Bob, Brad, Mary, Gisele, Howard and Duncan all just seem to have disappeared.

...or maybe the Friends knock-off they were in got cancelled...

Stefan wrote: "Claude, as I have no sense of humor, I can't tell whether you think Felix is Belgian or not."

(i) Lack of sense of humour - amply demonstrated by above post. Laugh?-I nearly swallowed my hat. Practical jokes are the most obvious sign of a lack of sense of humour. QED, as we scientists say.

(ii) If you can't even spot a bona fide Belgian when you're confronted with one - in the shape of Felix "Gigantopethicus" Geens - how on earth do you expect us to take seriously your claims, come October 5th, to have encountered God, or failing that, bona fide Christians "of a certain persuasion"? I'd warn you, Meneer Salmon, that folks like Bob, Brad, and Mary, far from being fooled by your prank, will most likely just be humouring their dim Belgian colleague, playing along with him as he satisfies his faintly reprehensible urges.

Having said that, the idea of a Rapture party of some sort is excellent. But I'd rather stick to copious Witbier drinking than "Bring an Evangelical"-type humiliations.

Sarcasm, Claude. That post was an example of sarcasm. It's a type of humor related to satire and irony.

Keep looking up, infidels! Allah is coming!

Abd al Walid Khuwalid

Mr. Geens might want to read 2 Peter 3:3-4: "Know this first of all, that in the last days mockers will come with their mocking, following after their own lusts, and saying, 'Where is the promise of His coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all continues just as it was from the beginning of creation.'"

I do concede that Stefan could use a good smiting every now and again.

October 4th's our man.

I'm looking forward to seeing those sinners burn, though perhaps the punishment will be more benign, given the sage7 effect on judgment of memefirst posters. I hope so, as I would hate to see them suffer.

What I am finding hard to do is to work out the best thing to do with the single remaining month of our existence. The obvious thing - and I'll spare your blushes - is my active preference, but the comtesse will not be impressed if my line of seduction (I am in the doghouse and denied access to her bed au moment juste) is all about this Rapture story and how we have so little time left..

The great thing to do, apparently, is to forgive your enemies and cease sinful aggressiveness, pride, envy and hate, simultaneously curbing frivoliy, drunkenness, drug-taking and lechery. Once I've done that, I can go confess and receive absolution. The Gates of Heaven will scarce be denied a man of my lineage then.

But renouncing all that seems a terrible waste of my last month of life, all the same. I think I shall have just the one and think about it for a bit.

Timing is everything. Surely a renunciation on Oct 3 must count, if it's sincere. And if you're still around on Oct 6, you can try again some other time.

By the way Claude, while you're coming clean before Judgement Day, why is it all of your IP addresses are in Germany? Koblenz, Aachen, etc. Does the French Internet all travel via the Fatherland or is your real name G¸nther Schmitt and you're a butcher in North Rhine-Westphalia?

I do live in NRW most of the time (although not German), am married to the comtesse (who is), and work here a lot too - "French jockey on German horse" sort of thing - vainly trying to make enough money to pay for renewal of family home's roof, gutters etc to be renovated, leaking like crazy, whole bloody castle falling to pieces about my ears. Does that count as enough "coming clean" for your part of my absolution, Marc?

"Surely a renunciation on Oct 3 must count, if it's sincere." (Stefan)

That's the whole trouble with this repent&go-to-heaven deal, the sincerity bit. You see, if you're just repenting because you think you're about to be zapped to hell/heaven, it might count technically, but I don't think that's enough to actually do the business, getting to heaven etc.. To be truly repentant, you need to be convinced you're truly about to be zapped. The trouble is, you can't go back on it once you've done it, you'd look more than a little bit silly. So the claculation is: if you sincerely repent, you'll get to heaven if the rapture happens; if you don't, it's hell. But if you repent and rapture doesn't happen, you're shot of the vices for the rest of your natural. Does me head in, that.

How much nicer the world will be when all the Christians are gone. A little breathing room for the rest of us. Even here in NYC, where there arent as many as elsewhere in the country, we should see a nice population drop. I wonder, will the real estate bubble finally burst with such a sharp decrease in population? Also, will we be able to buy wine at the liquor shops on Sundays after October 5th? That would be nice too. I'm looking forward to it.

Claude, yes that's more than enough. You have my absolution, my son. So long as you don't start supporting BVB or Schalke, you can be called up to heaven by Jesus as a Kraut-loving yet still a proper Frenchman on October 4.

Marc
Unfortunately, I am a Schalke supporter.
C.

Simon
You are homosexual, are you not?

C.

I meant - "lonely" -.

C.

Simon:

We can already buy wine on Sundays; that happened last year.

-A lonely homosexual

Oh my God, how oppressed you were - unable to buy wine on Sundays.

Do you know what Muslim states do to gays? One punishment involves removal of the genitals and the eyelids of the accused. Then they take him into the desert and leave him there to die of exposure and blood loss.

Do you know what some of the premiere European non-Christian states have done to gays? The Nazis, who eschewed Christianity and its values, rounded up gays and sent them to die in concentration camps.

Yeah, you've got it real bad.

I'm not gay. Not that theres anything wrong with that.

Seriously though, I've been hoping for years that the millitary would accidentally drop some canisters off a truck that upon cracking open would release a gas that raises the dead. The zombies would roam NYC chewing up the brains of countless people (of all demographic groups and political affiliations, zombies dont discriminate). Then the army would come back and kill all the zombies and tadaa! New York's population will have been cut in half and the city would be much more liveable. Now thats to this post and Sage7's prophcising, I see a much more legant and probable solution. No brain bits to clean up afterwards too, which is even better. October 5th is gonna rock!

Oh, those concentration camps were built with steel financed by Prescott Bush by the way.

Claude, I'm calling Michel Platini right now to let him know about your little dirty Schalke habit. Next thing you'll be supporting ValÈrien IsmaÎl's bid to play for the German national side.

Marc, I do support that as it happens - assuming this is the guy who can't get into his won national side, right? and sees the Germans as his second choice - it might help undermine the Boche team spirit a bit.

Simon
Good to see you're still on top of the Prescott Bush brief. The Nazis were a truly ghastly crew and their table manners left a lot to be desired. Did Prescott build those camps? What a card, eh? I shall definitely stop being conservative now, I refuse to be associated with a movement where er, well, you know.. Concentration camps were horrid things, Simon, and anyone who "financed the steel" for them deserves to have their grandchildren roundly condemned, rounded up and punished in some way. I think it would be constructive for you to demand that Bush goes to Auschwitz - NOW! - to personally apologise for his grandfather's role in that whole WWII caper, the dirty traitor.

My own family had the great good fortune to be incarcerated not in German concentration camps, financed by the evil Bush, but in Japanese ones. So I escape any taint of association with Bush-linked steel. Although Bush's dad was involved in some of the scrapes out there I believe, and I am grateful for that, wouldn't be here without people like him, etc. Perhaps you can discover who "financed the steel" or the bamboo for those camps in Asia? Help me decide which way to vote.

Sterling, are you saying that we shouldn't make fun of Evangelicals because they aren't as bad as Nazis or Muslim fundamentalists? If we use those criteria, who can we make fun of?

I'm well aware that you can't buy wine in many Muslim countries, and you can't buy anything at all on Sunday in much of Europe.

I had delicious wine (and hashish) in Morocco

No, Eric. I'm saying that U.S. homosexuals who claim to be oppressed by Christians are idiots.

Plus I don't thing "oppression" is the real issue. There's real oppression against homosexuals out there in the Muslim world, and yet many if not most of the gay rights groups have come out against the U.S. effort that has improved the situation in at least two countries. American gay rights groups don't seem to be interested in it.

Likewise many women's rights organizations turn a blind eye to the persecution of women in the Muslim world.

So I would argue that when people use the word "oppression" to refer to something they don't like about the U.S., their goal is not to achieve some positive change but rather to inflict damage on the American state or polity or both. I'm far from the only person who believes this - it's why tens of millions of Americans distrust the Left and the contemporary Democrat Party. It's why the AFL-CIO has broken into pieces - too many union members want nothing to do with the anti-American tantrums of the Left.

And frankly, without the intact AFL-CIO, the Democrats have zero chance of winning back Congress next year or in 2008, and very poor chances of winning the White House.

ROFL, yeah, I bet Afghanistan and Iraq are now great places to be openly gay.

Of course, all these homosexuals, women and leftists might merely be having a quibble with you about means justifying ends in US foreign policy. Or with opportunity costs. Or with calculations as to the likelihood of success of unnecessary wars.

Simon says:
"ROFL, yeah, I bet Afghanistan and Iraq are now great places to be openly gay."

Oh, I didn't say that. But at least gays aren't mutiliated and tortured to death anymore in either place. That's a big improvement.

Stefan says:
"Of course, all these homosexuals, women and leftists might merely be having a quibble with you about means justifying ends in US foreign policy. Or with opportunity costs. Or with calculations as to the likelihood of success of unnecessary wars."

I don't think so. Their efforts are committed to reducing the chances of U.S. success in Afghanistan and Iraq, a capital offense that is for some reason not being prosecuted, so they don't get the benefit of the doubt on motive. All you lefties kept saying, beforehand, that the 2004 election was a referendum on the War in Iraq. Bush won. Now we don't hear so much about that.

Sterling, I know you spend all kinds of time hanging out with leftists, so I'm grateful for your expert insight into the mindset of this large and entirely comestible constituency. My time with them, including years of education in places with some of the most progressive campus politics in the world, pales in comparison, so is would be useless to alter you to the vociferous voices on the left who have been railing against such inhumane practices as female circumcision. I don' have any explanation for it -- it must only be some strange mirage. The technology these muslim fundamentalist lovers employ to implant these memories in me is, well, astounding.

And while we're on the subject, Sterling, can you give us a list of gay rights groups which came out against the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq?

Republicans shouldn't complain about high taxes in the U.S. because taxes are higher in Sweden.

Republicans shouldn't complain about government corruption in the U.S. because the government is more corrupt in Chad.

And gays in the U.S. should be grateful that they aren't being beheaded for being gay and should just shut up about marriage rights and the like.

Right?

Getting back to the original post...has anyone heard from Sage7 lately?

Do you think...is it possible...he's disappeared?