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Anyone know what happened to Upchuck? He hasn't posted since 8-17-2023. He does the South Carolina ping list. I'm not sure who else may have been involved in handling the ping list, but the last "SC ping" I see is on 8-16-2023. I can't believe I've been too busy to notice this before now! Gosh, time flies!Also, I see Upchuck's FR home page shows: "This account has been banned or suspended." What the heck?!?! First HumbleGunner, now Upchuck. Who's next? (And "NO," I'm not feeling depressed or suicidal, but thanks for asking.) Anyone?

After a three week absence which ran from Feb 5 to 19, I'm back. Some FReepers will celebrate my return. Others will feel differently :) Long story short, I live out in the country in Aiken County, SC. Nearest neighbors are 1/4 mile away and we don't communicate that much. Due to the remote location, there is no "wired Internet" out here. I chose to use my cell phone's Hotspot to connect to my home computer and the cell tower located about .75 mile from here. This worked fine for 4+ years. I use the Internet A LOT to keep...

Take a look a these private jet flying billionaires sitting in a mansion complaining about you emitting too much carbon.. While they spend the next two weeks lecturing everyone else about doing more to tackle climate change, elitists including Jeff Bezos, Prince Charles and Bill Gates have been slammed for flying around everyday on carbon spewing private jets. Bezos met with Prince Charles Sunday in a massive mansion near Glasgow for a ‘cup of tea’ and a chat about climate change, after both of them arrived in private jets. Bezos touched down in Scotland on Sunday at Prestwick Airport in...

Last week was a bit interesting from the Senate Democrat side. The olive branch that was offered by Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY), the new Senate Minority Leader, was blunt and straightforward to the incoming Trump White House. WeÂ’ll only work with you if you abandon the Republicans and adhere to 100 percent of what we want to do (via Real Clear Politics/CNN): CHUCK SCHUMER: I said, Mr. President-elect, you went after both the Democratic and Republican establishments when you ran. You were an anti-establishment change candidate. But by your cabinet picks and your early pronouncements, you seem to be embracing...

Anyone who watched the GOP debate tonight had to realize what a jerk Donald Trump truly is. While he may satisfy a certain lust in our hearts for someone who will poke the left and the GOP "leadership," he is a poster boy for self-love and bad manners. He may be brilliant at making money and deals, but tonight he did his usual bragging about his wealth and success, he insulted all of his fellow opponents on the stage, and he blew hard without much substance in his windy retorts. He gets a few things right – the danger posed...

The White House legend that is Barack and Michelle Obama’s romance is heading to the screen. Southside With You, a drama in the vein of Before Sunrise, chronicles the summer 1989 afternoon when the future President of the United States of America wooed his future First Lady on an epic first date across Chicago’s South Side. Get On Up’s Tika Sumpter will play Michelle Obama (née Robinson), while the search is on to cast the young Barack. As Presidential lore has it, the date took some convincing. Obama, then an idealistic first-year Harvard Law student, took a summer job as...

... what will the new narrative from the MSM be? Before the first GOP primaries this year, we heard from the MSM the long-held narrative: A.) "There is a huge war within the GOP. The GOP needs to do something with these "extremists" (Tea Party)!" Then when Boehner and some others won their primaries, the MSM narrative quickly shifted (as in goal-posts): B.) "The GOP has absorbed the Tea Party!" Now with Eric Cantor losing to David Brat (and that was a huge loss), the MSM won't go back on their narrative, even though they logically would have to admit...

OK..I just have to know. Please!! I was at the Y earlier this morning, doing a few miles on the treadmill, FOX news on the monitor above me. They're showing the clip of Harry Reid announcing that he's withdrawing the monostrosity of a spending bill, he's ranting about the NINE GOP senators who supposedly changed their minds..Reid's holding up his hands..trying to get nine fingers up in unison, and there..sitting right behind Reid, is Chuck Schumer..yup..doing the nasty.

[snip] Update 3:55pm Eastern Cloture vote falls short, DISCLOSE Act fails 57-41.Schumer won’t let go:Sen. Charles Schumer, the sponsor of the stalled campaign finance bill, promised Tuesday that Democrats would hold round-after-round of votes on it until it passes.Schumer (D-N.Y.) spoke to reporters following the weekly caucus luncheons, slamming Republicans for holding up the response to the Citizens United Supreme Court case, which allowed unlimited political spending by corporations and unions.“And we will go back at this bill again and again and again until we pass it,” he said. “It’s that vital, not to Democrats, not to Republicans, but to...

WASHINGTON BUREAU WASHINGTON - When the feds whack New York, you usually hear Chuck Schumer lead the outrage. But on health care, he's been practically mute about some mighty hits headed our way. Mayor Bloomberg and Gov. Paterson both slammed the Senate bill Monday, charging it would cost the city more than $500 million and rip a $1 billion-a-year hole in the state budget. Schumer, a veteran streetfighter for federal cash, has been suddenly recast as a defender of Washington - and a deal he helped cut that shafts New York. "He's being uncharacteristically quiet in part because the numbers...

WASHINGTON – If you think your kids spend a little too much time on their laptops, take heart: Michelle Obama has the same problem. The first lady made the rueful revelation as she feted the nation's top innovators and designers in fields as diverse as architecture, technology, fashion, and communications — winners of the annual National Design awards — at an East Room luncheon Friday. "What would we do without our laptops?" asked Mrs. Obama, addressing one of the winners, Bill Moggridge, who designed the world's first laptop. "My kids would die," she said to laughter. "They'd be — they...

The winter vomiting bug norovirus has struck 2.8million people, with health professionals braced for another rise as people return to schools and offices. The virus - which causes projectile vomiting, diarrhoea, mild fevers and headaches - is striking down more than 200,000 a week, according to official estimates. Three hospitals have been placed on red alert, while hundreds of wards up and down the country have been closed to new patients as the number of beds being taken up by bug victims reaches critical levels.

Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al Samarrai. Click to view. Wednesday's closure of the headquarters of the Association of Muslim Scholars at the Umm al Quraa mosque marks a dramatic shift in the Sunni religious establishment. Prominent Sunni clerics, who once supported, justified, or remained silent about al Qaeda's terror tactics, have now turned on the leading Sunni religious establishment that supports al Qaeda in Iraq. On November 14, Iraqi soldiers surrounded the headquarters of the Association of Muslim Scholars after Sheikh Ahmed Abdul Ghafour al Samarrai, the leader of the Sunni Religious Endowments, or Waqf, ordered the mosque's closure....

With Rudy Giuliani crisscrossing the country in support of Republican candidates and raising money for his new political action committee, it is beginning to look inevitable that he will seek the presidency in 2008. Despite his lead in many early polls, skeptics still dismiss his chances of winning the Republican nomination given his personal background and liberal views on social issues. There is no doubt that these will be obstacles for Giuliani, but compared to the forces that will propel him into the White House, they are small potatoes. "History is in motion, and those moving with it are so...

The sun is rising over a house in the Berkeley Hills, and in its modest studio apartment, America's most compelling anti-war activist is making her bed, apologizing for the clutter and running late. Cindy Sheehan was up much of the previous night while emergency room doctors treated her daughter for a painful cyst, but sleeping in is out of the question. Soon a car will whisk her off to a Canadian TV interview, to be followed by a local TV interview, and finally, fixing spaghetti for her three adult children in Vacaville -- her home before the death of her...

NEW YORK -- On Katie Couric's busy schedule, the phone interview about her new children's book was set for 4:30 p.m., about 12 hours after she had left for work as co-host of NBC's Today. When she called at 5, she was apologetic and explained she had forgotten that one of her daughters had a volleyball game. So while rushing to the game on the Upper East Side, Couric called by cellphone. She laughed and said, ''I'm trying to multitask.'' The latest example of that is Couric's The Blue Ribbon Day (Doubleday, $15.95), on sale this week, a sequel to...

Stephen Crowley/The New York Times Senators Charles E. Schumer, left, and Lindsey Graham, discussing legislation outside the Senate chamber on Thursday. WASHINGTON — When Charles E. Schumer recommended using an extreme tactic — the filibuster — to block some Bush administration nominees for federal judgeships, he put himself in the cross hairs of the president's Republican and conservative allies. Over the last two years, Mr. Schumer has used almost every maneuver available to a Senate Judiciary Committee member to block the appointment of the more controversial judges nominated by the Bush administration, drawing fire from the political right for both...

"It's easy for people to say that if they shoot up on heroin the only people they're hurting are themselves. But that's not true. ... Drug abusers destroy their families ... If we legalize these vices, we erode the societal support for prohibitions against crimes such as murder. The erosion of the moral fabric of society is a gradual, insidious process." -- Rush Limbaugh, The Way Things Ought to Be, pp 53-54. As I sifted through hundreds of comments from Rush Limbaugh fans over the last week, some interesting trends emerged. About 50 percent just wanted to call me names....

MIDI - OH WHAT A BEAUTIFUL MORNINGIn our office the smell of fresh flowers...will be wonderful for many hours But in comes Bilewsky and we become ill...in his coffee we should slip a cyanide pill Oh what a beautiful morning...until he shows up at work Oh what a beautiful morning...that guy is one smelly jerk He's got bad breath, his armpits cause gagging...of his gas passing he has been bragging He'll belch like a fog horn and take off his shoes...if he got a brain tumor, we'd welcome the news Oh what a beautiful morning...until he shows up at...