Mister P-Mosh

My wife and I drove from Houston to San Antonio...something like 20 hours in the car, and I hadn't slept for over 36 hours before we found a hotel room here. It was a mess, it was chaos and anarchy, and there was no gas anywhere near Houston so hundreds if not thousands of people were stuck along the side of I-10, and many others were camping out at gas stations hoping that they could get fuel to continue leaving. If anyone dies in their cars from the storm, the executives of every oil company in the U.S. deserve to be charged with murder and put to death. They shut down the refineries way too early so they could try to get some extra profits from the gas shortage. I nearly got into a fight with people who tried to break in front of me in line at the gas station and nearly ran over my wife, and it was a huge anarchic mess. Anyway, I'm glad to be in San Antonio, and glad that the Residence Inn had some rooms available. Even though it now looks like the storm veered far enough from Houston that we could have stayed home, it's better to be safe than sorry, and I'm glad that so many others were able to get out too. Hopefully this results in some better planning and preparations on the part of governments to help people evacuate in emergencies like this. I could say a lot more but I'm tired. I got six hours of sleep already and woke up to go eat, but I think it's time to go back to sleep and hope to feel more normal tomorrow.

Not dumb at all. In fact, I donated money to Noah's Wish to help with the pets, and there is also http://www.1-800-save-a-pet.com/ where you can volunteer to host an animal in your house if you have room to foster a pet temporarily (you'll probably have to go pick it up yourself though.) Some people on the web have complained to me that I should only focus on the people, but I don't see why we can't help both.

I suggest everyone become familiar with the concept of "peak oil", and what that means for our petroleum dependent economy. Even though the damage of hurricane Katrina made the oil prices spike, it's expected that they would have gotten to this price eventually anyway, and that they will continue to rise even if they do go back down a little in the next few weeks. This time next year, quite a few experts are saying that it would not be a suprise if we had to pay over $4 or $5 a gallon. Time to trade that Hummer in for a Prius, I suppose (just kidding.) Actually, I'm part of a political group that meets to discuss issues related to oil and such. It's interesting to hear what people have to say and compare notes. Overall, it doesn't look good for the availability of oil for us, no matter what we do. India and China are paying more for oil that we used to buy, and many of the countries that we normally buy oil from are starting to sell more to China than to us. If you were to see this new big oil pipeline Canada is building, for example, it's clear in which direction their future oil sales are going to be headed. The rest of the world is pretty much doing the same thing. Even we do it. Our oil companies sell a lot of American oil to China because we can import it cheaper from the middle east than what it costs for us to use our own. International trade is weird.

I looked them up in the systems I know, but was unable to find anything. Keep in mind that everything is still a mess so it's hard to really find much information. Even though there's a huge list of places to look, but here are the main ones (in my opinion): http://familymessages.yahoo.net/ - It has a very huge list of people, although it is still a small percentage of the overall refugees. http://katrina.dyndns.org/ - This is what we were using at Reliant. I don't know if it's supposed to be publicly available, but it's accessable on the internet, so I figure it must be ok. We took all the cards that people gave us of their names and who they are looking for, and put it in there. It is only Reliant though. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/apps/connect/search.aspx?n=A&i=1/ - This only worked out to help me find someone once, and it's generally not that great, but since it did help me help one woman find her daughter, I'm linking to it. http://www.familylinks.icrc.org/katrina/people - This is the Red Cross's database, but it hasn't helped me at all thus far. Eventually it should be more complete though. http://www.wwltv.com/forums/search.php - A local to New Orleans TV station's message board that has a big list as well. Unfortunately, their search engine sucks so you'll have trouble finding names there. I found a few possible matches before, but sometimes I couldn't even find the name on a list even though it came up in the search. Like I said, there are other places. Yahoo has a pretty complete list on their site, but it's a pain. I wish I knew where the databases that other shelters are using, as far as I know the one the people in the Astrodome are using is still not connected to the one we were using in Reliant. Nevermind the Dallas Reunion shelter, or any other shelters anywhere in the country. One person who I found a missing family member for required me searching google just to find an address of a location of a shelter that was run by an individual church and not affiliated with any of the other shelters. It's a big mess, and hopefully now that we're starting to get a handle of the basics of providing food, shelther, and clothing, we can get to reuniting them with their families better.

Heh, not a conservative in the political sense, because they're the ones who got us into this mess in the first place, but I should save that debate for later. Suffice to say, I've already looked into this stuff a little bit and it makes me angry. I think my response was a human one, and an American one. Even though many of the refugees were complaining about Bush, I would try to steer the conversations towards positive things such as how they are now safe and how they are being reunited with families, slowly but surely. One couple that came looking for their son actually told me that they just found each other a few hours prior to coming to me. They had last seen each other on Sunday, and had spent the past week wondering if each other were still alive. That type of happiness is what I hope everyone can get from this. Even though they were quite a bit older (their missing son is 20, and he's ok just not accounted for in the databases we have access to yet since he was split from his dad here in Houston and probably shipped elsewhere) they were acting like newlyweds. It was great. Please do so, because it is still very difficult and rather than the number of places to look decreasing, they increased today from yesterday. Also, I don't really need credit. It's a very common complaint on the floor between the volunteers.

Here's an update from Houston. My wife and I spent nine hours today working at Reliant Stadium (although we were in the Message Center) trying to connect people with missing family members. Overall, I have to say that the people of Texas, and particularly Houston, are going above and beyond just helping these people. Believe it or not, but volunteers were being turned away, and some that were there more than a couple hours were told to go home so others could work too. We got to stay only because of our speciality with computers. We brought our laptop with wireless access and proceeded to use what we could to help people track down loved ones. It was hard to deal with people who were already so devastated when we had to tell them that we couldn't find a match (unfortunately, it seems like every shelter has a list, and too many news sites and other sites have lists too) because I didn't want them to give up hope. Overall, in the whole nine hour period, I connected two people with family members. I'm greatful that I could assist those two, and I hope that all the other names I took and entered into the database will result in their family members finding them. On the bad side, there is still a lot of chaos. As volunteers we were basically told by other volunteers who arrived maybe 30 minutes before us what we were supposed to do. They were told by people that arrived 30 minutes before them, etc. Also, the really frustrating thing was the lack of a single database for tracking people. You would think that FEMA, the DHS, or some federal agency would have set something up for this. Also, it makes me mad that the federal government is still taking a very hands off approach to this. The Red Cross, The Salvation Army, many smaller groups, many churches, and many private citizens are doing what we can, but there is a huge lack of leadership in this crisis on all levels. I did what I could to help as many people as possible, but without a cohesive organization, I didn't have the tools I needed to truly match as many people as possible with their missing loved ones. Still, I do count today as a good day. I not only got to help a few people, but I also got to represent my city and state for people that need our help. Even for those who I wasn't able to find their loved ones, I think that I was able to provide some comfort and hope. I told them to come see me tomorrow because we should have access to a few databases in other shelters. All in all, it is very important to help however we can, but I am glad to have done my part.

Hi, I thought I'd stop in since this is an emergency and these people need all of our help. No matter where you are, and no matter how much you can spare, please make a donation to the red cross at http://www.redcross.org/. I know some are skeptical about what percentage goes to the actual people and blah blah blah, but there's no time for that B.S. right now. The Red Cross is in the best position to help people right now, and money is the best way to do it. Sending food and water is nice, but it's better to let the Red Cross do it (plus they get it cheaper and can avoid taxes, so the money goes a lot further and can buy more. Donate however much you can. You can even donate airline miles. Secondly, if you can house someone and feel comfortable doing it, please go to either http://hurricanehousing.org/ or http://neworleans.craigslist.com/ and offer your extra space. Not everyone can do this, which is understandable, but if you can I am sure they would appreciate it. Finally, if you are in Texas, get your butt somewhere to volunteer to help people. If you are in Dallas call the Red Cross at one of the following numbers: (214) 678-4800 (972) 241-4483 (214) 877-1551 If you are in Houston, go to the Main Street/Yellow Lot at Reliant Park. If you just show up, they will be glad to take you. You can also go to the George R Brown Convention Center at the Polk Street parking lot. Also check out http://volunteerhouston.org/ to see if there is anything there, and The Houston Food Bank. If you care about pets, please find some way to either donate to or house pets for The Houston SPCA. Also, if you go to a church, you should contact them to see what they are doing. Don't wait for Sunday, the sooner the better. If you are in Austin, San Antonio, or any of the smaller cities, be sure to contact or show up at your local Red Cross to volunteer as well. I don't really have much information on those so you'll have to find it yourself. I have a lot of thoughts about this whole thing, but right now is not the time to look at who is to blame for what, complain about the rescue operation, and whether or not or how New Orleans should be rebuilt. This isn't the time for politics and finger pointing. People are still dying from this, and we need to get to work as Americans to help who we can. Please do something. Anyway, I'm out of here again, but if you're in the Houston area you might see me Sunday or Monday if you volunteer down at Reliant Stadium or the Astrodome. My wife and I are wanting to go both days, but we'll see how much we can take after Sunday. A friend of mine already volunteered and said that it's really heartbreaking to see how much those people have suffered. Ciao.

Although I've yet to find any statistics on children being murdered newer than 1994, the kidnapping statistics are insane. According to this site: Granted, I think that number is inflated quite a bit due to the increase in population as well, but it's still really high. Plus, most of those are parent kidnappings, which an increase makes more sense with the divorce rate that we have.

You also get to see the Millenium Falcon towards the beginning when Obi Wan and Anakin are returning to the government building. It's flying into a lower level of the same building.

If the Republicans were not so against sexual education and birth control, unwanted pregnancies would not occur in the huge numbers that happen today. I do agree that welfare needs some major reform, but with the Republicans running this country right now, I don't see them doing anything to solve this problem. Instead, I guess keeping steriods out of baseball is more important than things like fighting child abuse, balancing the federal budget, improving our economy, fighting terrorism, or anything else.

I heard that they are predicting another active season, much like last year, so stay on your guard, and I'd consider moving somewhere other than Florida (although Houston isn't exactly immune from problems due to hurricanes either, so I might not be the best one to say that.)

I saw it last night at 12:01am. It was good, much better than the previous two, although it was still not anywhere near the best movie of all time. What is so great about Star Wars is the universe that it takes place in with all of the different aliens, robots, technology, and powers. There's nothing that comes close to the originality that the Star Wars series invented, as far as I know of. This movie had some great special effects and some great settings. It did feel a little contrived plot-wise, but that's to be expected since the other five Star Wars movies have cheesy dialog. Also, I got there about two hours before it started and since the theater had 12 different rooms showing the movie, we were able to get good seats. There were even people dressed up like Boba Fett, Storm Troopers, Darth Maul, and a few other things. When I say dressed up, I mean they looked like they had walked right out of the movie. It was very interesting. There were also dozens of teenagers running around with toy light sabers battling each other all over the place. I was so impressed with the $120 ForceFX one that I am trying to talk myself out of wasting my money on that. I tried out the display model at Best Buy yesterday and it was great and balanced in such a way that you really could use it for fighting (obviously, you would have to fight someone with another one.)

I had to click "reply" before I got what that meant. May The Force Be With You too, oldiesman.

Since 12:01am tonight starts the final Star Wars movie, I'm wondering how many of you plan to see it? I would have put this in the "Movies" thread, but this is more of a cultural event than just a normal movie, so I'm putting it here instead.

It's probably Google, or another spider indexing the site.

I hate to say it, but this is actually most likely in decline. All violent crime has been in decline over the past decade or so, but on the other hand, the cable "entertainment" news stations like CNN, Fox, MSNBC, etc. all sensationalize this stuff and pump it into our houses 24/7 if we let them. There is no reason for someone in Texas (like me) to hear about a child murdered in Idaho, unless there's some chance that the murderer would have come down here. I agree that it's a horrible tragedy, but it's no more "news" here than the fact that a new restaurant opened there. I'd prefer that the news focus on things that actually affect everyone, and possibly even say some good news once in a while. That will never happen though. The news is not about giving us useful information. It's about making us afraid of everything they can, working society up into a frenzy over celebrity and politician worship, spreading government propaganda, and most importantly, getting us to pay attention so we sit through their commercials.

Well, our lives do have value, but what I mean is that we don't have much of an effect on the universe. Our greatest accomplishments as human beings have simply been small steps towards something bigger that we will hopefully one day do. We don't know that we're the only ones here, and odds are we're not alone in the universe at all. We're just beginning to be able to see some planets in other solar systems, which increases the odds for life elsewhere. Not only that, but we're faced with the possibility of finding some live on other places in our own solar system. Mars still has potential, as does one of the moons of Jupiter named Europa. We'll have to see what we can find in the future. I also agree with you on the part where you say to be heard. It is more important to do something that means something with your life than to simply live day by day accomplishing nothing for yourself. As tiny and short-lived as we are, we have to do something.

Hahaha...I've been traveling for a bit more than two years now. It's been most of my life.

I believe it was Voyager, that crazy spacecraft with the golden record in it and the picture of naked people.

It was inspired by that, but Sagan said it quite a bit differently. Still, his books have helped me see things very differently than when I was in TWI.

See this? This is where you live. This is a photograph (sort of) of our planet about four billion miles away. Everything that we know of has pretty much happened there. That little blue dot, which is not even the size of a speck of dust in the grand scheme of things, is where our wars are fought, our love is found, we live, and we die. It's very humbling to realize how insignificant of things we are in the grand scheme of things. We're just a fleeting subatomic blip on the universe's radar. I'd like to hope that someday, we as a species can accomplish something worthy of being noticeable in such a huge place, but sometimes I think it's not likely to happen. In any case, whenever you start to feel overwhelmed by whatever problems life throws at you, take a look at this photo and realize that your problems are not eternal, nor are they even big. Life itself is a tiny thing, so we should make it as big as we can for the small amount of time we have on this little speck of dust we call home.

Here are a few of the ones I use regularly: news.google.com - The only place for news research. Dailykos - A good source of progressive discussions, even though I end up arguing with most of the people there. Here - Why doesn't anyone mention this site? :-D Slashdot - If you don't already know what this is, it probably won't interest you. Other than that, I participate in a few other smaller forums for friends of mine, and I do a lot of reading of stuff that I have set up on My Yahoo where I combine all of my favorite information to read there via RSS. I wish the message board here had RSS because I'd read more here than I do now.

I've gone to Borders a lot more lately instead, and you usually find people go there to study instead of make out, so that's a good place.

No problem, and I do it all the time myself (including fairly recently where I get hell for it too.) As far as the compliment to your wife goes, even though you and I disagree strongly on a lot of religious and political issues, I do recognize that you are a good person and do what you feel is the best in life. You can't be faulted for that, and if more people lived like that the world would be a better place. I've heard these accusations before as well, and although I never had any evidence of any kind against her (I never even knew her) she did get much more butch over the years after you left to a point where when I left TWI she might as well have just gotten the operation and been done with it. Her public persona was very masculine, and at first I thought it was based off of LCM, but I later realized that he seemed to be much more "sensitive" and emotional in public than she is. If she was gay or bi, that would definitely explain his obsession with homosexuality, and in particular his definition of Eve's sin. One could come up with all sorts of possible scenarios and conspiracy theories, but I doubt most of us, if any of us, on this site have the information to really be informed on that. You would have been amazed at what the 90's in TWI were like. People who I considered to be bedrocks of my local area were suddenly "old wineskins" and M&A because they didn't adapt to the new fearful witch hunt mentality. LCM was not personally responsible for all of the evil committed in TWI at that time, but he definitely set the mood and empowered people who carried the things out that happened. Some of us are against LCM not because of his direct actions against us (because there are none for many of us) but because of his leadership and direction which lead to a lot of evil being committed. I was in TWI as a child in the 80's, and I remember how it used to be and then what it became in the 90's. The organization shed most of the good people that it had, and the only people left were either oppressors with chips on their shoulders or good people who were mentally enslaved and tricked into following TWI out of fear. We could say the same about anyone who has done great harm though. Gacy was a murderer who hid bodies in his basement, but he also did good too by volunteering to be a clown for sick children. He did great evil as well as good, but the good that he did in no way made up for the evil. It's also pointless to reflect on what might have been when something else entirely happened and there's no way to change it. LCM could have grown up to be a good guy, but he descended really far to a point where he would have to make radical changes to even begin to make up for what he did. So far, he's failed to even do that. I think that your "turn the other cheek" story on this thread was very noble, and it shows your character, but at the same time you would not have been condemned had you punched the guy in the face. You did come out looking better because of it, but a key difference was that the region coordinator apologized to you. If he felt remorse, then that is a good thing. LCM has only shown regret for being caught thus far, and has not indicated any real remorse. Even his actions are still covered up in TWI to where most of it's followers don't really know what happened. They think that he had one affair, and that she probably came on to him, and then she got greedy and wanted to sue TWI. If he were to own up to his actions, particularly to do so publicly, that would be a good start. I wish there was a way to show you just how far he went ultimately, because you left TWI before the depth of his debauchery and evil. You might still be willing to forgive him if you could have seen it first hand, but you would not do so very easily. But as I entered into the machinery of the hierarchy, my purity began to fade, and I became someone that I did not desire to be. Fortunately I did not fade too far, for my idealism and love for God, and my love for Love kept me from comitting to the selfishness found in the upper echelons. The closer I got to the top, the uglier it appeared, and like Sunesis, and like many of you, I finally checked out. I don't think you ever actively participated in the evil that some did. I don't think that you ever kicked people out of a twig, broke up families, raped, or any of those things. We all are responsible for whatever evil we committed while in TWI, but some things are much worse than others. Your story is probably the typical one of many who have been in TWI for any period of time, and I doubt anyone here will fault you for that. The Shakespeare play "MacBeth" is very similar and mirrors some of the things that LCM did, at least metaphorically speaking. A good man became an evil king, and his downfall was dramatic.

Has anyone here ever invested in Real Estate Investment Trusts before? I'm looking for an investment that has decent returns that I can be fairly hands off with. I want either to be able to have dividends paid out for income, or even better would be to have a DRP (Dividend Reinvestment Plan) that I could put back into it until I needed to start taking the money to live off of. So far I've been able to do well with stock options, doubling my money every two months or so, but that is a very hands on approach and I'd prefer to have something a little more secure where I don't have to sit and watch graphs every day just to find the right time to invest (getting out is very easy though since I use trailing stops.) I've also been looking into potentially investing in mortgages via Freddie Mac or Fannie Mae, but because of the high price of getting into them (I believe it's something like a minimum $25,000 investment) I will not yet. Anyway, I'm trying to figure out where I can put my money that is stable enough that I don't have to watch it in order to buy and sell, and I'd like to be able to make income from it if possible. Do any of you do this, and if so, what do you invest in?