From: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org (fegmaniax-digest) To: fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Subject: fegmaniax-digest V15 #134 Reply-To: fegmaniax@smoe.org Sender: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Errors-To: owner-fegmaniax-digest@smoe.org Precedence: bulk fegmaniax-digest Saturday, June 10 2006 Volume 15 : Number 134 Today's Subjects: ----------------- Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again [Capuc] Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again [Capuchi] Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again [Capuchi] Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again [Benjamin Luk] Re: Getting married (how's that, Eb?) [Steve Schiavo ] My name is "Eb" and I think a brisk run is a great way to stay fit ["Bria] Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again [Aaron Mandel ] Re: Getting married (how's that, Eb?) [2fs ] Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again [2fs Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again I've really got to get back to my paper on the cohomology of groups, but I'll chime in this bit before dinner. On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, FSThomas wrote: > Capuchin wrote: >> If you do not have the things you believe you need to live a >> productive, fulfilling life, then you are not free. You are a slave to >> those masters who hold the keys to your future. > > The Big L Libertarian view is that in this country you are given the > tools, and what you choose to do with them determines your lot in life. Not everyone gets the same tools, of course. Not only are there physical differences among people, but there are also, as Jeffrey recalled for us, differences in starting platform on the road to wealth. [Of course, I think wealth is a pretty fucked-up standard of success anyway. What you're really saying is that the amount of freedom you have in society is measured by how much you can restrict other people's access to things they want to use.] > You are given an education (the value of which on the public level is > dubious, at best, but that's another argument) Yeah, not really another argument. Surely one of the major reasons public primary education is such shit has to do with the fact that it's underfunded due to ideas folks have of "keeping the gubment out of my pocketbook" and because of the blatantly antisocial attitudes required to promote capitalism that prevents people from understanding that their future depends on OTHER PEOPLE's children as much as their own... just as your past depended on the benificence of all those people who came before you and left the fruits of their labor to posterity (like, say, english and agriculture and mathematics). > and should you choose to maximize that opportunity, the sky's the limit. That's flat out bullshit propaganda. There's no such thing as "fair". Consider the story of two farmers who work opposite sides of the same hill in fertile country. Their respective tending of the land is divided in such a way that the weather patterns move more or less the same on their respective plots. They put in the same hours working on the same crops and do all the right things for the soil and the food they're growing. Then, one night just before harvest, a herd of deer come through one side of the hill and eat all the crops tended by one of the farmers. Why doesn't he get to reap the fruits of his labor while the other farmer reaps hers? Does he deserve to go hungry? Does the other farmer deserve to eat better? Of course not. But that's exactly what you are implying when you say that your reward is a direct function of your work to "maximize opportunity". In fact, success in almost everything has about as much to do with chance and initial conditions as it does effort and planning. > If you choose not to either by fucking off or dropping out, then you've > made your decision and have a life of reflecting upon it to look forward > to. Personal Responsibility. What a concept. Except that people are not personally responsible for the condition of the society into which they were born. They didn't choose any of it, in fact, and so cannot be responsible for the rewards or sanctions they receive. It seems that your ideal society of Personal Responsibility would be one where all children are taken from their parents (since that's pretty much chance), somehow stripped of their genetic predispositions, and raised in a factory-farm of homogeneity and then released to see who succeeds at being a selfish prick. Anything else, and personal responsibility has about as much to do with the shape of a person's life as a coat of paint has to do with the shape of a house. > You *could* get off your ass, hon your skills, make use of the education > you've obviously got and maybe get to be one of those rich guys who owns > property. Exactly what skills are you honing, though? Think about it for one second. The skills that will make you become "one of those rich guys who owns property" must FIRST start with finding ways of making people with property value you and give you some of their property. You are entirely subject to their desires and your success in their world depends on your ability to please them. > Or you could just bitch about it and keep sucking that. It seems that you're arguing that we all just hone our cocksucking skills so that we can get more money out of the rich so that we don't have to be their slaves anymore and can demean other people by paying them wages to serve us. No thanks. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 18:00:35 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Capuchin wrote: >> Socialism IS that. Socialism is the system of belief that values >> social equity as an ideal. Hence, a socialist is a person who wants to >> do what is necessary to make sure people do not go without the things >> that they believe they need. > > Without the things they BELIEVE they need, or without the things they > ACTUALLY need? There is no difference. You can't tell someone else what they need. You aren't that person and you can't know. You can argue with them and try to convince them that they don't need the things that they think they need, but ultimately it's their assessment that is the only one that matters. Otherwise, of course, the folks who are endowed with the magical power of assessing the needs of others have complete and total control. (Which is usually what happens when you have socialism without libertarianism.) > And unforunately this is the form socialism almost always takes. No, the form socialism takes most of the time is small kindnesses and courtesies we extend to the people around us in order to make everyone's world a better place. Yes, I know you were meaning state socialism, but I want to make it very clear that socialism doesn't require a state any more than playing baseball requires uniforms and a Commission. >> But, in the end, libertarianism requires socialism because socialism is >> the only value system that is sustainable without coercion by violence. > > In theory. As an ideal. Right. And I think Jeffrey put it quite nicely when he explained why we have to start with the most optimistic and generous assumptions if we hope to achieve anything like a more positive future. I don't think that our understanding that the world is flawed and cannot contain perfection should prevent us from striving for it. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 18:01:48 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Jason Brown wrote: > Unfortunately, people are selfish cocks and if you replace these > "capitalist masters" all you get in return is corrupt communist masters. You're missing the point. I'm a libertarian. I don't believe in replacing the masters. I believe in getting rid of them and not replacing them at all. So long as there are masters, there are slaves. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 18:39:59 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Capuchin wrote: > It seems that your ideal society of Personal Responsibility would be one > where all children are taken from their parents (since that's pretty much > chance), somehow stripped of their genetic predispositions, and raised in > a factory-farm of homogeneity and then released to see who succeeds at > being a selfish prick. Anything else, and personal responsibility has > about as much to do with the shape of a person's life as a coat of paint > has to do with the shape of a house. Oh, it has a *little* more to do with it than that. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:40:16 -0500 From: Steve Schiavo Subject: Re: Getting married (how's that, Eb?) On Jun 9, 2006, at 4:04 PM, Aaron Mandel wrote: > Getting married isn't a right. Have the same access to marriage's > legal benefits as everyone else... is. Isn't the right to marry a limited right? Just how limited is what the fight is about. - - Steve __________ No matter where you go, there you are. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 18:43:04 -0700 (PDT) From: Benjamin Lukoff Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Capuchin wrote: > On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > > On Thu, 8 Jun 2006, Capuchin wrote: > >> Socialism IS that. Socialism is the system of belief that values > >> social equity as an ideal. Hence, a socialist is a person who wants to > >> do what is necessary to make sure people do not go without the things > >> that they believe they need. > > > > Without the things they BELIEVE they need, or without the things they > > ACTUALLY need? > > There is no difference. You can't tell someone else what they need. You > aren't that person and you can't know. You can argue with them and try to > convince them that they don't need the things that they think they need, > but ultimately it's their assessment that is the only one that matters. But of course a socialist state isn't going to give someone a gold-plated toilet because he believes he really needs it. Lines are drawn somewhere. > Otherwise, of course, the folks who are endowed with the magical power of > assessing the needs of others have complete and total control. (Which is > usually what happens when you have socialism without libertarianism.) Yep > > And unforunately this is the form socialism almost always takes. > > No, the form socialism takes most of the time is small kindnesses and > courtesies we extend to the people around us in order to make everyone's > world a better place. > Yes, I know you were meaning state socialism, but I want to make it very > clear that socialism doesn't require a state any more than playing > baseball requires uniforms and a Commission. Fair enough. Most people don't make the distinction. ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 09 Jun 2006 18:52:08 -0400 From: Barbara Soutar Subject: Marriage choices Something Jeff Norman said about marriage: "I mean, I suppose there's some relation between the "chances" of someone getting married, and the available pool of suitors..." Speaking of suitors, I fell in love with a guy called Soutar when I was in high school and ended up marrying him. I read his name on a class list which set me up for havine a crush on him. How's that for being literal? Barbara Soutar Victoria, BC ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 21:57:35 -0500 From: "Brian Huddell" Subject: My name is "Eb" and I think a brisk run is a great way to stay fit Anyone else notice that Cap is being civil, almost *nice*? What's up with that? I thought for sure I'd be scraping FSThomas viscera off my screen by now. +brian (yawn) in New Orleans ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:04:09 -0400 (EDT) From: Aaron Mandel Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, 2fs wrote: > I seriously doubt that if I were single, and I knew twenty single women, > if I met another twenty, one could say my odds of getting married had > become twice as likely. I'd say, instead, that unless I was interested > in one of those women, the odds hadn't changed at all. Assuming no > interest on my part in any of the first batch of women nor in any of the > second batch, the odds changed from zero to zero. !! Yeah, and assuming no matching numbers on any of the tickets, buying an extra 17 tickets doesn't change your chance of winning the lottery. Why would you assume that? Lots of other factors go into a given person's odds of getting married in a given time period, but it doesn't seem like that's what you're talking about. > Turns out the 41st woman I meet is the one I fall in love with and > ultimately get married with. Having met her, my odds went from zero to > (ultimately) one. Was there an in-between that's mathematically > expressible? That's what probabilities are an expression of! We say that the odds of getting 'heads' when you flip a coin are 1/2, even though nobody has ever flipped a regular coin and gotten exactly one half of a 'heads'. (What would that even mean?) a ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 22:21:17 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: Getting married (how's that, Eb?) On 6/9/06, Steve Schiavo wrote: > > On Jun 9, 2006, at 4:04 PM, Aaron Mandel wrote: > > > Getting married isn't a right. Have the same access to marriage's > > legal benefits as everyone else... is. > > Isn't the right to marry a limited right? Just how limited is what > the fight is about. How limited? In the sense that it's a legal contract between two and only two people, neither of whom can be so legally contracted with anyone else: yes.* But I've yet to hear a single reason backed by anything remotely resembling logic as to why those two people must be of different genders. That the whole thing is based on religion (and therefore belongs nowhere near any kind of law) is obvious. Religions can do whatever they want regarding whatever they call "marriage." But the government should not discriminate. In part that's because people can choose their religion; they cannot choose their government (as institution, not in terms of particular people) without leaving the country. Frankly I think it was a mistake for the state to borrow the term "marriage" from religion: it's created a confusion in the public mind. * And I can think of no logically compelling reason why it should be so limited, actually. But at the same time it doesn't follow inevitably or immediately from sanctioning gay marriage - unlike what the right says. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 22:24:28 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On 6/9/06, Aaron Mandel wrote: > > On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, 2fs wrote: > > > > > Turns out the 41st woman I meet is the one I fall in love with and > > ultimately get married with. Having met her, my odds went from zero to > > (ultimately) one. Was there an in-between that's mathematically > > expressible? > > That's what probabilities are an expression of! We say that the odds of > getting 'heads' when you flip a coin are 1/2, even though nobody has ever > flipped a regular coin and gotten exactly one half of a 'heads'. (What > would that even mean?) I think what I'm getting at is that unlike any given coinflip, in which the odds of heads or tails is exactly the same as any other given coinflip, the odds of wanting to marry someone are exactly *unequal* with every person compared with every other person: they're all individuals. Insofar as a coinflip is concerned, every coin is the same as every other coin. The same is clearly not true of potential marital partners. That's what I was getting at. Probably didn't express it all that well... - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 20:53:26 -0700 From: "Marc Alberts" Subject: RE: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again Jeff wrote: > > > Turns out the 41st woman I meet is the one I fall in love with and > > > ultimately get married with. Having met her, my odds went from zero to > > > (ultimately) one. Was there an in-between that's mathematically > > > expressible? > > > > That's what probabilities are an expression of! We say that the odds of > > getting 'heads' when you flip a coin are 1/2, even though nobody has > ever > > flipped a regular coin and gotten exactly one half of a 'heads'. (What > > would that even mean?) > > > I think what I'm getting at is that unlike any given coinflip, in which > the > odds of heads or tails is exactly the same as any other given coinflip, > the > odds of wanting to marry someone are exactly *unequal* with every person > compared with every other person: they're all individuals. Insofar as a > coinflip is concerned, every coin is the same as every other coin. The > same > is clearly not true of potential marital partners. > > That's what I was getting at. Probably didn't express it all that well... In terms of odds, that doesn't really matter if the odds are unequal with each gal or guy, though. Odds are based on the continuum of possible responses, so when you calculate the odds of finding a suitable marriage partner are the sums of the odds of any of the individual people you meet being marryable. So if Jane is a one-in-in-a-billion, and Jenny is "the one," and that's your sample, then your odds would be 1:500,000,000 plus or minus a rather huge margin of error (small sample sizes can be pretty extreme, and in this case you'd basically not have a sample size big enough to even really calculate out the margin of error, but play along for a moment). Of course, the estimation would be wrong in both cases. It's easy to mistake odds with outcomes. Odds are just the expected likelihood that a certain outcome will happen if you had a sample population equal to the entire possible universe of samples, but aren't guarantees that any given outcome actually will happen. In the simple example of a coin, you only have binary outcomes with exactly even odds because there is no nuance there. In picking a suitor or suite, however, the odds shift around a lot based on preferences and circumstances, and thus they tend to create a continuum where your expected outcome is that you'll get married to somewhat less than half of the people you meet in your target sex. Marc ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:57:10 EDT From: HwyCDRrev@aol.com Subject: New Dylan album will be released Aug 29, and the title: "Modern Times 24 - New Dylan album will be released Aug 29, and the title: "Modern Times". Alan Dean got this confirmed by Sony/Columbia. 2120 _http://expectingrain.com/_ (http://expectingrain.com/) ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:09:48 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On 6/9/06, Marc Alberts wrote: > > J > In terms of odds, that doesn't really matter if the odds are unequal with > each gal or guy, though. Odds are based on the continuum of possible > responses, so when you calculate the odds of finding a suitable marriage > partner are the sums of the odds of any of the individual people you meet > being marryable. So if Jane is a one-in-in-a-billion, and Jenny is "the > one," and that's your sample, then your odds would be 1:500,000,000 plus > or > minus a rather huge margin of error ... > > It's easy to mistake odds with outcomes. Odds are just the expected > likelihood that a certain outcome will happen if you had a sample > population > equal to the entire possible universe of samples, but aren't guarantees > that > any given outcome actually will happen. In the simple example of a coin, > you only have binary outcomes with exactly even odds because there is no > nuance there. In picking a suitor or suite, however, the odds shift > around > a lot based on preferences and circumstances, and thus they tend to create > a > continuum where your expected outcome is that you'll get married to > somewhat > less than half of the people you meet in your target sex. Okay, I was partly lost throughout this - but the last sentence totally threw me. "Somewhat less than half of the people you meet in your target sex"? Don't know what that could mean given that (other than a few rogue Mormons, which notion I threw in mostly because I just like the phrase "rogue Mormons") a person is married only to one person at a time, and meets considerably more than three people of the, uh, "target sex" (which sounds like a peculiar and messy sort of competition). I will admit that math is definitely not my strong suit however. But the realer problem is in the first paragraph: there's just no way to meet a person and calculate, in any meaningful way, "odds" that any individual you meet might be a suitable marriage partner. At least not in any math that's so fuzzy one suspects there's nothing but fuzz. I think the whole notion of talking about odds of getting married is absurd and useless: we just plain don't know. Reasons for marriage vary over time and from society to society; for all we know five years from now no one will get married, or there'll be a right-wing revolution and marriage will be mandatory. ("Odds of getting married" refers to a hypothetical future state of being.) There are far more people in the world than any one person could ever meet; the chance that brings a given person into contact with compatible partners (how many? which ones? in what order? and at what point in one's life where marriage seems like a good idea?) seems far too complicated to boil down to "odds of getting married," particularly in popular media, even if a mathematician could find a way to take all that into account. Sure, one can talk about society collectively and note likelihood of marriage (which is to say, its popularity), but one can only loosely apply such trends to any given individual - and that only insofar as individuals are influenced by social trends. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:12:04 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: New Dylan album will be released Aug 29, and the title: "Modern Times On 6/9/06, HwyCDRrev@aol.com wrote: > > 24 - New Dylan album will be released Aug 29, and the title: > "Modern Times". > Alan Dean got this confirmed by Sony/Columbia. 2120 It's a note-for-note cover of the '70s Al Stewart album, which Bob will tour dressed as Charlie Chaplin. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 10 Jun 2006 01:24:15 -0500 From: 2fs Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On 6/9/06, Marc Alberts wrote: > > > > I think what I'm getting at is that unlike any given coinflip, in which > > the > > odds of heads or tails is exactly the same as any other given coinflip, > > the > > odds of wanting to marry someone are exactly *unequal* with every person > > compared with every other person: they're all individuals. Insofar as a > > coinflip is concerned, every coin is the same as every other coin. The > > same > > is clearly not true of potential marital partners. > > any given outcome actually will happen. In the simple example of a coin, > you only have binary outcomes with exactly even odds because there is no > nuance there. > But it's not the binariness of the coin that makes this so; it's the exactly equal probabilities (in this case because unless coin is oddly weighted, each side is as likely as the other to land face up). Same is true of (what the hell is wrong with me, making role-playing game refs twice in one day?) 12-sided dice, say. Not to mention: if there are eight dice, each with a different number of sides, there's nothing you can do, in predicting an outcome, to ensure that, say, the six-sided die comes up a 5. But obviously, there's plenty you can do to increase your odds that, say, Jenny might want to marry you (or make sure Alison doesn't). But the exact same behavior that might work with Jenny might not with Sue. And the exact behavior *from* Bill that might work with Jenny might not work on Jenny coming from Eb. I mean, "Ed." Whatever. To me, it's like saying, what are the odds that Anonymous Person living at randomly chosen house in Iowa will, in ten years, write a number-one hit song? I don't think there's any way to assign any kinds odds to that individual person - there are simply too many, and too unpredictable, variables involved. - -- ...Jeff Norman The Architectural Dance Society http://spanghew.blogspot.com ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:39:15 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: [My Name Is "Eb" And] Re: [My Name Is Eb] Re: My name is "Eb", and I've shit the bed again On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: > On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Capuchin wrote: >> On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Benjamin Lukoff wrote: >>> Without the things they BELIEVE they need, or without the things they >>> ACTUALLY need? >> There is no difference. You can't tell someone else what they need. >> You aren't that person and you can't know. You can argue with them and >> try to convince them that they don't need the things that they think >> they need, but ultimately it's their assessment that is the only one >> that matters. > > But of course a socialist state isn't going to give someone a > gold-plated toilet because he believes he really needs it. Lines are > drawn somewhere. Honestly, I'm not sure I have any idea what a socialist state can or can't do. I think that as we become more socialist, we should need less state. The state is there to enforce the interests of the state. In a democratic state, that should be the interests of the public. However, if the people are socialist, they are already individually looking out for the interests of the public and, therefore, the state is redundant. As for those socialists who don't care for liberty (and so have some pretty funny ideas about what civil society means, among other things), well, they're not going to ever allow individuals to define their own needs and are, instead, going to go about it all backward and define needs based on what can be distributed equitably. Cart before horse and stuff. >> Otherwise, of course, the folks who are endowed with the magical power >> of assessing the needs of others have complete and total control. >> (Which is usually what happens when you have socialism without >> libertarianism.) > > Yep Right. So socialism is really keen and great if we just let people define their own needs and work with them rather than against them to achieve those goals. I'm glad we're on the same page. >> Yes, I know you were meaning state socialism, but I want to make it >> very clear that socialism doesn't require a state any more than playing >> baseball requires uniforms and a Commission. > > Fair enough. Most people don't make the distinction. And most of the knee-jerk reaction I get (including on this list) is based on people not even understanding that there is such a distinction and that it's vital. The key to successful, sustainable socialism is libertarianism. The concepts of mutual aid should run through all of society's structures and institutions. Now, if we just recognize that the capitalist concepts of exclusive control by owners run through all of society's structures and institutions in a capitalist society, we see immediately that the nature of the society is antisocial, predatory, and exploitative. Just maintaining the disparity of wealth requires a huge army of armed thugs in every region working against the poor in order to sustain the state. J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Fri, 9 Jun 2006 23:44:45 -0700 (PDT) From: Capuchin Subject: Re: My name is "Eb" and I think a brisk run is a great way to stay fit On Fri, 9 Jun 2006, Brian Huddell wrote: > Anyone else notice that Cap is being civil, almost *nice*? What's up > with that? I thought for sure I'd be scraping FSThomas viscera off my > screen by now. > > +brian (yawn) in New Orleans I'm sorry if I'm not as entertaining, Brian. I think mostly the change is that I'm kind of reading what I write and realizing that things I'm perfectly comfortable saying don't come quite the same in print. For instance, when Ferris wrote that enforcement of property rights encouraged personal responsibility, I initially wrote, "That is some fucking ignorant bullshit." If he were sitting across from me at the pub and had said what he wrote, I would have said what I just wrote and not whatever I sent back to him -- but I would have said it with a huge grin and deep laugh and he wouldn't have even considered for a minute that I was being mean. As anyfeg can tell you, I'm a kind person who genuinely loves everyone. I'm also humble, handsome, and a really great kisser. Me in '12! J. - -- _______________________________________________ Capuchin capuchin@bitmine.net Jeme A Brelin _______________________________________________ ------------------------------ End of fegmaniax-digest V15 #134 ********************************