I'm not. How 'bout you other guys?

"By the time you swear you're his, Shivering and sighing,
And he vows his passion is Infinite, undying - Lady,
make a note of this: One of you is lying."














Fishman over Global Fishiness
"The glass seafood display case in Wal-Mart Supercenter #2641 near Allentown, Pennsylvania, is small, but it is a mouthwatering testament to the power of global sourcing. From Thailand -- sea scallops and three kinds of shrimp. From Namibia -- orange roughy. From the United States -- swordfish steaks and fresh shrimp. From China -- squid, scallops, tilapia, and crawfish. From Russia -- Alaskan king crab. From the Faeroe Islands -- cod." (The Faeroe Islands are an archipelago in the North Atlantic, halfway between Iceland and Norway, population forty-seven thousand -- no Wal-Mart, but some Wal-Mart effect.)

Equal time for OBL (Read this at your own risk)
"My message to you is about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how to end them. I did not intend to speak to you about this, because this issue has already been decided. Only metal breaks metal, and our situation, thank God, is only getting better and better, while your situation is the opposite of that."






The Pleasures of the Text
"There used to be an ad on subway cars, next to the ones for bail bondsmen and hemorrhoid creams, that said: "if u cn rd ths u cn gt a gd job & mo pa." The ad was promoting a kind of stenography training that is now extinct, presumably. Who uses stenographers anymore? But the notion that there might be value in easily understood shorthand has proved to be prescient. If u cn rd these days, and, just as important, if your thumbs are nimble enough so that u cn als snd, you can conduct your entire emotional life just by transmitting and receiving messages on the screen of your cellphone. You can flirt there, arrange a date, break up and - in Malaysia at least - even get a divorce.

On the Internet there are several Web sites that function as virtual Hallmark stores and offer ready-made text messages of breathtaking banality. There are even ready-made Dear John letters, enabling you to dump someone without actually speaking to him or her. Far from being considered rude, in Britain this has proved to be a particularly popular way of ending a relationship - a little more thoughtful than leaving an e-mail message but not nearly as messy as breaking up in person - and it's also catching on over here.

Compared with the rest of the world, Americans are actually laggards when it comes to text-messaging. This is partly for technical reasons. Because we don't have a single, national phone company, there are several competing and incompatible wireless technologies in use, and at the same time actual voice calls are far cheaper here than in most places, so there is less incentive for texting. But in many developing countries, mobile-phone technology has so far outstripped land-line availability that cellphones are the preferred, and sometimes the only, means of communication, and text messages are cheaper than voice ones."

The new Missionary Language
Hpy RU por; da kngdm is yrs!
Hpy RU hngry; U wl Bfild!
Hpy RU sad; u wl lol!
Hpy RU whn ppl h8 U Bcos of da Lrd!
B gld&dnce 4jy Bcos a gt prz is kpt 4U in hvn.

Luke 6: 20-23
Hannah Welwyn, Garden City, UK