After reading Jonny Hotnuts opening salvo a few days back and having neither any of the facts or a opinion on the matter, I decided to not even follow the thread until the dust had settled.
Having seen the lock on the thread, I decided to read it from start to finish, and I still have no facts or opinion on the matter.
What came back to my damaged memory was how I was guilty (more than once) of using this site during the Amo owned era to disseminate late night rebutals, wine fueled rants and facts for which I had no proof (which really means they were not in fact... facts).
Probably the worst one was when I took umbrage at some long gone user of this site who was a devotee of Doug Herbert (Chet's son) and while disagreeing with the poster I made several outrageous statements about Doug's past History stating "facts" which may or may not have been true but which I believed to be the former.
I did not, however, research my "facts" before I posted, and the results showed what a Idiot I was (and to some degree still am).
Doug sent me a e mail the next day and simply asked that I not make personal attacks on him as he was already beat up by the recent losses of his only two sons and his father.
What he should have done was threatened to kick my ass... I deserved it, but instead he chose to act as a human being ought to do, and acted like a gentleman about it.
Although his e mail has not stopped my rants, it changed my life forever as I typed out a humble apology to Doug and it taught me a valuable lesson in life.
We all need to temper our thoughts before we print and post, and we need to think about who or what might be affected by our lack of "facts" or knowledge before we "ASSUME" (making a ass out of you and me) that we have the "all knowing" answers or sage advice for others to peruse.
As Jack Webb used to say: "the facts Mam, just the facts".
Respectfully, Bob Drury.