WordWolf

It came up on SNT's here and there. They were required to hit up EVERYONE they knew until they made the total, no matter how casually they knew them. One tape I had contained a clip from Vince F chiding some candidate (anonymously, at least) for saying he was unable to find anyone, but he hadn't exhausted every mathematical possibility by literally asking everyone he'd ever met who was in twi. That's why, apparently, someone here once posted the translation: "Hello." = "Will you sponsor me for the Corps?"

"I'm ready for my closeup, Mr DeMille."

You can probably reconstruct the name if you think of what the show is designed to do... (Besides "get viewers.")

This was done recently-a page ago...

(Two different shows-answer either to take the round.) What I really want is a television show about fixing up taverns and drinking establishments that are in danger of closing down. Really? Ok, you'll want to tune in to this one... No, I'd actually prefer one where eating establishments are fixed by finding out what the waitstaff's really doing when the owner's not there, via hidden cams. Really? Then I have a different show for you...

Mickey Rourke The Wrestler Marissa Tomei

What I really want is a television show about fixing up taverns and drinking establishments that are in danger of closing down. Really? Ok, you'll want to tune in to this one...

I'm reading it all and commenting on a little. When trying to pin down the writing of the Pentateuch, I think we can say with confidence it was written some time before the carrying-away into Babylon, because that marks the time when the Samaritan and Israelite texts are divided into hard categories. Yet they are nearly identical concerning the Pentateuch. Before that would take a lot of work to narrow the range more. Good. I rather prefer when we are honest about when we are forming opinions and when we are working from nearly-ironclad documentation, for example. With some people suggesting the Masoretic Text was put together at the end of the Babylonian captivity specifically to restore and preserve Scripture that may have been altered during that time, you are hardly the only person suggesting that. http://www.gotquestions.org/Masoretic-Text.html Interesting possibility. I think it COULD have happened this way, but I don't see enough to convince me it PROBABLY went this way. If I were only considering that one vs Moses writing down the Pentateuch, I'd consider that a False Dilemma, since there's more than those 2 possibilities, of course. I'm glad you're enjoying this. At the least, I'm interested in seeing where this is going.

AFAIK, it wasn't officially called that until the 1988-1989 Exodus had ended. They were already using that terminology during the exodus, but hadn't codified it into a named system. However, it was an extension of things vpw did- like when he just announced to a corps class the entire class was being cut, just like that. He allowed them to all grovel and return if they wanted, and the class continued with those that did so. We had discussions that included that on the thread about lcm's book worshipping vpw, "VP and Me." The thread was called "vp and me in wonderland". www.greasespotcafe.com/ipb/topic/8019-vp-and-me-in-wonderland/ Generally, lcm's craziness was distillations in public of what vpw did in private. IMHO, vpw knew he was conning people, so he covered his tracks. lcm was conned into believing it all, so he did it openly.

That's it.

A move to California exposes a family to a plan to raise new Adolf Hitlers as Nazi vampires.

I'm not disagreeing with you as to the general principle. I will, however, remain cautious as to jumping on any particular bandwagon, because some amazing new suppositions can be swallowed that way rather than caught by careful consideration. On a number of things, I'm still mulling them over or awaiting more information before even considering them in any substantial manner. I agree with this as phrased, but as to specifics will evaluate everything on its own merits, rather than accept or reject based purely on position. *reads* It's possible I could quibble over wording here, but I'd rather not strain too many gnats here. I'll agree with this as written, that the Tablets made that claim on those lines. (I'm taking as a given that the translation is correct, which is a much bigger jump but I won't lose sleep over it.) If it's true, you didn't lay a sufficient foundation to accept that other than "Steve said it, I believe it" stuff. I expect you had a much longer route to get there than you posted, with a lot more documentation. Without seeing some of it, I have no reason to agree with your assertions. Well, other than the first murderer part, but it's what followed that sentence that I'm questioning, obviously. Apparently not, although the 1st edition DDG's entry on Marduk claimed that "His battles with Tiamat are legendary." Of course, AD&D had an entirely different Tiamat, and just used the name. I don't know yet if the mythical Marduk is anything like the DDG Marduk. (Never cared before, and I'm barely curious now.)

You're keeping us honest about semantics. Steve's phrasing it inaccurately, but he means to say it was "widely believed (incorrectly)." We agree that's what he means. I'm just waiting for a link I can confirm his claim it was so believed. (Yes, Steve, you mentioned a book. If this was academia, that might have been enough depending on the context. Since we don't all have access to that book, and we all have access to the internet, however, a link would serve us all better than citations of hard copies of the material. For that matter, if none of us have the physical book, it's only an improved version of the old bluff about some old Jewish text. Not that I think you were doing that, but you did get my point.)

"Star Wars Episode IV: the New Hope Springs."

You have the show correct. I was disappointed that the clue was never displayed, since the spelling and capitalization made a huge difference in unraveling the clue. "Riddle me this, Arrah, Arrah, and gather round. The work of this hero is Legion-bound. He multiplies N by the number of He, and in this room the Thing you'll see." Jan Arrah is ELEMENT Lad of the Legion of Super-Heroes. The atomic number of N (Nitrogen) multiplied by the Atomic Number of He (Helium) gives us (7x2) 14, the Atomic Number of Silicon. "The Thing" is a superhero who appears made of rock. The main elemental component of rock is commonly Silicon. The clue did not take them TO the comic book store. It took them FROM the comic book store's Riddler display to the next location, at the umiversity.

That's it.

Steve, you were asked to document your claim, not pontificate further on what is or was "common knowledge." I can find CLAIMS that things are "widely known", "indesputable", etc etc all over the internet. They clutter up the search for accurate, documentable knowledge and intelligent discussion. vpw himself was a notorious purveyor of such claims. If I take it as given that you went on for 2 pages saying how indisputable your claims were and how they're common, can you just cut to the chase and link some documentation for them? I'm not calling you a liar, but it shouldn't be hard to make documentation a standard policy when making claims-and we SHOULD be documenting our claims. Otherwise, we're no better than those who construct convincing-sounding fiction and claim there's documentation backing them up, but they won't provide it. ("I found an old Jewish text...") Ok, so the translation of "nephilim" as "giant" was not confined to that verse, and Genesis 13 gives us more information. *reads* Ok, I'm skipping the possibility that the spies were completely cooking their report. They wanted to convince the people to NOT go in, so they made the inhabitants sound unbeatable. It is POSSIBLE they did that by lying to the public and making up residents. "Yeah, and they have fire-breathing dragons that patrol the city, just inside the walls." Something like that. It's possible but less likely than the other results. I'm seeing that the report was consistent that the residents were big and strong, moreso than the Israelites, people who might be referred to as "mighty men of renown." Really tough fighters, big dudes. I could see them being referred to as "giants" in the sense of "Andre the Giant" but not in the sense of "giants who are several stories tall," fantastical beasts or Plinean giants. Modern usage refers to some famous people as "giants", "a giant of industry" and so on. In the Biblical accounts, I see them as PHYSICALLY big, imposing, and renowned for such. So, I don't think anyone (Steve can correct me if I'm wrong) is saying that we in the present should think there were titanic individuals towering many meters or yards over the (other?) humans on the planet. The claim is that people in the past thought there were. I'm reading lots of claims that it was "common knowledge" that people believed that. Howe about a link to something reputable that backs up those assertions? That was the point of divergence. Link to a non-flaky article about the fossil finds, please. I can see the other stuff without going past a Bible or concordance, and I can get those in front of me easily enough and check your claims. For the rest, please supply a link. (I ask for something non-flaky because the internet is loaded with silliness as well as genuine scholarship, and if Steve is as correct as he is convinced he is, the genuine scholarship pages should be easy for him to find with a relatively short search, distinguishing them from the "space aliens stole Elvis' brain" level of pages.)

"Riddle me this, Arrah, Arrah, and gather round. The work of this hero is Legion-bound. He multiplies N by the number of He, and in this room the Thing you'll see."

"I bet you can squeal like a pig."

He had to rush the filming because the furniture for the set was "stolen." vpw had told the company he wanted the furniture. So, he took the furniture. Then they took the furniture directly to the set, filmed the sessions, then took the furniture back to the company and said he changed his mind, and now wants his money back. He deceived the furniture store, and robbed them of their proper income by obtaining a service from them and refusing to pay for it. It has, but in twi, they say to even THINK about that is "thinking evil." One is not allowed to think in ways not specifically approved by twi, especially when they would result in a negative performance evaluation of twi by the thinker. I'm sure they still teach that one of Eve's biggest mistakes was to CONSIDER. THINKING is, de facto, a crime in twi.

"Nightmare on Elm Street", in one form or another.

That's it.

No need to be cheeky. I'm speaking plainly here. Theoretically possible, but nobody's claiming that one. Cain set out specifically to make a place for as many people as he could convince to congregate. This has never been an impossible task in history, so the question as to if it would work in THIS place and time would be if he had what it would take to attract them to the location, and the materials and help to put it in place. The word "city" wouldn't have been used in "a very, very loose manner." It would have been used in the manner it had been at the time, and only the last few centuries have caused the word to mean something different now- something many times bigger and more crowded than it used to mean. It would have been easily the biggest congregation of homes and businesses at the time, and could have set the standard for later "cities" to build upon. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City#Distinction_between_cities_and_towns "Even within the English-speaking world there is no one standard definition of a city: the term may be used either for a town possessing city status; for an urban locality exceeding an arbitrary population size; for a town dominating other towns with particular regional economic or administrative significance." If you take a look, even in modern practice, in several countries, the words "city" and "town" are used interchangeably in practice. In fact, in the US of A, the "town" of Hempstead, New York has a population (2004 census figure) of 755,785, and the "city" of Cary, North Carolina has a population (2000 census figure) of 296. I don't see it as a jump that Cain would set himself a long-term task of making a large settlement, and eventually getting more than 296 permanent residents. No, I'd say he set out to build a "town" (as I envision a "town"), and eventually succeeded in building the needed parts (I have no background in civil engineering nor town planning, so I don't know what it would entail now nor then.) During that time, he set about making it something to attract others to visit, then settle in. Decades later, a city. (Or "town", as you and I picture it.) I would expect more than 296 permanent residents.

I believe there was a story-arc in a comic book similar to that, with Superman on War-World competing. Should come as no surprise by now, of course. There's only so many ideas out there, and with 4-5 Superman comics per month at one point, there's bound to be some overlaps when it's showtime.

No, I think it was right to point out it was unsupported, and the phrasing DID need work.