Ready To Ride...

Handles newly shellacked and broom corn newly fluffed. Low miles, Only used once a year.

Sunday's Lesson :

"The only human codes which are right are those based in universal

morals. For example, it is against human law to physically attack

another person. The man who does so, may or may not be caught and

punished by the court, but he is always punished on the spot by him-

self, whether aware of it or not. We may escape human laws, but never

the laws of our own nature."

Pathways to Perfect Living…Vernon Howard

Gordon Lightfoot Day

Now that I am old, let me rest a spell
All that I am told, I can never tell
Never in my life, never will it pass
I am still alone, remembering at last
Once upon a time, once upon a day when
I was in my prime, once along the way

……….Gordon Lightfoot

Halloween is Wednesday

Hey Ugs...heres one for ya...

Docs bathe Fla. woman in bleach to kill flesh-eating bacteria

Tammy Cox is being consumed by flesh-eating bacteria. The Florida mother is in a medically induced coma at Orlando Regional Medical Center, where WKMG-TV says doctors are soaking her body in raw bleach in the hope that this will kill the deadly bacteria.

"It just kept eating away at her," Cindy Cox, her sister, said. "So, they kept taking more and more and her whole backside is gone."

No one knows how she contracted the infection, the station says. The prognosis isn't good. One out of four people with necrotizing fasciitis (nek-roe-tie-zing fah-shee-eyetis) doesn't make it. If the bleach works, doctors say Cox will spend six months in the hospital and undergo at least 18 surgeries.

How often are people infected with this bacteria? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention says there were about 600 cases reported in 1999.

WKMG-TV has photos of Cox. (You may find them too graphic.)

We told you in July about the Texas man who became infected with flesh-eating bacteria while swimming off the coast of Texas.

Learn more about flesh-eating bacteria, which causes soft-tissue gangrene, at this site maintained by the National Necrotizing Fasciitis Foundation. The Manitoba health department has a detailed -- and helpful -- factsheet about necrotizing fasciitis. So does Cigna.

Secessionists Meeting in Tennessee

CHATTANOOGA, Tenn. (AP) — In an unlikely marriage of desire to secede from the United States, two advocacy groups from opposite political traditions — New England and the South — are sitting down to talk.

Tired of foreign wars and what they consider right-wing courts, the Middlebury Institute wants liberal states like Vermont to be able to secede peacefully.

That sounds just fine to the League of the South, a conservative group that refuses to give up on Southern independence.

"We believe that an independent South, or Hawaii, Alaska, or Vermont would be better able to serve the interest of everybody, regardless of race or ethnicity," said Michael Hill of Killen, Ala., president of the League of the South.

Separated by hundreds of miles and divergent political philosophies, the Middlebury Institute and the League of the South are hosting a two-day Secessionist Convention starting Wednesday in Chattanooga.

They expect to attract supporters from California, Alaska and Hawaii, inviting anyone who wants to dissolve the Union so states can save themselves from an overbearing federal government.

If allowed to go their own way, New Englanders "probably would allow abortion and have gun control," Hill said, while Southerners "would probably crack down on illegal immigration harder than it is being now."

The U.S. Constitution does not explicitly prohibit secession, but few people think it is politically viable.

Vermont, one of the nation's most liberal states, has become a hotbed for liberal secessionists, a fringe movement that gained new traction because of the Iraq war, rising oil prices and the formation of several pro-secession groups.

Thomas Naylor, the founder of one of those groups, the Second Vermont Republic, said the friendly relationship with the League of the South doesn't mean everyone shares all the same beliefs.

But Naylor, a retired Duke University professor, said the League of the South shares his group's opposition to the federal government and the need to pursue secession.

"It doesn't matter if our next president is Condoleeza (Rice) or Hillary (Clinton), it is going to be grim," said Naylor, adding that there are secessionist movements in more than 25 states, including Hawaii, Alaska, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Texas.

The Middlebury Institute, based in Cold Spring, N.Y., was started in 2005. Its followers, disillusioned by the Iraq war and federal imperialism, share the idea of states becoming independent republics. They contend their movement is growing.

The first North American Separatist Convention was held last fall in Vermont, which, unlike most Southern states, supports civil unions. Voters there elected a socialist to the U.S. Senate.

Middlebury director Kirpatrick Sale said Hill offered to sponsor the second secessionist convention, but the co-sponsor arrangement was intended to show that "the folks up north regard you as legitimate colleagues."

"It bothers me that people have wrongly declared them to be racists," Sale said.

The League of the South says it is not racist, but proudly displays a Confederate Battle Flag on its banner.

Mark Potok, director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, which monitors hate groups, said the League of the South "has been on our list close to a decade."

"What is remarkable and really astounding about this situation is we see people and institutions who are supposedly on the progressive left rubbing shoulders with bona fide white supremacists," Potok said.

Sale said the League of the South "has not done or said anything racist in its 14 years of existence," and that the Southern Poverty Law Center is not credible.

"They call everybody racists," Sale said. "There are, no doubt, racists in the League of the South, and there are, no doubt, racists everywhere."

Harry Watson, director of the Center For the Study of the American South and a history professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said it was a surprise to see The Middlebury Institute conferring with the League of the South, "an organization that's associated with a cause that many of us associate with the preservation of slavery."

He said the unlikely partnering "represents the far left and far right of American politics coming together."

Go Cubbies...

Cubs: Bring on the goat

The pressure is crushing the choking Cubs as they suffer a humiliation by the Diamondbacks as bad as anything they’ve been through before

Remember when Moises Alou threw a fit after the Bartman play? Way to set a tone, Ted. There was the normally unflappable Derrek Lee, whipping down his helmet. There was the $136 million man, Alfonso Soriano, admiring his first hit of the series as it bounced off the outfield wall -- and being held to a single because he loafed. There was Aramis Ramirez, a beaten man, swinging and whiffing again and again. I cannot sugarcoat or softpedal how awful the Cubs look. They are playing like quitters, imposters, losers. And all you need to know about their immediate future: A five game series, Diamondbacks have won 2 and the Cub 0. Fifty teams have fallen behind 0-2, and only seven have returned to win a best-of-five series.

Today's Lesson in Esoteric Mind Power

"The last thing on earth which should bother you is the sudden
failure of your carefully laid plans. Do not take your plans as
being you and the disruption of any plan will be as nothing to
you. Your plans are not you; they only appear to be so because
of that human mistake called identification. Identification means
to wrongly assume that plans or possessions make up what we call
the "self." Think this through to the very end, for it will free
you from anxiety over unexpected changes in your daily affairs."

Esoteric Mind Power, p. 86 (Vernon Howard)