Middle east Online, Conditions are: To measure level of stability in Iraq; outlook for stability to hold; Iraqi security forces’ ability to defend Iraq. WASHINGTON – Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry said he would set three conditions for withdrawing US troops from Iraq if he were elected, and warned that President George W. Bush might cut troop numbers ahead of the November 2 vote. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Kerry said the conditions were “to measure the level of stability” in Iraq, “to measure the outlook for the stability to hold” and “to measure the ability … of their security forces” to defend Iraq.

By Steven Milloy, Fox News, Ron Reagan, the younger son of the late Republican president, announced this week that he would give a prime-time address in support of stem cell research (search) at the Democratic National Convention in Boston later this month. “Ron Reagan’s courageous pleas for stem cell research add a powerful voice to the millions of Americans hoping for cures for their children, for their parents and for their grandparents,” said a spokesman for John Kerry to the Associated Press.

One of the most poignant moments to occur in the U.S.-led global War on Terror occurred when National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice passed a note to President George W. Bush during the recent NATO conference in Turkey.

Her message informed him that Iraq was once again a sovereign nation. He smiled and instinctively wrote, “let freedom reign,” and passed it back. Those three words say a lot about the man and the country he leads.

Two hundred and twenty-eight years ago, a committee of five patriots, headed by a farmer from Virginia, prepared the final draft of a radical document. On the morning of July 4, they presented the results of their work to the body that had set them to the task: the Second Continental Congress.

The larger group made just 86 changes in Thomas Jefferson’s (search) “fair draft” and then, pledging “to each other our lives, our fortunes and our sacred honor,” all 56 members signed their names to this Declaration of Independence (search). In so doing, they created something that was then unique on the planet earth: a country based on the concepts of individual liberty, private property and democratic government. Since then, the people of this nation have taken great risks to offer others the hope of that same freedom.