Free Republic

The following is a letter to the editor of the Arizona Central by an obviously self-absorbed idiot, followed by a reasoned response a few days later. This was published in the Arizona Central. A wake-up call from Luke's jets Jun. 23, 2005 12:00 AM Question of the day for Luke Air Force Base: Whom do we thank for the morning air show? Last Wednesday, at precisely 9:11 a.m., a tight formation of four F-16 jets made a low pass over Arrowhead Mall, continuing west over Bell Road at approximately 500 feet. Imagine our good fortune! Do the Tom Cruise-wannabes feel...

Did you guys just see Susan have her O on Fox? I can't believe she honestly things sKerry is going to win Ohio.

Nine people have been quarantined after officials found a white powder in an envelope at Brooks City-Base today. No one is complaining of sickness and no one was taken to a hospital, but the nine are being held for observation, San Antonio Fire Department officials said. A building at 7980 Lindbergh Lane, with about 150 people inside, was evacuated when the powder was discovered, but only nine people were in the room, District Fire Chief Randy Jenkins said. The letter was in an area where in-house mail was processed, and it was not sent through the U.S. Postal Service, Jenkins...

Okay, I'm going to take the plunge and get a handgun for concealed carry. I want a weapon with good knockdown power, I'm thinking .40 SW or .45. It needs to have a small frame since I live in San Antonio and the weather is warm most of the year so I won't be wearing heavy clothes. I also want single/double action. I'd also like advice on a holster as well. Weapon must be reliable and able to fire hollow point ammo without jamming. Thanks in advance for the help.

<p>CONIFER, Colo. — As talk of war escalates, school boards across the country are grappling with the First Amendment: from first graders making peace posters to whether teachers can wear anti-war pins.</p> <p>Some parents in Conifer, Colo., are fuming that a sixth-grade teacher wore a pin that said, "Not My President, Not My War," on a class trip.</p>

NEWBURGH, N.Y. -- A college basketball player who turns away from the U.S. flag during the national anthem was jeered by flag-waving students at a road game, even while she was on the bench. Toni Smith, a senior at Manhattanville College, was booed at Mount St. Mary at a game Thursday night. Smith is protesting "that the government's priorities are not on bettering the quality of life for all of its people, but rather on expanding its own power.'' She has turned away from the flag all season. Before Thursday's game, the Mount St. Mary student government handed out small...

Two San Antonio police officers were in surgery this morning and two others were seriously injured in a shootout early today at a Northeast Side restaurant. One man, the shooter, was killed. At least three city officers suffered gunshot wounds in the attack at the Denny’s restaurant at Perrin Beitel Road and Loop 410. Police said at least one officer, who suffered several gunshot wounds to the chest, was not wearing a bulletproof vest. The two officers most seriously injured were taken to Brooke Army Medical Center, and the two others were being treated at University Hospital. Police Chief Albert...

Text of letter follows:The district attorney's charge is to carry out her law enforcement function faithfully, without political bias. But Bexar County District Attorney Susan Reed's timing and the selectiveness of her assault on South Side politicos carries the stench of a politically motivated abouse of authority, and on one is asking questions. I have reviewed the indictments and cannot get beyond my initial reaction that this is a Chicago-style, illegitimate, party-boss-generated law-enforcement technique. The complaint identifies some serious--if proven--misdeeds. But all are from 1998, 1999, 2000. One is from 2002, but is minor. If Reed's genuine interest is going...

Only 12 survivors were pulled from the rubble of the World Trade Center after the towers fell on Sept. 11, despite intense rescue efforts. Two of the last three to be located and saved were Port Authority police officers. They were not discovered by a heroic firefighter, or a rescue worker, or a cop. They were discovered by Dave Karnes. Karnes hadn't been near the World Trade Center. He wasn't even in New York when the planes hit the towers. He was in Wilton, Conn., working in his job as a senior accountant with Deloitte Touche. When the second plane...

May 20 — If only the Bush administration had heeded a 1999 Library of Congress report on The Sociology and Psychology of Terrorism, the latest terrorist strike against the United States need never have happened. In that report, experts commissioned by the National Intelligence Council outlined “New Forms of Terrorist-Threat Scenarios.” From that discussion and clues in other government reports, the FBI, the CIA, and the White House could have pieced together and averted the deadly plot that has since unfolded.THE PLOT to which I’m referring, of course, is last week’s suicide bombing of an U.S. Navy destroyer docked in...

Dec. 19 — All red-blooded Americans hate the Taliban. But what did red-blooded Americans think of the Taliban seven months ago? That’s about when John Walker, 20-year-old American citizen, disappeared from sight until he surfaced earlier this month in a prisoner-of-war camp for Taliban fighters who were lucky enough not to have been killed — yet. Now many Americans want Walker tried, punished, executed … nothing is too terrible to say about, or contemplate doing to, this traitor who abandoned his country and joined up with that incarnation of evil, that rats’ nest of anti-Americanism, that oppressor of women, that ...

Dec. 3 issue — Over the last decade, every time the United States has engaged in a strategic bombing campaign it has achieved its goals—think of the Persian Gulf War, the Bosnian air campaign (which persuaded Milosevic to sign the Dayton accords), Kosovo and Afghanistan. And after each war, influential experts and journalists have emphasized that the central lesson of the operation is... air power alone doesn’t work. With the Taliban in ruins and American allies in control of three quarters of Afghanistan, expect to start hearing arguments about how our victory had little to do with bombing. IN THIS ...

NEW YORK, Nov. 12 — You would never know it from the confused, pre-crash coverage in the nation’s elite media Monday morning, but Al Gore beat George Bush in Florida by almost every vote-counting standard save the one that the Gore team managed to choose. This is consistent with the Democratic candidate’s hapless campaign. The Supreme Court did not have to take the election away from Al Gore: he and his campaign gave it away themselves. And in doing so, they helped George W. Bush and his minions undermine American democracy. MOST OF MONDAY’S headlines reporting the much-delayed results of ...

Nov. 5 issue — One out of every five new recruits in the United States military is female. The Marines gave the Combat Action Ribbon for service in the Persian Gulf to 23 women. Two female soldiers were killed in the bombing of the USS Cole. THE SELECTIVE SERVICE registers for the draft all male citizens between the ages of 18 and 25. What’s wrong with this picture? As Americans read and realize that the lives of most women in this country are as different from those of Afghan women as a Cunard cruise is from maximum-security lockdown, there has ...

Does Bill Clinton bear any culpability for what happened on Sept. 11? Let me first anticipate some objections to the question. Obviously, the former president did nothing consciously to allow terrorists to blow up the World Trade Center. Like everyone else in this country, Clinton and his top officials had no notion that such a deed was possible, let alone being planned. I want to make it clear that in asking the question I'm inquiring into a level of responsibility that is decidedly tertiary, if it exists at all. Real blame lies with the terrorists, their witting accomplices, and their ...

— Following an exhaustive, six-month investigation featuring 24 reporters interviewing more than 300 voters in 43 countries and examining thousands of pages of documents, the New York Times has discovered mounds of evidence of unequal treatment of overseas ballots in Florida on behalf of the Republican candidate George Bush. Its report provides additional evidence to demonstrate what almost all of us know but precious few are willing to admit: the process that determined the outcome of the 2000 election was fundamentally corrupt. Republicans dominated the public relations battle, the behind-the-scenes political struggle, and ultimately the fateful Supreme Court decision that ...

Steven Spielberg won't be winning any merit badges for his latest move but he's bound to get some PR points. The two-time Oscar-winning director has announced he's resigning from his position on the advisory board with the Boy Scouts of America because of the organization's policy banning gays. "The last few years in scouting have deeply saddened me to see the Boy Scouts of America actively and publicly participating in discrimination. It's a real shame," says Spielberg in a statement. The filmmaker, a member of the Boy Scouts' advisory board for more than 10 years, did not specifically name the ...

First come the words: “SPECIAL REPORT.” Then comes a TV anchor, pushing on a small earpiece, breathlessly informing you there has been another shooting in a high school. NEXT COMES a map. It shows where the high school is located. Then the aerial view, from a helicopter. Next comes a voice, from a local TV affiliate: “Our initial reports are sketchy, but there has apparently been a shooting in the school ...at least three people are believed hit ...we do not know the shooter’s identity ...” MEDIA BLITZ Next come the camera shots; images of kids running away; images of ...

AUSTIN, Texas (Reuters) -- A Texas prisoner sued Penthouse Magazine for publishing what he said was a disappointing layout of Paula Jones, but a judge dismissed the lawsuit with a Christmas poem, a court clerk said Wednesday. The lawsuit charged that the December pictorial of Jones, whose own sexual harassment suit against President Clinton led to his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives, was not sufficiently revealing and caused plaintiff David Joyner to be "very mentally hurt and angered." It sought $500,000 in damages. Joyner, who is serving 14 years for robbery and assault, wrote the lawsuit, in which ...

The Clinton administration is preparing its parting shot at the U.S. military: shortchanging a promised pay raise for troops. With some soldiers, airmen, Marines and sailors living on food stamps, the new defense-authorization act signed by the president in October directs the Pentagon to give personnel a total pay increase of 4.2 percent -- a 3.7 percent boost in pay and an additional 0.5 percent rise in other benefits. This [pay raise cut] is their goodbye present. - Pentagon official Well, the bean counters at the Office of Management and Budget and in the Pentagon's budget shop now are proposing ...