TrueTomHarley

No. Billy belonged to our in-house whack-a-mole generator of souls. AI couldn’t crank out personas as quickly as he. They usually met the same end and for the same reason.
I can’t imagine AlanF presenting as anyone other than AlanF
He presented here exactly this way.
Last night at the mid-week meeting, criticism arose over Stephen’s reply to the Sanhedrin, that he didn’t actually answer their question. More than once I pulled a ‘Stephen’ on Alan’s gotcha questions and he invariably responded the same as that august body did to the evangelizer.
Then there was that time I signed on as ‘Dr Adhominum’ and tried to gradually draw him into a discussion of evolutionary psychology and the very recent hypothesis that boisterous flatulence evolved because it would quickly clear the area of predators, same as it does today with the general populace. To his credit, he saw through the ruse within 2 or 3 posts. Though, in typical AlanF fashion that he cannot be wrong in anything, even the most insignificant of details, he later insisted that he saw through it instantly.
These guys who bluster about their superior knowledge and just assume it puts them in the driver’s seat of anything usually get my goat. I don’t know how God can resist the temptation of stopping the sun in its tracks for a while just to throw off their calculations.

In a recent response to JR, I wrote:
”Key to me is Jesus words at Matthew 11:25
At that time Jesus said in response: “I publicly praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and intellectual ones and have revealed them to young children. 
“What other topic is like that, in which young children get the sense of it but the wise and intellectual ones do not? I think it means that a person ought park his/her intellectualism at the door, because it doesn’t help. Per Jesus’ words, it may even hinder.
“In any academic topic I can think of, the wise and intellectual always have a leg up over the young children. Here, they lose out. Translation: Worship of God is not an academic subject and the biggest mistake one can make is to treat it as though it is. . . . 
“So, at least three factors exist that trump intellectualism: obedience, humility, and love. For the most part, those who frame discussion of faith as an intellectual endeavor make no mention whatsoever of these qualities.”
Alan may have had some of those latter qualities. But, if so, he displayed none of them here. But you only see of people what they choose to reveal, plus perhaps a bit of speculative  reading between the lines. I’ll allow he was ‘passionate’ and a more complex person than he revealed here.

I dunno. I think this is more like my son-in-law not going to another house until he has cleaned out my fridge.

Oh, yeah! Is he obnoxious? Send him right over! We thrive on people like that! Just doing our bit so the open club can stay pristine.
I hear next on the 10-year list is that blogging’s okay, provided you avoid those ne’er-do-wells in the closed club

Some pix I snapped earlier today although most of the small babies are hiding until feeding time. There are none in the first picture, but if you look closely at the second picture, you might be able to pick out about six of them.

They fired him:
 

Just once I’d like to see a Pharma ad in which the actors, rather than acting out the touted benefits of the drug, instead act out the side effects of the voiceover—gasping, clutching their throats, turning blue, hair falling out, doubling over, dropping dead, straining on the toilet to ‘go’, swiveling about in dizziness.

Thank you, Dr. Adhominem. Coming from such a learned source as you, it means a lot. I pledge to always do my best.

What in the world are you talking about? I have no idea who those two fellows are.
As for the downvote, it’s because Vic Vomodog and I used to pull shoulder to shoulder in the work until he went over to the dark side. Believe me, he hated the book TrueTom vs the Apostates! and rejoiced when I took it down for a few misspellings.

It doesn’t matter. No matter what the topic is or where it is, it always boils down to a squabble with George.

You suck, TrueTom.

A brilliant analysis, TrueTom. Absolutely spot-on! Of course, all of your posts are and I have come to expect no less of you.

It doesn’t matter. No matter what the topic is or where it is, it always boils down to a squabble with George.

It doesn’t matter. No matter what the topic is or where it is, it always boils down to a squabble with George.

It doesn’t matter. No matter what the topic is or where it is, it always boils down to a squabble with George.

Do you think i could capture the essence of it? Remember, when I write of myself, I am full of self-deprecatory humor. Would that work for you?

Do you think i could capture the essence of it? Remember, when I write of myself, I am full of self-deprecatory humor. Would that work for you?

As Jehovah’s Witnesses, we are encouraged not only to take an interest in people, but to ‘love people’—the title of our latest brochure. The “eyes of God” want us to do this. It is very hard to do this with someone who reveals nothing of himself, who eternally thinks everyone is out to get him, and who seemingly exists only to criticize others.
You should spill more.

I think there is.

I think we can take Geo Jackson’s words as a template. ‘You don’t want to take sides,’ he says, and to show the challenge of keeping neutral, he uses the example of contesting politicians in Australia, one of whom wanted to draft people of Jackson’s age into the military and one of whom did not. Now that would test your resolve to stay neutral, he said, nonetheless you must do it.
If he was as ignorant of politics as some seem to think is the gold standard, he would not have even known which politician’s views would be to his benefit and which one would not. Of course, I leaned into him on this point, informing him that:
I’m sure he gave my words all the consideration they deserved before instantly turning his attention to other matters.

I think we can take Geo Jackson’s words as a template. ‘You don’t want to take sides,’ he says, and to show the challenge of keeping neutral, he uses the example of contesting politicians in Australia, one of whom wanted to draft people of Jackson’s age into the military and one of whom did not. Now that would test your resolve to stay neutral, he said, nonetheless you must do it.
If he was as ignorant of politics as some seem to think is the gold standard, he would not have even known which politician’s views would be to his benefit and which one would not. Of course, I leaned into him on this point, informing him that:
I’m sure he gave my words all the consideration they deserved before instantly turning his attention to other matters.

Well, whose fault is that? Next thing, you will be calling me a cult leader for having manipulated you into spilling it.
It is not shocking to be informed, though neither is it a sin to opt out. One firebrand brother on X stated emphatically, straight out of the blue, “Jehovah’s Witness are NOT INTERESTED in politics!” Well, actually some of them are, I told him. ‘I think what you are looking to say is that they do not take sides. 
‘They are NOT INTERESTED IN POLITICS!’ he roared back and then blocked me.

You might be right, but I have a feeling it was more of a carryover from the 1940's. This was a rough era for the Watchtower, and opposition could get crazy in some areas of the US. I don't know that they ever had much of a problem with intruders. The guards did their rounds at night, and couldn't turn on any lights, with just a flashlight through dark hallways and corridors. 
At Brooklyn Bethel, every four to six months, all single brothers (under 30, I think) would get an assignment for either night-time dish duty (to help out the overnight kitchen crew) or guard duty. I always traded my dish duty for night-time guard duty because it gave me the morning off the next day, and I hate doing dishes. But we had no weapons and were told never to approach an intruder, just call the police. In fact, it was just a matter of walking around with a key and turning it into a "time-clock" at a location on two ends of each floor, and making that round two or three times during the night. If we found windows open we were to close them, and if we found any lights left on we were to turn them off, of if we smelled an excess of 'flammables' we could turn on a light and investigate. I was told that making these rounds reduced our insurance rates considerably. The closest thing to an intruder I ever found was a Bethelite who had stayed in the Squibb factory building overnight to hide away in a dark place with someone I assumed was his girlfriend. 

He even says he drives a Subaru:

I’ve never heard a Tucker excerpt I didn’t like. That said, I haven’t heard too many. None of those other people do I know. In the early days of Covid, however, I forwarded a Joe Rogan interview with Dr. McCullough to HQ, hoping that if they found it as informative as I did, they would overlook Joe’s explosion of profanity towards the end. Probably, I put myself on their radar screen as much as you during your recent visit, during which they said to themselves,  “What is it this politician would like to tell?” Others: “He seems to be a proclaimer of foreign deities.”

Okay, so I know this post is not addressed to me, having never been a Bethel member, but I did visit there once, as a young man, and dined with them. I quickly got the sense of the food-plate flow, that after prayer, everyone picked up the serving dish nearest him or her, helped themselves, then passes it around till all ten people had been served. So, when dessert came, strawberries, I saw the plate start with the person on my immediate left and head clockwise. When it finally makes its way to me, I knew everyone had had their shot, so what remained was mine. Alas—I did not realize that some postpone their desserts and have it later!
So here I am, munching away, when someone says, ‘Hey! Who took all the strawberries?!’ Whereupon, I looked up, strawberries hanging from my mouth, and made like Chuck Berry: 
“It wasn't me, Sarge. Uhm-uhm, Sarge, it wasn't me. It must have been some other body, Uh, uh, Sarge, it wasn't me.”
 

At the mid-week meeting we had the Bible reading that included Psalm 26. We also sang song #34.
It's a very beautiful melody, even though I have other favorites. What I like most about the song is that it follows the Psalm very closely. It's a good reminder that the words of the original Psalm 26 were also sung, even though we don't know the original melody. But the tune and music we use seem very appropriate for the tone of the Psalm itself. 
Last week, of course, we had this for the 23rd Psalm, too. And I think the same about that melody and how appropriate it is to the words of the Psalm.