Zixar

Doorleven: Yes, I have. Matter of fact, I prefer them now to standard woven boxers or knit briefs. They aren't as constricting as briefs, and yet they give much more support than boxers. Better still, since they're knit and not woven, they stretch instead of bunching up. I used to wonder why my wife bought me the gray ones... Learn something new every day! ;)-->

searcher: To be fair, it wasn't all bad. You don't build a 100,000-member cult by daily disembowelings. The experience varied greatly from area to area. The fundamental idea behind PFAL, that it might not be God's fault the Bible is misunderstood, is solid. However, Wierwille used the trust he built up to slip a few curveballs in. Since most of us weren't Th.D.s, whenever he backed up a few of his early claims logically, we weren't watching carefully enough to notice when he was just a bit off the plate on some things. It got to the point where some folks worshipped him so much that he could have thrown the ball into left field and these followers would still think it was a strike. (Hi, Mike.) When I was involved, in the mid-80s, my area was actually a wonderful place to be. People got along, they helped each other, the local leadership took good care of us--it pretty much worked like the brochures advertised. But when new leadership brought in a wave of jackbooted legalistic "Way Corps" to run things, it quickly soured. There was none of the love of Christ in the faux-expert "reproof", no wisdom in the phony-credentialed "correction". If it were the Army instead, imagine a bunch of savvy, veteran NCOs being replaced by a bunch of head-up-the-a$$, 90-day-wonder, ROTC "butterbar" 2nd Lieutenants. You know, the kind of smarmy git who would stand in front of the enlisted barracks with his shiny new bars and scream at every private who didn't immediately salute his scrawny carcass? Demanding respect instead of commanding it, that sort of thing. Well, those of us in our area who weren't worshipping the golden calf yet saw that what these "butterbars" were preaching was off of even what VPW had taught. So we ignored them and went up the chain of command, only to find out to our horror that all of the decent officers had been drummed out in favor of an idiot General's (Martindale) yes-men. We bailed on the ministry, but most of us didn't bail on God. It was only later that most of us found out that the corruption hadn't just started, it had just stopped being covered up as expertly. Still, I'm one of the ones who doesn't blame God for all the hurt done, I blame the men who abused His name for their own lusts. I'm actually thankful to God for everything I learned in The Way...especially that bit about never again taking another man's word for what God really wants me to do. Hope that helps clarify things a bit, Zixar

searcher: When TWI started shedding members drastically after 1986, many of them formed up into smaller offshoot ministries. Some were near-identical TWI-clones, others branched out with new dogma. Some of the largest remaining offshoot ministries are Christian Educational Services (CES), founded by John Lynn, John Schoenheit, and Mark Graeser, and Christian Family Fellowship (CFF), started by Wayne Clapp and John Shroyer. Vince Finnegan started another, whose name escapes me at the moment. All were former high-ups in the TWI hierarchy at one time or another.

P-Mosh: In the interests of full disclosure, I did think it was a well-crafted vulgarity.

P-Mosh: Yes, I've seen it, and it merely confirms the opinion I had formed about these people. , the whole bitter, two-faced lot of them.You surprised me, though. I hadn't exactly pegged you as a vulgarian of that magnitude.

Tom: Before you get all worked up defending certain posters, there's something you should know. Private topic, if you'd be so kind.

Yes, but the entire bandwidth is doubled, so you should see the same fluctuation off of 3Mb instead of 1.5Mb.

Works for me.

krys: That's typical. FF has far less bloated code in it than IE, so it doesn't have to jump through as many hoops to get to the good stuff.

satori: Long time, no post. Good summation. You might want to mosey on over to the Political Forum and introduce yourself. I'm sure you'll find many fresh viewpoints to stimulate and challenge your debating skills. Well, stimulate them, anyway.

Mark, Please check our shared PT. Thanks.

Mark: You asked for an explanation. If you choose to see it as a rationalization instead, I can't stop you. Before you cast too many stones, though, Mark, you might want to take a look at your own track record in the Political forum. You have little room to be comparing pots and kettles.

Mark: There's a differnce between offering a "differing point of view", and acting like an "obnoxious jackass". The fact that certain people choose the latter doesn't exactly make it my responsibility to smile at them and take it. You're directly disagreeing with me, that's fine. Nothing obnoxious about your post at all. On another thread, Long Gone was very critical of my past behavior, and gave several concrete examples to back it up. I disagree with some of his observations, but he wasn't being a jackass about it. He was hardly even sarcastic about it. I could pull a R-cky and try to deny it, rationalize it, or sweep it under the rug, but that would make me even more of a hypocrite than Long Gone's case currently supports. I really hope that boys and girls like [removed] can find a forum where they can feel free to snipe, bitch, and vent with all the four-letter words and half-witted personal slurs they can come up with. That's just never been what this place was all about, nor should it become that place.

Long Gone: Point taken. However, just because I happen to agree with Penn & Teller on a lot of things, I don't consider them infallible, not by a long shot. The difference between espousing a negative opinion on one hand and being intentionally inflammatory on the other isn't all that difficult to discern. Now, I'm sure in your exhaustive research of every single post I've ever written, you have come across a bucketful of times where I've failed to qualify something I've said with an "I think XYZ...", or "In my opinion, ABC..." so I won't claim to be innocent on that account. But everyone has lines they won't cross, and lines they won't allow to be crossed. In the cases where I've caused unintentional offense, I've generally tried to apologize quickly. The times I've intentionally caused offense were usually in response to others' doing so first. Each situation has to be handled on its own qualifications, and that requires an increased level of moderation. Since Paw has taken steps to put that into place (and no, I'm FAR from immune to it) we'll just have to wait and see if it addresses the problem of offensive posts adequately enough.

Was that the cue for the mandolin solo?

Good topic for another poll...[click] Hey, that thing's not loaded, is it?

Steve: They do, but it takes a long time for something to fall into the public domain. 99 years or some such. EDIT: Ok, thanks to the Sonny Bono Copyright Extension Act of 1998, there will be NO copyright expirations for anything until 2018. That means that all the stuff between 1923 and 1943 that might have become public domain (like Mickey Mouse(!)) won't. The decision will have to be re-evaluated in 2018. Therefore, ALL of VPW's works' copyrights are still valid and in force.

Steve: Why wouldn't they be? Even if they were copyrighted in VPW's name instead of TWI's, his estate would still own them.

WW: The Allow Right-Click plugin doesn't always work.

Even though TWI didn't produce that CD-ROM, they still own the copyrights on the material. It doesn't matter if the person doesn't charge for it, they still own the rights. I used to have a copy of it, but I tossed it in the shredder a couple of months ago.

Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. What's your excuse, then?

WordWolf: Well said. ;)-->

herbie: For this? Or for disbelief-based topics in general?

Chuck: Oh, ouch. I don't remember the last time someone "zinged" me like that. Wait....yes, I do. It was in second grade, but I think the poor kid had just been eating too much paste. If you're spoiling for a fight, though, I'll give you some help. Just tell excathedra you don't like her. You kids have fun, now!

Whoa. I don't think TWI's lawyers are going to be too happy with that.