Free Republic

I notice that Democrat.com has profiled the Northern family and deemed Ms. Northern as " some sort of fundamentalist christian extremist." She's not one of those.

Larry in Vietnam in active combat. Whatever lack of respect he showed was surely directed at the leftist lunatic fringe rather than the current crop of people in the military.

The sights really stand out against the blue and white boxes and discs.

There is probably no reason for AOL's continued existance. Local ISPs can do a better job for less money and without the jaring, screw the customer schemes of America On Line.

The latest flap with the instant messages highlights their lack of an ethical base in business practices. Its a lot like what happens when communists decide to run a business. In fact, the AOL representative who tried to talk me into keeping the service identified himself as "Scha" He then spelled it for me "Che". I asked him if this wasn't just like the name of the heroic Communist Freedom Fighter and he replied that he was named after him.

Aside from privacy AOL also lacks respect for tangible property. Some time ago, I found that $99 had been subtracted from my credit card. Aol informed me that I was now a member of AOL autovantage. The claim was that I had cashed an AOL check that gave them permission to raid my credit card. In fact, I had a firm policy of never opening envelops from AOL I reported this to the FTC and soon received a call from a local police detective. It seems that the sole response of FTC is to relay such reports to the police department of the victim and to the AOL local jurisdiction in Washington, DC.

The police detective told me that he spends a great part of his day chasing down AOL credit card fraud and getting refunds for the victims. He was relieved that I had secured my own refund and said he would move on to the next person on the list. AOL avoids criminal penalties by claiming that the credit card raids are the result of accidental billings.

AOL owes its current success to mass advertising and those little discs they drop in your mail box. Around here, they even leave stacks of AOL CD/ROMs in the post office. They make challenging pistol targets but otherwise, fail to satisfy,in that they do not shatter when hit.

right-like the vodka i cited. But the ones on the texas maps were not inoffensive. Even PC has its place-(sometimes but not very often.)

Similar thing with the Hanibal Missouri Twain markers. There was a sign about N-Word Jim's landing or something. A friend visited there several years ago and saw that they had done a very ineffective job of tryint to scrub out the n-word.

well anyway, she didn't say she wouldn't run for Vice President.

The Bright Side. The Michael Jackson thing is drowning out the Tony Baretta thing.
We take what we can get.

the naughty word was probably mild compared to what he was thinking.

I wondered if they didn't orchestrate this to take the public mind off the victim testimony and focus it on Old Wierd Michael. Of course, the jury isn't supposed to be paying attention to the news hound reaction anyway.

Some astute attorneys are predicting that Michael will either rabbit to a non-extro country of croak himself out before it's all over.

I like the noun "Arkancide" that cropped up around them.

my favorite was "Oso Negro" vodka. (Black Bear) it was only 60 proof and wow! did it sneak right up on you.

Some years ago, they went over the Texas maps to eliminate all the impolite racial place names. They weren't stretching any points. Some of those names were outright offensive. I don't think we lost any important historical associations because of it.

".. without "chastisement" from other posters."

Where in outer space did that come from? If I thought it even remotely resembled chastisement, I wouldn't have posted it.

Just a point that Clinton has come and gone as a force and we now have a stronger power base because of reaction to him.

Congestive Heart failure can come from different causes. If they are being straigh about Clinton's problem being related to constriction due to scar tissue then once that is corrected, he won't have CHF anymore.

Whether or not Clinton is a bad guy is somewhat beside the point at this time. He's done his damage but the unintended consequence is that the left ideologues, power seekers and media no longer have the bulk of the power.
We do.

First I've heard of crazy whackos being let into the Air Marshall Program. Not surprising though.

Armed pilot and cockpit crew is the best available response-for the airline industry. Best response for travelers is to choose other means of transportation.

Before Martha got sent up, I didn,t know that lying to the governement per se, was a crime. I wouldn't want to get stuck on an elevator with the old gal, but seems like her case is just one more example of there being too many laws.

I don't understand "Insider Trading" either.- I know exactly what it is but remain " A person unclear on the concept."

The Weatherby Athena is made by either Ithaca or SKB and is a double barrel barrel gun with one barrel above the other. There are double guns (and triple) with combination shot and rifle barrels in various arrangements, but a 20 guage is the rave thing for trendy quail and dove hunters.

Very likely, Kerry was just babbling about his Chinese Assault Rifle but if he brought it home as a war trophy, it is probably a fully automatic arm registerable under the national firearms act of 1934-36 et al: If he bought it stateside just out of nostalgia, it is almost certainly a civilian look-alike semi-automatic. In either case it would be an AK 47 (Automavit Kalashnikov)possibly made in the PRC. These were supposedly banned under the recently expired Clinton Gun Ban but in fact, they continued to be imported and sold after being sanitized with a few cosmetic changes and lower capacity magazines.

In the case of President Bush and John Kerry, it is not unusual for wealthy people to have guns and or to go hunting regardless of nationalities or political affiliation. Even Leonid Breznev liked to go pig hunting even though he was the Eurasian equivalent of a Leftist Democrat.

Grand Juries deal with criminal matters. Actually, my use of "injured parties" would be more appropriate to civil actions. The point has been made that Bush actually benefited from the episode

As a practical matter, the State of Texas would be considered the Injured party in a Criminal matter but criminal cases seldom go forward unless a witness or victim presses charges. A grand jury would have the power to investigate and bring charges if they considered that (1) a state law had been broken; and, (2) it appears that a specific person or persons committed the crime.

The usually does have to be an " Injured Party" for criminal action to go forward on this sort of thing but there is a probably avenue for opening such a case.

Texas counties convene Grand Juries on a regular basis. The usual purpose is to review cases presented by county prosecuting attorneys and determine if there is enough evidence to go to trial. It is usually pretty routine and proforma. Nevertheless, grand juries have considerable power including the authority to investigate matters on their own, bring in witnesses for sworn testimony and make recommendations about criminal charges. The county home to Abilene grand jury could put this into the TeXes criminal courts on its on volition.