Installing Drupal

For some reason my installation won't show stories on the front page for anonymous visitors.. in other words, I have to be logged in to see them. How can I make them public?

Thanks!

This is a CC of a message I sent to CMAQ regarding a problem
I had accessing their website, which I understand uses DRUPAL
technology. They have no 'technical support' link, so I
thought I'd try here and see if anyone has any information
or advice re garding the meaning of the error message I
received. Thanks in advance for any help.

I installed Drupal.
Added all of the databases.
Edited conf.php
When I go to create an account, the page simply refreshes, nothing else happens.
- no email, no sql errors in error log, nothing inserted into database.

Using:
mySQL 4.0.13
PHP 4.3.2
Apache/1.3.28
Running on Linux

user error: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '%d AND n.nid = f.nid AND n.type = 'forum' AND n.status = 1 ORDE
query: SELECT n.nid, n.created AS timestamp, u.name AS name, u.uid AS uid FROM forum f LEFT JOIN node n ON n.nid = f.nid LEFT JOIN users u ON n.uid = u.uid WHERE f.tid = %d AND n.nid = f.nid AND n.type = 'forum' AND n.status = 1 ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 1, 0 in /home/virtual/site73/fst/var/www/html/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 69.

user error: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '%d AND n.nid = f.nid AND n.type = 'forum' AND n.status = 1 AND
query: SELECT n.nid, c.timestamp, u.name AS name, u.uid AS uid FROM forum f LEFT JOIN node n ON n.nid = f.nid LEFT JOIN comments c ON n.nid = c.nid LEFT JOIN users u ON c.uid = u.uid WHERE f.tid = %d AND n.nid = f.nid AND n.type = 'forum' AND n.status = 1 AND c.status = 0 ORDER BY c.timestamp DESC LIMIT 1, 0 in /home/virtual/site73/fst/var/www/html/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 69.

user error: You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '%d AND n.nid = f.nid AND n.type = 'forum' AND n.status = 1 ORDE
query: SELECT n.nid, n.created AS timestamp, u.name AS name, u.uid AS uid FROM forum f LEFT JOIN node n ON n.nid = f.nid LEFT JOIN users u ON n.uid = u.uid WHERE f.tid = %d AND n.nid = f.nid AND n.type = 'forum' AND n.status = 1 ORDER BY timestamp DESC LIMIT 2, 0 in /home/virtual/site73/fst/var/www/html/drupal/includes/database.mysql.inc on line 69.

I just installed the 4.2.0 version of drupal and I would like to have only one type of node appear on my main page (stories preferably) I would also like these stories to be admin approved before reaching the main page.

I'm pretty sure it is possible to do so, can some one point me in the direction of documentation for this ar just tell me what to do?

Not sure whether this is the appropriate forum, or perhaps 'module development' since this is a problem/confusion I'm having with a contributed module.