I am putting together a belated item for Liberty and Power on Toy McLaughlin's hijinks from last month.

In reviewing the threads on this board that refer to McLaughlin's infamous blast at the USM faculty (April 18) and his "high-powered rifle" post of April 19, I found that both links to the original threads on EagleTalk are now dead.

If anyone here is a paid member of EagleTalk, it would be helpful for me to know whether the posts are still in the EagleTalk archives, but are presently considered "premium content," or the posts in question have actually been deleted from EagleTalk.

In any event I plan to quote from the posts.  I do not plan to use screen captures of either of them, nor do I plan to include any graphics that are part of EagleTalk.  But whether I "cut and paste" the text of the quotes is a matter of availability and convenience, and nothing else.  Does it matter whether I cut and paste from some preexisting source, in order to quote from it, or type the text of the quote?  I haven't noticed that the Hattiesburg American cares which way I do it.

As for links to the original EagleTalk threads, I will include them if there are any that still work.

Robert Campbell

PS. The archival value of old threads from this board is significantly increased when posters quote a key passage or passages from an iteml, along with including a link to the source.  Over time, many links go dead.  Every link to stories in the American or the Clarion-Ledger expires after a couple of months, when the newspapers begin charging to view them online. Some links also change after a few days (e.g., links to Marshall Ramsay cartoons).