The Sign Says "No Missionaries"!

• The recap show "Destiny Calls" is narrated by Doug Hutchison , aka Horace Goodspeed. Horace is dead.

---

Dharma Initiative - The Island - 1970s?

• Pierre Chang's baby lets him sleep in till 8:15. Normal babies would wake him up at 1:08.

• Questions:

  • Was the Chang baby born on the Island?
  • If so, what is killing pregnant woman now?
  • Is the baby someone we know? Miles or Jin? If he was born in 1973 he would be 35 in 2008, maybe a little old for Miles.
  • Pierre Chang's Baby

• Pierre likes a little Willie Nelson first thing in the morning.

  Shotgun Willie (1973):

  "Shotgun Willie sits around in his underwear
  Bitin' a bullet, pullin' out all of his hair
  Shotgun Willie has got all of his family there

  You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say
  You can't make a record if you ain't got nothin' to say
  You can't play music if you don't know nothin' to play"

  Subtext: The Dharma Initiative is is under siege and their motives for being on the Island are suspect.

  Contrast this to Desmond's wakeup tune, "Make Your Own Kind of Music":

  "Nobody can tell ya
  There's only one song worth singing
  They may try and sell ya
  'Cause it hangs them up to see someone like you

  Chorus:
  But you've gotta make your own kind of music
  

  Sing your own special song
  Make your own kind of music
  Even if nobody else sings along

  You're gonna be knowing
  The loneliest kind of lonely
  It may be rough going
  Just to do your thing's the hardest thing to do

  Chorus:
  So if you cannot take my hand
  And if you must be going
  I will understand

• Foreshadowing: The record skips
• Pierre is using the name "Marvin Candle" today. He's also used Mark Wickmund and Edgar Halliwax.
• He's wearing a Swan station logo on his lab coat.
• Dr. Chang says the purpose of the Arrow station is to "develop defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the Island's hostile indigenous population".
• Dr. Chang is a bit of a dick, which is why he's spilling secrets to construction foremen.
• RULE #1: You cannot go back and kill Hitler - the past cannot be changed.
• Question: What manipulations of time can you do if you cannot change the past?
• If the energy of the Frozen Donkey Wheel (FDW) is released, "God help us all"
• The FDW is older than Dharma. No surprise there.
• Faraday is working on the construction crew of the Orchid station.
• Articles on other orientation videos that concern time travel:
  • Orchid Orientation Video
  • Dharma Booth Video

L.A. - Present day

• Jack: "They're not my friends anymore"

  From S1E14 - "Special":
  Walt: "Mr. Locke didn't do anything wrong. He's my friend."
  Michael: "He's not your friend anymore. I'm looking out for you."

  I'm pretty sure Locke has said this too.

• Jack: "How did all this happen?"
  Ben: "It happened because you left, Jack"
  • Big Question 1: What's the relationship between the O6 leaving the Island and the Big Bad Time Skips?
  • Big Question 2: What are the Losties going to have to do once they're back to stop the Skipping?
• Why doesn't Walt have to go back? Was he "supposed" to leave?
• Sign behind Ben: "Safety First - Don't try to lift more than you are able"
• I wouldn't be surprised if Jack is lying to Ben about not knowing about the Time Skips. Of course Ben knows all about it.
• On a prosaic note, I think there was a football game on the radio in Ben and Jack's motel room.

The Island - 3 years ago

• If it was Dec 31, 2004 when Ben turned the FDW, the L.A. scenes occur around the beginning of January 2008 (hey, that's NOW!).
  • Lostpedia Timeline: December 2004
  • Lostpedia Timeline: Post-Island
  • Lostpedia Timeline: Post-Moving

• See Frogurt. See Frogurt's red shirt. Count the minutes he has left to live.
• Sawyer's pretty observant.
• Please keep asking questions Sawyer, please.
• The first Time Skip happened when Ben turns the FDW and "moves" the Island.

L.A.

• Kate: "He goes into that tunnel, he's never coming out"
• The Tunnel Cartoon
• Tunnel Cartoon - 1940s Superman
• The lawyers are from "Agostini and Norton".

  Lodovico Agostini

  "Agostini was fond of musical enigmas, puzzles, surprise and double-entendre, and his many musical collections display this. Enigmi musicali and L'echo, et enigmi musicali are full of bizarre chromatic progressions, instrumental interpolations, and other musical curiosities."

  Characters from the Incarnations of Immortality - Norton

  "Gawain again approaches Norton, who is left with little direction in life and refuses to father a child with another woman, but this time the ghost comes with the proposition of becoming the Incarnation of Time, Chronos, to rule over all earthly aspects of time. This entails living backwards in time until the moment of his birth—or conception; presumably the officeholder knows, but it is never made clear in the books—which Gawain tells Norton will allow him to see Orlene, who is alive in the past. With this Norton accepts, and Gawain leads him to the place where Norton's predecessor, the future Incarnation of Time, hands him the powerful hourglass.

  Norton immediately begins literally to live backwards in time, and by experimenting with his hourglass and asking Sning learns he can travel in time in either direction, halt time, and temporarily live forwards in time, in synch with mortals and the only instance in which they can sense him outside of his backwards mansion in Purgatory. He is visited by the Incarnation of Fate, who gives him some helpful information and co-operates with him in her work, fixing tangles in her threads of fate with the help of his hourglass, widely recognized as the most powerful magical device in the world.

  Because Norton lives backwards in time, his past is everyone else's future, making him an isolated character even among the other Incarnations. He also realises that this will make it impossible to have a relationship with the forward-living Orlene. He does, however, have an affair with Clotho, the youngest aspect of Fate. This is both awkward and intriguing to Norton since her past is his future."

• Who sent the Lawyers? Ben, Sun, Widmore?
• I wouldn't have left by the front door.

The Island

• It's a tropical Island, why is Miles wearing his hood up?
• See, giving that explanation wasn't so hard, was it? I look forward to more explanations, slapping optional.
• Yemi's Beechcraft crashed in the late 1990's
• If Locke had managed to get to the plane, he probably would have died just like Boone did/would. In fact, Ethan might be a course correction preventing Locke from changing the past.
• Locke's fall references all his other falls.
• Why would Ethan execute Locke? Locke knows things he shouldn't, he should be interrogated.
• Big Question/Problem: If Lost Time-Travel Rule #1 is The Past Cannot Be Changed, then how can Locke meet Ethan years before the crash, tell Ethan his name (which Ethan will see again when he is sent to learn who the tail-section survivors are), and then in a very memorable way, presumably disappear into thin air?

London Airport

• Who was Sun trying to call?
• The Custom's computer is running Adobe Photoshop. Ooops.
• Sun is flying Oceanic Airlines. Widmore says they only do what he says. Does this connect Widmore with the crash?
• I still don't understand why Sun wants Ben dead instead of Widmore.

L.A.

• I think it's a bit much for Hurley to be a suspect. How did he get a gun into the mental hospital? Who was the guy outside the hospital, and why did he have a gun? What was he doing sitting outside at that time of night, and why would Hurley shoot him? Person of Interest, sure, but not a named suspect.
• Rainbow Drive-in, reference to "The Wizard of Oz"?
• We all need cool code-names, Hugo.
• The guys waiting for Sayid aren't very good - that tape was pretty obvious.
• They don't want Sayid dead.
• Dishwasher-Fu!!

Island - After second Time Skip - Night

• Hatch is all 'sploded - It's post-November 27, 2004
• Faraday explains Time Skip Rule #1 - You can't change the past.
• Faraday has studied the Dharma Initiative.
• Who can stop the Time Skips? - cut to Locke.
• Richard: "What comes around, goes around". But Charlie shot Ethan, not Locke.
• Richard may be ageless, but he needs glasses to operate on Locke's leg.
• Richard says that he didn't go anywhere, Locke did. This indicates that the Losties+Juliet are moving in time, not the Island.
• Richard says the O6 are already home. This means Time Skip #2 moved the Losties+Juliet into the FUTURE (Their future, post-January 1, 2005).
• The compass may be the same compass Richard tested child Locke with in Cabin Fever , even though it looks different, or it could just be a reference.
• The compass could be stuck in a loop. Locke gives Richard the compass in the past, tells him to save him in the future, then Richard gives Locke the compass in the future, then Locke jumps to the past, rinse and repeat.

  Compass Paradox

• Richard says that to save the Island, the O6 have to return and Locke has to die.
• The 3rd Time Skip sends Locke back right to after the Beechcraft crashed.

Island - 1990s

• Sawyer calls Faraday "Dilbert".
• Here comes Rule #1 again.
• Nosebleeds - the first sign of Time Skip sickness?
• Why doesn't Desmond remember visiting Faraday at Oxford?
• The Rules do not apply to Desmond. He is uniquely speciial.
• What were they looking for in the trees?

Dez and Penny's boat - Present Day

• Desmond can have time-release memories from the past.
• Desmond is lowering, not raising the anchor. Oops.

Theories/Questions

• If you can time-travel to the future, then the future exists. If the future exists, then the present is the future's past, and cannot be changed. In fact, past present and future cannot be changed. I'm going to let this slide. Besides, Desmond is SPECIAL (It's the accent).
• Desmond changed the future by saving Charlie until his death allowed the O6 to get off the Island. This "wasn't supposed to happen".
• Why is Juliet Time Skipping?
• Are Cindy and the kids and the other abducted Losties Time Skipping?
• Widmore can't be killed because he's alive in the future.
• Did Ben know that Alex was alive in the future, is that why he thought she wouldn't be killed be Keamey? But then why was Ben worried about Alex getting pregnant?
• Theory: In the future you travel to the past. Since you were in two places at once in the past, memories can be shared or transfered.

  Examples:

  • Locke finds Yemi's Beechcraft in a dream.
  • Locke loses use of his legs when he and Boone get to the Beechcraft , maybe a "memory" of being shot by Ethan.
  • Faraday crying about Flight 815

Recaps

• DRIZZLE DRAZZLE DRUZZLE DROME, by Fishbiscuitland
• Lost Recap 5×01 & 5×02: Because You Left and The Lie, by The Ack Attack
• Lost: Telling Time, by J. Wood
• Lost 5.01: Very Bad Things, by Luhks
• Thoughts on Because You Left and The Lie... , by Eye M Sick
• 'Lost' Dueling Analysis: A Moving Season Premiere, by Celebritology
• Lost Friday, by Communist Dance Party
• 'Lost' Recap: Past, Present, and Future Tense, by Jeff Jensen - Entertainment Weekly
• 'Lost': Faith, Science...and Scooby-Doo , by Jeff Jensen, Again
• Lost Season Five Premiere: 2 Hours of Time Travel, Wormholes and Exotic Matter, by Popular Mechanics
• MythBuster Adam Savage on Lost Premiere: James Cameron's Time Travel has Nothing on Lost, at Popular Mechanics, Again
• Things I Noticed - "Because You Left and The Lie", by Vozzek69
• Lost Easter Eggs for Episode 5.1 "Because You Left", by Buddy TV
• Episode 5.01 - Because You Left - Continuity Issues
• Lost: These Things Take Time, by Tubular
• 5 X 01: Because You Left, by Gitsie Girl
• S5Ep1 - Because You Left, by Long Live Locke
• Liveblogging the Lost season five premiere, at Kottke.org
• Is LOST Losing Itself?, by Sledgeweb
• J. Wood’s Otherville Book Club - 5.01 and 5.02
• Talking LOST - 5x01 Because You Left, by Sledgeweb

After 8 years I had stopped being aware of it, but now I've noticed that whenever I hear "The President today... I don't wince in mental pain.

IT consultant of perfect love making art

Oh Baby

" Lately on the Net started appearing gossips about the new North-American currency "Amero" which would, as people say, come to replace Canadian and American dollars together with Mexican peso and would become one and only currency in North America. Some photos of actual amero bills and coins appeared on different near world-conspiracy blogs and youtube channels

Well, in Russia they stepped bit further and think that the currency would be called not Amero but Lunaro, or Lunar if to be exact, and probably it would replace not only Northern American currencies but all currencies on Earth and even, probably, on Moon. That's what they call the real New World Order."

My next door neighbor believes in the Amero. He thinks "they" are building a special six-lane highway from Mexico to Canada and that the fix was in to put Obama in the White House. He seems perfectly sane otherwise. Have I mentioned he owns a chainsaw?

Lost - Move the Island - YouTube

Special Comment: You Must Prosecute Bush! ~Olbermann - YouTube

"Before the show's premiere in September 2004, the producers were unsure that "Lost" would last beyond a few episodes. They therefore spent little time keeping track of the interlocking, overlapping and often confounding story lines that began to emerge even in the first episode.

But when the series proved to be an out-of-the-gate hit, "we quickly realized we needed some system to keep track of all the details, that we weren't going to be able to do that by memory," said Carlton Cuse, one of the show's executive producers.

Enter Mr. Nations, who has now compiled an archive that, were he ever to print it out, might - as he put it in an interview at the "Lost" production offices on Disney's Burbank studio lot - give "War and Peace" a run for its money.

Just how long the entire document is he does not know; he has never printed it out in full, in part because he and his secretive bosses do not want copies falling into the wrong hands. But he has multiple electronic copies, which he keeps in undisclosed locations.

In addition to charting story arcs and tracking characters, Mr. Nations has noted each character's sojourns on and off the island, mapped the research stations established by the mysterious Dharma Initiative and recorded the appearances and disappearances of polar bears, Smoke Monsters and an unhealthy array of guns.

"It didn't take us very long to learn to rely on Gregg when we had to check out an issue of continuity," Mr. Cuse said. "He had timelines, charts, dossiers. He took it into a dimension that exceeded anything that we could imagine.""

I'm slightly surprised that no one has tried to kidnap or blackmail Mr. Nations.

"These premises -- conclusively established by undisputed news reports and the statements of the person about to become the country's top law enforcement officer as well as a top Bush official --  are clear, and the conclusions they compel are inescapable. The Bush administration authorized, ordered and practiced torture.  The U.S., under Ronald Reagan, legally obligated itself to investigate and prosecute any acts of torture committed by Americans (which includes authorization of torture by high level officials and also includes, under Article 3 of the Convention, acts of "rendering" detainees to countries likely to torture, as the Bush administration unquestionably did).  

All of the standard excuses being offered by Bush apologists and our political class (a virtual redundancy) -- namely:  our leaders meant well; we were facing a dangerous enemy; government lawyers said this could be done; Congress immunized the torturers; it would be too divisive to prosecute -- are explicitly barred by this treaty (i.e., binding law) as a ground for refusing to investigate and prosecute acts of torture.

This is also why the standard argument now being offered by Bush apologists (such as University of Chicago Law Professor Eric Posner, echoing his dad, Court of Appeals Judge Richard Posner in Chicago) as to why prosecutions are unnecessary -- namely:  there is "prosecutorial discretion" that should take political factors into account in order not to prosecute -- are both frivolous and lawless.  The Convention explicitly bars any such "discretion":  "The State Party in territory under whose jurisdiction a person alleged to have committed any offence referred to in article 4 is found, shall . . . submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution."  The principal purpose of the Convention is to remove the discretion involved in prosecuting acts of torture and to bar the very excuses which every torturing society proffers and which our own torturing society is now attempting to invoke ("we were dealing with real threats; there were 'exceptional circumstances' that justified it; we enacted laws legalizing the torture; our leaders meant well; we need to move on")."

"In only eight days, if I wake up, turn on the radio and hear the president is having a press conference, I won't have to turn the radio off."

Not to mention the spontaneous cursing and the flashes of violent rage.

He's making a list...

"Sidney's Tags:

lame, for losers only, worst book ever, politically incorrect, burn this book, cliche, mindless, the authors should be shot, bigotry, irresponsible, stereotyping, discrimination, hatred, stigmatizing children, ignorant, foolish, propoganda, junk science, mary-sues, finger-wagging, awful, god-awful, shame, overrated, trash, total crap, complete crap, crappy, duh, poop, giant steaming pile of poo, piece of crap, waste of money, exaggeration, hype, steaming pile of poo, dieting, pro-ana, fat hatred, self-loathing, evil, pure and simple evil, closed-mindedness, obesophobia, hate, satanic, prejudice, fataphobia, pro-anorexia, anti-fat, filthy, demonic, psychotic, detrimental, demeaning "