From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V9 #308 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Sunday, October 29 2000 Volume 09 : Number 308 Today's Subjects: ----------------- US Justice? [GSS ] Re: Questioning Nader's Money, a new gameshow on Comedy Central [mojo@ric] RE: Ralph's stock holdings (NR) [Capuchin ] re: chromosomal mutation [Capuchin ] re: rampant sociopathy [Eb ] re: chromosomal mutation [grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan)] re: chromosomal mutation [Dolph Chaney ] Re: vats dis globe of fugs coming too ya [great offwhite dude ] re: chromosomal mutation [Ehtyl Ketone ] Baritone guitars [Terrence Marks ] Re: Baritone guitars [Terrence Marks ] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 11:54:40 -0500 (CDT) From: GSS Subject: US Justice? > Notice who appointed the 5th Circut judges that upheld the State's > position. That's the kind of Justices/Judges we'll get from a GWB > administration. Maybe, but the the real problem here has nothing to do with sleeping defense attorneys, please note Supreme Court decision? The problem is with the death penalty itself. gss ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 12:45:16 -0500 (CDT) From: mojo@rice.edu Subject: Re: Questioning Nader's Money, a new gameshow on Comedy Central > http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/10/28/stocks/index.html > > Thanks, Steve. It will be interesting to see what form the defense takes. > I think it would be nice if someone were simply to refute this sentence from > the Salon article: "But even if Fidelity were to divest its holdings in > Occidental, it holds shares in so many companies Nader has crusaded against, > it's hard to escape the conclusion that Nader's participation in the fund is > supremely hypocritical." In fairness to Nader, he probably bought into this fund during the years Peter Lynch steered it, in the early 80s, when it was more consumer- oriented fund (Nike, Coca-Cola, the company that owns Pizza Hut, etc.) That's not any better, really, than a portfolio full of oil giants, knowing what we know now about Nike, but there you are. Here's an earlier article about Nader from Salon that covers his investment in Cisco, which is a little more troubling: http://www.salon.com/politics/feature/2000/06/20/nader/index.html Nader owns about $1-2 million of this stock, and, having been the company with the biggest market capitalization in the US earlier this year, is responsible for a massive chunk of Nader's wealth. However, one thing the article doesn't point out [and while I'm at it, what do y'all find so interesting/worthwhile about reading Salon, anyway? I think the reportage is so look-mom-no-hands sloppy and narcissistic, like most web "journalism"] is that Cisco has this year come under fire [from Barron's, in particular for skewing its quarterly earnings reports & SEC filings, thereby causing its stock valuation to skyrocket...something the Salon story fails to mention, and is of greater importance than their puling about Cisco being a "monopoly," the old definition of which the new technological age has outstripped beyond belief, otherwise IBM would still be a "monopoly." [The U.S. DOJ did bring an anti-trust suit against them in the 70s, I believe, but it didn't come to anything.] Cisco is monopolistic, heheh, but not a rock-solid monopoly...yet. It's got 50%-70% of the garden-variety router market -- just like GM has a similar-sized piece of the auto market. (I wouldn't invest in GM either, but nobody's dragging them into anti-trust court.) The companies that compete against it in the "high-end router market" (Juniper, etc.) are doing quite well, because that market's turning into "build-to-spec" type thing, which a huge one-size-fits-all-solution giant like Cisco might have trouble serving capably, but what do I know about it, anyway. This kind of thing bothers me somewhat, but won't prevent me from voting for Nader, with great enthusiasm, the Tuesday after next. Turning into a financial news-reading bastard now that I'm 30, marshall np Pink Floyd, _Saucerful of Secrets_ ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 15:32:23 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: RE: Ralph's stock holdings (NR) On Sat, 28 Oct 2000, Brian Huddell wrote: > Thanks, Viv. I'm satisfied, as I suspected I might be. I suppose it would > be possible to quantify with some precision the balance between how Nader's > investments _benefit_ the "bad" corporations while his charitable and civic > donations _punish_ those same corporations. It might be possible but I'm > sure I'd fall asleep if someone tried to spell it out for me. What I take > from this is a refreshingly gray area usually missing from the Christ-like > terms some Nader supporters seem unable to resist. I still plan to vote for > him, but I have felt all along that he represents the lesser of three evils, > not a popular notion among the Greens I've encountered. I found it interesting that this fund is closed to new membership and has been around a LONG time. Probably Ralph's owned a part of it for quite a while (though his personal financial statements for years prior to 1999 aren't public record). Also, less than one percent of the Magellan Fund is Aerospace & Defense. So that means the Raytheon holdings would be commingled with the GE and Boeing and everything else to add up to less than one percent of the Fund. It's not like Ralph is personally propping up these companies nor is any of his personal fortune at stake if they fail. The Fund is not controlled by the members, but by Fidelity Investments and any change in the value of any of those companies would just mean a reorganization of the Fund by Fidelity. There's no way Ralph could personally benefit by manipulating those companies (and he clearly wouldn't personally benefit from ANY windfall, as the rest of his financial record clearly states). But yeah, the fellow who wrote that article is grasping for dirt. I defy anyone in this country to stand up to that kind of scrutiny. Whereas finding dirt on the Big Party candidates is just a matter of comparing words to actions in pretty much any instance. In that sense, Brian, yes, Ralph is the least of three evils. But what would it take to be truly GOOD by that standard? I don't think I've ever heard of anyone living by the high ethical standard Ralph personally lives by. What's the most YOU'VE ever given to charity? 50% of your income? And many of us live on more than US$30K without giving any significant percentage to charity and I can't think of any one else who has founded more than one or two organizations for social justice, where Ralph's created literally dozens and has three more to create in the next eighteen months. How high does the bar have to be before the press stops smearing? > It might have been smart for Ralph to actively _tout_ his investment > strategies, how he plays the corporate money game to stick it to the > corporations. At the very least it is dishonest, on the surface, for LaDuke > to criticize Gore for his (or his mom's, whatever) Occidental holdings, > since we must acknowledge the possibility of giving money to the wrong > people for the right reasons. But that's politics, and Ralph plays that > game too. Well, I don't think Viv was saying that Ralph is absolutely assuredly trying to use evil corporate money against those same corporations. I think she just found the concept interesting. The Gores do not simply own stock in Occidental, Al has gone to Columbia to lobby on their behalf, the owners (primary holders, I guess) are close friends of the Gore family, US aid has been alloted to Occidental in its South American dealings with local tribes and government... It's clearly a case of conflict of interest... not to mention a clear counter-example to Al Gore's supposed environmentalism. OK... shutting up for a bit. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ [cc] counter-copyright http://www.openlaw.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 15:32:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: re: chromosomal mutation Yawn. Stretch. OK. On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Eb wrote: > Now, you quit making fun of Portland folk! Come on, be nice! Well, some folks just beg for it. > Seriously, it's *ridiculous* that you use the above to smear the > entire population of metropolitan Los Angeles. I didn't intend to use it to smear the entire population of Los Angeles. It was just related to my point and so I threw it out... I certainly don't think anecdotal evidence is any kind of proof. Who do I look like, Al Gore? > I recall a very well-organized, favorite-films poll awhile back which > someone conducted, which had a substantial number of entries (not > including mine).... Nor mine (I don't think). But that's not the point. We, as humans, have three great gifts: We have a desire for curious research. We have a passion for artistic endeavor. And we have a capacity for compassionate decency. Now, the quests for science, art, and justice take many forms (and I leave as an exercise for the reader where the fourth, rational doubt, follows from combinations of the other three) and pop up in some of the most unexpected places. But they should always be recognized and they should always respect one another. As I took it, the list of favorite films was a move to show appreciation for particular works of art. You don't need to know an actor's name to appreciate his work. You don't have to know who's sleeping with whom to be moved by a performance. (OK... maybe in some really weird po-mo stuff you do, but then the lives become part of the art, don't they? Anyway, if someone can show me how this specifically relates to The Party, I'll continue... otherwise...) The politics of Hollywood and the "star" system is just a marketting ploy. The film companies own the television companies that make the shows about celebrities (and often the "news" which reports on celebrities as though their lives impact ours). This stuff is pumped out to us all day every day and it BECOMES important to people... whether they like it or not. This list has discussed many times the effect of repetition in radio and how (some fegs have noted) you find yourself in the shop with the album in your hand when you don't even LIKE the music you're buying but you've heard it on the radio so many times that you are fascinated by it and make the purchase. It's not a matter of taste or preference. It's a human reaction being exploited. There is nothing positive in it. Now, I know who the biggest box office draw is and how what's slated to be Drew Barrymore's next project and I can use words like "slated" when referring to the movie business. We know more about Hollywood WITHOUT EVEN TRYING than we know about the policies of our nation, the winners of Nobel prizes, the state of our ecosystems, or structure of our music. Yeah, there are people that know about these things and some that know them much better than they know Hollywood, but they're trying very hard to learn the important things yet they know heaps about the entertainment industry's marketting hype anyway. And the worst part is it's EXPECTED of them. If someone doesn't know who Harrison Ford is, you laugh out loud. If someone doesn't know who Tim Berners-Lee is, you shrug and explain. It's really sad. The distractions have become legitimate pursuits and the legitimate pursuits have become the realm of geeks (art geeks, science geeks, and cause-heads). > Meanwhile, Jeme, I'd just *love* to eavesdrop on you roundtabling with your > industry buddies, passionately kibbitzing back and forth about computer > trends, specs and software. Yes, it is truly you whose interests penetrate > the very soul of the human condition. That's probably why you ranted and > ranted about "Pi," purely on the grounds that the story didn't make enough > scientific sense. Whose values are really warped, here? On the grounds that it was art with no respect for science. It's as deplorable as soul with no respect for body. > Now, I'm really not much interested in retreading this worn-out topic. > The only reason I spoke up recently is that you, Viv and Eddie have > been subjecting the list to a blistering assault of humorless, > political browbeating for days and days and days. I silently endured > it for quite awhile, before being pushed over the threshold. Well, the major media has been giving us political browbeating of an almost entirely fabricated nature for ten months. Have you written any letters to broadcasters, publishers, or editors? > And your tirades don't even seem to be about "campaigning," but simply > crowing about your superiority (much like your anti-Hollywood rants). > It's not about cleverly cajoling Fegvoters away from Gore/Bush, it's > about snarling "WE'RE SMART AND WE KNOW THE TRUTH, AND ALL YOU > GORE/BUSH VOTERS ARE *FUCKED*!! AND WHEN NADER LOSES, THAT'S JUST > GOING TO *PROVE* HOW FUCKED YOU ARE!!!! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!" > Rather unattractive. Otherwise, you sneer and sneer about folks who > have a "process of elimination"-type attitude toward voting for Gore, > and yet your own "campaign" is far more about attacking, attacking, > attacking Gore and Bush (and American politics in general) than > promoting Nader. Are you pro-Nader, or > anti-Gore/anti-Bush/anti-two-party system? It's not readily obvious. I > sense an awful lot of "elimination" methodology in your own attitude. Well, we assume the record is there. Ralph Nader has a fairly spotless record (an article published in the wrong magazine in 1960 and investment in a fund that sometimes holds less than ethically perfect companies in minor percentages is about as good as you can get and still be an active participant in society) and has been clearly helping people his entire life. Do we just need to go on and on about this? His views on the "issues" are completely in line with the organizations he has founded. I think we all have a fair understanding of OSHA and PIRG at the very least. > >I mean, didn't you go to prom? > Nope...didn't ask anyone. I went to the senior Homecoming dance, didn't > enjoy myself much and shrugged off prom. There, enjoy chewing on that > personal tidbit. I don't really care about your personally tidbits. It was rhetorical. I meant to say that there was no more skin revealed by Viv's dress than a typical prom dress and there is much more skin routinely revealed in any club in the country without sending every man into hysterical fits of boob-obsession for the next YEAR. > Mike Godwin: > >Sellers is always worth watching > >in black and white, seldom worth watching in colour. > Whew...talk about a purist. No shit. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ [cc] counter-copyright http://www.openlaw.org ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 17:00:10 -0700 From: Eb Subject: re: rampant sociopathy Jeme: >And we have a capacity for compassionate decency. What happened to yours? >You don't need to know an actor's name to appreciate his work. I can't *believe* you're trying to make this a major issue, me wondering why James didn't remember the stars of "one of his favorite films." *Boy*, you're desperate to rant and rage about Hollywood (and/or to pick a fight with me). He even gave me an answer, already: He hadn't seen the film in years. Fair enough. So...hush! Why don't you screech instead about idiot computer-game dorks who wait in line all night, just to buy overhyped PlayStations? Or does that hit a little too close to home? >The politics of Hollywood and the "star" system is just a marketting >ploy. The film companies own the television companies that make the shows >about celebrities (and often the "news" which reports on celebrities as >though their lives impact ours). This stuff is pumped out to us all day >every day and it BECOMES important to people... whether they like it or >not. Zzzzzzz. >This list has discussed many times the effect of repetition in radio >and how (some fegs have noted) you find yourself in the shop with the >album in your hand when you don't even LIKE the music you're buying but >you've heard it on the radio so many times that you are fascinated by it >and make the purchase. OK, who here claims to have bought albums he doesn't like, purely because he was zombie-style "brainwashed" by radio? Come on, quit straw-manning me. >Well, the major media has been giving us political browbeating of an >almost entirely fabricated nature for ten months. Totally immaterial. If certain Fgz subject the list to a months-long, pro-Gore/pro-Bush browbeating, then feel free to respond with your Nader-as-Moses bombast. Otherwise...who asked you? Join a politically themed list, if your pressure-cooker valve has such a desperate need for venting. You've been given *plenty* of leeway on this subject, but the list has been 98% political bullying for weeks, and there *are* limits to our tolerance. No one's raving at length about how brilliant Gore and/or Bush is, so who's your opponent here? And needless to say, the overwhelming obnoxiousness of your presentation *guarantees* you won't win over any converts. Not that you're even *trying* to win converts -- you only want to shriek and shout about how damn much smarter you are than the loathesome, unwashed, brainwashed masses. The major media has *also* been browbeating us for ten months that the Backstreet Boys and N'Sync are the hottest things around. So, why don't you post daily multi-page rants about *that* fabrication? Or would that seem excessive? >Ralph Nader has a fairly spotless >record and has been clearly helping people his entire >life. Do we just need to go on and on about this? NO! (Boy, that was easy.) Eb ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 13:12:49 +1300 From: grutness@surf4nix.com (James Dignan) Subject: re: chromosomal mutation Michael R Godwin ... ...mentioned several great Peter Sellers movies from the 60s, but forgot to mention "The Mouse that Roared"! James (who is also, embarrassingly, hoping one day to see "What's new Pussycat" again) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 28 Oct 2000 21:28:56 -0500 From: Dolph Chaney Subject: re: chromosomal mutation At 01:12 PM 10/29/00 +1300, James Dignan wrote: >Michael R Godwin ... > >...mentioned several great Peter Sellers movies from the 60s, but forgot to >mention "The Mouse that Roared"! I was gonna say! I just saw that one m'self a couple of months ago, and it is several hoots. Need "Lolita" and "Dr. Strangelove" be mentioned? I don't think they have. And I have to say that Sellers' performance of "Cigar-eets and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women" on The Muppet Show remains a particularly fixed milestone in my life. Which should explain a lot. dolph now obsessing over: Magnetic Fields - 69 LOVE SONGS Everything But The Girl - WALKING WOUNDED ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 30 Oct 2000 14:09:00 +1030 From: great offwhite dude Subject: Re: vats dis globe of fugs coming too ya asa wrote > I mean, if you choose a style you should at least stick to it. why ? Gimme one good reason I should be consistent apart from supposedly having a desire to appease you ? . As I have no desire at all to make you happy and don't intend to do so, I can be as inconsistent as I fucking well want ,and anyone who knows Commander Lang from my olde posts( as you obviously don't ) knows I can be one totally inconsistent mother - and that trait IS part of my style . If you don't like it don't read my posts. commander Lang, (AKA Feg xxxxxx) ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 14:03:51 +0000 (GMT) From: Michael R Godwin Subject: re: chromosomal mutation > Mike Godwin: > >Sellers is always worth watching in black and white, seldom worth > watching in colour. On Fri, 27 Oct 2000, Eb wrote: > Whew...talk about a purist. Sorry about that! I have seen "The mouse that roared" and "What's new pussycat?", but they aren't in my top 5 Sellers films (though at the time our 6th-form gang thought WNP was really funny - but that was because it was the first X film we had sneaked into, pretending to be over 18). There is a point in Sellers' career - you can almost hear it going CLICK-FERTANG! - when he lurches out of amusing characterisations and into self-parody and big bucks. And I guess that the big bucks went along with hi-budget colour films replacing lo-cost b/w. I wasn't trying to be pedantic (ho! ho! some may say), I just felt that Sellers stopped taking himself seriously as an actor round about 1964. - - Mike Godwin PS And what's the one where he plays a Welsh librarian, based on a Kingsley Amis novel? ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 09:23:56 -0500 From: Ehtyl Ketone Subject: re: chromosomal mutation >At 2:03 PM +0000 10/29/00, Michael R Godwin wrote: >Sorry about that! I have seen "The mouse that roared" and "What's new pussycat?", but they aren't in my top 5 Sellers films. There is a point in Sellers' career - you can almost hear it going CLICK-FERTANG! - when he lurches out of amusing characterisations and into >self-parody and big bucks. Besides The Party - my favorite Sellars films are The Magic Christian and Being There, in that order. Perhaps that is the self-parody, big bucks period but it doesn't get in the way of my appreciation. What was that Sellars film where he is a musician and the two girls follow him around? There much more but I can't remember it (haven't seen it since I was a kid). The World of Henry Orient maybe? That title sticks in my head. First my back went out, now my memory... Be seeing You. - - c np: Continuing a month long Leonard Cohen fest... - -- "Questions are a burden for others. Answers are a prison for oneself." **************************************************************************** C. J. Galbraith Ketone Press meketone@ix.netcom.com www.bogdescu.com ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 11:30:41 -0500 (EST) From: Terrence Marks Subject: Baritone guitars While perusing online music catalogs last night, I thought to myself, "Egad! I must get a Danelectro baritone guitar!" Can the local gear experts here tell me why more people don't use these and who does? I know I'm infatuated with Danelectro equipment and not thinking straight... Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://www.unlikeminerva.com HCF (another comic strip) http://www.mpog.com/hcf normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 29 Oct 2000 12:56:42 -0500 (EST) From: Terrence Marks Subject: Re: Baritone guitars On Sun, 29 Oct 2000, Terrence Marks wrote: > While perusing online music catalogs last night, I thought to myself, > "Egad! I must get a Danelectro baritone guitar!" > > Can the local gear experts here tell me why more people don't use these > and who does? I know I'm infatuated with Danelectro equipment and not > thinking straight... http://www.danelectro.com/Baritone.htm if you're interested Terrence Marks Unlike Minerva (a comic strip) http://www.unlikeminerva.com HCF (another comic strip) http://www.mpog.com/hcf normal@grove.ufl.edu ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V9 #308 *******************************