I've Been Everywhere

Where in the world is covertress?

I've been to...

Asseff

Kiblah

Malta

Atoka

Sardis

Arnot

Pakam

Endee

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Johnny Cash & Lynn Anderson - I've Been Everywhere

Disney Flips Over Florida Gun Law

Disney is a prime offender when it comes to firing employees for exercising Second Amendment rights.

The following memo was sent out by Disney to Disney employees.

----- Original Message -----

From: WDW NewsRoom

To: #WDW X Corporate Executive Cast - Florida; #WDW X Walt Disney Parks and Resorts Vice Presidents; #WDW X Walt Disney Parks and Resorts

Directors; #WDW X Walt Disney Parks and Resorts General Managers

Sent: Fri Jun 27 XXXXXXX 2008

Subject: Florida's Guns-At-Work Legislation

Below is a memo regarding the Florida Guns-at-Work law, effective July 1, 2008. Please share verbally with your teams, as appropriate.

*********************************************

To: Florida-site Executives Date: June 27, 2008

From: Shannon McAleavey,

Senior Vice President Public Affairs

Subject: Florida's Guns-at-Work Legislation

*********************************************

On July 1, a new Florida law will go into effect that will allow employees with a conceal-and-carry permit to have a weapon in their vehicle at their place of employment. This law does not apply to Walt Disney World Co. owned and leased properties due to an exemption.

This includes all theme parks, resorts, theme park and resort parking lots, Cast Member parking lots, administrative offices across the Walt Disney World(r) Resort, Downtown Disney(r), Disney's Wide World of Sports Complex, hotels on Hotel Plaza Boulevard, Celebration and the Disney Reservation Centers (Orlando and Tampa).

However, the law will apply to property owned by Reedy Creek Improvement District, Disney's Vero Beach Resort, the Disney Cruise Line Crew Member parking lot, the La Quinta warehouse on Orange Blossom Trail and Disney-owned liquidation stores off property.

Because this is a Florida law, it also does not apply to Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort.

Cast Members will continue to be prohibited from removing a weapon from their vehicle while at work. All Cast Members must comply with the gun policies in effect at the location they are visiting, regardless of where they work. For example, Disney's Vero Beach Cast Members must comply with the gun policies at a Walt Disney World Co. theme park when visiting that location.

Walt Disney World Co. continues to maintain a zero tolerance policy for guns and workplace violence. Possession of dangerous or unauthorized materials such as explosives, firearms, ammunition, weapons or other similar items on Walt Disney World Co. owned or leased property is grounds for termination (as outlined in the Employee Policy Manual).

A lawsuit filed by the Florida Chamber of Commerce and Florida Retail Federation to repeal the law is under review, and we are hopeful it will be overturned by mid-July. We support the ongoing efforts of the Florida Chamber of Commerce and the Florida Retail Federation to challenge the legislation.

The safety of our Cast and Guests is our top priority. Please encourage your teams to practice safe behaviors at any location. In an emergency, Cast Members should dial 911. If a gun is seen or suspected to be at any location, Cast Members should immediately contact their local Human Resources representative or Walt Disney World Security at x1990 or 407-560-1990.

Thanks for your support in verbally sharing this information with your teams. I will update you when a final ruling is made in the lawsuit.

[end memo]

~ ~ ~

Today, July 1, 2008, House Bill 503 by Representative Greg Evers and Senator Durell Peaden takes effect.

Officially, HB 503 is known as the "Preservation & Protection of the Right to Keep & Bear Arms in Motor Vehicles Act of 2008," even though elements of the business community continue to call it the “Guns at Work Law.”

This new law protects existing constitutional and statutory rights. Law-abiding gun owners can continue to have firearms in their private vehicles, for self-defense and other lawful purposes without fear of punitive actions against them by anti-gun businesses and employers.

Under the new law, any business or employer who violates the constitutional and statutory right of customers or employees to have firearms locked in their private vehicles can now be punished.

ALSO, under this new law, business owners will benefit from immunity from liability if guns stored in vehicles in the businesses parking lot are used to cause harm on the business property.

THE LAW APPLIES TO ALL BUSINESSES, ALL CUSTOMERS & EMPLOYEES.

The law covers ALL employers and businesses. The Legislature passed and Governor Crist signed it into law to protect the right of ALL law-abiding citizens to protect themselves.

The law requires employees who park in their employer's parking lot to have a concealed weapons license in order to be exempt from a policy that prohibits employees from having guns -- IF THEIR EMPLOYER HAS SUCH A POLICY.

Customers and invitees are not required to have concealed weapons licenses in order to have firearms in their vehicles when they park their vehicles in business parking lots.

The legislation does not prohibit any employer from having a policy that bars employees from having guns on the employer's property. It merely exempts employees, who have a concealed weapons license, from the policy as it relates to having a gun locked in their private vehicle in the parking lot. Employees who do not have concealed weapons licenses are subject to an employer’s anti-gun, gun ban policy.

Nothing in the law allows an employer/business owner/business manager to prohibit customers or invitees from having firearms locked in their private vehicles in a publicly accessible parking lot. In fact, the law specifically stops any such action against customers and invitees.

The ONLY people who can be prohibited from having legal firearms lawfully stored in a car in a publicly accessible parking lot are employees who do not have concealed weapons licenses and who work for an employer that has a gun ban POLICY.

The U.S. Supreme Court has just ruled that the Second Amendment guarantees an individual right that belongs to all Americans and is not connected to militia service.

Further, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that self-defense is central to the Second Amendment.

That is exactly what this law is all about: preserving and protecting your individual right to have and carry (keep and bear) firearms in your vehicle for self-defense against attackers and for other lawful purposes, AND to provide penalties to stop anti-gun businesses from violating those rights.

While the law does not provide new rights for gun owners, IT DOES PROVIDE NEW BENEFITS FOR BUSINESSES. Yesterday, business owners had no immunity from liability if a firearm stored in a vehicle in its parking lot was used to cause harm on its property. TODAY, they do have immunity.

To view or download a copy of new law please click here.

Geopolitical Worries Send Oil Above 143 Dollars

By Robert Cookson, The Financial Times

Oil surged to a new record above 143 dollars a barrel on Monday as the dollar fell and worries about Iranian supply deepened.

Nymex August West Texas Intermediate rose $3.25 to $143.50 a barrel as the US dollar, in which oil is priced, weakened to a three-week low against the euro. Brent crude rose $3.38 a barrel to $143.69.

The commander of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards warned at the weekend that Iran would impose controls on shipping in the Gulf oil route if his country was attacked.

“Any confrontation between Iran and non-regional countries would surely be extended to oil which would definitely lead to a huge increase in prices,” Mohammad-Ali Jafari told the state-owned Jam-e Jam newspaper.

The Strait of Hormuz, a narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula, accounts for about 40 per cent of the world’s traded oil flows. Worries about an attack on Iran have intensified this month after reports that Israel had practised such a strike in the eastern Mediterranean.

Oil prices have jumped more than 40 percent this year and is heading for its biggest six-month gain since 1999 as investors seek to protect themselves against rising inflation and falling corporate earnings.

The falling value of the dollar has also boosted oil prices. On Monday the dollar fell to $1.5804 against the euro, the highest level in three weeks. The euro has gained 14 per cent against the US currency in the last year.

Last week Chakib Khelil, president of Opec, warned that oil prices could soon rise to $170 a barrel.

Meanwhile, copper prices rose as miners in Peru, the world’s second-largest copper producer, went on strike. Peru’s largest federation of mining unions said a nationwide strike had started, though it was not immediately clear what effect the action would have on production.

London Metal Exchange copper for delivery in three months rose $44 to $8590, taking its gains since the start of the year to 29 per cent.

Armageddon Britain

Earlier this week the Government's terrorism adviser, Lord Carlile QC, warned there was 'real anxiety' that private jets might be used as 'vehicle bombs' in terrorist attacks on Britain. But what form would such attacks take? Best-selling thriller writer Tom Cain, whose latest book centres on just such a plot, has talked to defence experts, academics, military personnel, atomic scientists and civil servants to create a chilling picture of what might happen . . .

Armageddon Britain: A detailed insight into how a terrorist attack on Britain could happen any day without warning

By Tom Cain. As published in Daily Mail Online.

The order came from the mountains of North Waziristan, the bleak, lawless tribal area of Pakistan which borders Afghanistan, where the leaders of Al Qaeda have spent the past five years hiding, rebuilding and planning their next atrocities.

It was given by the leader, known to his followers as The Sheik - a tall, slender figure with long beard and soft brown eyes - whose ruthless tactics had become known, and feared, the whole world over.

The plan was made possible by the 40kg of enriched, weapons-grade uranium 235 that The Sheik's most trusted associates had bought, at a cost of $150 million, with the profits of the opium trade that was flourishing once more.

As for the origins of 'the cargo', there was dispute even among the best-informed rumour-mongers of Waziristan.

Some said the uranium had come from the Iranian nuclear plant at Natanz. Others believed it was from North Korea, or even dissident elements in the Russian Federation.

Whatever the source, though, the outcome was the same.

The 'real and imminent' threat to which Mohammed al Baradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, had alerted the world in June 2004, had finally come true.

Al Qaeda had acquired the means, and the technical know-how, to build a crude, simple, but brutally effective nuclear bomb.

And now they intended to deliver it.

Before the bomb had even been completed, rumours of its existence had reached MI6, and been considered, analysed and then dismissed.

This was to prove a catastrophically foolhardy decision, but it was not an irrational one.

Rumours of rogue nukes had been doing the rounds for almost 20 years since the breakup of the old Soviet Union. Yet no bomb had ever been uncovered, let alone detonated.

For policy makers, forced to work with limited resources, the key consideration was the balance of probability.

And the most probable scenarios, in terms of attacks on the UK mainland, involved disaffected British citizens, using conventional weapons, delivered by groundbased vehicles.

Lord Carlile, the Government's terrorism adviser, might warn of the threat from the air, but the professionals were not convinced.

A rogue pilot would require military-level skills of high-speed, low-level flying to reach any high-profile target in British airspace.

A truck, on the other hand, was a far more reliable delivery platform. It could be driven direct to its target without anyone being any the wiser. But what if the attacker did not wish to be anonymous?

What if - as on 9/11 - global visibility was the whole point of the exercise? The attack on Britain, when it came, would be very visible indeed.

Anyone with £10million to spare can go online and buy a one or two-year-old Cessna Citation X, the fastest nonmilitary aircraft in the world, nearly capable of reaching the speed of sound.

Older models can be found for sale for as little as £5million - with only a few clicks on a computer mouse.

So it was that a respectable Jordanian businessman bought a five-year-old Citation for a little over £7million.

He immediately sold it on to an equally respectable Egyptian, whose connection to Al Qaeda dated back more than a decade, when - undetected by the authorities - he had been a member of its brother organisation, Egyptian Islamic Jihad.

No security checks were made at any stage of the purchase.

Buying an aeroplane is no different to buying a car in that respect. In the UK, the seller and buyer simply have to inform the Civil Aviation Authority of the transfer of ownership.

There is a 30-day time-limit within which that information must be provided. A man with a plane, and lethal intent, can do an awful lot of damage in those 30 days.

It is technically possible to turn an executive jet into an aircraft capable of dropping a bomb.

A hydraulically operated hatch in the belly of the plane, hinged at the front to minimise drag, would not be difficult to install.

Al Qaeda had no need of bomb hatches, however, for The Sheik had a far simpler, more reliable means of getting his bomb to its target: a man willing to die.

The suicide pilot was a former Iraqi Air Force officer, radicalised by extremist Sunni Muslim preachers and then filled with bitter hatred for Britain by the deaths of his wife and children during a firefight between British Army troops and insurgent militiamen in Basra.

The twin towers of the World Trade Center burning on September 11 - now a chief terror adviser has revealed that the risk of it happening again is now even more real.

The pilot would be accompanied by a co-pilot and passenger, purportedly a wealthy Saudi oil trader.

He was, in fact, a weapons technician, a follower of Al Qaeda who had trained under the rogue Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan, there to nursemaid the bomb he had helped create.

As for the nuke itself, it was the most basic form of 'gun-barrel' design. The 40kg of enriched uranium had been divided into two large slugs, placed at either end of a metal tube.

When triggered, one of the slugs would be fired by conventional explosives down the tube like a bullet, straight at the other slug.

A ring of another metal, beryllium, wrapped around the far end of the barrel, would reflect and concentrate the force of the impact, creating the critical mass required for a nuclear explosion.

This bomb was a puny weapon, by nuclear standards. Its blast was a mere kiloton - equivalent to 1,000 tons of TNT - less than one-tenth of the power unleashed on Hiroshima in August 1945.

Yet it would still destroy almost all buildings, vehicles and their occupants in a 600-yard radius, and cause further damage and casualties for up to two miles in every direction.

The nuclear fall-out spread by the blast could then render wide areas uninhabitable for years, and cause potentially fatal damage to any human who breathed it in.

As with the attacks on New York on September 11, 2001, a target was chosen to cause maximum panic and publicity.

Initially, the Canary Wharf Tower had been selected. But The Sheik had considered it too similar to New York's Twin Towers. Why mimic previous successes?

He wanted something different, something even closer to the heart of the British establishment.

His choice? The Houses of Parliament. That single kiloton would devastate Britain politically, financially and psychologically, bringing an infidel nation to its knees before the power of The Sheik's perverted distortion of Islam.

The bomb was smuggled over the borders of Pakistan, into Tajikistan. At an airport near the Tajik capital of Dushanbe, it was loaded onto the waiting Citation.

On a Wednesday morning at 9.30am, local time, the plane took off, routed to Farnborough airport, south-west of London, with a refuelling stop at Cannes Mandelieu in the South of France.

Both airports specialise in private aviation, and anyone is entitled to request a landing, if a slot is available. The formalities are negligible.

It is obligatory to inform UK Customs of any arrival from abroad.

But as long as both plane and pilot are properly licensed there are no further security checks.

Once a landing slot has been confirmed, the pilot is simply given a designated flight path to follow. It is scarcely any more difficult than driving a car across Europe.

At a cruising speed of 625mph, the flight to Cannes took a mere five hours, arriving shortly before 11.30am, Central European Time.

The plane spent just half an hour on the ground, refuelling.

The passengers did not disembark, so there was no need for a Customs inspection.

The bomb lay undisturbed at the rear of the passenger compartment, sitting in a wooden crate about 4ft long.

By noon, local time, 11am in the UK, the plane was en route for Farnborough, 600 miles away.

Forty minutes into the flight, the weapons technician checked the bomb one final time. It appeared to be in perfect working order.

He prayed he would have the courage to depress the trigger when the time came, thereby causing his own annihilation, and that of the entire political class of the United Kingdom.

Security chiefs believe that the Houses of Parliament would be one of the main targets for terrorist bombers.

The Queen was in residence at Buckingham Palace. Less than a mile away from Westminster, she and her servants would probably perish along with everyone else, including the 400 or so MPs who were making their way into the Commons chamber for Prime Minister's Questions.

The London Area Control Centre at Swanwick, Hants, handles almost two million flights a year over southern England.

Air traffic controllers were beginning the routine process of bringing the Citation in to land at Farnborough, along its assigned flight path.

As it crossed the South Coast of England, the plane descended and slowed as expected.

But then, 20 miles out of Farnborough, it veered north-east, heading directly towards London.

The Citation dipped down to 5,000ft. Then it began picking up speed.

The airspace over London and its airports forms a restricted zone that covers much of South-East England.

No airplane may enter it unless authorised to do so by air traffic control. Any unauthorised entry, or deviation from a designated flight path, leads to immediate action.

So it was that one of the controllers at Swanwick, tracking the Citation through the identification code which every aircraft transmits, radioed the pilot and ordered him to return to his prescribed flightpath.

There was no response. The controller tried again. Still no reply. So he followed the protocol laid down for intrusions into the restricted zone.

Just as the leader of the Opposition rose in the House to ask his first question, a call was made from Swanwick to RAF Coningsby, in Lincolnshire: 'We've got a QRA situation.'

The letters stand for Quick Reaction Alert. The RAF officer did not wait for any further explanation. By the time the Prime Minister had begun his reply, the officer had given the order to scramble.

The account of how Britain could react to a terrorist bomb says that the Queen could well be in residence at Buckingham Palace if it happened.

Three minutes later, a pair of 'Eurofighter' Typhoon jets from 3 (Fighter) Squadron were blasting into the air, climbing at more than 1,000ft a second before setting their course to cover the 134 miles south to London.

And now the race began. Flying at a top speed of 1,400 mph, the fighters had to intercept the intruder. Had the pilot made a mistake? Was there a technical problem on the plane? Or was something more sinister afoot? No one knew the answer to that.

British bureaucracy often moves at a pace that makes snails look like racing cheetahs. But not now.

Messages were sped to the Ministry of Defence, Home and Foreign Offices, intelligence services and the Prime Minister's office in a well-rehearsed drill.

Barely a minute had passed before the PM's chief of staff came bursting into the Commons, ignoring the garbled Glaswegian admonishments from the Speaker's chair, and rushed to his master.

The Prime Minister frowned in concentration as he took in what his aide was telling him, muttered a few words of reply and then, with a brief apology, hurried towards the exit.

As he went, he grabbed a mobile phone. He was about to make the biggest decision of his political life. And he had less than five minutes in which to make it.

In the Citation, the atmosphere had changed from one of expectancy and confidence to gut-wrenching tension.

The pilot was following the A3 dual carriageway that runs north into London. His course thus bisected the airspace between Heathrow and Gatwick.

As he crossed the M25, travelling at 500mph, he pressed the intercom and spoke to the men in the passenger compartment.

'Three minutes to target. Good luck, my brothers, and may the mercy and blessing of God be with you.'

In the RAF Typhoons, the atmosphere was just as tense. They were still 60 miles north of central London.

By now, the fighters' datafusion systems, by far the most advanced of any aircraft anywhere, had acquired the target and were providing the pilots with a detailed, three-dimensional picture of the crowded skies around them.

Their role was officially defined as follows: 'To detect, deter or destroy any aircraft intending to attack any target within the UK.'

All they needed was an order. And that had to come from the top.

The Prime Minister was not a man to make hasty decisions. He liked to consider an issue from every angle, to brood over its political implications.

Now though, as he sat in his armoured Jaguar XJ V8 being whisked away to a bomb shelter deep below Whitehall - an urgent matter of business, his officials were assuring the media, but nothing to get worked up about - he had to make up his mind in an instant.

The advice from the intelligence services was ambiguous. Yes, they had been passed information that Al Qaeda was planning a nuclear attack on the West, and this might be it.

But they were dealing with unconfirmed rumour. They had no proof either way.

The diplomats of the Foreign Office, steeped in decades of languid appeasement, naturally counselled caution.

Any hostile moves against an Egyptian-owned jet would be seen as an act of war in the Arab world, inflaming Muslim opinion still further against the UK.

Now the voice of the squadron leader commanding the Typhoons crackled over the line. 'Target in range. Awaiting orders.'

The Typhoons carried AIM-120 AMRAAM missiles, capable of locking onto and destroying a target more than 40 miles away.

That distance was closing by the second. Soon, they would switch to the short-range AIM-132 ASRAAM, designed for close-quarters combat.

The Citation's pilot had practised his approach countless times on computer simulators.

He raced over the suburbs of south-west London, dropping all the time, until he hit the River Thames and banked hard to the right, bringing the plane round to follow the line of the river all the way to his target.

Top-class military pilots, aided by an array of computer systems, are able to fly at virtual ground level at speeds in excess of 400mph.

An executive jet, however, is not designed for low-level flying, and the pilot had nothing to help him find his target but his eyes. Even at 200mph, he was stretching his abilities to the limit.

'What should I do?' The Prime Minister's question was aimed at Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, who, as Chief of the Defence Staff, was the professional head of the British Armed Forces.

Before he could answer, another message came through from the Typhoons.

'We have visual contact. My God, he's coming right at you! Request permission to fire.'

They were so close, racing over the bridges that spanned the Thames. A plaintive call came from the terrified man with the nuclear trigger in his hand, a single word: 'When?'

'Wait,' snapped the pilot. 'Just a few seconds more.'

The Air Chief Marshal thought for less than five seconds. Not so many years ago, the very thought of destroying a civilian aircraft over a major city would have been inconceivable.

But 9/11 had changed everything. Both military men and civilians now understood what such a plane could do.

It was thus a balance between the lives of a handful of likely terrorists, and a mass of innocent civilians. And that was no choice at all.

'Give the order, Sir,' he said. 'Do it,' said the Prime Minister.

'Now!' screamed the terrorist pilot, as he flung his plane into its final death dive.

The sudden movement took the weapons technician by surprise. For a moment, his sweat-soaked palms lost their grip of the bomb control.

It slipped on to his lap. He reached down to retrieve it, and at that precise moment the 10kg warheads of two AIM-132 missiles slammed into the Citation, blowing it apart in mid-air and destroying the bomb before it could be detonated.

The bulk of the plane's shattered fuselage and wings plunged into the river between Lambeth and Westminster bridges, just yards from Parliament.

Yet many razor-sharp fragments, some several feet across, crashed into the bridges and the buildings on both sides of the river, including St Thomas's Hospital.

A dozen people were killed and more than 100 injured, but a far greater catastrophe had been averted.

The bomb was destroyed before it could detonate, and the slugs of uranium 235, which emits only relatively low levels of radiation in its normal state, disappeared beneath the water, leaving no trace behind them.

Footage of the high-speed chase between the RAF Typhoons and the renegade executive jet had been captured on countless videocams and mobile phones. The first clips were on YouTube within minutes.

The major TV channels switched to round-the-clock news coverage, playing and replaying the footage again and again, interviewing anyone with an opinion to give or an axe to grind.

At first, the public accepted the official account, that a terrorist attack had been foiled. Slowly, however, the mood turned.

Al Qaeda immediately denied any involvement and The Sheik insisted, on a grainy, low-quality video, that the plane was part of a secret plot by the enemies of Islam to justify the West's increasingly desperate military actions in Afghanistan and the Middle East.

Absurd as it was, the conspiracy theory nonetheless gained widespread credence. As riots began across the Middle East and the first cars began to burn on the streets of Bradford, many insisted that we British, not our imagined enemies, were truly to blame.

Nor did the beleaguered Prime Minister gain any credit at home for having averted catastrophe.

After all, wasn't it his party whose follies in Iraq had made Britain more vulnerable to such attacks? His government fell before the year was out.

Royal Navy divers recovered the uranium shortly after 1am on the night after the crash. The public were never informed that the plane had, indeed, been carrying a nuclear bomb. Well, it wouldn't do to spread alarm, nor reveal just how close Britain had come to catastrophe. Would it?

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Tom Cain's new thriller, The Survivor, will be published by Bantam Press on July 28.

O.K. Iran, Here's the Deal

Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation

Washington, DC

June 16, 2008

Updated P5+1 Package

On 14-15 June 2008, EU High Representative for Common Foreign and Security Policy Javier Solana, accompanied by the Political Directors of China, France, Germany, Russia, and the United Kingdom, presented Iran with an updated package of incentives on behalf of the P5+1 (China, France, Germany, Russia, the United Kingdom and the United States). This package was delivered to several Iranian officials, including: Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki; Iran's lead nuclear negotiator, Saeed Jalili; and, the Speaker of the Majles, Ali Larijani.

Through delivery of the package, the members of the P5+1 renew our commitment to a diplomatic solution to the Iranian nuclear issue through the dual-track strategy of both offering negotiations once Iran suspends its proliferation sensitive nuclear activities while increasing the pressure on Iran to comply with its international obligations through a range of targeted sanctions measures. We also demonstrate our continued support for the Iranian people and their legitimate aspirations for technological advancement and economic development.

The updated P5+1 package builds on the structure established in the previous offer, which the P5+1 presented to Iran in June 2006. In doing so, the package promises far-reaching benefits to the Iranian nation and people. In sum, these include:

• Cooperation in support of Iran's peaceful use of nuclear energy through the provision of technological and financial assistance, support for Iran's construction of state-of-the-art light water reactors and guaranteed nuclear fuel supply, and cooperation in spent fuel and radioactive waste management;
• Economic engagement, especially support for Iran's participation in the World Trade Organization, and increased direct investment in and trade with Iran;
• Development of Iran's conventional energy infrastructure;
• Assistance with Iran's agricultural development;
• Cooperation with Iran in transportation, civil aviation, environmental, emergency response, and educational fields; and
• Dialogue on political and regional security issues.

Iran's leaders claim to want civilian nuclear power. The members of the P5+1 will make this goal a reality if Iran accepts the cooperation offered. Moreover, that cooperation will open the way to a more productive economy and greater prosperity for all Iranians. The United States reiterates its long-standing willingness to engage Iran in direct negotiations, as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has stated, "on any issue, any time, any place," provided Iran suspends its uranium enrichment-related and reprocessing activities.

Such suspension is required for negotiations to take place in an atmosphere of mutual confidence. We urge Iran to take this step without further delay.

~ ~ ~

From My Cold, Dead Hands

''A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.''

The Supreme Court struck down the District of Columbia's 32-year-old ban on handguns today, saying that Americans have a right to own guns for self defense and hunting, the first major decision on the Second Amendment since its ratification in 1791.

Pictured Above: NRA President Charlton Heston holds a gun aloft as he tells the crowd "I'll give up my gun when you take it from my cold, dead hands" at the 129th Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Charlotte, North Carolina, Saturday, May 20, 2000. (MCT)