From: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org (alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest) To: ammf-digest@smoe.org Subject: alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest V5 #340 Reply-To: ammf@fruvous.com Sender: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-ammf-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest Friday, December 21 2001 Volume 05 : Number 340 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Jumping on the bandwagon... ["Paul Skudlarek" ] Re: Jumping on the bandwagon... ["Paul Skudlarek" ] Re: his point ["A.J. LoCicero" ] Re: his point [bbwminors@aol.com (BBWMinors)] Re: his point ["Josh Drury" ] Re: his point [Lori Martin ] Re: Message to Lori! [Lori Martin ] Re: his point [Nancy Wood ] Re: his point [Vicki Cain ] Re: his point [mrsfillyjonk@hotmail.com (Richard Butterworth)] Re: his point [sugarfly26@aol.com (SugarFly26)] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 07:29:21 GMT From: "Paul Skudlarek" Subject: Jumping on the bandwagon... I figured, as long as I'm here, to jump on the bandwagon of re-announcing myself (once again) to the newsgroup at large... but at 2:30 AM, I'm decidedly less than the master wordsmith, so I'll save my profound (hehe, hardly) ramblings for another time. I'll try to keep up on what's going on here for a while... Until next post... - -- Pauley +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ | Paul L. Skudlarek | | Student, Department of Information Technology | | Rochester Institute of Technology | | E-mail: Pauley@mail.rit.edu AIM: Pauley2483 ICQ: 7410094 | | http://www.rit.edu/~pls5159/ Amateur Radio: KC2FQD | +--------------------------------------------------------------------+ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 07:30:34 GMT From: "Paul Skudlarek" Subject: Re: Jumping on the bandwagon... Paul Skudlarek wrote in message news:lrgU7.13663$Fu6.7915062@typhoon.nyroc.rr.com... > I figured, as long as I'm here, to jump on the bandwagon Case in point. :-P ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 17:35:57 GMT From: "A.J. LoCicero" Subject: Re: his point at Eric wrote: > The day the electoral > college is replaced will be the day that all of the sudden no presidential > candidates cares about the interests of citizens living in Alaska, Delaware, > Rhode Island, etc. Why? Since the Electoral College is proportional, what is the difference? Candidates today don't care much about those states. They focus on California, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, New York, etc. In most cases that one electoral vote isn't going to be a big deal to them. In the case of a CLOSE election like the last one, that system skewed interests out of all semblance of reality and gave the election of the US president essentially to a popular vote of Floridians. I'm sorry Eric but that is just totally fucked. There is absolutely no excuse for a system that does that. A.J. - -- "I am here to make an announcement that this Thursday, ticket counters and airplanes will fly out of Ronald Reagan Airport."--G.W. Bush, Arlington VA, Oct. 2, 2001. Email:aj@locicero.org ICQ: 13117113 AIM: locicero For some of the best Long Distance and Calling Card rates around visit http://www.ld.net/?sensible. Cheap rates and *I* get a commission! ------------------------------ Date: 20 Dec 2001 18:41:59 GMT From: bbwminors@aol.com (BBWMinors) Subject: Re: his point " ... gave the election of the US president essentially to a popular vote of Floridians." Actually, even THAT is debatable. I think the recipient of the popular vote in Florida is getting fat and bearded in Tennessee even as we speak. ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 13:16:35 -0600 From: "Josh Drury" Subject: Re: his point "A.J. LoCicero" wrote in message news:3C22211A.CF9F67EB@locicero.org... > at Eric wrote: > > The day the electoral > > college is replaced will be the day that all of the sudden no presidential > > candidates cares about the interests of citizens living in Alaska, Delaware, > > Rhode Island, etc. > > Why? Since the Electoral College is proportional, what is the difference? > Candidates today don't care much about those states. They focus on California, > Michigan, Ohio, Texas, New York, etc. Good point. If I may take it one step further, they not only focus mainly on the most populous states but specifically on the most populous areas of those states. You'll see candidates campaign no doubt in L.A., NYC, Detroit, Houston, etc., and occasionally in some carefully selected Anytown, USA, but certainly not in every town. Should the electoral college break things down further, like by county? No, there are still regional discrepancies. How about taking it to the extreme, and have every single person represented? Then the electoral college could pick a winner based solely on popular vote. Better yet, scrap the electoral college and have the popular vote count for everything. Then every vote counts exactly the same no matter where it's from. As for states rights, you still have the senate represented equally by each state, so there's effective balance to rep by pop and state representation. Josh Drury Winnipeg (Still not thrilled that a party can win a majority government with 41% of the vote here, but no one said elections were supposed to be fair. Did they?) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 14:37:12 -0500 From: Lori Martin Subject: Re: his point BBWMinors wrote: > " ... gave the election of the US president essentially to a popular vote of > Floridians." > > Actually, even THAT is debatable. I think the recipient of the popular vote in > Florida is getting fat and bearded in Tennessee even as we speak. As do I, but it all depends on which subsets of ballots you consider worth counting. ;) Proving that there actually are four kinds of shading the truth: lies, damned lies, statistics, and the most insidious of all -- paper-ballot counts. - -- Lori ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 14:46:19 -0500 From: Lori Martin Subject: Re: Message to Lori! wild Bill, claiming to be a grumpy old man, issued the following reminder: > Now in Eric's defense, HTML tags in news posts are annoying as hell if > you don't read news using something that can interpret them. Indeed. Any word on whether the mail-news gateway problem has been fixed? Then I could go back to happily emailing my posts, and avoid having to reset preferences for the newsreader every time some (dubiously) brilliant thought occurs to me. > As soon as you start doing > HTML, it's a slippery slope to people posting word documents (okay, > maybe I'm going a bit overboard here) No you're not. I'm sure I'm not the only one who remembers seeing binary files posted here. Nasty, indeed. - -- Lori at times a grumpy old lady (must be something in the local water) ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 14:46:53 -0500 From: Nancy Wood Subject: Re: his point Cookie wrote: > OK. This has to be the funniest thing I've read yet on this topic. I'm glad someone was amused. I'm still rather grossed out. > My > first reaction to this post was, sure, maybe you're right. We probably > should have just lured them out with flowers, chocolate, and lusty > women, then given them a bath and told them to not ever rebel against > the United States again, swatted them on the butt and sent them back > home with a care package full of McDonald's french fries and Starbucks > "Morning Blend". Hmmm... I don't think I ever meant to give the impression that we should offer flowers and chocolate. I just said that when people are in custody as prisoners we should make an attempt to treat them as humanely as possible under the circumstances. Just for the record, in my book Starbucks = Rot Gut = Diesel fuel and *is* cruel and inhuman punishment in and of itself. That's not a political statement (sorry Jian), it's just my taste buds. And if anyone deserves chocolates it's me, I've had a rather rough week. > I hate to be so snide, but this post just reaffirms the cliche that > hindsight is 20/20. In reality, at the moment in question, I seriously > doubt anyone even knew for *sure* that the CIA agent was dead when the > bombing command was given, They definitely knew. He wasn't just shot, he was beaten to an unrecognizable pulp. The other CIA operative wanted to go back for him and was told no, he was absolutely dead and to leave him. > let alone based the attack as a retalition. That would be just my opinion, not fact. > To quote AJ (who's merely quoting many before)...war is hell. Another > fact is: military personnel are humans just like us--no matter which > side they fight for. As a result of having this tragic flaw, they are > also not immune to such things as fear and self-preservation > reactions. I don't know what went on in that fortress, and neither > does anyone else right now, except the people who were there. We'll > find out the truth in 5 or 10 years, maybe. And even then, it will > only be the "historical truth" which may or may not be the actual > truth. Until then, it's his word against his, and I guarantee neither > side would be lying. I'm not sure I'm following you here. Why would we know any more in 5 or 10 years? Those who survived have already been interrogated and some have been interviewed by the press. Hell, the American was interviewed on TV by CNN about what happened. There was a Time reporter on the scene during the whole 2-3 day period who reported a blow-by-blow from above ground... > I'd like to share a bit of a bizarre observation I had in regard to > this specific event. When I heard that the Taliban fighters had > surrendered, I thought to myself, "What are they doing? The Northern > Alliance will not tolerate prisoners. They'll kill them first." The > next news article I read on this topic was that there was an > "uprising", and that hundreds of Taliban prisioners had been killed. > Let's just say that I had my doubts about the legitimacy about the > claims that the POWs had weapons and tried to blast their way out of > the fortress. My first reaction was that the Northern Alliance decided > to eliminate their enemy, and then claimed they were acting in > self-defense. I'd think that too if there hadn't been CIA operatives on-site as well as reporters. I think it would have been a wee bit hard to conceal something like that what with everything being videotaped. ~N~ ------------------------------ Date: Thu, 20 Dec 2001 16:13:14 -0500 From: Vicki Cain Subject: Re: his point Nancy Wood wrote: > > And if anyone deserves chocolates it's me, I've had a rather rough week. Go for it, girl! > > let alone based the attack as a retalition. > > That would be just my opinion, not fact. I just meant that your post made it sound like the guy was killed, then within two hours, planes were bombing the fortress in retaliation. Word travels quickly, but definite death confirmations--especially during a mess such as this one was--usually take longer than that. Obviously people directly involved on the site knew about it, and I'm not questioning that. I just strongly believe the planes were brought in to quell the uprising--not in retaliation for a CIA officer's death. Also, my opinion, not fact. > > > To quote AJ (who's merely quoting many before)...war is hell. Another > > fact is: military personnel are humans just like us--no matter which > > side they fight for. As a result of having this tragic flaw, they are > > also not immune to such things as fear and self-preservation > > reactions. I don't know what went on in that fortress, and neither > > does anyone else right now, except the people who were there. We'll > > find out the truth in 5 or 10 years, maybe. And even then, it will > > only be the "historical truth" which may or may not be the actual > > truth. Until then, it's his word against his, and I guarantee neither > > side would be lying. > > I'm not sure I'm following you here. Why would we know any more in 5 or 10 years? Those who survived have > already been interrogated and some have been interviewed by the press. Hell, the American was interviewed on > TV by CNN about what happened. There was a Time reporter on the scene during the whole 2-3 day period who > reported a blow-by-blow from above ground... Please keep in mind that everything we're hearing is various people's perception of the situation which is then skewed by the various media representatives to project the image they want us to see. I'm also having a real problem putting any weight whatsoever on John Walker's opinion (that is who you were referring to, right?). He strikes me as being a rather messed-up kid with a real bad attitude. Quite frankly, I find it bizarre that they're not going to try him for treason since he voluntarily admits he helped wage war against the United States, but then I'm not familiar with treason "rules". If you think his perception of what happened isn't skewed against the Alliance, than...well, I'm just shaking my head. On the other hand, I'm not saying he's lying, I'm just saying that he's probably not the most objective witness to the whole debacle. Again, I want to bring up the "Rashoman" point. In case you haven't seen it, it's a very fabulous and thought-provoking movie about just this point. In the movie, four people witness a rape/murder, yet when explaining what happened, four completely different stories are revealed--any one of which is completely believable. It points out the differentiation between truth and perceived truth. Sometimes the actual truth isn't immediately clear, but is a combination of several perceived truths. This is what I mean when I say we'll find out in several years as investigations are conducted and everyone's side gets revealed. Of course, the people putting together *that* story will have their own slant, so as I mentioned, it will be "historical truth" and not necessarily the real truth. > > > I'd like to share a bit of a bizarre observation I had in regard to > > this specific event. When I heard that the Taliban fighters had > > surrendered, I thought to myself, "What are they doing? The Northern > > Alliance will not tolerate prisoners. They'll kill them first." The > > next news article I read on this topic was that there was an > > "uprising", and that hundreds of Taliban prisioners had been killed. > > Let's just say that I had my doubts about the legitimacy about the > > claims that the POWs had weapons and tried to blast their way out of > > the fortress. My first reaction was that the Northern Alliance decided > > to eliminate their enemy, and then claimed they were acting in > > self-defense. > > I'd think that too if there hadn't been CIA operatives on-site as well as reporters. I think it would have > been a wee bit hard to conceal something like that what with everything being videotaped. Again, I have to temper my opinions on this topic with the perceived truth argument, and also bring up the fact that the CIA is very definitely biased as to what they were going to see or believe. Seeing isn't always believing, either. Do I need to mention the Rodney King travesty? Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying the whole situation was acceptable behavior on either side. It was a horrific example of what's wrong about war and how impossible it is to make rules so that war is "fair", as well as to show how mob mentality (or military mentality) can take over common sense in times of duress, and we therefore shouldn't be surprised when it does. Cookie ------------------------------ Date: 14 Dec 2001 07:07:40 -0800 From: mrsfillyjonk@hotmail.com (Richard Butterworth) Subject: Re: his point lightman(at)tmbg.org (Eric) wrote in message news:... > OK, let me preface this post by politely asking you not to call me "dear" or > "sweetheart." Thank you. Righto. In return I'll politely ask you to stop trying to label anyone and everyone whose political views diverge from yours as a `communist'. Thank you. I am not a communist, neither I happen to know is Molly[1]. A desire for ethical treatment of third world workers does not make you a communist, nor does a healthy scepticism about the the role that America and the west plays in international politics. Other people have taken you up on the US electoral system, who are more clued up (and interested) than this ignorant foreigner[2], but I'm fascinated. What are the reasons you told your grandparents that convinced them of the democracy of last year's US elections? And please base your arguments in product (ie. the fact that more Americans wanted Gore to be president than Bush) rather than in process. > He's entitled to his opinions. I know a Serbian who hates the US for what > they did to his country. Disgruntled Iranians. Bitter Israelis. You name > it. Of course people will be mad when they are at the crap end of the > stick. I would be, too. And, as you stated, the United States is the > "totem" of the West -- dare I say, the civilized world -- so they are the > natural scapegoats. And there we get to the nub. I know there are lots of people out there who hate the west and hate America as a symbol of the west. I think that most of that hatred stems from the clearly inequitable and hypocritical treatment dished out by my and your government to the people and governments of third world countries, and in particular to Islamic countries. A hatred that can be manipulated by megalomaniacs like Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. (The megalomanics themselves don't have to be poor, by the way, to explain your misunderstanding of my argument, but they need poverty and inequity to flourish in.) You seem to think that this hatred stems from (paraphasing again, sorry) their hatred of our freedoms. I think that's shallow, but very convenient, nonsense. To paraphrase AJ, it doesn't add up at all. If people were driven to mass murder out of hatred for other countrys' freedoms then Switzerland and Iceland would be the most terrorised countries on Earth. Which they plainly are not. If my theory is correct (and I have evidence for my theory) then international terrorism is substantially soluable without resort to mass bombs and violence. If your theory is correct (which you have, as usual, no evidence for) then its the end of the world, because people are just going to go on hating America and their freedoms and trying to bomb the US and the US is going to keep bombing back, and off we go until Osama Bin Laden Jnr gets a nuclear bomb. I'm not a pacifist; the thing that I wholeheartedly approved of, and showed that rare thing; smart tactics over smart bombs, was Clinton's attempt to deal with Bin Laden; targetting a missile at Bin Laden's cell phone signal. The problem was that after it failed the first time some prat blurted it to the media and Bin Laden switched his phone off. > It's a shame that you feel the need to impose your morals on others. Not my morals Eric. The giving of charity is part of Christian morality (Luke 13 - 13:14), 'Zakat' is roughly equivalent to charitable giving and is one of the five pillars of Islam, charitable giving is part of Jewish morality (Leviticus 25.35), charity is the first of the ten Bhuddist perfections, and so on and so on... And those ideas of charity (particularly the Islamic and Jewish ones) promote collective, rather than individual giving. Don't like religion as a source of morality? Okay. Secular humanism promotes the ethics of equality and both Darwin and Singer wrote promoting charity. And so on and so on. I could tell you about the biological determinism of altruism if you want. And paying someone more than 87c an hour isn't charity. Stopping western companies only employing young women on the condition that they take the contraceptive pill so they don't get pregnant and stop working, isn't charity. Its called showing respect for fellow human beings and allowing them the intrinsic dignity that you yourself demand as your right. In fact the only people who don't like charity are libertarians and communists. And what have they got in common? It would appear that what unites libertarianism and communism is that they both put their own dogma and theorising above the welfare, needs and wants of actual real live flesh and blood people. And you show it yourself; in this argument I have scrupilously backed up everything I have said with clear evidence and examples. You have given no evidence to back up your theories, you have only promoted your theory. Or when it clearly didn't work, you've shuffled off responsibility and told us you `don't support all US policy', presumably because it isn't libertarian enough. Paying someone 87c per hour *is* clearly inequitable, by every sensible measure available to us. You've taken clear examples of inequity, applied your ammoral philosophy to them and bingo! you claim them not to be inequitable. Well, that doesn't tell me they're not inequitable, that tells me that your philosophy is morally bankrupt and vaccuous. You tell me that I haven't shown any skill in economics. I have shown you clear examples of the results of free market economics in the third world. You have only shown me theory and no evidence to back that theory up. For example... > OK, so let's follow your line of reasoning for a moment, and raise the wages > for the worker who makes my disk drive. On a macroeconomic scale, an > increase in the price of inputs would decrease profitability and cause an > inward shift in the supply curve. This causes prices to rise and quantity > demanded to decrease. Now, workers at that factory will be laid off while > less money is flowing into the economy. OK, well lets follow your reasoning too. What's the implication of that argument? Of course! Drop their wages. If increasing wages loses job security, then decrease their wages and increase their job security. Pay them 50c and hour instead of 87c. 30c. 10c. Good economics. Dreadful humanity. Dogma over people. You tell me that I offered a "long-winded commentary on how "poverty and inquity causes hate"". It might have been long-winded, but at least it was factually accurate and based in evidence, not theorising. So, in summary, instead of telling us `Capitalism. You should try it.' I suggest reality, evidence and facts. You should try them. > Why do I need to label them, when they say it all themselves on their > webpage? "We are a global network of artists, activists, writers, > pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the > new social activist movement of the information age. Yeah well, given the choice between a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs; and a bunch of humourless libertarians, I know who I'd rather invite me to a party. And just to dispell that jarring note of agreement you introduced: who pays for nationwide civil defense? Who are you planning on taxing for it and by how much? I do trust you haven't been too busy to read this. Richard [1] Bill's a communist though. He painted his yard red and parades his model tanks across it every May Day. [2] Oh, and another quick clue; ammf: newsgroup to discuss Canadian band. You're a foreigner here too. ------------------------------ Date: 21 Dec 2001 03:40:07 GMT From: sugarfly26@aol.com (SugarFly26) Subject: Re: his point Richard said: <> I think it's shallow to completely dismiss it as any part of that hatred. <> Pieces of your theory are undoubtedly correct, but as a whole (or at least as whole as I've read it) I would argue against some of it. <> I think it was his point that you were trying to impose morals that aren't his on him. << I could tell you about the biological determinism of altruism if you want.>> Altruism and charity...I'm lost. <> Not to sound all dramatic, but quite personally, my parents are neither communist nor libertarian but quite honestly seriously do not have money to spare. And not because we're being all self-indulgent, etc. <> That's not shallow or incredibly simplistic, seeing as the artist you'd rather invite could very well be a humourless obnoxious childbeating anti-charity communist. <<[2] Oh, and another quick clue; ammf: newsgroup to discuss Canadian band. You're a foreigner here too.>> WHAT?! I thought Canada and the US merged back in the 70s! :) It does sorta slip my mind sometimes that Canada and the US are two separate countries. Whoops. Damn foreigners.. :) Ln ------------------------------ End of alt.music.moxy-fruvous digest V5 #340 ********************************************