Free Republic

We’re Connecticut residents living only a few towns away from Cheshire. That scumbag Komisarjevsky committed some of his earlier burglaries in our town.

We’re getting an alarm system installed as soon as possible. With all these home invasions in the news lately, this horrible incident was just the last straw. As it is I’m a light sleeper and often become afraid when I hear noises at night; at least the alarm will provide more peace of mind. Hubby won’t have to go downstairs with a baseball bat at 2 AM just to ease my fears when the wind rustles leaves outside our window.

We’re not “gun” people and don’t have the money to take the safety classes and get a handgun permit and buy a gun. I don’t know what else we can do to protect our home and our lives.

Very true.

Young men and women in this country ought to be taught that sex can lead to babies, even when birth control is used, and that unless they are prepared to marry and raise a child together should pregnancy result from premarital sex, they shouldn't be having it to begin with.

I will not lie; my now-husband and I were not virgins when we went to the altar. We were, however, prepared to marry immediately if a pregnancy had resulted before marriage. We both believe that children need a mom and dad who love each other and love their kid(s).


Best wishes to Ms. Lynch, and I hope she has a pregnancy and birth free of complications. I also hope that she and her boyfriend do the right thing and provide that baby with a family in which to be born and raised. Just because s/he was concieved out of wedlock doesn't mean the child must be born out of wedlock.

Hey, my United Technologies stock keeps gaining in value. ;-)

Pratt has rebounded pretty well recently - boosting their military sales over commercial jets. P&W Canada has been very strong in the small commercial engine market. Sikorsky had a rough time with last year's strike (when the union guys thought they were entitled to get much more than UTC's salaried workers get), but they continue to sell their military Hawks domestically and abroad, and are reasonably strong in the civilian market. Hamilton keeps plodding along; they're doing some stuff with Boeing. I'm not totally up on details of their activities.

I work for one of UTC's commercial divisions, and for a while there after 9/11, the commercial units were driving profits and dragging the aerospace divisions kicking and screaming into the black. That isn't as much of a problem anymore. UTC overall is reasonably profitable despite the "leaner, meaner" Pentagon.

Joe may be a Dem, but this Connecticut resident thinks he's better than the alternative of Lamont. Lamont would just suck in a major way - I don't want him as my senator! And unfortunately the GOP candidate is useless. I wish it wasn't this way, but the Republican is scummy and doesn't have a chance in hell, and Lamont is just as bad a choice for me.

Eh, hubby lets me drive when we're in my car. In his defense, my car is a "girly" VW New Beetle, and hubby claims that no self-respecting straight male would be happy to be seen behind the wheel of one. ;-) I have a feeling he's right.

We take my car on longer trips because until recently he drove a "beater" and we needed to keep it running as long as possible. Now he has a newer vehicle and I'm more than willing to let HIM drive!

Growing up, my dad always drove when the family was going somewhere...it's sort of a "man" thing to be behind the wheel on family outings, I think.

Hey, I'll support Joe in the general election. He's reasonably moderate despite being a Dem. Lamont has helter-skelter eyes...and I get a huge kick out of his commercials with poor people (ostensibly) from Bridgeport and New Haven supporting this Greenwich millionaire. He's running on one issue, knowing it's where he can hit Joe the hardest with CT libs.

Joe strikes me as a genuine person who sticks to his guns even when his own party is trying to run him out on a rail. I do not agree with all of his positions, but at least he doesn't flip flop.

Schlesinger doesn't impress me in the slightest. There was an article in the Courant today about how he was sued by casinos in Atlantic City because he didn't want to pay gambling debts that he racked up in the early 90s. When the flap over the fake ID casino card came out, he denied those lawsuits, and only admitted to them when presented with docket numbers! The state GOP wants him to step down and he's refusing. What a putz.

I am a registered Republican who will likely vote for Lieberman. The GOP candidate doesn't impress me in the slightest, and now he's being asked by the state GOP to exit the race due to some "irregularities" related to gambling.

Lamont is skeery. He has helter-skelter looking eyes. And he's a Greenwich millionaire who's completely out of touch with what the rest of Connecticut needs, and his campaign seems to be totally based on opposing Iraq.

Lieberman may be a Dem, but he's fairly moderate and he sticks with his convictions.

My brother is in the Coast Guard. Of the many female Coasties who he's encountered, few could handle a 200+ pound man high on drugs or with significant mental illness, without resorting to using their sidearm (nothing wrong with that, IMO!). He points out that many males cannot do that, either! That doesn't mean the females aren't generally very effective in their jobs - they serve very capably in the Coast Guard. The ladies are in excellent shape and could take on a man of their size. There's the rub, though; the average female is of shorter stature and weigh less than the average male.

I did aikido for a time in college. I, a 5'8", 170 lb female, was no match for a 6', 210 lb male, regardless of my skill. This was after I'd spent a year in hard training for intercollegiate athletics, too!

Physical differences aside, I've seen in documentaries of max security and supermax prisons that female prison guards are often singled out by male inmates for crude and abusive treatment. Inmates will throw urine and feces at officers, shout obscenities, and expose themselves in lewd fashion. I'm not a girly-girl, but I'd need to be paid a whole lot to put up with men behaving like that towards me.

I was a naive college freshman, also on my university crew team, and had never had a sip of alcohol until the first weekend in the dorms. Many times I drank way too much and I was most fortunate that no one took advantage of my intoxication. Fortunately, I realized quickly that I needed to moderate my drinking, and that enjoying a nice microbrew (or two) on a Saturday night while watching movies was a lot better than going out and getting royally trashed.

I found that the "athlete" culture at my university revolved around drinking and recreational drug use (with the exception of a handful of high profile, nationally known athletes). Several teammates were functional alcoholics, although I didn't realize it until after I quit the team my sophomore year to focus on academics. Our coach did little to discourage "party" behavior as long as team members continued to show up to all practices.

I'm not saying I believe this girl's story automatically - but intoxication does not equal consent, and it is a shame she didn't come forward immediately when physical evidence could be collected to support her story. It would be helpful to know if others heard the alleged rapists' confessions later on.

As a woman, I just don't get why a female would want to be a prison guard, except perhaps at a womens' prison. I can understand administrative and medical staff including women, but there is no reason to put a female guard in an environment where she must directly deal with hardened male criminals.

That said, I hope this can be resolved without injury to the guard taken hostage - and that the hostage taker be dealt with appropriately.

It may seem shocking, but there are couples out there for whom the woman's salary is significantly higher. If those couples choose to have children at home with a loving parent instead of going to daycare (rightly so in most cases), then the spouse with more earning potential should be the one to work.

I make just under twice my husband's salary. It looks as if when we have children, my mother will be their caregiver while I'm at work - but if one of us stays home, it'd be him.

If only we could have that as an option! I would gladly opt-out from EVER getting Social Security benefits myself if it meant I could keep that money and invest it as I please.

I'm 25, and my husband's 26, and we both know we will never see a penny of those mandatory "contributions" to Social Security. We'll be taxed to the hilt to pay for the boomers' retirement, and then the system will have collapsed by the time we retire.

Very true. My husband and I became friends when I was 16 and he was 16. We remained friends (purely platonic) through the rest of high school and into college. We did not start dating until I was 19 and he was 21, after my freshman year of college. We married nearly 5 years later - a full DECADE after our friendship began.

Marriage is not all wine and roses and perfection, but I have to say that we've enjoyed our first year (our first anniversary is next month). It has had challenges but overall it has been wonderful to share my life with my best friend!

We are purchasing our first house now - and in a higher priced real estate market. So many young couples make the mistake of trying to buy a new beautiful house. They wind up stretched thin on their mortgage even with two incomes, and then when you add the cost of children into the mix, things get out of hand. Our home is decent but not new, and not huge, and we can afford it relatively comfortably. We are expecting a big boost in income this year when DH finishes college and starts making more money. We have the rest of our lives to own a larger, fancier home - for now we just need a comfortable place that will build equity and that can accomodate a few kiddos (not for a few years yet!).

As a salaried employee of one of Sikorsky's sister divisions within United Technologies, I am disgusted. A lot of those union workers make more money than I do!

Apparently what's good enough for thousands of salaried UTC workers isn't good enough for the Teamsters. Boo hoo, they have to pay part of the premiums and it's an 80/20 plan. I haven't seen the union explain exactly WHY the offerings on health insurance aren't reasonable - our choices are very comparable to what other major corporations offer their employees.

We have a choice of two or three different companies offering plans, and then a "cafeteria" option where you can choose a deductible level and prescription drug plan that suits your family's needs. Mr. Rubber Duckie and I have the cafeteria plan - through CIGNA - and have been quite happy with it. We may change that when we have children, but we have choices.

These union guys at Sikorsky are whiny little babies. I have ZERO sympathy for them.

Prayers being sent for your sister.

I had a similar situation when i was 20. I had surgery to remove the tumor, and it was benign. Given her age, the odds are pretty low that your sister has cancer.

While I do not disagree with the discussion of the wrongness of abortion in the case of rape or incest, I wonder about some situations in which the mother will almost certainly die if she continues the pregnancy.

What is the Catholic belief on what to do in case of ectopic pregnancies? Unfortunately we have no way to transplant the fetus from the extra-uterine site to the uterus, and if the baby is allowed to continue growing in the tube it will certainly lead to the death of both mother and child. The choice is to either sacrifice one to save the other, or to allow both to die.

I do not mean to offend, but as I am not Catholic I don't know what the belief is. I have heard pro-life people go both ways on the issue of ectopic pregnancies.

Exactly. I'm salaried at one of the other UTC divisions...if UTC medical benefits are good enough for salaried workers, then why are they not good enough for unionized hourly workers? Hell, a lot of those guys make more than I do!

Although the premiums have been increasing annually, we chose a higher-deductible plan since we have no kids and Mr. Rubber Duckie and I are young and healthy. I'm sure that will change when we have children but for now our medical benefit from CIGNA suits us. The medical offerings from UTC seem to be in line with what other major corporations offer their workers.

Let us also not forget that as UTC employees those Sikorsky workers have a pension plan, 401(k) matching, and the employee scholar program in addition to reasonably-priced medical and dental insurance options for their families.

The sense of union entitlement astounds me. If it wasn't for the salaried workers, those guys would have nothing to build...

I was at the pet supply store today getting food for our cat, and saw Feline Greenies. They come in meat flavors but allegedly clean cats' teeth. We brush the cat's teeth several times a week - a tube of kitty toothpaste lasts us for months. Why on earth would I buy Feline Greenies, even if I believed they were safe? (And I don't) One small packet had only 3 or 4 pieces in it and it costs $1!

Our dogs when I was growing up always got Nylabones. As far as I know, those are still thought to be safe. It's the chewing that cleans dogs' teeth anyways, not the "greens" in the Greenies.

I thought the whole point of feminism was to give women a choice of home, work, or some combination of the two. Of course the radicals had to go and ruin that.

My mother had two babies, and went back to her career after each of us were born (she was a nurse and worked midnights so that our daycare needs would be less than if she worked days). Not only does he have a career that she finds extremely fulfilling, she somehow found a way to make it to our sporting events and band concerts.

Working mothers aren't inherently bad. That's one of the things I simply can't agree with some other conservatives on. I'll probably need to continue working at least part time when we have kids...my husband works hard but just doesn't have my earning potential, and it wouldn't be societally accepable for him to stay home. So there isn't much choice. Our kids won't be in a daycare center, they'll be at home with Grandma. :-)

But this radical Feminazi BS about ONE baby somehow being less-limiting careerwise than TWO is just insane! How do these people get these ideas?

*sigh* I'm a UConn alumna.

The Womens' Center on campus is full of psycho feminazis. About 6 years ago when I was a student, they sold chocolates in the shape of male genitalia as a fund-raiser for some abortion clinic. Really, they're wackos.

Looks pretty standard to me (i.e. clearing passage with the Captain of the Port, maintaining a security zone, etc.). Bear in mind that Detroit is a major city with a certain demographic, located very close to an easily-accessible border crossing with Canada.

I had the pleasure of going out on my brother's small Coast Guard cutter for a "family cruise" during holiday fireworks in a major city. There was a flurry of radio messages between the Coast Guard and the state and local police boats, controlling all the traffic on the river and maintaining a security zone around the fireworks barge.

It was a real thrill - and when it was time for fireworks we (and the deck force) had the closest seats in the house, if you will. ;-) It was a fun time, but they do take this stuff seriously, and there was a plan in place in the event an unknown vessel disregarded the security zone.