed 162 votes in the House this year — 85 percent of the total — prompting Republicans to charge that he has abandoned his congressional duties in his pursuit of the presidency.

Aldinger, Charles. “Pentagon OKs Next Phase of U.S. Army Modernization.”  Washington Post (Reuters). May 19, 2003.

The Pentagon has approved the $14.92 billion development and demonstration phase of the Future Combat Systems program, a project led by Boeing Co. to modernize the U.S. Army, the Army said on Monday.

The FCS is expected to become a lethal family of manned and unmanned air and ground weapons interlinked and tied to forces from other U.S. military services over a sophisticated command network. It aims for an initial operating capability by 2010.

Lewin, Tamar. “Study Finds 1 in 5 Youths Have Sex Before Age 15.”  New York Times. May 19, 2003.

bout 20 percent of adolescents have had sexual intercourse before their 15th birthday — and one in seven of the sexually experienced 14-year-old girls has been pregnant, according to a report by the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy.

Link to highlights of 14 and Under

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 OpinionJournal.com

• “Diversity” Makes Democratic Party Incoherent

• Apple’s New Music Store Addictive

• Best of the Web Today

  • New York Times Reporter Chris Hedges Has Microphone Unplugged in “Anti-war” Speech

  • NJ School District Can’t Ban “Top 10 Reasons You Might Be a Redneck Sports Fan” T-shirt

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Gorin, Julia. “900 Left Feet Why "diversity" trips up the Democrats.” OpinionJournal.com. May 20, 2003.

Who knew one protected class could hold different values from another protected class? Who knew diversity was a double-edged sword? Certainly not the Democratic Party, which relies on and boasts a platform of inclusion.

I'm reminded of the way I couldn't help relishing the immediate post-Sept. 11 disorientation of many American Jews, as the left wing of my tribe found out that the non-Jewish left overwhelmingly supports Palestinians over Israelis. …

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How thrown off Bill Clinton must have been during the 2000 U.S. Open, when he congratulated Venus Williams on her playing and she demanded to know what he was going to do about her high taxes. What was the genius elocutionist's response? "You really worked hard."

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According to the Justice Department's National Crime Victimization Survey, 90% of interracial crimes involve a white victim and a black perpetrator. Yet witness the dearth of charges resulting from the 2001 Fat Tuesday mob violence against white celebrants in Seattle. Will things get even stickier if a black man one day decides to beat up a gay man--or, worse, kill a black lesbian, as may have been the case in Newark, N.J., last week?

Kerrigan, James J. “My Jones Began With Tom: I couldn't take just one byte from Apple's iTunes.” OpinionJournal.com. May 20, 2003.

The author found this service addictive and cleverly uses an apple in the garden of Eden metaphor.

Link to Apple Music Store

 Wall Street Journal
 (Subscription Site)

• Book Review: Constant Battles by Steven A. LeBlanc

• US Air Force Museum

• Treasury Secretary Snow Drives Dollar Down

• Clinton Administration Dragged Heels on Khobar Towers Bombing Investigation

Miller, John J. “War of All Against All.”  Wall Street Journal. May 20, 2003. p D5.

That's because the academy's prevailing view of the evolution of warfare is exactly backward, imagining a peaceful prehistory populated by noble savages living in edenic harmony with the environment. Such good-hearted simpletons only came to know violence, it was believed, when "warlike, modern imperialists" from Europe showed up and wrecked their idyllic utopias. Yet Mr. LeBlanc kept bumping into contrary evidence everywhere he dug. "Prehistoric warfare was common and deadly, and no time span or geographical region seems to have been immune," he writes.

Review of Steven A. LeBlanc’s Constant Battles

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WSJ

Link to U.S. Air Force Museum

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WSJ

But the huge danger in bashing the dollar comes from the currency markets themselves. Famous for overreacting, the dollar could fall too fast and too far. Foreign investors hold almost half of U.S. bonds, more than a third of U.S. corporate bonds and around 10% of U.S. stocks. Their confidence in those U.S. dollar assets isn't helped if they think the Treasury Secretary is trashing the value of what they own in order to squeeze out more export growth. The last Treasury chief who tried this was Michael Blumenthal in the unlamented Carter Presidency, and his trash-talking turned into a dollar rout. The markets yesterday gave Mr. Snow a little taste of what can happen.

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WSJ

Unfortunately, the White House was unable or unwilling to help the FBI gain access to these critical witnesses. The only direction from the Clinton administration regarding Iran was to order the FBI to stop photographing and fingerprinting official Iranian delegations entering the U.S. because it was adversely impacting our "relationship" with Tehran. We had argued that the MOIS was using these groups to infiltrate its agents into the U.S.

…

… Finding a problem for every solution, the Clinton administration refused to support a prosecution.

Freeh recounts how the elder George Bush used his influence to get the Saudis to allow the FBI to interview Khobar Towers bombing (June 25, 1996) suspects.

Removing the Shah had been a long-term goal of the Political Left, which they finally accomplished in the Carter presidency.

OpinionJournal link to this article

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WSJ

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FrontPageMag.com

• Jayson Blair Scandal Result of Socialist Ideology

• Responsible European Leaders Critcize “Anti-war” Left

• Islamists Fill Spiritual Vacuum in Western Europe

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The New York Times affirmative action diversity scandal demonstrates much more than the folly of the Left’s reverse racism and the top management’s arrogance. It is an example of the Left’s instrumental treatment of truth, which is the inescapable consequence of their worship at the altar of absolute equality of condition.

"Those flags are red because they are stained by the blood of 100 million innocent victims. I think that putting them together with the flags of peace is a real blasphemy against peace", stated the Italian Prime-Minister Silvio Berlusconi in Rome, as he denounced the contradiction of having the Communist participate, with their flags red-dyed with the blood of the victims of Communism, in the marches for peace.

Gulag-denial continues after the fall of the Soviet Union.

… with one eye focused on trade with the Arab-Islamic world, and another greedily eyeing the oil supply, France and others in Europe are succumbing to creeping Islamicization.

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Islam started as an Arab imperialist movement, and at its core aspires to WORLD DOMINATION. Unlike the Judeo-Christian created western democratic paradigm - live and let live - Jihadist Islam like the 'old time religion' Communism, is TOTALITARIAN & MISSIONARY in nature.

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No articles today.

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Jewish World Review.com

• Islamist Immigrants Want to Make America an Islamic State

• Suffering of “Palestinians” Due to Other Arabs

• Thomas Sowell Reviews Mona Charen’s Useful Idiots

• Nat Hentoff: Conservatives Are Becoming Uneasy with the Patriot Act

• Radical Feminist Ideology Behind Bachelorette Parties with Male Strippers

• The Futility of the Arab–Israeli “Peace Process”

• Ties to Lawyers Behind Democrats’s Preference for Chicanery Over Democracy

• Straight Talk on Saudi Support of Terrorism

• The Decline of Marriage in American Blacks

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… One of the advantages our enemies have over the United States is that too many Americans don't take them seriously. We prefer the short-term comfort that denial brings. We fear being labeled "bigots" more than we fear the intentions of those who hate us, and so we are reluctant to speak ill of another person's faith, unless it is the majority faith.

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JWR

The land to which Jews began to return in large numbers during the final two decades of the 19th century -- the land they transformed from desert to orange groves, cities and kibbutzim -- was largely empty, not the thriving "nation of Palestine," as the current myth has it.

One thinks of this because today's news brings fresh reports of the pitiless persecution of the Palestinians -- not by Jews, but by their fellow Arabs -- which is the true story of Palestinian oppression.

Ms. Charen points out the Arab strategy of confining Palestinian Arabs in squalid “refugee” camps as a means of keeping the Arab-Israeli conflict active.

The low population of Palestine in the Nineteenth Century tends to confirm that many of the Arabs who claim to be “Palestinians” are the descendents of immigrants.

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JWR

As Mona Charen's book makes painfully clear, this usually happened in a pattern that was repeated again and again, with the same useful idiots saying the same kinds of things again and again. She spells this out and names names, quoting Peter Jennings, Jesse Jackson, Anthony Lewis, Ted Kennedy, Ted Turner and a long list of others.

…

The collapse of the Soviet bloc has now made it clear that these useful idiots were not pro-Communist. They were and still are anti-American. They have contempt for the values of the American people and the principles on which this country was founded and built.

This is a review of Mona Charen’t Useful Idiots.

Amazon.com link to Useful Idiots

If they promote Communist causes then they’re pro-Communist.

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JWR

Conservatives are becoming uneasy with the Patriot Act.

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JWR

The differences between men's and women's sexual natures are enormous. The objectification of the female body that is natural to the heterosexual male (as is the objectification of the male body to the homosexual male) is so devoid of emotional or intellectual meaning as to be unfathomable to women.

Radical feminist ideology holds that women are only superficially different than men. This is a politically correct denial of the reality of human biology.

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JWR

… But genuine peace talks require honorable men on both sides of a dispute, and George W.'s administration, if not the president himself, insists on looking for honor where there is only dishonor.

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The president's evangelical friends, driven by faith and thus alien to the experience of the State Department weenies who believe in nothing but their own sterile and discredited bigotries, understand what the president's men do not - that civilized men are dealing with a seventh-century culture that cannot comes to terms with civilization. All the road maps, however exquisitely drawn by all the president's men, lead only to dead ends.

It’s been obvious for decades that the Palestinian Arabs want to destroy Israel, so the possibility of peace will remain remote until they change their goal.

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JWR

You have to wonder if there's more legal sleight of hand and disdain for democracy to come from a party that has sold its soul to trial lawyers. When "Larry and Laurie Lawyer" replace "Joe and Jill Sixpack" as the Democrats' driving force, chicanery is no surprise.

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The Democratic tactics reek of the "win-at-all-costs" trial-lawyer mentality. Not only are they the largest source of Democratic campaign contributions, but whether it's governors or state or federal lawmakers, you see lawyers much more dominating party ranks than among Republicans. Four of the last five Democratic presidential candidates were lawyers, but just one of the five Republican candidates was.

The problem with contemporary lawyers is that they hold the Leftist views of the so-called “anti-war” movement of the Vietnam Era. One plaintiff bar lawyers was quoted in Forbes saying that he wanted to use the system to destroy the system.

It’s hardly surprising that people who demonstrated for Ho Chi Minh and Pol Pot have contempt for the American version of democracy.

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JWR

Mentions an interview of Saudi public relations man Adel al-Jubeir by Tim Russert on NBC's “Meet the Press” on Sunday, May 18, 2003. Russert brought out the following Saudi activities that promote terrorism:

• State-sponsored Wahhabi clerics call for jihad

• Anti-Western incitement is widely disseminated by government-controlled media and in 8th grade textbooks

• “Comments by the Saudi Interior Minister that suggest sympathy for Islamist terrorists and hostility to U.S. efforts to bring them to justice“

• Saudi-based and -controlled charities that support suicide bombings

Gaffeney enumerates steps the Saudis should take to distance themselves from the terrorists, saying “Anything less from the Saudis will be tantamount to them remaining, as President Bush has put it, "with the terrorists" and condemn them to being treated accordingly.”

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JWR

Whatever the cause, the effect is clear in Census Bureau figures tracking the decline of black marriage. Indeed, according to a report issued just last month, blacks are significantly less likely than their white non-Hispanic counterparts to be currently married (57 percent versus 35 percent) and are similarly less likely (43 percent to 25 percent) to have EVER been married. Forty-three percent of black families are headed by single women, 48 percent by married couples. By comparison, 13 percent of white families are headed by women, 82 percent by married couples.

Pitts points out that one third of young  black men are caught up in the criminal justice system, in jail, on probation, or on parole is a major contributing factor.

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JWR

 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
 (Subscription Site)

• Supreme Court Rules in Favor of Maine Prescription Drug Plan

• Chinese Communists Sentence Man to 5 Years for Political Articles on PC

• Businesses, Attorneys Owe Pulaski Country Nearly $1 Million in Property Taxes

• Advanced Patriot Missle Performed Well in Iraq, Army Wants More

• NLR Couple Sues City for Labeling Their Dogs as Wolf Hybrids

• Jack Stephens “Co-Author” of Gold/Spine Book

• Jayson Blair Scandal Not Low Point For New York Times

• Mike Masterson: Parking Enforcement too Zealous at U of A Fayetteville

• Letters

  • Vic Synder Wants to Coddle Castro

  • Christians Did Much Good for Mankind

  • Mother of Murder Victim Points Out That Crime Victims Don’t Get Counseling Like Criminals Do

  • Christians Not “Stupid”

The Supreme Court dealt a defeat to the drug industry Monday, ruling that a state can try to force companies to lower prices on prescription medications for the poor and uninsured.

The court’s 6-3 decision would let a novel program take effect in Maine, where supporters say it would cut prices by 25 percent and help more than 300,000 residents.

The court didn’t rule on the merits of the plan, only that the drug makers failed to convince the court that the plan should be stopped.

A Chinese computer engineer was sentenced to five years in prison for subversion after politically sensitive articles were posted on his Web site, a court official said Monday.

Communist China has been trying to restrict Internet use for political activities.

The PAC-3 missile was used on only two occasions against enemy missiles during the war with Iraq, but it performed well enough that many lawmakers want a huge increase in spending for the weapon, which is assembled in Camden.

PAC-3 is an acronym for Patriot Advanced Capability-3.

Whether the two 5-year-old pets are just dogs instead of illegal and potentially dangerous wolf hybrids, as North Little Rock Animal Control officers claim, is the basis of a lawsuit that Hollingshead and her husband, Ricky, have filed against the city.

Little Rock financier Jack Stephens and orthopaedic surgeon Dr. T. Glenn Pait teamed up to create an illustrated book for golfers.

Golf Forever: The Spine and More — A Health Guide to Playing the Game addresses injury prevention as well as improving one’s golf game through a better understanding of physiology. The book, written with Las Vegas writer Jack Sheehan, offers more than 700 illustrations and photographs, according to a news release.

How about the Holocaust? The Times never covered the destruction of the Jews of Europe. Not because it had a reporter who figured out it was best to ignore the slaughter. This was a decision made from the top. Arthur Hays Sulzberger, the grandfather of the current publisher, decided that the newspaper of record would ignore the greatest massacre in history lest the readers of the Times consider it "a Jewish paper."

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Walter Duranty in the Times promoted Stalin. Herbert Mathews made Castro into an "agrarian reformer." During the blacklisting of Hollywood screenwriters, the Times remained silent. …

Duranty concealed Stalin’s state-imposed famine in the early 1930s.

… I have heard many others in the Northwest corridor say they avoid the Fayetteville campus for the same reasons. It is too confusing to know where to park your vehicle. And even by following official directions to the letter, a parker still is likely to wind up the victim of those who lie in wait like cats stalking mice at this tax-supported land grant institution.

It appears that the parking enforcement is worse than during my college days.

 Other Links

The king of clubs from America's card deck of most wanted Iraqis is being sheltered at a military base in the Syrian capital Damascus, according to a Gulf diplomat.

Izzat Ibrahim al-Douri, a former vice-president of Iraq and one of Saddam Hussein's closest henchmen, is said to be under the protection of Syria's Republican Guard in the decrepit military base near the airport.

He is among thousands of regime figures who are believed to have slipped into Syria before Damascus sealed the border. Izzat had been put in charge of defending northern Iraq but in the absence of a northern front, he decided to flee.

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