Free Republic

THREE WEEKS AGO in this column I wrote that my valuation model made stocks look attractive for the long term — but it was also saying that a short-term correction was due. My model sure was right about that correction. The model is based on just three factors: stock prices, corporate earnings and interest rates. Over the last three turbulent weeks prices are lower, earnings are higher, and interest rates are lower. All three factors have moved in the direction that makes stocks look like a better value. I don't have a firm conviction about whether stocks have literally hit...

LAPLACE -- A still-unidentified man was reported barking like a dog at passing cars and rolling on the ground, until he was taken to River Parishes Hospital with a high fever and died an hour later. Maj. Michael Tregre of the St. John Parish Sheriff's Office reported that the sheriff's office was notified Friday afternoon of the strange, dog-like behavior of the man, who appeared to be in his mid-20s. A deputy who arrived at the scene on La. Highway 628 found him lying in the roadside, breathing heavily but otherwise not responding. An ambulance took the man to River...

Aucayacu - Peru's brutal rebel movement, the Shining Path, long thought to be all but extinct, is on the warpath again, boosted by an alliance with drug traffickers. Its Maoist guerrillas almost vanished after the capture of their founder and leader, Abimael Guzman, in 1993, with only a few hundred left sheltering in remote highlands. But those mountains are now the setting for a dramatic growth in cultivating coca to produce cocaine, and veteran fighters are now serving new masters, the drug barons. The Shining Path once forced the whole country to its knees in a war that claimed 70,000...

A dispute over some missing gold teeth led to a downtown shooting and two arrests in Culpeper this week. Police Sgt. J.C. Welch said two men, a woman and a male juvenile were smoking PCP at a Piedmont Street residence Wednesday when one man and the juvenile decided to leave. After they left, Rian Goldsby of Manassas could not find his set of gold teeth, so he and the woman went looking for the pair who had left, Welch said. When they found the two near the post office on South Main Street, Goldsby jumped out of his vehicle and...

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- The Supreme Court refused Tuesday to take the case of California death row inmate Stanley "Tookie" Williams, a founder of the Crips street gang whose later work for peace won him Nobel Peace Prize nominations. Williams, who has been praised for his children's books and efforts to curtail youth gang violence, likely will be executed in December if Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger does not grant clemency. The 51-year-old former gang member claims Los Angeles County prosecutors violated his rights when they dismissed all potential black jurors. Williams, who claims he is innocent, is in line to be...

Be Prepared for angry Kerry thugs and thug-ettes after Kerry's defeat.

Rodney King says he doesn't want to be remembered as the person who started the Los Angeles riots in 1992. King's videotaped beating by police shocked the nation. He uttered his famous plea, "Can we all get along?" as the riots raged after four white police officers were acquitted of his beating. The riots left 55 people dead and $1 billion in property damage in Los Angeles. "I'd like to be remembered for the person who threw water on the whole thing. Part of the solution, you know?" he said in an interview published Sunday in The New York Times....

Drug past of police recruits debated As Maryland panel considers easing rules to shore up ranks, some up in arms The Baltimore Sun February 6, 2004 A state panel that sets standards for police hiring and training throughout Maryland is considering a proposal that would allow recruits to become police officers even if they had experimented with heroin, LSD and PCP - a move aimed at increasing the pool of applicants for short-staffed departments.

We are Family When I was a teenager, it never would have occurred to me to blame the police, if I committed a crime or otherwise got in trouble, much less sue them. That´s probably because my mother never taught me to blame the police, and beat the hell out of me when I got in trouble; because I personally knew hero cops; and because no community of solidarity awaited me, if I sought to blame my troubles on the police. A substantial proportion of the adults in most urban black neighborhoods today – in some areas, the vast...

Pastor kills attacker on rampage Assaults mount until bullets stop Jacksonville man at LR church BY ANDY DAVIS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE A string of violent attacks Tuesday afternoon ended when a pastor shot and killed a man who attacked him and his sonin-law with a fireplace poker after breaking into an east Little Rock church. Corey Adams’ 15 minute rampage began about 3 p.m. outside the management office of an apartment complex near The House of Prayer of the Apostolic Faith at 1400 E. 10th St. Before he was killed, Adams, 30, robbed and struck an acquaintance, attacked a pest control...

Man Convicted Of Murder For Torturing, Eating Roommate Jury To Decide If Aspiring Rapper Was Sane At Time Of Crime POSTED: 9:23 a.m. EDT June 26, 2003 COMPTON, Calif -- An aspiring rapper was convicted Wednesday of murder and aggravated mayhem in the April 2002 slaying of a woman who authorities say had her chest ripped open and one of her lungs partially eaten. A Superior Court jury deliberated less than an hour before returning the guilty verdicts against Antron Singleton, 26. Jurors will now consider Singleton's plea of insanity at the time of the murder. Prosecutors said they...

May 15, 2003 Rodney King Charged With DUI, PCP UseBy THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Filed at 3:27 a.m. ETRIALTO, Calif. (AP) -- Rodney King, whose videotaped beating at the hands of Los Angeles police led to widespread riots more than a decade ago, was charged with three misdemeanor counts stemming from an April car crash, police said Wednesday.King, 39, of Rialto, was under the influence of PCP when he drove through a Rialto intersection at more than 100 mph, lost control of his sport utility vehicle and slammed into a power pole, Sgt. Paul Wing said.Wing said King was charged by...

The mother of a Los Angeles woman allegedly killed and partially eaten by aspiring Texas rapper Antron Singleton (aka Big Lurch) has filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Tha Row Records and others, Billboard Bulletin reports. Singleton, 27, allegedly killed and mutilated his 21-year-old roommate, Tynisha Ysais, on April 10, 2002, following a night of drug use. A medical examination of Singleton's stomach after his arrest found human flesh, according to reports. Singleton is awaiting trial on charges of murder and torture. The civil suit, filed last week by Carolyn Stinson in L.A. Superior Court, alleges that Singleton was actively courted...

"Everything people used to say about marijuana is true of angel dust." So claimed Robert DuPont, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, in 1977. DuPont's comment is worth revisiting now that Washington, D.C.'s police chief is citing "angel dust"—the veterinary anesthetic phencyclidine (PCP)—as an explanation for his city's rising homicide rate. End-of-the-year figures show that homicides in D.C. jumped 12 percent between 2001 and 2002, and Police Chief Charles Ramsey says increased PCP use is one reason. "It's really alarming," Ramsey told The Washington Times in December. "We are seeing PCP use on the rise, and when you...

 PRO-AMERICAN FACTSFACT:America was attacked by Muslims on September 11. Muslims are supporters of the Democratic Party.FACT:Democrat Edward Kennedy is a well known communist and opponent of America's War on Terror.FACT:Democrat Robert Byrd is one of the leading anti-American fifth columnists who wants America to be defeated by Iraq and a "former" member of the Ku Klux Klan.FACT:Whether they be Muslims, communists, or white supremacists those who want to see America destroyed are Democrats.FACT:It is possible that Muslims, communists, and white supremacists have not formed an alliance to defeat America but even if they haven't, they are all working together to...

PHOENIX (AP) - A man who told police he bit off his 2-year-old son's thumb, and apparently held it in his mouth for about six hours, was arrested for child abuse and aggravated assault, authorities said Sunday. Police responding to a 911 call Saturday night found Raymond Jones running on a street naked, said police Sgt. Bill Knight. Jones, 39, told detectives he had taken several hits of the hallucinogen PCP and had swallowed his son's thumb because he wanted to mix their DNA, Knight said. However, Jones apparently had the thumb in his mouth rather than swallowing it, and...