SIT, TIP, Prophecy and Confession

[Raf]

Agreed.

Sadly for this effort, I threw out all my TWI tapes and books years ago. This includes Gartmore Weekly Tapes. Click here for why I did that.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Raf

[chockfull]

And we disagree on why, but there are only two possibilities: It was a language, and they failed to recognize it; or it wasn't a language. They insist on the latter, and the former is speculative. You're entitled to the speculation. Not going to argue it anymore.

My point is their insistence on it not being a language, or their "conclusions" they wrote up are no different than my speculation without some form of proof that takes the form of evidence presented to the reader. I'm not buying your mental milk exercise example with no write-up as sufficient. That's obvious, and I'm not going to argue that any more.

Sure they can. I'm not sure HOW MANY languages. But phonemic inventories are not hard to come by, especially if this is your field of work. But it hasn't been an issue in the research we've been reviewing. WHY?

I'm proposing that they can't identify language from phenomic makeup beyond the languages which they are fluent in or have significant exposure to. I'm also proposing that for extinct languages, there are NO linguists that can do this as they don't have a catalog of known phenomic samples of the actual language being spoken in any form. And I submit that it absolutely IS an issue in the research we've been reviewing.

[Raf]

Using that logic, nothing, including gibberish, including admitted fakery, can ever be ruled out as a language. This is what I mean when I say no test, null hypothesis or otherwise, can satisfy your particularly absolute demand for proof to a level of certainty that we can both accept. You can't even prove something you KNOW to be made up is not a language, to any degree of confidence. How do you know Muh muh muh muh muh isn't a language? Maybe it's the word for Christ in a language no one's heard since the dispersion from the tower of Babel (presumably the dawn of modern languages).

So if you're arguing that the field of linguistics is incapable of addressing this issue, you've robbed me of any ability to say anything other than what I think. How dare you demand proof when you so effectively demonstrate that no amount of evidence will suffice?

Ah, but I have a demand for proof that the opposing side CAN meet.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Raf

[Raf]

Mind you, I'm not conceding the point. I'm merely dropping it because I don't need it anymore. There is no profession on earth better suited to identify languages than those who study linguistics. I have a confidence in them that you don't share. That is a failure to find common ground. We can't argue without common ground.

But you made a valuable point: if they had found a language they recognized, they would be obliged to report it. They have not.

So my case is not proved, nor can it ever be.

BUT YOUR case is not proved, and it most certainly can be.

There is no evidence distinguishing real SIT from fakery. There is evidence, but not definitive proof, distinguishing it from known human languages. All the testable evidence leans in one direction. None of the testable evidence leans in the other direction. Anecdotal evidence is not testable.

I can only argue from the testable evidence we have. The people best qualified to identify the languages produced in glossolalia have failed to detect any. That's as good as I'm going to get for you.

Bring in one glossolalist who produces one language a disinterested observer can recognize and report in an observable setting, try not to lose the IDs of the speaker and observer for pete's sake, verify that the speaker truly did not know the language in question, and we're done; I'm wrong. Tall order? Not nearly as tall as expecting a linguist to affirm knowledge of every language ever spoken on earth throughout all time before allowing him to call made up free vocalization what it is.

Why haven't the researchers compared the phonemic inventory of glossa to the phonemic inventory of known languages? They can, with many, many languages. But they never report doing so. Why?

Edited November 2, 2012 by Raf

[chockfull]

Using that logic, nothing, including gibberish, including admitted fakery, can ever be ruled out as a language. This is what I mean when I say no test, null hypothesis or otherwise, can satisfy your particularly absolute demand for proof to a level of certainty that we can both accept. You can't even prove something you KNOW to be made up is not a language, to any degree of confidence. How do you know Muh muh muh muh muh isn't a language? Maybr it's the word for Christ in a language no one's heard since the dispersion from the tower of Babel!

I thought Poythress wrote up that the linguists involved in whatever he was writing up were able to identify two samples of known gibberish inserted in to whatever experiment was that was going on that he didn't provide the details or writeup on.

But yes, an elaborate fakery would be hard to prove as false, and UNLESS LINGUISTS DEVELOP THIS ABILITY SOMEHOW with language identification, no it can't be proven glossolalia samples are not language. I don't know how much there is going on in the field of linguistics on this front, but with the compute power we have available there may be some advances available. Yes, your example of muhs could very well be a word for Christ in a language that no one has heard since Genesis Tower of Babel times. That is implicit in how the Bible defines speaking in tongues.

So if you're arguing that the field of linguistics is incapable of addressing this issue, you've robbed me of any ability to say anything other than what I think. How dare you demand proof when you so effectively demonstrate that no amount of evidence will suffice?

I'm not like trying to "rob you of an ability to say anything other than what you think". I'm just studying a topic defined in the Bible, according to the fields of science that mankind has related to that topic. I didn't pick the topic, I didn't pick the field of science that applies to it.

And I think that if you go back and read my posts more carefully, I am NOT demanding proof of this. What I am demanding is people not lie and be hypocritical by saying something is "proven" over and over again when it clearly is NOT PROVEN. And that includes the people writing studies on it.

Ah, but I have a demand for proof that the opposing side CAN meet.

Whether you are being nice or not with the "demand for proof" - trying to steer clear of the "how dare you" terminology that adds nothing to the content of the message - does not change the fact that yes, proving the positive side of this argument that SIT does produce a language could be done by taking a group of known samples of glossolalia where you have write-ups on test subjects to include a short bio and background of language exposure, then submitting the samples out to the world to see if just one of them could be identified. With one positive verifiable result, the positive side of this is proven.

So does this mean it's fair to shift the burden of proof over to say "make that happen or I've proven tongues is not a language"? No that is not fair. I submit that if you agree in your theology or beliefs that God cannot lie, then the rule that God made up for what SIT is includes the fact that when one man speaks, the other listeners don't understand unless it is interpreted. Read I Cor. 14:2 again:

I Cor. 14:2 "For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries."

Here as part of how speaking in tongues defines itself in the Bible, we see God saying that when you SIT, no man understands. We also see as part of the definition that you are speaking to God. This is where the prayer life interpretation angle comes in. Also, as part of that you are "speaking mysteries", whatever your interpretation of that entails.

So I submit if you have your perfect test case, where one person speaks in a tongue and one other or many others in the room understand, then that perfect test case contradicts what I Cor. 14:2 says about tongues. How do we get around the fact that people DEFINITELY understood on Pentecost, and that contradicts I Cor. 14:2?? The explanation we have is that for miracles, God can go over and above His normal laws. All normal occurrences of SIT would be subject to the laws. How do we also explain the anecdotes of socks and don here, and other similar stories? To note that the anecdote COULD be a miracle like Pentecost was, or that people were mistaken or the lying and faking accusation too.

[Raf]

Could you please stop confusing Landry's term paper with real research and exegesis?

[chockfull]

Mind you, I'm not conceding the point. I'm merely dropping it because I don't need it anymore. There is no profession on earth better suited to identify languages than those who study linguistics. I have a confidence in them that you don't share. That is a failure to find common ground. We can't argue without common ground.

But you made a valuable point: if they had found a language they recognized, they would be obliged to report it. They have not.

I don't have a confidence in the field of linguistics beyond my confidence in God and scripture. As it is produced by man, I am free to examine the result, the studies, the methods used, read the papers, and evaluate them. I don't trust them or mistrust them prejudicially. I am looking at their fruit - what they produce - their written studies.

So my case is not proved, nor can it ever be.

BUT YOUR case is not proved, and it most certainly can be.

I agree neither case is proved. I highlighted my issues with stating "it most certainly can be" above.

There is no evidence distinguishing real SIT from fakery. There is evidence, but not definitive proof, distinguishing it from known human languages. All the testable evidence leans in one direction. None of the testable evidence leans in the other direction. Anecdotal evidence is not testable.

This is reasonable mostly. Where I diverge from your conclusion is the "leans in one direction" quote. I'm certain this is not a scientific phrase that carries scientific meaning. I don't think the leaning phrase belongs in together with "testable evidence" at all. Yes our anecdotes aren't testable currently. I don't know if we'll ever run across one of these accounts where you could actually track down the people involved, but it's possible. Then it would be more documented, but probably still not testable.

Now if what you are trying to say here is that the research papers we have read largely "lean in one direction" with the opinion they state and the conclusions they draw, I would agree with that statement. But the lack of solid evidence presented to me shows the "leaning" to be "bias" as opposed to "scientific results".

I can only argue from the testable evidence we have. The people best qualified to identify the languages produced in glossolalia have failed to detect any. That's as good as I'm going to get for you.

Yes, and every single one of the linguists stop short of saying "I couldn't understand it therefore no human ever could have understood it". Because they know that statement is demonstrably false and easily challenged.

Why haven't the researchers compared the phonemic inventory of glossa to the phonemic inventory of known languages? They can, with many, many languages. But they never report doing so. Why?

I don't think the main alphas in the field of linguistics are trying to say they can comprehensively do this. I saw Samarin do some basic examples of this, but all he used were consonant maps, then compared an English consonant map (speakers native tongue) with the glossa they produced. He found that the glossa covered 12 of 16 English consonants, then noted that the majority of those also would represent the Romance Languages.

Could you please stop confusing Landry's term paper with real research and exegesis?

Where a I doing this? Was it in Landry's paper he referred to Samarin's experiments and the two known gibberish examples? Instead of the ad hominem attack there, wouldn't it be better to note that he had 4 of Samarin's books in his Bibliography, so until you've checked those footnotes and resources, it's not a bad assumption to think that since he has read them and we have not that he might be accurate in his quote? Even if it was a Jr. High term paper, all we are relying on there is whether or not the quote and paraphrased section describing Samarin's work accurately reflect Samarin's work.

[Raf]

Where a I doing this? Was it in Landry's paper he referred to Samarin's experiments and the two known gibberish examples? Instead of the ad hominem attack there, wouldn't it be better to note that he had 4 of Samarin's books in his Bibliography, so until you've checked those footnotes and resources, it's not a bad assumption to think that since he has read them and we have not that he might be accurate in his quote? Even if it was a Jr. High term paper, all we are relying on there is whether or not the quote and paraphrased section describing Samarin's work accurately reflect Samarin's work.

I've answered this multiple times. You've ignored it. I'm not answering it again. Read the flipping thread.

Seriously. I am NOT wasting my time correcting your errors again after they've been corrected. That's why it's so FRUSTRATING arguing with you. Read the thread. When you find the answer, post it here. I'm not going to do your homework for you. If this were something that has not been addressed multiple times, I would answer it. But damn, already.

[Raf]

"Glossolalia is fundamentally not language." Samarin.

How we can get from that to "no one says just because they don't understand it doesn't mean they're saying no one on earth can understand it" is beyond my comprehension. You may argue that he did not demonstrate this to your satisfaction. But he sure as hell said it.

[geisha779]

I doubt this is helpful, .but, awhile ago I found a partial unpublished thesis online. It was written by someone named Larry Holton and posted on a site. I have never heard of him and am not endorsing him or the site. Make what you will of it......but, what caught my eye were the resources cited. Unfortunately, I can't link to it....it doesn't work. There are some quotes from linguists addressing a few of Chockfull's concerns. It is a poorly written paper but, what is of value IMO are the sources. If you want the sources or to read the entire article you will have to Google Larry Holton and SIT. I will cut and paste a bit. Apparently, these objections of Chockfulls are not unique and are heard from other people who SIT.

_________________________________________________________________________

Objection: Since there are nearly three thousand languages in the world linguists could not have heard every language in the world, therefore if they studied a tape-recording of glossolalia they might not know what language it was in.

Answer: A statement from William Welmers, Ph.D., in linguistics from U.C.L.A. answers this objection nicely: "That is not an entirely valid argument. Among us, we have heard many hundreds of languages. Furthermore, we have heard representative languages in virtually every group of related languages in the world. At worst we may have missed a few small groups in the interior of South America or in New Guinea. I would estimate that the chances are at least even that if a glossolalic utterance is in a known language, one of us would either recognize the language or recognize that it is similar to some language we are acquainted with." Dr. Welmers makes this challenge: "Get two recordings, one of a glossolalic utterance and the other in a real language remote from anything I have ever heard - any West Coast American Indian language would fill the bill. I'm confident that in just a few moments I could tell which is which and why I am sure of it."

Objection: The language I speak in is a dead language and there is no way a language expert could detect it.

Answer: In a letter from Herbert Stahike of Georgia State University, he states, "The problem of whether a glossolalic utterance involves the speaking of a foreign language depends heavily on your definition of a foreign language. If you mean a modern spoken language or a dead language of which we have some written record, then the claim is testable, otherwise the claim is meaningless." Bill Siemens says, "I have heard glossolalia a number of times, but in no case did it ever vaguely resemble any of the modem or ancient languages with which I am familiar in some degree."

Eugene A. Nida, Secretary of Translations for the American Bible Society and world renowned expert in linguistics, concluded from his studies that the phonemic strata indicates that the phonomes of glossolalic utterances are closely associated with the language background of the speaker's native language.

Felicitas D. Goodman made phonetic analysis of glossolalia from recordings she taped for her Master's Degree in Mexico and different sections of the United States. She concludes that the glossolalia she analyzed was not productive and noncommunicative.

James Jaquith from Washington University in his research among English speaking tongue-speakers concludes that "There is no evidence that these glossolalic utterances have been generated by constituent sub-codes of any natural language other than English."

Ernest Bryant and Daniel O'Connell of St. Louis University studied nine tapes of glossolalia taken from among their respondents. The results of their studies proved that "all glossolalic phonemes are within the normal phonemic repertoire of the native speaker of English." He says, "If a foreign language system were used a much greater divergence of phonemes would be expected, but the opposite is the case."

Dr. Donald Larson of Bethel College in St. Paul, Minnesota, began analyzing glossolalic samples in Toronto, Canada, in 1957. Since then he has analyzed many samples and observed glossolalic behavior in different parts of the world. His research also concludes that the phonological features of the native speaker's language carried over into his glossolalia experience.

In a letter to Dr, William Welmers of U.C.L.A., I asked him, "In your studies of modern glossolalia have you detected any known language?" His reply was, "In short, absolutely not." He goes on to say that "Glossolalic utterances are consistently in important respects unlike human languages. They are characterized by a great deal of recurrences of closely similar sequences of syllables and usually employ a restricted number of different sounds." Dr. Welmers said that the same thing is true of hundreds of other utterances studied by Christian linguistics of his acquaintance.

Dr. Samarin, by far the most thorough, says, "There is no mystery about glossolalia. Tape recorded samples are easy to obtain and to analyze. They always turn out to be the same things: strings of syllables made up of sounds taken from among all those that the speaker knows, put together more or less haphazardly but which nevertheless emerge as word-like or sentence-like units

Edited November 2, 2012 by geisha779

[waysider]

I'm proposing that they can't identify language from phenomic makeup beyond the languages which they are fluent in or have significant exposure to. I'm also proposing that for extinct languages, there are NO linguists that can do this as they don't have a catalog of known phenomic samples of the actual language being spoken in any form.

What?? Of course it's possible. That's what cryptographers do on a routine basis. A linguist might simply need to enlist the services of a cryptographer.

[Raf]

Discovered a little more about Helene Smith, the medium who claimed to produce a foreign language, which Samarin concluded on the basis of apparently limited information was "glossolalic."

The investigator who studied her for three years concluded she was full of crap. He called her work "the naive and somewhat puerile work of an infantile imagination."

Translation: Sounded good. A very detailed fraud. But a fraud.

No evidence she was a medium at all.

I know, I was shocked too.

[Raf]

Geisha, that was the first link I posted in the SIT reading room.

Some of those answers don't quite follow from the questions. Others do.

I found Nida's answer to be the most interesting. First, because he answers the question I've been asking all day, and second, because of who he was: secretary of translations for the American Bible Society. Go ahead, accuse him of being biased against SIT because he's not born again. (Sheesh). ;)

So the question I've been asking all day, why weren't the phonetic inventories of the glossas compared to the inventories of the known languages?

Because the researchers continually find that the glossas ARE traceable -- to the native language of the speaker and certain phonemes that they picked up from other languages with which they were known to come into contact.

Well, shoot me. So there was never anything unusual for them to look for. They never did a phonemic inventory comparison because they never needed to.

I'm aware of only one exception to this. The researcher concluded it was not a language. But he wasn't a linguist. On what basis did he draw that conclusion? Seems unfair to my opponents that he would reach such a conclusion with such a profound anomaly at his disposal.

Will report more when I learn more.

[Raf]

I mentioned before that the researcher who found the anomalous glossolalia sample was not a linguist but an expert on speech. Turns out his work was reviewed by three linguists (Nida and Samarin were two of them), and they fundamentally disagreed with his findings. They determined that the phonemic structure of the glossa that was produced matched English, though the glossa itself took on, at different times, a superficial resemblance to Spanish and Russian, using no phonemes unique to either language.

For example, one of the words produced was "brosh," which might sound like a Russian word but presents no problem for the English speaker. The transcription of the full glossa was decidedly NOT Russian.

So a non-linguist found a variation of phonemes that did not match the phonemic structure of the speaker, but because his work was peer-reviewed, linguists were able to check it out for themselves and did not agree with his linguistic analysis.

I still wouldn't close the case. The speech expert stood by his analysis.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Raf

[geisha779]

Geisha, that was the first link I posted in the SIT reading room.

Some of those answers don't quite follow from the questions. Others do.

I found Nida's answer to be the most interesting. First, because he answers the question I've been asking all day, and second, because of who he was: secretary of translations for the American Bible Society. Go ahead, accuse him of being biased against SIT because he's not born again. (Sheesh). ;)

So the question I've been asking all day, why weren't the phonetic inventories of the glossas compared to the inventories of the known languages?

Because the researchers continually find that the glossas ARE traceable -- to the native language of the speaker and certain phonemes that they picked up from other languages with which they were known to come into contact.

Well, shoot me. So there was never anything unusual for them to look for. They never did a phonemic inventory comparison because they never needed to.

I'm aware of only one exception to this. The researcher concluded it was not a language. But he wasn't a linguist. On what basis did he draw that conclusion? Seems unfair to my opponents that he would reach such a conclusion with such a profound anomaly at his disposal.

Will report more when I learn more.

Good....there is a link in the reading room for anyone interested. It seems pretty clear that the SIT is traced back to the speakers native language. Simple answer...if there were more to look at they would have jumped all over it.

That brings me to a simple suggestion for Chockfull, given sincerely. . . . pick up the phone and call a good college and speak to a linguist who can help you to understand how they can be confident in determining language. It is a huge field but not all language is unique. There are language families with common ancestry which may include now dead languages. Amherst College is a place I think might be helpful if you want to speak with an actual linguist. It is also a place where you can have some confidence.

A bit of language trivia....Hebrew was a dead language in that it had no native speakers and it was resurrected to everyday use. This is a phenomenon which happened over a relatively short amount of time. Now. . . . . that is something someone might consider a gift of God if they were so inclined. It is certainly tangible and might give us some confidence in God's ability to support a real known language.

Edited November 2, 2012 by geisha779

[Raf]

Also seeing evidence that it may be correct to assume Samarin was not born again. Or it may not be.

He did produce his own glossolalia, but had a real hard time overcoming his inhibition to do it. But he knew at the time it was his own behavior. He did not think he was doing anything Biblical.

Amazing things, books.

Edited November 2, 2012 by Raf

[Raf]

I've been using the terms "phonemic" and "phonetic" interchangeably. Chalk it up to my status as a layman. A linguist would probably smack me down for confusing the terms. I think we on this thread share a limited understanding of them: they mean the same thing to us. So if you don't need me to be more precise, I'm not going to bother learning the distinction.

[Raf]

Quickly going over Goodman's book on SIT, I think I can honestly say she contributes nothing to either side of the conversation. From what I've been able to tell, others used her raw data in linguistic analyses, and she does spell it all out with lots of detail about phonetic analysis and whatnot. But she neither tests a hypothesis nor attempts a classification related to linguistics. She seems entirely concerned with the psychological state of the glossolalists, and does not seem to recognize the sample bias that Samarin pointed out in criticisms of her earlier articles and criticisms of her book after it was published. Aside from her raw data, she's useless to our discussion.

Also checked out Malony and Lovekin. They're really non-judgmental. To a fault, in my opinion. They put Samarin (an actual linguist) on a par with Sherrill (a Guideposts writer who appears to have met every single person on earth with an unverified second hand anecdote about it really happening I swear). It should be pointed out that one of the two, I forget which, is a glossolalist, raising questions about their willingness to grant Sherrill more legitimacy than he deserves. Their summary of Sherrill is heavy on the anecdotes but not terribly impressed with the story of how Sherrill (HEY! LOOK HERE! IT WAS SHERRILL! NOT SAMARIN!) put glossolalia in front of a team of linguists and they were able to spot the gibberish right away.

My problem with that account is now manifold, but two problems override the rest:

1. We still don't know who the linguists are. Perhaps Sherrill named them in his book.

2. We still don't know what the gibberish was. Samarin isolated gibberish from his studies even when the gibberish was presented to him as real glossolalia. What did Sherrill call gibberish? We don't know. If it was free vocalization practiced by someone who thought this was linguistic nonsense, then their ability to distinguish between THAT and SIT would have to be considered impressive. If it was Muh muh muh muh muh, then we would have to be a tad less impressed. Perhaps his book will shed some light on the matter.

Anyway, by elevating Sherrill to the same status as actual linguistics research, Malony and Lovekin are able to assert that the linguistic evidence is less unanimous than it actually appears to be. Mind you, this is tantamount to giving the "flat earth" theory equal time in discussions of geography and geology. But I could be wrong. I haven't read Sherrill. Malony and Lovekin don't do any of their own linguistics research. They review the work of others. At one point they quote Samarin about SIT not being "haphazard," but they fully recognize his opinion and conclusion that SIT is "fundamentally not language," and they take it for granted as his opinion without comment. They recognize that Sherrill's anecdotes are not quite as strong, inthe objective scientific sense, as Samarin's findings.

At no point do they even dare suggest that Samarin failed to use the scientific method and therefore his research and conclusions are shoddy.

But Landry's quotation of Malony and Lovekin quoting Samarin is, in retrospect, laughable. Sorry. There's no other word for it. It was so selective and misrepresentative of everything they say about Samarin that it can't even be argued that it was a fair quote. We know, as a matter of fact, that in later writings, Samarin actually DOES describe SIT as being "more or less haphazard." So to quote him saying it's not is to misunderstand the point he's making, which was that the glossolalist puts a lot of effort into making SIT sound like a language.

I do not recall specifically if Landry listed four of Samarin's books in his bibliography. If he did, it makes his misrepresentation of Landry even less forgivable. I saw no evidence he had the slightest idea what Samarin's conclusions were. I do see evidence that Chockfull has confused so many writers with what they said about which researcher that I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out Landry HAD no bibliography, much less that he was steeped in four of Samarin's books.

The actual studies of linguists (Samarin, Nida, and others briefly summarized in Malony and Lovekin) pretty much say the same thing: Glossolalists rearrange the phonemes of their own native language, throw in phonemes from other languages to which they've been exposed, and use the normal intonations, cadences and patterns of their native languages to produce glossa. That's the evidence. It's not that they don't recognize the language. It's that there's no language to recognize. They're babbling. It's sophisticated. It's creative. But it's babbling.

It doesn't take a spirit to rearrange a few sounds and make it appear to be a foreign language to the unlearned.

No, it's not proof. But it's not proof because nothing ever will be. If every possible justification for language is accepted ("muh muh muh is "Christ" in a language not heard since the Tower of Babel... and he took that seriously? It was a flipping joke!) then no examination that concludes non-language can be.

Edited November 3, 2012 by Raf

[waysider]

....the glossolalist puts a lot of effort into making SIT sound like a language.

............................................................

In a nutshell, that's the purpose of excellor sessions.

[Ham]

I still can't vote here. I'm been given a choice between a lesser, and a greater evil..

too bad I can't choose no evil..

Has anyone here seen nightfall by Asimov..

religion (by it's own choice) ended up on the wrong side of things.. I watched this in my Way Days.. and it still spoke to me..

[Ham]

I can't pretend to accomplish the same cinematic success of Asimov..

but I showed a few intermediate algebra students that (one of the) fourth roots of 1 is i.

it really is weird, but it is..

[Ham]

I mean.. it is readily apparent, isn't it? i*i*i*i equals unity. so the fourth root of unity, must include i..

there is one guy in the back of the room.. that waits for this kind of insight..

bored out of his skull, otherwise..

Edited November 3, 2012 by Ham

[OldSkool]

[Raf]

Now that's funny in any language.

[OldSkool]

Now that's funny in any language.

Some of my best times on GSC is when me and The Squirrel are hitting the sauce at the same time and posting utter nonsense. The best is waking up the next day and realizing that I was posting under the influence (PUI) again.