I not with great interest that the domain "MAF54.ORG" was registered on 02-Oct-2006 at 17:24:35 UTC. http://www.maf54.org seems to have one of those lovely IM transcripts.

MAF54.COM was registered 30-Sep-2006, but I haven't seen any content yet.

For entrepreneurs, the .NET domain is still there for the taking.

I'm a Viet-Nam vet who was also one of those fanatical Christians (and have since had a change of heart).

I am also a direct descendent of a man who did jail time in Massachusetts for his religious beliefs. At the time great-great-great...grandfather Valentine was imprisoned for being a Shaker, Virginia was also a place where Jerry Falwell (were some friendly Power to allow us to send him there/then) would be subject to arrest, transport by mule wagon to the gaol, trial, conviction and imprisonment for life (or until he renounced his heretickall false doctrines) for the heinous crime of being a Baptist.

A theocracy is a wonderful thing as long as (1) it's your clergy that control the police and the courts; and (2) you are on good terms with the hierarchs thereof.

(After my ancestor got out of prison, having had a bit of a change of heart, he spent a great deal of energy in getting his former co-religionists arrested and imprisoned. Good thing that the "separation of Church and State" is not, at the present moment, a "myth".)

I ran a heroin detox/rehab program in Viet-Nam in 1970-71 (Army). In many areas, heroin was incredibly inexpensive and almost impossible to avoid, and in some units the percentage of regular users in the E-5 and below category exceeded 50%, at least as reported by the members of such units to me.

It was one of the most cost-effective war chemicals ever deployed. Consider: the enemy purchases the agent with his own funds, administers it to himself, actively works to conceal the fact that he is affected by it, induces others to do the same, and may well take an expensive and debilitating habit to his home town when he rotates back to CONUS.

One interesting take on the whole affair is a book, "The Politics of Heroin In Southeast Asia" by Alfred W McCoy.

Some years ago, in an online discussion, I was firmly warned that "... the First Ammendment[sic] gives us freedome of religion, which means that it's illegal to criticize Christianity" in the USA.

This seems to exhibit the same level of understanding.

"There was a myth that veterans coming back were spat upon, but this was not something that anyone knew or or discussed at the time."

"There" was SeaTac airport in April 1971. I was in uniform, newly returned from Viet-Nam, on my way back home, and I definitely "knew" about that sort of thing. What exactly do you mean by "myth"?

"There isn't anybody who doesn't like fireworks. . . . There's no preferred seating for fireworks."

That stuff still runs me nuts even (or especially) when it's being done several miles away. There's nothing quite like the "thump" in the thoracic cavity from HE detonations.

Besides, we already have a serious trade deficit problem with China.

...and to prove it, we're driving up from Texas to MPLS for this event.

After this post neither I nor my bride of 40 years (April 19th, what a fateful date) will allow anything but utmost disaster to forestall our attendance.