Goodbye

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:40:23 -0700, "Bill Sornson"
wrote:

"Promoting Torture". I'd like to know when Mark /promoted/ torture. It's
exactly like the helm*t threads, where the AHZs accuse pro-lidders of being
for MHLs even though they've expressly stated opposition to them.

I guess since Floglinson hasn't condemned that 12-year-old Taliban /child/
beheading a helpless hostage on camera, that means he's PRO CHOPPING OFF
HEADS. It's just ridiculous.

Not analogous. Mark said that waterboarding could be appropriate
against very dangerous prisoners held by the US to get information out
of them. Waterboarding it torture.

I've never said beheading helpless people is a good thing.

You know I am robotic - I won't stand for repetition of
misinformation from you. sarcasmSo if you are in some ways friends
with Mark, I'm sure he'd appreciate your keeping bringing this up in
such a simplistic manner./sarcasm
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JT
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On Apr 25, 1:09 pm, "Bill Sornson" wrote:
I hope Mark will reconsider because SHUTTING OUT OPPOSING VOICES is an
obvious tactic of a certain political movement nowadays

Not just nowadays. It's been an obvious tactic of the right since at
least 9/11. But fortunately, as a strong majority of Americans have
come to recognize the corruption of the Bush administration and the
horror of sending thousands of American troops to their death or
maiming in an illegal, pointless war sold to the American public
through lies that were amplified through the megaphone of "liberal"
media sources such as the New York Times, well, maybe, to some degree,
the mainstream media is letting some of the truth seep out. The truth
hurts, but that doesn't mean that the media have to publish
Administration lies to give it balance. Not anymore. We've had 6+
years of almost nothing but cheerleading out of the media; now it's
time for the truth.

On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 03:00:07 GMT, still me
wrote:

I hope this is an intentional comedy act just for this thread.
Otherwise you two guys are demonstrating exactly what the OP
complained about.

The OP complained about non-stop back-and-forth, and I'm surely as
guilty of that as anyone.

But here's the thing. I'm actually *right* in this exchange.
Waterboarding is torture. Hickey supports waterboarding of prisoners
in the US.

And Sorni is *wrong* in saying that because I don't condemn something
explicity I'm in favor of it. Or that I'm using that sort of
rhetorical trick on Hickey.

That's the difference.

So while there may not be differences in behaviour of the two sides
in this group, there are differences in content.

We can each decide which differences matter.

If its for real, I suggest you take the advice
of those here with cool
heads and "let it go".

I doubt I will let it go -- each time someone posts something
inaccurate about me or very wrong about politics, I'll respond.
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JT
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On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 20:08:46 -0700, "Bill Sornson"
wrote:

It's like Harry Reid. Cheney criticizes his /positions/ without a single
personal attack,

LOL you're totally deluded. What are your sources of information?
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On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 10:11:14 +0200, Tosspot
wrote:

I think they're serious and I think they
are very both sad individuals.

If you're talking about me you're quite mistaken.

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Tim McNamara writes:

In article ,
Antti Salonen wrote:

In rec.bicycles.misc David L. Johnson
wrote:

Hell, we all know that usenet is dead anyway, and we are just
sifting through the ashes. Between the "forums" diverting a lot of
more specialized discussions and energy, and "angry young men"
determined to turn any topic into their particular soapbox, the
signal/noise level is not looking good.

Indeed. The Usenet is dying simply because it isn't moderated. I
guess it worked better 10 to 15 years ago when the standard of
Internet users was higher, but now most newsgroups are playgrounds of
small number of anti-social idiots who successfully drive everybody
else to moderated web forums and mailing lists.

I don't want to wear rose colored glasses- Usenet has always had
this.

Yup.

It's always been unpleasant. It does seem that the s/n ratio has
dropped in many newsgroups- r.b.racing for example having imploded years
ago under the weight of idiocy. But that said, there is much gold among
the dross and it's worth sifting for.

And people do have killfiles. Use them.

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:51:35 -0500, "DI" wrote:

I bet he doesn't get his news from the New York Times, CBS, or CNN, if he
does he's a fool.

Where do you get your news?

Considering how weak those those sources were in the run-up to the
Iraq war, I'd hope it's even broader than that but for the
time-challenged those wouldn't be the worse possiblities. Those are
among the best the US has in terms of scope and power in broad
investigative reporting, but places like Reuters and the BBC are
important too.

And even left-wing (and sometimes right wing) blogs that pull out
original documents. www.crooksandliars.com and talkingpointsmemo.com
is awesome not so much for the opinion (which I almost always agree
with) but for the links to documents from government officials
themselves, or statements by the officials themselves.

Drudge can be good in the same way, but with the blogs you have to
focus on what are facts and what are opinions.

Googlenews is a good first stop and gets in lots of non-US reporting
also.


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On Thu, 26 Apr 2007 06:43:42 -0400, John Forrest Tomlinson
wrote:

On Wed, 25 Apr 2007 21:51:35 -0500, "DI" wrote:

I bet he doesn't get his news from the New York Times, CBS, or CNN, if he
does he's a fool.

Where do you get your news?

I think this thread would be a good one for people to learn to filter
if they want to limit their reading to on-topic material.

To Di: here's a good example of news getting for me. I have a
homepage that I use for webbrowsing, at http://www.jt10000.com/links/
I was looking through the news via Drudge http://www.drudgereport.com/
and followed a couple of links, including to
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/04/26/wa...gewanted=print

Where do you get your news?
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On Apr 26, 3:19 am, "Bill Sornson" wrote:
Mike Kruger wrote:
Bill Sornson wrote:
Antti Salonen wrote:

The Usenet is dying simply because it isn't moderated.

I'm confused about something. Rec.Bicycles.Offroad completely DIED
because it was moderated -- I thought to keep Vandedrivel {tm} out?
Weirdly enough, spam got thru fairly regularly, but on-topic posts
took forever to show up...

How is it he (MV) doesn't post in these two rec groups? Is their
some "master filter" that blocks his stuff?

Maybe I'll go look for an ALT cycling group besides AM-B...

Well, there's alt.rec.bicycles.recumbent.
http://groups.google.com/group/alt.r...t/topics?hl=en

Good one!

At this moment, the link above shows the newest thread as "Dear
Diary: I didn't poo in my pants today."

LOL (literally)

The fourth thread on the list begins with "I joined this group a
couple of weeks ago because I am interested in
recumbent bicycles. All I have seen so far is tons of drivel from an
idiot named" [E.D. -- not going to name him]

Guess I'll pass on that one.

Seriously, what keeps Vandespammer out of here? He cross-posts to a whole
bunch of newsgroups; why not these?

Shhh! No really... Shhh!

Don't tempt fate Bill.
I don't know if such a filter exists, or what it could be, and I don't
care.

Just let it lie... ;-)

bookieb

On Apr 25, 7:33 am, Mark Hickey wrote:
I had an epiphany. Last night, I was getting a painful deep massage
to help with the effects of my bike accident in 2003. The nice young
woman was leaning heavily toward me to better drive the point of her
elbow into the very sore muscles of my neck. I thought "I'm paying
her to hurt me this much - I don't really have to put up with the
pain". Of course, I didn't stop her because I benefit from the
process, however painful.

Which brings me to the current state of the rec.bicycles newsgroups.
I've been frequenting them for over 15 years, and (particularly in the
early years) have learned much, and tried to share what I know through
those years. But it struck me as I was enduring the pain of that
massage that participation in the newsgroups gets more painful by the
year, but no longer holds any particular benefit for me. Technical
discussions break down into pointless bluster as often as not (ala
"jim beam") and discussions about social issues have long since ceased
to hold any promise of civil discourse.

And it only gets more and more shrill as time goes by.

Character assassination has become the chief tool for those who prefer
to avoid facts that run contrary to their world view, and I've
increasingly been the target of these attacks.

It strikes me that most of the "high-content contributors" have also
left these newsgroups over the years, and it's easy to see why. I
suspect that the content to noise ratio is only going to get worse as
time goes by.

JT's pernicious accusations are just the latest in a long series, but
they're the ones that opened my eyes to the reality that this is no
longer any fun, and there are many better ways I can spend my time. I
have a very full life, a wonderful family (including four new
granddaughters). I can ride my bike more.

So, it's with absolute joy and anticipation that I bid you all a fond
farewell. I've got the same kind of feeling that you get when you're
finishing up a tedious task before walking out the door on a long
vacation. I'm psyched. For this, I can only thank JT for doing his
part to bring this long, glorious waste of time to an end.

Happy trails,

Mark Hickey
Habanero Cycleshttp://www.habcycles.com
Home of the $795 ti frame

I know how you feel Mark and I have taken a 'vacation' from these
silly NGs as well. Hopefully yours will be a vacation, not permanent
and you'll be back bcause you DO have something worthwhile to offer.
But if you don't come back certainly understand.