satori001

I second excathedra's question. I haven't heard of the "murder attempt" before. It's just shocking! A pity really. Too bad the culprits didn't all just shoot each other, in one glorious, fantastic, Mexican standoff blowout! Or better yet... "Howard? Hey dummy. Spike the Koolaid, and no holding back ya cheap sonnafa... We don't need no stinkin' badges. Make sure Em gets a double. We're beaming up, baby!" - C Geer, an imaginary scenario

We won't say what he's doing, but if he keeps it up he'll go blind.

There's a booga next door, and a booga across the street. Together, we know that spells trouble. But no cemetaries.

Happy birthday Ron.

Late again. Any cake left? Happy birthday.

Poached, with a touch of cinnamon.

Hey, give a guy a break. How many teens heard about the Eucharist thanks to him? And he has a great sense of humor too. What's wrong with us? Can't we give him due credit for doing God's work? Can't we take a joke? Do we always have to be so negative? He asks, "Do you know how badly they need the bread of life? Do you know how badly they need to touch the resurrection?" His passion for teens is really touching. "As touching the resurrection...," I think Fushek may have much in common with another persecuted leader in, of, by, and/or for the faith, The Way International's Reverend L. Craig Martindale, whose greatest purpose in life was also, in a way, getting others to touch the resurrection, so to speak.

Inspiring. What's he been up to lately? Anybody know? Here is the original story.

The movie's title came from Tarantino's mispronounciation of Louis Malle's Au Revoir Les Enfants, combined with Straw Dogs (1971), the violent Sam Pekinpah thriller. I haven't seen the Malle flick. Straw Dogs was very good, I thought at the time. Dustin Hoffman plays a nerd (astrophysicist) husband of a beautiful wife, alone in a house under siege by some murderous locals. Dr. Johnson observed that the knowledge that one is about to be hanged concentrates the mind wonderfully. In Hoffman's case, his concentration becomes resourcefulness and he finds the strength to fight for the life of himself and his wife. Reservoir Dogs is called a "comedy," but only as the blackest irony. If you blanche at the F-word, it's used in nearly every line of dialog, or so it seems. I mean, WTF Quentin? It opens with gore, ends with gore, and there's plenty of gore in between. Also, there's brutal cruelty and cruel brutality, but not without a humorously sadistic twist that makes us chuckle in spite of ourselves. So what about the story? It's a heist gone wrong. It's a sting gone bad. It's a con re-gaining his street legs. It's an anonymous affiliation of colorfully unsavory ne'er-do-wells (Mr. White, Mr. Brown, Mr. Pink...) led by a crusty crime boss and the son being groomed to inherit the family business. In the midst of evil-doers and evil-doing we find bad guys, who know they're bad, and even celebrate their badness, still trying to live by a moral code, twisted but sincere. Reminds me of Vic Wierwille and the gang from New Knoxville. The fact that Howard confessed to "killing" Vic makes the parallel all the more... uh, repugnant.

I thought it was Martindale's birthday. I guess it's easy to get them confused.

I guess we believed the donkey. Eventually. -- Thanks, those were worth waiting for.

Having been followers of Vic Wierwille, I thought we might find comfort in knowing there are other villages out there, and they aren't much smarter than we are.

It's the greatness of scripture, people. Don't you just see it? I just wish you could read it in the original, and you could - up until it was "filtered" by the, uh, dirty word catcher.

I'm sorry, but darn it damit, this is hilarious.

October 24 New bird flu cases in European Russia Reuters - 2 hours, 9 minutes ago MOSCOW (Reuters) - Another region in European Russia has confirmed an outbreak of the deadly bird flu virus and Malta quarantined a ship carrying dead birds to try to stop the virus spreading to the European Union. The latest incident of bird flu in European Russia killed 12 hens at a private dacha, after which authorities culled 53 ducks and hens at the locality and imposed a quarantine. The outbreak was in Tambov, 400 km (250 miles) southeast of Moscow last week, a senior regional animal health official said on Monday.

Self-destruction was not in the "DNA" of TWI's root, psycho-social pathology. Death was always an enemy, fortunately. But that much common sense probably contributed to The Way's success and popularity in the 70s and 80s. Self-gratification was big. Approval from an authority figure, very big. -- I don't speak as a psychologist, but psychology's terms are useful labels for phenomena (a.k.a. bull....) we've seen in TWI. "Psycho-social" refers to subconscious or instinctive group behaviors. "Pathology" infers dysfunctional or unhealthy behaviors. Psychology's tags are helpful reminders that our "choices" are not necessarily conscious, nor our stated rationales necessarily the most compelling motivations. That knowledge might help us accept our inexplicable tolerance, if not enthusiasm, for the craziness of Way World, once upon a time.

We're not guessin'. We're speculatin'

Here is a page which allows you to animate the progress of the jet stream. If you set it for 7 days, at 6 hour intervals, you will get a sense of how these air currents move. Begin to notice around the 22nd how the Canadian current develops its thrust into the Atlantic, poised to meet Wilma and Alpha by Tuesday. The reporter says the "superstorm" is not the most likely scenario. Just one possibility.

Ron, let's be honest. Bush isn't doing anything about this potential storm, is he? He must know about it. And yet, there are no FEMA boats in the Atlantic, ready and waiting to help out. Kidding aside, this could be some storm.

Most likely. I've never seen those collide.

Your source was probably talking about hurricanes, the mixed drinks, instead of the storms.

Well, since I'm not at my winter home in the Keys right now, I'm gettin' the national news. I think the print media needs to take on the electronic media. Show 'em who's boss. How about it Raf? I have to remind myself that the electronic news media is, with some great exceptions, hardly more than the entertainment between commercials most of the time. You have to read the paper(s) to get any quantity of information.

From a Post Chronicle story - 17 hours ago: I added the numbers.

A Google search tells us that Nora and Olaf nearly collided in 03, off the Baja peninsula. They do occasionally. Earth & Sky, the radio show, did a story on the phenomenon but it's no longer available. It would be one hell of a sight. If this year is a warm-up for next year, maybe we will be unfortunate enough to find out.

Check out the Hurricane Info forum at this site: http://www.cancuntravelonline.com/forum/index.php As for the American press, there's a story in the Yucatan that they are mostly ignoring, preferring to cover the listless wait of bored Floridians to an epic struggle for survival against a monster storm a few hundred miles to the southwest. Oh, it's only about Mexicans and a few tourists? No story there. Raf, sometimes your profession really goes out of its way to earn its poor reputation. I suspect it's the fault of editors and producers mostly.