Free Republic

A man who landed in prison for writing a fictitious account of sexually torturing children was denied a request yesterday to withdraw his guilty plea. Franklin County Common Pleas Judge Nodine Miller ruled that Brian Dalton knowingly and voluntarily pleaded guilty to pandering obscenity involving a minor. "Dalton did not submit any evidence to demonstrate substantive grounds for the relief he seeks,'' Miller wrote in a 20-page ruling that was issued yesterday. However, a member of the American Civil Liberties Union said he will be among a team of lawyers who will seek to have the conviction set aside. "To ...

From http://securityportal.com/research/virus/profiles/w32sircam. html Infection SirCam uses its own SMTP engine to mass mail malware to addresses in the Windows Address Book and temporary Internet cache files. The subject of the email is random and is the same as the email attachment filename, minus the double extensions (e.g. "report.xls.com" renders subject "report"). The body of the email contains a middle statement that is randomly chosen from a list of possible statements and is currently being distributed in both English and Spanish: English I send you this file in order to have your advice I hope you can help me with this ...

I Am Your Worst Nightmare. I am a BAD American. I believe the money I make belongs to me and my family, not some midlevel governmental functionary with a bad comb-over who wants to give it away to crack addicts squirting out babies. I'm not in touch with my feelings and I like it that way, damn it! I believe no one ever died because of something Ozzy Osbourne, Ice-T or Marilyn Manson sang. I think owning a gun doesn't make you a killer. I believe it's called the Boy Scouts for a reason. I don't think being a minority ...

CHILLICOTHE, Ohio -- Marsha Hatfield counts back three years to when she received the devastating news. "I should have been dead by June 3, 2000,'' she said. Instead, the 53-year-old Chillicothe resident is preparing to move into a new house. She appears so far to have beaten the leukemia that racked her body and credits the turn of events to laetrile, the oft- maligned concoction of ground apricot pits touted since the 19th century as a cure for cancer. Banned for sale and use in the United States, laetrile captured headlines in the 1970s when thousands of Americans flocked ...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio -- This time, there was no reprieve. Jay D. Scott, who twice escaped execution when the courts intervened at the last minute, could not avoid it a third time. He died peacefully by injection at 9:08 last night at the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility near Lucasville. Scott addressed his last words, spoken while strapped to a table in the prison's Death House, to his family. "Spook, George, Randy -- I love you all,'' Scott said, according to media witnesses. "Tell the family and friends I send my love. Don't worry. Tell them I'm all right.'' The Cleveland native ...

MARION, Ohio -- A jury spared the life of a man convicted of kidnapping, raping and killing 7-year-old Bobbie Jo Barry. Her parents, fighting tears, said they wanted Barry Satta to die. "It's not justice. He'll still get to see his family,'' Bobbie Jo's father Max Barry said of Satta, his former best friend, after the sentencing yesterday. Bobbie Jo's mother, Mary Johnson, echoed the sentiment. Her cousin, Ruth Ann Waddell, read a statement from Johnson directed to Satta. "Our family would like you to know that you took away a very special part of our lives,'' Waddell said. ...

LUCASVILLE, Ohio (AP) -- A convicted killer came within an hour of being the first Ohio prisoner in 38 years put to death Tuesday night, but the Ohio Supreme Court granted a state appeals court's request to delay the execution. The three judges of the 8th Ohio District Court of Appeals in Cleveland made their request less than 1 1/2 hours before Jay D. Scott, 48, was to die by lethal injection. The judges said they needed more time to address issues raised by Scott's attorneys. The court-appointed lawyers argued that Scott has schizophrenia and that the execution of a ...

LOS ANGELES, April 5 — The MTV cable network apologized Thursday to two 14-year-old girls who were sprayed with excrement by performers during the taping of a television program called “Dude, This Sucks.” The teenagers sued MTV in Los Angeles Superior Court for infliction of emotional distress, negligence and battery because of the incident, which took place last January in Big Bear, a mountain community near the city. BRIAN GRADEN, the network’s president of programming, admitted the incident took place and apologized, vowing that the footage will never be aired. Graden said, “This was a terrible incident. It was ...

March 5 — Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., apologized for his use of a racial slur in an interview broadcast Sunday. The West Virginia senator used the phrase in an interview on “Fox News Sunday,” but later issued a written apology saying, “the phrase dates back to my boyhood and has no place in today’s society.” Byrd, 83, the Senate’s senior Democrat, has served since 1959. ‘I had no intention of casting aspersions on anyone of another race.’ — SEN. ROBERT BYRD West Virginia Democrat ASKED ABOUT THE present state of race relations, Byrd said in the interview taped Friday ...

Michelle DuMond gets angry about how little she thinks a Franklin County judge values her dead son. "Apparently the court doesn't have feelings for a 3-year-old boy," DuMond said during a break from her job at a clothing factory in Lewiston, Pa. "There are people in this state who are convicted of rape who serve longer sentences. It's like a 3-year-old boy doesn't mean anything." Judge Nodine Miller of the Franklin County Common Pleas Court yesterday released DuMond's ex-husband, Patrick Bourgeois, from prison. He had served about four years of a sentence of seven to 25 years for killing their ...

PASADENA, Calif.--The federal government used financial incentives to get television networks to work anti-drug messages into the scripts of some popular television shows. The White House drug office even was able to review scripts before the shows aired. The arrangement, first disclosed Wednesday by the online news service Salon.com, raises questions about the independence of networks and their willingness to let others influence what goes on the air. Among the shows reviewed by the government were NBC's top-rated "ER," CBS' "Chicago Hope" and "Cosby," ABC's "The Drew Carey Show" and "The Practice and Fox's "Beverly Hills 90210," according to Salon.com. ...

When I'm not out tilting at windmills with my brother Don or talking to the FReepers, I have the time to write the occasional song. Here are the words to a song I think fits right in with the FR philosophy: DUMMY DUMMY Everything you say today Must be politically correct If you step on an ant You're showing nature disrespect Lately it's occurred to me This crap's gone overboard 'Cause you can't call a dummy dummy anymore (Chorus) You can't call a dummy dummy anymore Truth, justice and the American way have been thrown out the door You say ...