Reason’s Michael Lynch, in the 2/02-Issue, writes: “As the media exposed our Saudi Arabian allies as double-dealing despots, attention has turned to the practical: Can the Unites States live without Saudi oil, which, at 1.6 million barrels a day, accounts for 14 percent of our imports? the answers are mixed. The Wall Street Journal’s Susan Lee says we can, since other countries will simply sell more oil. Newsweek reached a

From U.S. News and World Report’s “Washington Whispers”: Memo to State Department employees: New boss Colin Powell is a nice guy, but he won’t excuse those who open porn sites on State Department Internet accounts, join X-rated chat rooms, or send out nasty E-mails. Proof: Probes and punishments are up for those who tap porn sites or send chain letters or jokes of questionable taste. Like, for instance, this joke

“In a kind of apotheosis of multiculturalism, the choicest al Qaeda suspects captured in the war on terrorism are about to take up residence under the American flag, at Guantanamo Bay, the U.S. Navy base at the eastern tip of Cuba,” Claudia Winkler writes in The Weekly Standard. The arrival of the detainees from halfway around the world shouldn’t directly affect those not interrogating or guarding them or otherwise involved

Rich Lowry’s current NRO column takes on Norman Mineta and the rest of the Bush administration for its insistence that ethnic profiling play no part in airport security measures: As I write in the latest National Review, this is an instance of a piety of our racial politics

“A hospital admitted Thursday it mistakenly sent letters to 30 patients, including six elderly men, telling them they were pregnant,” Reuters reports. “They were sent by a computer system that automatically generates letters telling patients their operations have been postponed. “‘The girl operating the system has simply chosen the wrong option. It’s human error,’ a spokeswoman for the Chesterfield and North Derbyshire Royal Hospital said.” Edgar Reese Copperthwaite, 88, was

“The French parliament has voted to overturn a controversial legal ruling that established the ‘right not to be born,‘” BBC News reports. “The bill, passed with the support of the government, follows three cases in which judges ruled that families whose children were born with birth defects could sue because doctors did not spot the problems during pre-natal scans.” It states that ‘nobody can claim to have been harmed simply

From China’s Xinhuanet: Iraq’s Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan on Wednesday “accused the United States of being the world’s ‘No. 1 terrorist country’ which has committed terrorism against Iraq for more than a decade, the state-run Iraq TV reported.” ‘The U.S., through its continuous aggressions against Iraq, reveals its ugly face and becomes the Number One terrorist country in the world,’ Ramadan told a visiting Spanish delegation which came to

“French girls can now get the morning-after contraception pill for free in pharmacies, without a prescription or parental authorization,” the AP reports. “In a decree published Thursday in the Official Journal, the government said pharmacists must speak briefly with the young women before giving them the pill to make sure they are using it correctly and in the right time frame. All girls under age 18 are eligible for the

“A 13-year-old boy was planning to blow up his junior high school, police said Thursday after seizing five small homemade bombs and bomb-making material from his home,” Fox News reports. The seventh-grader at George Junior High School will remain in custody for at least another 10 days as he undergoes a psychological evaluation, police said. His name was not released. The boy was arrested Wednesday after other students said he