Thoughts on Paik Inc., Hanso Group, and Widmore Industries connections
I think that Paik Industries (Sun's father's business), the Hanso group (founders of DHARMA), and Widmore Industries (Penny's father's business) are involved with each other in the real world of business. In this series, I've come to suspect that everyone is related to or in business with or connected to everyone else. They just are. It's the way of the show.

For instance, Season 3, Sun needs money from her father to pay off Jin's mother (a reputed prostitute) who is blackmailing Sun. Sun goes to her father's office to speak to him about it. She interrupts a group of businessmen having a conversation with Mr. Paik. There was a translation of that conversation on one of the LOST fansites. The Hanso Group was mentioned, something about the Hanso Group being angry that Paik had not delivered a order of large equipment.

I wonder, for instance, who owns Mittelos Corporation, the company that recruited (and essentially kidnapped) poor Juliet.

Mittelos = Lost Time

In addition to being in business with each other, I suspect that all three business groups are involved with each other in some way regarding the Island. Why wouldn't they be on this show?

Charles Widmore, Penny Widmore and the Island
When I say that Widmore is behind DHARMA, I didn't mean to say he created DHARMA. He may have been involved with that, but maybe not. I do believe he is connected to DHARMA in some fashion. Widmore may be in competition with the Hanso group; he may want what DHARMA has, i.e., the Island. But I bet my bottom dollar that he and his daughter will come into conflict before this series is over, and the conflict will involve the Island and their respective reasons for wanting to find it and get what's on it (Desmond for Penny and the Island's powerful forces for Widmore). I thought that from the minute Widmore was introduced in Desmond's first flashback.

Possible ending for the series
This is purely my own theory on the show. I haven't read this anywhere, but I've learned that if something is mentioned in the show, it's there for a reason. I think everyone (the Oceanic 6, the remaining original survivors, Ben and his gang (whoever they may be), Richard Alpert and the Others, Locke's group, Widmore's people, Penny's people (whoever they may wind up being) and who knows, maybe even Mr. Paik and some of his gang) is going to wind up ON the Island before the series is through. I think everyone is going to be involved in a fabulously dramatic and extraordinarily well filmed series of episodes about the volcano that simply has to blow before the series ends. Think of the magnificence of the first episode but expanded over a series of episodes all centered around (1) the threat of the volcano and (2) the actual explosion of the volcano. The Island may wind up being blown out of existence.

For what little it's worth, that's my thought on the series finale.

[SIZE="3"]You know what's bothering me? The radio / phone calls between the island and the ship. If it takes hours and hours of island time for a delivery rocket to travel from the ship to the island, why doesn't it take that long for radio waves to travel the same distance?

I guess you can simply say that the island doesn't effect radio transmissions above a certain wavelength, but shouldn't someone ask the question?

Is there a forum where someone has asked the question?[/SIZE]

I was wondering if it was an exponential difference dependent on the speed of travel. A radio signal travels extremely fast therefore the change would be minimal. The rocket travels somewhat fast, therefore the change was noticable but not drastic (31 minute difference), and a helicopter travels slowly (relative to the first two) therefore an hour turned into several hours. That would mean, however, that the submarine or a boat would take a LOT longer....... So maybe not.

Let us know if she's there. If she is, that should put to rest any arguments the LOST writers didn't know where they were going with the show.

Update on Harper Stanhope appearing in previous episodes:
I watched the first 4 episodes of Season 3. I didn't see Goodwin's wife. I didn't expect she'd be there in the background as an extra. IMDB credits the actress who played Goodwin's wife only for last night's episode, "The Other Woman."

Anomaly with Goodwin's character:
I'm watching last night's episode. Goodwin introduces himself to Juliet saying that he works at the power station where he got the chemical burn that Juliet treats. But in Season 3, we see Goodwin in the OR with Juliet and Ethan, who was a physician (according to Ben), while they attempt to help another dying pregnant woman. Goodwin is masked up, with blood on his hands, and looking all doctor-like. Why, how, does a worker at a power station wind up acting like a physician's assistant in the OR? Seems like a slip of some kind.

Portrait on the wall of Ben's home that vaguely resembles Juliet:
Also in "The Other Woman," in the flashback where Ben invites Juliet to what she thought was a dinner party at his house but turns out to be a cozy dinner for the two of them (MAJORILY CREEPY!), you can see a large portrait on the wall of Ben's living room, behind him as he opens the door. It's onscreen for a few seconds. It's a portrait of a woman with long blondish hair. She's wearing a cream colored dress and sitting demurely outside what looks to be one of the bungalows. There are jungle like trees behind her. She looks like a cross between a grown up Annie, the little girl friend of Ben who carved the wooden dolls for Ben's birthday, and Juliet. I can see where Juliet's "shrink" told her that "she looks just like you," without referencing anyone in particular. I think she's speaking of grown up Annie, whom we are sure to see in a flashback to come soon. I'd bet Ben was nutsy cuckoo for Annie and something awful happened to her, and since then he's been dying to get her back .... in some form. Hence his obsession with Juliet. I wouldn't be surprised, knowing how this show works, that whatever happened to Annie was caused by Ben.

Thoughts on Ben and dying pregnant women on the Island:
I've always thought that the problem with pregnant women on the Island dying in their 3rd trimester is caused by Ben. We know the Island seems to be able to tap into someone's emotionally charged thoughts and manifest things, like Jack's father or Kate's horse or Hurley's Dave. What if the Island, in a nasty twist, has tapped into Ben's anger and fear and a million other feelings that he has around the death of his mother in her 3rd trimester of pregnancy and has created this terrible paradigm. Kill Ben and pregnant women might survive. But we know Ben manages to live on and on and on...

I really hated Ben in this latest episode.

This guy I work with today told me that he thinks it is Michael in the coffin.

He says the newspaper clipping said a man from New York and he thinks Michael is the only person who was from New York.

I mentioned to him Jack and Kate's reactions to the newspaper article and I just cant see that for Michael ... yet.

It's Michael. It has to be.....

That would certainly make sense, but as with most things Lost, the outcome is never what we expect. If we're all expecting it to be Michael, then maybe it will be someone else entirely....

This guy I work with today told me that he thinks it is Michael in the coffin.

He says the newspaper clipping said a man from New York and he thinks Michael is the only person who was from New York.

I mentioned to him Jack and Kate's reactions to the newspaper article and I just cant see that for Michael ... yet.

Yes, that was mentioned back in January in the pop ups that appeared in the replay of the Season 3 finale. I commented on it Feb. 1st:

I never even thought of that. Good idea. I was trying to figure out who in the show was from NYC, besides Rose. I'd forgotten about Michael. If you watched the repeat from Wednesday night, which was the final episode of the 3rd season, the pop ups mentioned a rumor about the person in the casket being from NYC. I hadn't heard that before.

....So who is Ben's man on the boat? Could it be someone whom we think might be dead but might have been shifted in time like those bunnies in the video (or whatever was done to those bunnies) so that there appears to be two of them. Maybe one was killed and the other is OK. So maybe Ben's man on the boat is Ethan? Convoluted, I know, but the coming attractions teaser took me there. Though how Ethan could be construed as a friend to our survivors and open the door for them...well, I think I'm getting carried away.

We shall see....

I have to disagree with myself on this.

They wouldn't have needed Jack to try and save the life of the Other woman who was shot by Sun if Ethan was still around. Ben said while he was on the operating table for his spinal surgery that Ethan had been their surgeon until he was shot by Charlie.

SPOILERS! Highlight to read:

Soo... Jin faked his own death? Do you think he had to make such a deal to get Sun off the island? Or do you think he's working for Ben like Sayid? More questions...

Refer to Marc's post above:
Did he really? Or was the bear scene a flashback...?

Refer to Marc's post above:
Did he really? Or was the bear scene a flashback...?

Francine and I never even considered that. Good call.