Jim

That was John Wayne (credits). Still a great line. I remember watching the movie with a bunch of believers and we all looked at each other with open mouths as we realized it was John Wayne. When you mentioned TOGA, I thought of John Belushi and Animal House. Another favorite Animal House quote is "It's not over until we say it's over". Most of my favorite movie lines are too profane for a family forum. Sufficient to say, they are from movies like Blue Velvet, Full Metal Jacket and Apocalypse Now.

Hung out a little bit with Donna Lombardi before she married Loy, does that count? Hmm, I didn't think so either... Ok, for real, Hung out back stage with the Oak Ridge Boys and The Grateful Dead. Worked for Michael Nesmith on a Gallagher video shoot. Business parter with Lenny Lipton, who wrote the lyrics to "Puff the Magic Dragon" Met Mythbusters Jamie Hyneman at my airport. Got a call a few years ago from Ray Dolby asking about my products. Got a call a couple of days ago from Paul Moller, the Skycar guy. My wife worked in Aspen in her youth and says she met Bruce Lee after he was allegedly dead and got a backrub from John Denver (while he was alive)

These people could have a bright future in the Way Corps.

Oh hell, let them go ahead and reup. They are big boys and girls, the economy is in the toilet and where else will they have such great medical insurance? And besides, we wouldn't want any of them to turn into grease spots by midnight. Nope, couldn't have that on our conscience.

I'm not so sure. We believed. And we didn't have much to believe in before we did. I don't think that was a fault. What was a fault was lying and abusing people. Thanks to the internet and voices like yours, it won't happen again, and that's worth something.

Based on direct costs it certainly was a loss. I'm not so certain after you factor in Corps tuition and other indirect income that the properties enabled TWI to collect.

Odd that VP would hear God telling him to shut up, but not to keep his pants zipped.

There were any number of small and medium projects that failed. They certainly didn't have a better track record than secular companies. Another Joe Coulter harebrained idea was white noise in the EOB. The EOB was known to have a high noise and distraction level. Joe became convinced that if the A/V department could install speakers in the ceiling and play white noise over them, it would conceal the background chatter and office machine noise. After a huge and very unpleasant effort by the A/V department to install the system, Howard announced at a Sunday morning staff meeting that it didn't work and to take it out. I remember much painful discussion over the Fountain of Living Waters, including the threat of "tear it out". Need we mention the Corps Chalet and it's intended purpose? I didn't think so. What about the honey wagon they made out of a dairy tanker? They were going to pull a vacuum on the tank to suck the sewage out of the portapottys. The first time they tried, the dairy tanker collapsed like an aluminum Coke can. Then there were the vehicles. The Twig Hopper and that other something-way. Truly inspired designs. And buying a Convar 580, spending millions of dollars on it, ground support equipment and workers only to sell it. Just as bad, to my mind, was their reluctance to get rid of junk and buy good equipment. Thousands of hours of skilled labor and heart went into keeping worn-out equipment going that should have been replaced.

Sandbag fillers.. a great analogy. And you know what, TWI oftentimes didn't even come close to doing the best for it's followers and employees. No health insurance, is that the best? Clapped out obsolete equipment ready for the dump? No, we couldn't buy new equipment, that wouldn't be the best use of God's money. We'll just tell our staff that *they* need to do their best to keep it running. I wished to hell I'd never bought into that line of opportunistic bs.

"Not everything worth doing is worth doing well" I have my own business. We actually manufacture wigets and ship them all over the world. The *only* way to stay in business and make a profit is to decide how good each task must be done. If every task were to be done *best*, our products would be so expensive nobody would buy them. It's fine for some officious foot to sit back and declare only the best to be acceptable, but just let him try to make a living doing that.

Not at all. You have the same values I have. And the same values my family and friends have. I'm also happy to give and to share, but on my terms.

"Somewhere a True Believer is training to kill you. He is training with minimum food or water,in austere conditions, day and night. The only thing clean on him is his weapon. He doesn't worry about what workout to do---his rucksack weighs what it weighs, and he runs until the enemy stops chasing him. The True Believer doesn't care 'how hard it is'; he knows he either wins or he dies. He doesn't go home at 1700; he is home. He knows only the 'Cause.' Now, who wants to quit?" --NCOIC of the Special Forces Assessment and Selection Course in a welcome speech to new Special Forces candidates

Socks, You'd think that of all the people at TWI, Don would understand the concept of "transcripts"

My wife grabbed me and showed me her performance on American Idol. Very, very nice. I can't help but wonder how Claudette Royale would do...

Great Paw. Over the past few months I've had to really reduce my salt intake and pretty much eliminate sugar and corn sweeteners. Now that blood sugar and pressure are under control, I'll be working on the weight. Nothing is easy about this. We can't eat 95% of the junk the stores sell. I wish you the best.

I'd like to reply, but I'm too tired and I still have lots to do tonight. Instead, why don't you read Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate. You've committed about half of them.

I still get a bad feeling every time I see one of these..

LOL. It makes you wonder if his next teaching might proclaim that only the devil spirit possessed could stop the rain

Lots of great stuff here, presented far more eloquently that I could. My only response is what I've said before..."My dogs go far way beyond what they are taught" Wierwille seemed to be quite the master at twisting scripture to give himself the upper hand over the followers.

Does anyone remember "The Book of Life"? That was the informal name of the computer files that TWI kept on every believer. Are there any TWI data processing vets that can shed some light on the subject?

I said.... Then you said... I'm not a little drunk today. http://supreme.justia.com/constitution/art...facto-laws.html It would be good if you'd do a little open-minded research instead of just trying to prove me wrong.

Ex Post Facto only applies to criminal law, not civil. I could cite a reference if I weren't slightly drunk.... Don't know about Bill of Attainder...

I'm speechless So how does the redeemed and virtuous woman hold a knife, a screwdriver , or a steering wheel? It doesn't seem to matter how many years I've been reading trancenet/waydale/greasespot, there's always something to be learned.

Sky, I'm hoping you can elaborate on this a little. We were all aware that Walter had been a right hand man and had distanced himself from TWI, but other than that, there wasn't much discussion within the rank and file believers.

I hope Socks can give us some insight on this. He'd know. I don't recall anything specific about ego and musicians. I know that many non-corps musicians were suspect as being slack and less committed to the Word than their music. For that matter, almost anyone maintaining a professional career could be accused of not being sold out to "moving the Word".