Posts by IronGland

washington, dc?responding to recent polls suggesting that he has lost touch with the average american, president bush vowed monday to pay closer attention to the needs of non-presidents.

"perhaps, in the past, i've been somewhat lax in addressing the day-to-day problems of the nation's non-presidents," bush said during a white house press conference.

"well, that's about to change.

IronGland

WASHINGTON, DC?Responding to recent polls suggesting that he has lost touch with the average American, President Bush vowed Monday to pay closer attention to the needs of non-presidents.

"Perhaps, in the past, I've been somewhat lax in addressing the day-to-day problems of the nation's non-presidents," Bush said during a White House press conference. "Well, that's about to change. I hereby pledge to hear and heed the concerns of non-chief- executives?a group of people who are very valuable to our country, in their own way, even if it's not always readily apparent how."

Bush has charged his staff of 50 with the task of helping him learn more about the nation's many non-commanders-in-chief.

"From here on out, I will do my best to address the needs of this group of upstanding Americans who, I'm told, are part of a proud non-presidential tradition that stretches back hundreds of years in this country," Bush said. "To this end, I have appointed a blue-ribbon fact-finding committee to look into the issues of non-presidents and find out what their jets are named, how their staffs are performing, and how they're handling increased pressure from the media during this election year."

Of particular concern to Bush are the ways in which the sluggish economy is affecting the average non-head-of-state. He said he's curious to know how non-presidents are responding to the rising costs of television-campaign ads, whether their donations from special-interest groups have dropped in number, and how much money they are able to set aside for foreign invasions.

"I want to live in a country where all citizens?presidents or not?can pursue their own policy initiatives abroad, even if they suffer from a lack of funding," Bush said. "In addition, Americans shouldn't have to go without the crucial tax cuts they've promised their political supporters, just because there's a mounting federal deficit. We must find a way for every citizen to afford the fundamentals of daily life: an adequate entourage of Secret Service personnel, limousine rides to and from fundraisers, and the political leverage to send legislation through Congress."

Bush said he will reach out to non-presidents with great care in the coming months?finding out how their oil wells are doing, how the major-league sports teams they own are weathering the market, and which Ivy League secret societies they belong to. He said he will also carefully read any policy papers they've had their staffs draft recently and review any recent press announcements they've made or leaked.

"There is only one way to win over the hearts, minds, and votes of our nation's non-presidents?a group which, I've learned, is larger than I had previous reason to believe?and that's to ask questions," Bush said. "Is security tight enough at their military retreats? Do they have adequate support from their friends in the private sector? Are the global petrochemical companies that back them doing a good job of adhering to government guidelines regarding their campaign contributions? Do they and their households have access to high-quality spin control? If not, I'd like to help non-presidents and their families get the help they need."

Bush said he's so committed to learning more about non-presidents that he has scheduled a fact-finding visit to the home of one such non-president next month.

"In June, I'll be visiting my parents in Texas to discuss these issues," Bush said. "As it turns out, my father is one of these non-presidents. I didn't realize that before, because people still call him 'Mr. President' wherever he goes, but as it happens, he's actually been a non-president for years."

"It just goes to show that, when it comes to non-presidents, I still have a lot to learn," Bush added.

In closing, the president said he has great respect for the many hardworking non-presidents he sees on a daily basis, including those who serve his meals, schedule his phone calls, and carry his shoes.

Added Bush: "You know, some of my best friends?including [Secretary Of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld, [National Security Advisor] Condoleezza Rice, and [Vice-President] Dick Cheney?are non-presidents."

4

Who are the crouches?

by IronGland in

jw
friends

the opening salvo has been fired!

a two-page article discussing the.

"secret double life" of paul and jan crouchhas appeared in the.

IronGland

The opening salvo has been fired! A two-page article discussing the
"secret double life" of Paul and Jan Crouchhas appeared in the
September 9, 1997 issue of The Globe. And while it is the first one, it
is virtually certain not to be the last. It could be a long, hard
fall....

In pertinent part, the Globe story alleges that Paul and Jan Crouchare the Christian version of Bill and Hillary -- trapped in a marriage
of convenience. That they live in separate mansions ... and Jan is more
often in the company of muscular twenty-something bodyguards who
"hand-feed [her, and she them] hors d'oeurves and fruit." That just
like Tammy Faye before her,Jan is more at home in Bloomingdale's than a
prayer room, and has had her face "pulled back so many times you could
bounce a quarter off her cheeks." And that while Paul and Jan "own
several expensive motorcycles," and Jan "loves nothing more than hanging
out with her wild, tattooed biker friends," they cancelled Pat Boone's
show because he was "representing a bad element."

I rather suspect it was because Pat stole her favorite biker
outfit.... :)

The most intriguing part of the story was an independent confirmation
of what we have been hearing for some time: that son Matt was not at all
happy with the moral meltdown at TBN. You may recall that Matt produced
Bob Larson's show; working in close quarters with BegBoy probably
convinced him that TBN was in serious trouble. It's the old 'frog in
the pot' scenario: Turn up the heat too fast, and he'll jump.
It is more likely than not that Matt has already inked a
'kiss-and-tell' book deal -- after all, his last name _IS_ ,Crouch and
if you threw the kind of money at him that a major publisher would be
capable of throwing, he could start singing like Beverly Sills. Besides,
after working with pond-scum like Larson, the guy probably _NEEDS_ a
cathartic, if not an industrial-strength enema. Matt might as well take
the money and run, because he's not going to be the only one in that
choir....
From what I understand, some of the 'rats' are already starting to
make plans to jump ship. Benny Hinn has reportedly been making noises
about moving to secular TV, and has already distanced himself from the
Counterfeit Revival. There are enough "disgruntled ex-employees" out
there to finally reach critical mass, and one or two are pretty sure to
end up with lucrative book deals. And the mainstream media undoubtedly
won't be far behind....

The Crouches' lawyer denied it all ... but, then again, that's what
lawyers DO. ;)

For TBN, the two-page spread in The Globe is potentially more damaging
than a network expose, since many of their financial contributors are
regular readers. :)

Since the good folks at TBN have been uncharacteristically ungracious
in failing to respond to my earlier inquiries, I have cc'd their VP of
Engineering, Ben Miller. Ben, how _DOES_ TBN justify keeping pond-scum
like Bob Larson on the air, when it kicked the (comparatively)
squeaky-clean Pat Boone off, when he really hadn't done anything wrong?

4

Library of Babel

by IronGland in

jw
friends

the universe (which others call the library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings.

from any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors.

the distribution of the galleries is invariable.

IronGland

The universe (which others call the Library) is composed of an indefinite and perhaps infinite number of hexagonal galleries, with vast air shafts between, surrounded by very low railings. From any of the hexagons one can see, interminably, the upper and lower floors. The distribution of the galleries is invariable. Twenty shelves, five long shelves per side, cover all the sides except two; their height, which is the distance from floor to ceiling, scarcely exceeds that of a normal bookcase. One of the free sides leads to a narrow hallway which opens onto another gallery, identical to the first and to all the rest. To the left and right of the hallway there are two very small closets. In the first, one may sleep standing up; in the other, satisfy one's fecal necessities. Also through here passes a spiral stairway, which sinks abysmally and soars upwards to remote distances. In the hallway there is a mirror which faithfully duplicates all appearances. Men usually infer from this mirror that the Library is not infinite (if it were, why this illusory duplication?); I prefer to dream that its polished surfaces represent and promise the infinite ... Light is provided by some spherical fruit which bear the name of lamps. There are two, transversally placed, in each hexagon. The light they emit is insufficient, incessant.
Like all men of the Library, I have traveled in my youth; I have wandered in search of a book, perhaps the catalogue of catalogues; now that my eyes can hardly decipher what I write, I am preparing to die just a few leagues from the hexagon in which I was born. Once I am dead, there will be no lack of pious hands to throw me over the railing; my grave will be the fathomless air; my body will sink endlessly and decay and dissolve in the wind generated by the fall, which is infinite. I say that the Library is unending. The idealists argue that the hexagonal rooms are a necessary from of absolute space or, at least, of our intuition of space. They reason that a triangular or pentagonal room is inconceivable. (The mystics claim that their ecstasy reveals to them a circular chamber containing a great circular book, whose spine is continuous and which follows the complete circle of the walls; but their testimony is suspect; their words, obscure. This cyclical book is God.) Let it suffice now for me to repeat the classic dictum: The Library is a sphere whose exact center is any one of its hexagons and whose circumference is inaccessible.
There are five shelves for each of the hexagon's walls; each shelf contains thirty-five books of uniform format; each book is of four hundred and ten pages; each page, of forty lines, each line, of some eighty letters which are black in color. There are also letters on the spine of each book; these letters do not indicate or prefigure what the pages will say. I know that this incoherence at one time seemed mysterious. Before summarizing the solution (whose discovery, in spite of its tragic projections, is perhaps the capital fact in history) I wish to recall a few axioms.
First: The Library exists ab aeterno. This truth, whose immediate corollary is the future eternity of the world, cannot be placed in doubt by any reasonable mind. Man, the imperfect librarian, may be the product of chance or of malevolent demiurgi; the universe, with its elegant endowment of shelves, of enigmatical volumes, of inexhaustible stairways for the traveler and latrines for the seated librarian, can only be the work of a god. To perceive the distance between the divine and the human, it is enough to compare these crude wavering symbols which my fallible hand scrawls on the cover of a book, with the organic letters inside: punctual, delicate, perfectly black, inimitably symmetrical.
Second: The orthographical symbols are twenty-five in number. (1) This finding made it possible, three hundred years ago, to formulate a general theory of the Library and solve satisfactorily the problem which no conjecture had deciphered: the formless and chaotic nature of almost all the books. One which my father saw in a hexagon on circuit fifteen ninety-four was made up of the letters MCV, perversely repeated from the first line to the last. Another (very much consulted in this area) is a mere labyrinth of letters, but the next-to-last page says Oh time thy pyramids. This much is already known: for every sensible line of straightforward statement, there are leagues of senseless cacophonies, verbal jumbles and incoherences. (I know of an uncouth region whose librarians repudiate the vain and superstitious custom of finding a meaning in books and equate it with that of finding a meaning in dreams or in the chaotic lines of one's palm ... They admit that the inventors of this writing imitated the twenty-five natural symbols, but maintain that this application is accidental and that the books signify nothing in themselves. This dictum, we shall see, is not entirely fallacious.)
For a long time it was believed that these impenetrable books corresponded to past or remote languages. It is true that the most ancient men, the first librarians, used a language quite different from the one we now speak; it is true that a few miles to the right the tongue is dialectical and that ninety floors farther up, it is incomprehensible. All this, I repeat, is true, but four hundred and ten pages of inalterable MCV's cannot correspond to any language, no matter how dialectical or rudimentary it may be. Some insinuated that each letter could influence the following one and that the value of MCV in the third line of page 71 was not the one the same series may have in another position on another page, but this vague thesis did not prevail. Others thought of cryptographs; generally, this conjecture has been accepted, though not in the sense in which it was formulated by its originators.
Five hundred years ago, the chief of an upper hexagon (2) came upon a book as confusing as the others, but which had nearly two pages of homogeneous lines. He showed his find to a wandering decoder who told him the lines were written in Portuguese; others said they were Yiddish. Within a century, the language was established: a Samoyedic Lithuanian dialect of Guarani, with classical Arabian inflections. The content was also deciphered: some notions of combinative analysis, illustrated with examples of variations with unlimited repetition. These examples made it possible for a librarian of genius to discover the fundamental law of the Library. This thinker observed that all the books, no matter how diverse they might be, are made up of the same elements: the space, the period, the comma, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet. He also alleged a fact which travelers have confirmed: In the vast Library there are no two identical books. From these two incontrovertible premises he deduced that the Library is total and that its shelves register all the possible combinations of the twenty-odd orthographical symbols (a number which, though extremely vast, is not infinite): Everything: the minutely detailed history of the future, the archangels' autobiographies, the faithful catalogues of the Library, thousands and thousands of false catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of those catalogues, the demonstration of the fallacy of the true catalogue, the Gnostic gospel of Basilides, the commentary on that gospel, the commentary on the commentary on that gospel, the true story of your death, the translation of every book in all languages, the interpolations of every book in all books.
When it was proclaimed that the Library contained all books, the first impression was one of extravagant happiness. All men felt themselves to be the masters of an intact and secret treasure. There was no personal or world problem whose eloquent solution did not exist in some hexagon. The universe was justified, the universe suddenly usurped the unlimited dimensions of hope. At that time a great deal was said about the Vindications: books of apology and prophecy which vindicated for all time the acts of every man in the universe and retained prodigious arcana for his future. Thousands of the greedy abandoned their sweet native hexagons and rushed up the stairways, urged on by the vain intention of finding their Vindication. These pilgrims disputed in the narrow corridors, proferred dark curses, strangled each other on the divine stairways, flung the deceptive books into the air shafts, met their death cast down in a similar fashion by the inhabitants of remote regions. Others went mad ... The Vindications exist (I have seen two which refer to persons of the future, to persons who are perhaps not imaginary) but the searchers did not remember that the possibility of a man's finding his Vindication, or some treacherous variation thereof, can be computed as zero.
At that time it was also hoped that a clarification of humanity's basic mysteries -- the origin of the Library and of time -- might be found. It is verisimilar that these grave mysteries could be explained in words: if the language of philosophers is not sufficient, the multiform Library will have produced the unprecedented language required, with its vocabularies and grammars. For four centuries now men have exhausted the hexagons ... There are official searchers, inquisitors. I have seen them in the performance of their function: they always arrive extremely tired from their journeys; they speak of a broken stairway which almost killed them; they talk with the librarian of galleries and stairs; sometimes they pick up the nearest volume and leaf through it, looking for infamous words. Obviously, no one expects to discover anything.
As was natural, this inordinate hope was followed by an excessive depression. The certitude that some shelf in some hexagon held precious books and that these precious books were inaccessible, seemed almost intolerable. A blasphemous sect suggested that the searches should cease and that all men should juggle letters and symbols until they constructed, by an improbable gift of chance, these canonical books. The authorities were obliged to issue severe orders. The sect disappeared, but in my childhood I have seen old men who, for long periods of time, would hide in the latrines with some metal disks in a forbidden dice cup and feebly mimic the divine disorder.
Others, inversely, believed that it was fundamental to eliminate useless works. They invaded the hexagons, showed credentials which were not always false, leafed through a volume with displeasure and condemned whole shelves: their hygienic, ascetic furor caused the senseless perdition of millions of books. Their name is execrated, but those who deplore the ``treasures'' destroyed by this frenzy neglect two notable facts. One: the Library is so enormous that any reduction of human origin is infinitesimal. The other: every copy is unique, irreplaceable, but (since the Library is total) there are always several hundred thousand imperfect facsimiles: works which differ only in a letter or a comma. Counter to general opinion, I venture to suppose that the consequences of the Purifiers' depredations have been exaggerated by the horror these fanatics produced. They were urged on by the delirium of trying to reach the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books whose format is smaller than usual, all-powerful, illustrated and magical.
We also know of another superstition of that time: that of the Man of the Book. On some shelf in some hexagon (men reasoned) there must exist a book which is the formula and perfect compendium of all the rest: some librarian has gone through it and he is analogous to a god. In the language of this zone vestiges of this remote functionary's cult still persist. Many wandered in search of Him. For a century they have exhausted in vain the most varied areas. How could one locate the venerated and secret hexagon which housed Him? Someone proposed a regressive method: To locate book A, consult first book B which indicates A's position; to locate book B, consult first a book C, and so on to infinity ... In adventures such as these, I have squandered and wasted my years. It does not seem unlikely to me that there is a total book on some shelf of the universe; (3) I pray to the unknown gods that a man -- just one, even though it were thousands of years ago! -- may have examined and read it. If honor and wisdom and happiness are not for me, let them be for others. Let heaven exist, though my place be in hell. Let me be outraged and annihilated, but for one instant, in one being, let Your enormous Library be justified. The impious maintain that nonsense is normal in the Library and that the reasonable (and even humble and pure coherence) is an almost miraculous exception. They speak (I know) of the ``feverish Library whose chance volumes are constantly in danger of changing into others and affirm, negate and confuse everything like a delirious divinity.'' These words, which not only denounce the disorder but exemplify it as well, notoriously prove their authors' abominable taste and desperate ignorance. In truth, the Library includes all verbal structures, all variations permitted by the twenty-five orthographical symbols, but not a single example of absolute nonsense. It is useless to observe that the best volume of the many hexagons under my administration is entitled The Combed Thunderclap and another The Plaster Cramp and another Axaxaxas mlö. These phrases, at first glance incoherent, can no doubt be justified in a cryptographical or allegorical manner; such a justification is verbal and, ex hypothesi, already figures in the Library. I cannot combine some characters
dhcmrlchtdj
which the divine Library has not foreseen and which in one of its secret tongues do not contain a terrible meaning. No one can articulate a syllable which is not filled with tenderness and fear, which is not, in one of these languages, the powerful name of a god. To speak is to fall into tautology. This wordy and useless epistle already exists in one of the thirty volumes of the five shelves of one of the innumerable hexagons -- and its refutation as well. (An n number of possible languages use the same vocabulary; in some of them, the symbol library allows the correct definition a ubiquitous and lasting system of hexagonal galleries, but library is bread or pyramid or anything else, and these seven words which define it have another value. You who read me, are You sure of understanding my language?)
The methodical task of writing distracts me from the present state of men. The certitude that everything has been written negates us or turns us into phantoms. I know of districts in which the young men prostrate themselves before books and kiss their pages in a barbarous manner, but they do not know how to decipher a single letter. Epidemics, heretical conflicts, peregrinations which inevitably degenerate into banditry, have decimated the population. I believe I have mentioned suicides, more and more frequent with the years. Perhaps my old age and fearfulness deceive me, but I suspect that the human species -- the unique species -- is about to be extinguished, but the Library will endure: illuminated, solitary, infinite, perfectly motionless, equipped with precious volumes, useless, incorruptible, secret.
I have just written the word ``infinite.'' I have not interpolated this adjective out of rhetorical habit; I say that it is not illogical to think that the world is infinite. Those who judge it to be limited postulate that in remote places the corridors and stairways and hexagons can conceivably come to an end -- which is absurd. Those who imagine it to be without limit forget that the possible number of books does have such a limit. I venture to suggest this solution to the ancient problem: The Library is unlimited and cyclical. If an eternal traveler were to cross it in any direction, after centuries he would see that the same volumes were repeated in the same disorder (which, thus repeated, would be an order: the Order). My solitude is gladdened by this elegant hope.

39

What was the funniest Bush moment in last nights debate?

by IronGland in

jw
friends

first responders, nuclear safety, etc.).

"fighting so vociferously.

"of course i know it was osama bin laden who attacked us!

IronGland

first responders, nuclear safety, etc.)."
"Fighting so vociferously."
"Of COURSE I know it was Osama bin Laden who attacked us!"
Referring to Iraq: "The enemy attacked us!"
"I know how the world works!"
"I'm trying to put a leash on my daughters."
"It's hard work to try to love her as best I can..."
"Let me finish!" (when no one had tried to interrupt him)
Asking for a rebuttal, getting it, then standing there and saying NOTHING
"Of course we're after Saddam Hussein -- I mean, bin Laden!"
"You forgot Poland!"
Other / I'm just amused he even bothered to show up

52

Lawnmowers... what is your oppinion???

by Elsewhere in

jw
friends

it is getting close to time for me to buy a lawnmower.

when i was growing up and cutting my dad's lawn he always had a self-propelled lawnmower.

i was very lucky in that i never had to use a push-mower.

IronGland

One should not worry about the speculations of men regarding lawnmowers. Mowing the lawn may even have a pagan origin! The babylonians were famous in ancient times for their hanging gardens. They tried to bring nature under their own control, something only God can do. Would it be proper to imitate these pagans by trying to bring your lawn under control? Certainly not! There have even been reports of men being attacked by bees or having heatstroke when engaging in these practices! In these final days before har-mageddon a wise christian will spend their time bearing Witness to Jehovah.

32

What do you think is going to happen in the future...

by Country Girl in

our planet is chanigng so much.

there are wars, there is pollution, there is over pupulation.

what do you think is going to happen in the future?