### Apollo BBS Archive - January 3 - 4, 1992

    Mail from Apollo SysOp
    Date: 01/03/92  Time: 22:28:00

    I stopped by to visit, to see the wedding pictures and see if you had any
    work....  I was down that side of twon looking for jobs...found NOTHING...
    Soon I will be seen carring a sign that will say "I WILL work for food..."

    The defense industry is dead...  sniff...

    *=* the 'Mighty' Apollo SysOp *=*  <-clif-

    P.S. Glad to hear you had a pretty good week...  I may see James Hawley
    about a job and training...  Sigh!
    [A]bort, [C]ontinue, [I]nsty-reply or [Z]ap:Insty-reply

    Enter a line containing only an [*] to stop
     1:You could get started by learning the tricks of opening automobiles and
     2:James and I both could send you the 'lockouts' in your area.  We both get
     3:them.  Learning vehicle opening tricks is not that hard and the tools can
     4:be made by using stock.
     5:
     6:You could probably get calls from other locksmiths for a percentage for
     7:locksouts in your area.  I worked this way and did well.  James works this
     8:way also.
     9:
    10:It can be done.  And you could learn some other basics while it all
    11:progresses.  It ain't the end of the world but then again perhaps it is.
    12:
    13:                                Rod

    Mail from Pete Fischer
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:00:25

    Well, you, yourself said it was better not to retaliate. As I pointed out,
    they have MANY advantages over me, not the least of which is number. I am
    only one and they must be twenty or more. They have 24 hr presence in their
    homes, I am frequently gone for 18 hrs on a stretch. If I "up the ante" as
    it were, I must be prepared for a major offensive. Again I ask, is it really
    worth all this?
            I'm afraid he would win any arm wrestling bout. He's a burly man.
    A good 275 pounds and less than 6 feet tall. Thanks for the suggestions
    though, I truely appreciate your concern. It's that "moral support" that has
    seen me through this as far as I've gone. Pete
    [A]bort, [C]ontinue, [I]nsty-reply or [Z]ap:Insty-reply

    Enter a line containing only an [*] to stop
     1:Twenty or more people!  Wow.  I didn't realize, I thought it was a man and
     2:his wife.  I hope it slackens into non-existance.  -Rod

    $tatus Club Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 8791
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: History
    Subject: Oldest BBS in AZ
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 01:42:48

    Apollo is the oldest BBS in Arizona -- since 1982.  So which was the oldest
    BBS in Arizona *before* 1982?

    The use of "since" always makes me chuckle.  I see things like "Joseph Brown
    & Co. -- Quality Furniture since 1925".  It always conjures up a vision of
    the cobbled-up shoddy furniture they were selling *before* 1925.

    X-Rated Cosmos Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 5289
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Cosmos-Chatter
    Subject: last
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 11:55:53

    I see the hit-and-run artist is at it again.

    You chose Cosmos-Chatter

    Subject:Hit and run

    Enter a line containing only an <*> to stop
     1:Yeah, Zak spends some of his life in other parts of the galaxy.  Can't
     2:really blame him for that especially if he found a party universe.

    Nick's Music Palace Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 1589
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit-Chat & Sing
    Subject: Zakey Baby
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 08:50:35

                             * SIGH!*

    Public Bulletin Board command:$C

    Message: 81147
    Author: James Matlock
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Green/various
    Date: 01/03/92  Time: 22:21:16

    Ricky, huh?  Those disembodied spirits just can't be trusted.  I'll bet it
    didn't even belong to the Nelson family.

    The fourth dimension is just like the set of _Wheel of Fortune_ only bigger.

    RE: your puzzle answer.  Not quite.  It might produce such a sequence
    depending on what order the independent variables are changed in, but it
    wouldn't have to produce that sequence.  In any case, the question asked not
    what sequence, but what SET the range constituted.  You don't need to
    specify an ordered set, just name the set (i.e., the set of all squares
    ending in -4-5-6, etc.).  You get a brownie point for the attempt,
    however.

    Message: 81148
    Author: James Matlock
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Bill on Archi
    Date: 01/03/92  Time: 22:37:22

    BB >> (BTW, this has nothing to do with my SypOperly duty to enforce the
    BB >> ules.  It only weakens your arguments in my opinion.  It moves
    BB >> toward our dear friend the Straw Man.)

    I see what you mean.  BTW, wasn't the Straw Man the one who sang "If I only
    had a brain" in the Wizard of Oz?  Or is this merely a clever attempt to
    skirt the ules?

    Message: 81149
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Matlock's puzzle
    Date: 01/03/92  Time: 23:35:51

    The set which the function produces is the same set which you defined it to
    work over -- natural numbers.

    Message: 81150
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Rod / 80905
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:07:42

    Not true.  Matthew 7:21-23.

    Daryl

    Message: 81151
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Archi / 80916
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:10:33

         And if that is not enough, I heard one of the announcers pubicly
    denounce Lenin.  I mean RIPPED him...up one side and down another!

         I've also heard them on several occasions plugging for advertisers.
    Interested parties can have their ads run in 15 different languages during
    Radio Moscow's shortwave programming.

    Message: 81152
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Bill / 80920
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:28:03

    Bill: "I suspect it's not unlike the pressure a child feels from a molesting
           parent."

    Gee, no anti-Christian bias here.  Really now, who is the one who is being
    forced to conform?  The youth who might happen to sing a song like "Silent
    Night" (which, by the way is not only a part of the Christian heritage, but
    also part of American culture) in a school Christmas pageant is not facing
    nearly the pressure or damage than the Christian student attending public
    school.  He is forced to sit in a required science class and then fed an
    evolutionist doctrine that places pressure on him to abandon his beliefs
    ("give up your fairy tales and join the REAL world") and become another
    individual that believes his ancestors swung from trees.

        Of course, I do not endorse the enforcement of participation in any
    school activity that is at odds with one's personal religious beliefs (and
    that includes science/biology classes).

        Oh, and could you please show you justify a parallel between a victim of
    child abuse and a child who is asked to sing a Christmas song?  Pressure on
    youth/teens is not limited to religious matters in our schools.  (If
    anything, the pressure in the schools regarding religion is not on those who
    are not religious, but on those who ARE.)  Peer pressure exists to an even
    greater extent in the matter of pre-marital sex.  And what do we have to
    relieve the situation?  "Now we're going to teach you about SAFE SEX."  Urg.

    Message: 81153
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon / 80939
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:32:41

        I would have no problem with Hanukah songs.

    Daryl

    Message: 81154
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Felix / 80971
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:35:16

        And that is exactly why my children will not attend public school as I
    had to.

    Daryl

    Message: 81155
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Bill / 80986
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:47:27

    Bill: "The ones that use religious Christmas carols as part of their
           curriculum do, even if it is a subtle embrace."

        And therefore we must avoid it, lest we teach our children something
    about our history or our culture.  Religion is an important part of our
    history and our culture (and I am not just talking about Christianity here).

        Not everyone who sings Christmas carols like "Silent Night" or "Joy To
    The World" is participating in a religious exercise, no more so than someone
    who sings the "Battle Hymn of the Republic."  In fact, many popular singers
    have sung a number of what are considered to be 'sacred' Christmas songs
    with no intention of practicing, promoting or endorsing Christianity what-
    soever.

        And as far as the "moment of silence" matter, I was in high school when
    the moment of prayer was first incorporated into the start of the school
    day.  My first period teacher refused to allow the students to observe it.

    Daryl

    Message: 81156
    Author: $ Daryl Westfall
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Football
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 00:53:09

        Did anyone catch the game that the network lost the feed on and had to
    link up to a Japanese feed?  Does anyone have this on tape?  I've heard so
    much about it and I am interested in viewing it from a technical standpoint.

    Message: 81157
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Following
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 01:44:48

    I've split the following into two, so there's only eight posts right now.
    Sorry about your 14K, Rod.

    Message: 81158
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Religion&Govt
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 01:46:25

    I haven't kept up with British politics enough to notice whether school
    prayer has even become an issue there.  I suspect it hasn't, since the UK
    still has a constitutional state religion.  One of the Queen's official
    titles, which still appears on the coinage abbreviated as "FID DEF" or
    "FJD", is "Fidei Defensor" -- Defender of the Faith".

    A lot more titles appeared on British coinage in the past.  "IND IMP",
    Emperor of India, was dropped for the best of reasons in 1948.  The
    disappearance of BRITT OMN REX is harder to explain, especially when the
    tradition behind the title is more than twelve hundred years old.  The 8th-
    century King Offa was the first to stamp his coins with the title "rex
    totius Anglorum patriae" -- "king of all the land of the English".

    Today, the words DEI GRATIA still remind us that the Queen is our sovereign
    through the grace of God, much as U.S. currency reminds us of the motto of
    those who mint it: IN GOD WE TRUST.  There is no truth to the rumor that
    they modified this slogan from an earlier one, "in gold we trust", when they
    went off the gold standard in 1933, hoping that the public wouldn't notice.

    Certainly the public don't seem to have noticed this blatantly religious
    assertion on currency issued by a government that is constitutionally bound
    to avoid religious affiliation at all costs.  If they have noticed, they
    haven't protested very much about it.  But perhaps nobody reads what it says
    on coins.

    Back in the 8th century, King Offa wanted a pretty design to embellish his
    coinage, and the mint at Canterbury (seat of the Archbishopric) copied an
    elaborate set of curlicues from an Arabic dinar.  These little squiggles
    actually read: "There is no God but one, and Mohammed is his prophet."
    Clearly King Offa didn't notice, and I suppose the public didn't, either.

    The Faith that the current sovereign defends is of course the Protestant
    Anglican one sponsored by Henry VIII.  This is a great irony, since the
    title Defender of the Faith was first bestowed on Henry by Pope Leo X for
    his authorship of a pamphlet attacking the Protestant Lutheran "heresy".
    But that was in 1521, long before Henry decided he wanted a divorce.

    In my time, school religious observance in England was never controversial.
    The brief hymn, prayer, and Bible reading were technically a Protestant
    ceremony, and the thirty or so Catholics out of the school's 620 pupils went
    off into a classroom during this time.  I never found out what they did
    there.  I don't think we even had any Jewish students.  Life can be much
    easier with a culturally heterogeneous population.  It isn't that the
    minorities you do have are so small that their voice is never heard.  It
    isn't a matter of sweeping small amounts of discrimination under the rug.
    Rather, a very small minority does not present itself as a threat to the
    majority, so the majority has far less reason to fear the minority or to put
    it down in any way.  And minority members, recognizing how few they are, can
    see the unreasonableness of demanding special provisions for themselves.

    In recent times, the greatest cause of civil unrest in Britain has been
    race.  Unlike the U.S., this is a relatively new problem for Britain.  It
    was never a serious issue until widespread immigration swelled the ranks of
    minority groups, and increased unemployment caused native-born Britons to
    see the immigrants as "taking away their jobs".  Religion has not been a
    serious source of contention in Great Britain for a couple of centuries,
    though the sound of crackling flames and rolling heads was far from unknown
    in earlier times.

    Ireland is a different story, yet the roots of that conflict show all too
    clearly that the cause was never truly a religious one, but the attempts of
    one group to dominate another.  History has shown the remarkable facility of
    religion as a tool for rationalizing, even encouraging, acts of aggression.
    If people are deluded into thinking simplistically that their God approves
    of everything they do and disapproves of their competitors on principle,
    their attention is diverted from examining issues of true moral rightness.

    Most Western Europeans are surprised to hear such a strident voice of raw
    religion in American politics today.  It smacks of a return to earlier, less
    rational times, or at least to less rational parts of the world such as the
    Middle East.  But the role of religion in American life is well established,
    and for good historical reasons.

    The community at Plymouth was not the earliest European settlement of North
    America, but it's the one best remembered today -- rather than the earlier,
    more commercially oriented one at Jamestown, for example.  We are told that
    the Pilgrims (whose name says it all) came to America in search of
    "religious freedom".  It would be a great mistake to misinterpret this
    phrase.  "Religious freedom" ought to mean the freedom of any individual to
    worship the God of his choice, or not to worship, if he so chooses.  The
    Pilgrims came to America, not to escape religious intolerance, but to escape
    the particular brand of religious intolerance that prevented them from
    worshipping as they chose in Europe.  As often happens in human conflict,
    they began as losers in a game; and they solved their difficulty by changing
    the rules of the game so that they would be on the winning side, instead of
    taking a broader view and giving up the game altogether so that there would
    be no losers.  The Pilgrims did not leave religious intolerance behind.
    They brought their own noose of religious intolerance right along with them
    -- a necessary piece of equipment for playing the game -- and they used it
    several times, most notoriously in Salem, at a time when much of Western
    Europe had outgrown its hysterical fear of witches.

    The surprising strength of religious fundamentalism in America owes a lot to
    its roots in earlier settlers, but this alone does not explain why it
    persists so strongly today.  To my mind, the reason for that persistence is
    that the history of America is, first, one of colonists exiled from their
    origins; and secondly, one of danger.

    The pioneer who leaves his home and community to strike out on his own is
    stepping into a very uncertain future, especially if he is cut off so that
    there can be no turning back.  His life in the new land may be harder than
    in the old; but whatever that life is like, even if it is materially better,
    it will always be different.  Change is unsettling in itself, and people
    compensate for it by clinging even more strongly to whatever is familiar.
    Some customs and ways of life can persist in a colony for far longer than in
    the native land.  One of these is speech.  In many ways the speech of
    Americans is closer to British speech of the past than modern British speech
    is.  British speech has changed more.  Religion is like speech in that you
    can carry it with you wherever you go.  It is not surprising to find the
    same conservatism practiced in American religion as in American speech: a
    stronger adherence to more rigid creeds.

    The influence of danger, hardship, and conflict on American religious faith
    must not be underestimated.  The history of America is very much one of
    conflict: against the British and the Spanish, the North or the South,
    against hostile natives both red and white on a lawless frontier.  Later
    there were the Japanese, the Germans, and the Russians.  And it is very much
    one of hardship: of immigrant groups in cities, or farmers eking out a
    living in small communities with only their neighbors for support.  In times
    where survival is threatened, people turn more readily to their particular
    God for support, for reassurance, or for solace when things go wrong.

    In parts of the world where conflict of one kind or another has persisted,
    strong religious beliefs tend to persist also.  One has only to look at the
    Middle East, or the descendants of the Boers of South Africa, for examples.

    Of course it can be argued that the history of Europe was not exactly free
    of conflict in recent times.  Two great world wars have affected Europe even
    more intimately than America.  Furthermore, American living standards this
    century were generally higher than those of Europeans.  Why do we not find
    religious adherence stronger in Europe than it is?

    But it isn't valid to say that religious adherence overall correlates
    inversely with material comfort and security.  Rather, I would say that
    religious adherence rises suddenly and sharply when material comfort and
    security drop so far that personal survival is threatened.  If we take the
    element of poverty, while American living standards may be higher than the
    European, they are also more variable.  The rich may be richer, and most
    people may be better off; but over the past century (in the Depression of
    the 30s, especially), the American poor were generally poorer than the poor
    of Western Europe.

    Furthermore, if we take the element of conflict, I'm sure the roots of the
    religious difference across the Atlantic lie not in the present century, but
    in the previous one.  I think a kind of hysteresis effect applies to
    religious piety.  It takes several generations for attitudes to change.

    In the nineteenth century, poverty was far from absent in Europe; but
    overall, the standard of living was higher than in America.  It was also
    largely a time of peace in Europe.  Bismarck had a bit of a squabble with
    France about 1870; and Britain, among other countries, fought numerous wars.
    But these were foreign wars: in the Crimea, in Africa and Egypt and suchlike
    places.  They didn't have the same effect on people at home as a German bomb
    dropping down their chimney, or even the fear caused when men are
    conscripted into a war overseas.  Most people felt safe.  Though the
    Victorian age was an age of piety, it was also an age of safety for most
    people in Europe, a safety that was sapping that piety away.  The same could
    not be said of America in those years.

    Adherence to religion has a great deal to do with personal survival, and one
    threat to personal survival is violent crime.  The crime rate in America has
    always been higher than that in Europe.  While the Europe of the nineteenth
    century had plenty of crime in the cities, it was somewhat confined to
    certain ghetto areas.  The average Englishman, German, or Frenchman could
    sleep safely in his bed.  This is quite different from the American frontier
    culture where it was felt advisable to keep a shotgun on hand at all times.
    And it probably isn't an accident that we see a revival of religion today at
    a time when more and more people in America feel threatened by crime.

    The start of the twentieth century was quickly followed by a great war, and
    it was said then that "all over Europe, the lights are going out."

    Since war has had a habit of recurring throughout history, the fact that
    anyone said this at all only serves to emphasize the unusual prevalence of
    peace for the previous hundred years -- as long as anyone could remember.

    The wars and rumors of war that affected Europe in the twentieth century
    have not been free of religion.  The only difference is that they weren't
    usually called religions.  People in Christian countries certainly spent a
    lot more time in church during wartime.  The literal worship of their
    Emperor by the Japanese was nothing less than religious awe.  Across the
    world in the Fatherland, another religion prevailed.  In the rational modern
    world, the tenets of a religion need bolstering with rationality, and the
    religion of Nazism did this with arguments about eugenics and the patent
    superiority of one race over another, and the way a country's destiny is
    determined by its prowess as a fighting machine.  But the Savior was still
    saluted by name, with a stiffly raised right arm.  Some people still worship
    him today.  When he heard the multitude clamoring for his blood, he chose to
    perform his own "crucifixion" with a Walther Model 4.  His disciples caused
    his remains to ascend to Heaven by dousing his body in gasoline and putting
    a match to it.  But his charisma was decreased only temporarily by his
    martyrdom.  It is significant that his followers are on the rise today in
    what used to be East Germany, where they have been most persecuted by the
    fanatics of that other great "rational" religion, Communism.

    [To be concluded]

    Message: 81167
    Author: James Matlock
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Beau on puzzle
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 02:11:24

    Heh heh.  That's right.  Ain't I a stinker?

    (That's the set of ALL natural numbers, just to be perfectly explicit.)

    Message: 81168
    Author: James Matlock
    Category: Question?
    Subject: programming
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 02:19:07

    I've written a program which uses a recursive function.  For many
    applications it eats up all the stack space before it can finish.
    I have tried setting the stack space as large as the compiler (QuickBASIC
    4.0) will allow (around 50K) under the constraints of my system.  I have
    tried forcing an exit from the function (all levels) before the stack space
    gets too low, but this does not reset the stack space.  A CLEAR statement
    resets all numeric variables to zero and so it is impossible to re-call the
    function from where it left off using its last figures.

    I do not believe that it is practical to write a program to do what this one
    is supposed to do, without using a recursive function.

    Any suggestions at all?

    Message: 81169
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Question?
    Subject: Daryl
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 02:24:09

    Hey Daryl, what happened to those tapes proving that evolution is all bunk?
    You promised they'd be available nearly six months ago!

    Message: 81171
    Author: James Matlock
    Category: Question?
    Subject: logic
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 03:45:42

    The Law of the Excluded Middle says that any given proposition must be
    either true or false.  We might define a true proposition as one which can
    be proven within a given system (i.e, given a set of axioms and some
    rules to operate with), and a false proposition as one whose converse can be
    proven within a given system.  It then becomes clear that the truth
    or falsity of a proposition can only be decided with reference to a specific
    system (set of axioms and reasoning rules).  Yet we know that, given any
    consistent system, there are propositions expressible within it that are
    undecidable (i.e., they cannot be proven, nor can their converse be proven).

    On what basis, then, do we defend the Law of the Excluded Middle?  It might
    be said that, given any proposition, we can construct a system where it is
    true (by adding it as an axiom) or false (by adding its converse as an
    axiom).  Yet, if we are going to apply the law not within a specific system,
    but to the universe of possible systems, what justifies us to limit the use
    of the Law of Contradiction (a proposition cannot be both true and false) to
    a single system, rather than applying it to the universe of systems (where
    it is clearly wrong, since any proposition can be made true or false by
    constructing a system which uses it or its converse as an axiom)?

    Message: 81172
    Author: $ Ann Oudin
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Bill #81133
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 08:35:12

    I don't think so. Insurance men come pretty close as being con men a lot of
    the time. Come to think of it, most advertizing is a con game to a degree.
                                  -=*) ANN (*=-

    Message: 81173
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Last
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:05:14

    Ain't it the truth!

    Message: 81174
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Daryl-Xmas Pressure
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:06:06

    >> "I suspect it's not unlike the pressure a child feels from a
    >> molesting parent."

    > Gee, no anti-Christian bias here.  Really now, who is the one
    > who is being forced to conform?

            It's been so long since I posted that I had to log in just to
    retrieve the message.  :)
            I didn't mean to imply any anti-Christian bias, Daryl.  My
    comparison with the pressure a child abuse victim feels was meant to allude
    to something I felt we all could empathize with:  The sense of powerlessness
    and frustration that accompanies being forced into doing something you feel
    isn't right.  I can easily imagine a Jewish or Moslem (or whatever) child
    feeling this way if he or she were made to feel different by refusing to
    participate in a program that was clearly celebrating Christmas, rather than
    "the holidays."
            Christians have plenty of opportunities to celebrate in a religious
    way what they consider to be a religious holiday without forcing such
    celebrations on others.
            I'll be first to admit that Christians have been called upon to give
    up some of the religious aspects of Christmas.  But I also contend that such
    calls were entirely justified.

    Message: 81175
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Daryl-Heritage
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:06:28

    >> "The ones that use religious Christmas carols as part of their
    >> curriculum do, even if it is a subtle embrace."

    > And therefore we must avoid it, lest we teach our children
    > something about our history or our culture.  Religion is an
    > important part of our history and our culture (and I am not
    > just talking about Christianity here).

            And if you'd read on a bit you'd see I mentioned my son's school
    holiday program at which more than one religion was represented in song.
            I agree that religion is an important part of our cultural heritage,
    but the line between merely acquainting a student with the beliefs of any
    particular religion and making that religion a part of the school's
    "corporate culture" (if you will) is a fine one.  And, given our
    sensibilities on religion, one that must be approached very, very carefully.

    Message: 81176
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Politics
    Subject: Gordon & Minorities
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:06:47

    > Rather, a very small minority does not present itself as a
    > threat to the majority, so the majority has far less reason to
    > fear the minority or to put it down in any way.  And minority
    > members, recognizing how few they are, can see the
    > unreasonableness of demanding special provisions for
    > themselves.

    You're kidding here, right, Gordon?  Do you mean to say majorities AREN'T at
    their most vicious when they are at their strongest?  My reading of history
    suggests just the opposite.

    And are you saying that members of small minorities ARE, in fact, acting
    unreasonably when they "demand special provisions for themselves?"

    I hope I've misread you somehow.

    Message: 81177
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: James-Straw Man
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:07:06

    > I see what you mean.  BTW, wasn't the Straw Man the one who
    > sang "If I only had a brain" in the Wizard of Oz?

    Yes he was.  And I think it's appropriate because the classic straw man
    argument indicates one has come to a stall in his or her thinking.

    > Or is this merely a clever attempt to skirt the ules?

    You'll have to tell me, James.  I hope it's not.

    Message: 81178
    Author: $ Bill Burkett
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Beau-Cheering Ladmo
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:07:28

    > Big deal.  I've seen [Ladmo] get dressed.  (We go to the same
    > athletic club)

    Does he get cheers there, too?

    > Bill: Hey, the Golden Knights don't win lots of parachuting
    > contests for nothing! You should see them fly around in
    > formations during freefall!

    When we got there they were perhaps 500 feet in the air, spiraling down,
    trailing smoke, corkscrew fashion.  It was lovely!

    Message: 81179
    Author: $ Paul Savage
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Beau/free market
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 09:25:48

    The "free" market operates only to the degree that those who have a
    stranglehold on any given industry allow it to operate. While there may seem
    to be competition in the insurance game, just try to start a really
    competitive company and see how long you last. (Sufficient capitol assumed,
    of course.)
     Local newspapers are a classic example of phony freedom in the marketplace.
    We have seen many efforts at competition with the Pulliam rags, only to see
    them fold because of the inability to get advertising (Pulliam had all their
    advertisers intimidated), or the inability to get supplies such as paper
    and/or ink. These are facts that even Pulliam didn't bother to hide.

    Message: 81180
    Author: $ Fred Smith
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Bill B/used car sale
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 10:04:44

    In my experiance NO ONE can hold a candle to the outright lies told by
    used car salesman.  If the same lieing was done in any other field involving
    the same amount of money they would have them behind bars in an instant for
    fraud. ~r But with used cars it is so ingrained in the system that it is
    just shrugged off.

    Message: 81181
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Pulliam competition
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 11:48:57

    Well, it's possible that the competition wasn't sufficiently capitalized to
    break into the market.  It is *also* possible that the R&G were doing a good
    enough job of providing newspapers and advertising at reasonably fair rates

    Message: 81182
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Arch/Soviets
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 11:50:35

    Well, lessee, Rockefeller went to Moscow and made some sort of deal with the
    Communist Party, and they put Gorby up as their front man.  About the same
    time, Yeltsin was kicked out.

    Now Gorby is gone, the Communist Party is out of power, and Yeltsin is in.
    Does this mean that Rockefeller was *really* dealing with Yeltsin, and the
    last 7 years are part of the plot?

    Message: 81183
    Author: $ Beauregard Dog
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Wow...
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 11:54:16

    So many things to talk about, but I don't have time.  I'd like to discuss
    converting to a free-market economy (instead of converting *from* one, which
    is all you can learn about in universities) -- especially the way the
    Russians, and their neighbors are trying it.  In a conversation with a
    friend, I suggested that the government "give back" everything to the people
    by setting up stock companies for all government enterprises and issuing
    equal shares to each individual.  You know, three or four grocery store
    chains in Moscow, a couple of power plants, etc., etc.

    I'd also like to talk about political parties in the U.S., and what is
    happening with David Duke's attempt to get on the Republican ballot in
    various states -- and what the party functionaries, the ACLU, and others
    have to say about why he should or should not be allowed on.

    Message: 81184
    Author: $ Fred Smith
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Gordon L
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 12:39:15

    Very interesting posts Gordon!!!

    Message: 81185
    Author: $ Fred Smith
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Daryl/School
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 12:40:28

    D.W. Said==>>
        Of course, I do not endorse the enforcement of participation in any
    school activity that is at odds with one's personal religious beliefs (and
    that includes science/biology classes).

    Fred asks==>>
        Am I understanding correctly then that if one has merely personal
    beliefs, as opposed to personal RELIGIOUS beliefs, that it's ok for the
    school put one at odds with those merely personal beliefs?

    Fred Further comments==>>
         For discussion purposes, lets say that some kid has some Personal
    RELEGIOUS beliefs that include the belief that the use of punctuation
    and capitalization is morally wrong and therefore that puts them at odds
    with what is taught in class as "correct" English.  Should they therefore
    be excused from "enforc...participation" in the English class as well
    as being excused from using "proper" capitalization and punctuation in
    all their other classes??

    Message: 81186
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Bill/Major Minor
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 23:20:51

     BB>>Do you mean to say majorities AREN'T at their most vicious when they
     BB>>are at their strongest?  My reading of history suggests just the
     BB>>opposite.

    Rather than correlating the attitude of majorities to just the one factor of
    their strength, I'd say that whether the majority gets vicious or not
    depends on how much motivation they have for getting vicious, as well as on
    how vicious they can afford to get with impunity.  The second factor says
    that when the minority is smaller and the majority is larger, the majority
    can afford to treat the others worse because their victims don't have much
    of a voice to stop them -- which is the point you were making.

    My point was that the majority needs a reason for persecuting the minority
    in the first place.  Minorities don't get persecuted just because they
    exist.  For example, people of German extraction are a minority in the U.S.,
    but I'm not aware of any prejudice today against people with German names.
    In fact, some of our biggest heroes have names like Schwartzkopf.

    Minorities get persecuted because the majority somehow perceives them as a
    threat.  How much of a threat they present depends on how different they are
    from the majority, and in what way they're different.  It also depends on
    how many of them there are.  Clearly, the larger the minority, the more
    threatening they are.  So all these factors interplay in a complex manner.

    On the one hand, the majority can *afford* to be more oppressive if the
    minority is weaker.  On the other hand, the majority has more *reason* to
    react if the minority is stronger.

    Undoubtedly it makes a difference if the ratio is, say, twenty to one as
    opposed to three to one.  A minority consisting of 25% of the population
    does have some power to stand up for itself against discrimination.  In
    Britain at the time of the Notting Hill riots (for example), the black
    population must have been well under 2% of the total UK population; though
    they were strongly concentrated in particular areas, of course.  The black
    population was probably well under 1% a couple of decades earlier, when
    there was no racial tension.  I'd suggest that there's no practical
    difference between a fifty-to-one ratio and a hundred-to-one ratio in terms
    of how strong the *majority* is.  Their numbers are overwhelming in both
    cases.  The most significant difference is in the minority population, and
    in how noticeable that minority is.

    Curiously, in spite of the Irish troubles, there never seems to have been
    any complaint of discrimination against Irish Catholics *in Great Britain*.
    Their numbers are about 2.5%.  On the other hand, some of the worst ethnic
    strife has occurred where the minority has a substantial presence: Northern
    Ireland (2:1 Protestant:Catholic), Cyprus (4:1 Greeks:Turks), Lebanon (4:3
    Moslem:Christian), and Croatia -- though the substantial Serbian minority
    there symbolizes the threat of Serbian oppression in Yugoslavia as a whole.

    Message: 81188
    Author: $ Gordon Little
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Bill/spec. provision
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 23:23:05

     BB>>And are you saying that members of small minorities ARE, in fact,
     BB>>acting unreasonably when they "demand special provisions for
     BB>>themselves?"

    Depending on what it is they're asking, and how much the lack of it means to
    them, yes, I am saying that.  It's reasonable to demand equal opportunity in
    jobs, housing and so forth: in short, it's reasonable to demand that people
    not take advantage of minorities simply because they *are* a minority.  I
    also think it's reasonable for people in wheelchairs to ask for ramps and
    elevators or other assistance to be provided in public buildings, even
    though people in wheelchairs are a small minority, because it makes a huge
    difference to their ability to participate in life.  Roughly, I'd take the
    "inconvenience factor", multiply it by the size of the minority, and compare
    that with the cost of accommodating the demand to gauge whether the demand
    was reasonable or not.  It isn't reasonable for the majority to give up
    microwave ovens because they endanger people with pacemakers.  It's more
    reasonable just to warn the pacemaker people to stay clear of the area.

    If I went to live in an Islamic country where Arabic was spoken, I would
    call it unreasonable if I, as a member of a small minority, demanded that
    the majority learn English to converse with me or build a Christian church
    for me to attend or educate my children according to the customs they were
    familiar with.  I should either adapt to the customs of that country, or get
    together with other people like me to pay for facilities to our own liking.

    Message: 81189
    Author: $ Peter Petrisko
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: ZAPPED MESSAGES
    Date: 01/04/92  Time: 23:53:45

         James,
         Could you possibly repost these messages as I didn't get the chance to
    read them.  If you'd be accommodating in this matter I would surely consider
    you an ace among men old bean.

    Message: 81190
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Religion
    Subject: Daryl / 81150
    Date: 01/05/92  Time: 00:55:46

    True.  Bob 6:66-69.

    Message: 81191
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Daryl/Silent Night
    Date: 01/05/92  Time: 00:57:21

    Part of the Americal culture, eh?  Where'd you hear that?

    Message: 81192
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Answer!
    Subject: Daryl/child abuse &
    Date: 01/05/92  Time: 01:03:06

    A parallel between a victim of child abuse and one who is asked to sing a
    Christmas song is:  Telling your kids to beat on a hollow log in the forest
    in order to convince the sun to come back.

    Falsehoods should be discovered and put aside so that growth will be
    forthcoming.  I think that Peter Sellers in the part of Mr. Gardener said
    that.

    Message: 81193
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Paul/81179
    Date: 01/05/92  Time: 01:12:11

    Part of your words came out of my mind.  I wanted to do a post expressing
    those view points.  You did it very well.  Thanks.

    Message: 81194
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: Fred/Ann/Cars
    Date: 01/05/92  Time: 01:23:55

    I know something about the used car business right now as I make keys and
    repair locks for forty or fifty of them.

    Ten years ago the used car dealers could purchase an auto for around 2 to 3
    hundred dollars.  The down payment would then be that amount and the people
    could afford to get into a car fairly easy.  The ensuing (hopefully)
    payments were then the profit for the dealer.  The dealers had to sell good
    in order to make their profit and stay in business.  They uniformly adopted
    a policy to not sell to reservation Native Americans as no repossession is
    allowed there by Federal law.  They won't sell to those who come onto their
    lot thumping a bible unless the 'down' gives them a profit.  They've been
    cheated once too often.  They want a good employment on the applicant as
    well as a few other 'qualifiers'.

    Today and for the past half-year or so the units that the dealers were
    paying 2 to 3 hundred for now cost  7 hundred to a thousand dollars.  The
    people who need a car cannot afford that amount and the dealers are screwed.
    They have to sell better than ever now.  Car sales are and have been down
    for over a year.  The situation is bad.

    Salesmen are literally starving and cannot live decently.  Put anyone in
    that position and they will do whatever necessary to get a sale and this
    goes for any capitalist industry.  It's a rough world among the working
    class and it seems to be getting even more so.  -Rod

    Message: 81196
    Author: $ Rod Williams
    Category: Chit Chat
    Subject: 54,944 bytes
    Date: 01/05/92  Time: 01:31:07

    Yep, that's what I've got in my buffer from this log-in.  Ah, old times.
    I'll have to read Gordon's posts offline.

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