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This is the fifth request to find out about a Cardinals mailing list.
It looks like one does not exist. If anyone has the initiative,
creating a list might be a worthwhile activity.
| 11
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: The willingness of true believers
: to die for their belief, be it in Jesus or Jim Jones, is
: well-documented, so martyrdom in and of itself says little.
It does say something about the depth of their belief. Religion has
both deluded believers and con men. The difference is often how far
they will follow their beliefs.
I have no first hand, or even second hand, knowledge of how the
original apostles died. If they began a myth in hopes of exploiting
it for profit, and followed that myth to the death, that would be
inconsistent. Real con men would bail out when it was obvious it would
lead to discomfort, pain and death.
| 14
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2,902
|
It's the applications that do this. Unfortunately, even the applets
that ship with Win31 seem to have this problem (I've seen it in
Solitaire, for example).
None that I know of. If an application doesn't give back the
resources, they are lost and gone forever, pending a restart of
Windows.
If the applications don't free up the memory (and a lot of them
don't), there's bugger all that any other piece of software can do
about it.
No. This is a problem with the applications, usually.
There are books written on this one. In general, just be sure to free
up everything that you ask for before you exit. Unfortunately, I
understand that VB will *internally* lose resources for you, so
there's no way to avoid this entirely.
There's little discussion because it's 'inevitable' until MS manages
to come up with an OS that will do garbage collection or something on
the resource pool.
--
"Insisting on perfect safety is for people who don't have the balls to live
in the real world." -- Mary Shafer, NASA Ames Dryden
| 17
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2,903
|
That's right. Despite claims that someone at Kent State fire a shotgun
at the the soldiers, the only projectiles that anyone can prove where
sent in the direction of the soldiers were rocks.
| 19
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|
Since this is alt.atheism, I hope you don't mind if we strongly disagree...
: The fact is God could cause you to believe anything He wants you to.
: But think about it for a minute. Would you rather have someone love
: you because you made them love you, or because they wanted to
: love you. The responsibility is on you to love God and take a step toward
: Him. He promises to be there for you, but you have to look for yourself.
Indeed, "knock and it shall be opened to you". Dan, why didn't this work?
I firmly believed in god for 15 years, but I eventually realised I was
only deluding myself, fearful to face the truth. Ultimately, the only reason
what kept me believing was the fear of hell. The mental states I
had sillily attributed to divine forces or devil's attempts to
destroy my faith were nothing more than my imagination, and it is easy
to achieve the same mental states at will.
My faith was just learned fear in a disguise.
: Those who doubt this or dispute it have not givin it a sincere effort.
God is demanding too much. Dan, what was it I believed in for 15 years?
If sincere effort is equivalent to active suspension of disbelief -
what it was in my case - I'd rather quit. If god does not help me to
keep the faith, I can't go on.
Besides, I am concerned with god's morality and mental health. Does
she really want us to _believe_ in herself without any help (revelations,
guidance, or anything I can feel)? If she has created us, why didn't
she make the task any easier? Why are we supposed to love someone who
refuses to communicate with us? What is the point of eternal torture
for those who can't believe?
I love god just as much as she loves me. If she wants to seduce me,
she'll know what to do.
: Simple logic arguments are folly. If you read the Bible you will see
: that Jesus made fools of those who tried to trick him with "logic".
: Our ability to reason is just a spec of creation. Yet some think it is
: the ultimate. If you rely simply on your reason then you will never
: know more than you do now.
Your argument is of the type "you'll know once you try".
Yet there are many atheists who have sincerely tried, and believed
for many years, but were eventually honest enough to admit that
they had lived in a virtual reality.
What else but reason I can use? I don't have the spiritual means
Christians often refer to. My conscience disagrees with the Bible.
I don't even believe I have a soul. I am fully dependent on my
body - indeed, I _am_ this body. When it goes up with flames, so
does my identity. God can entertain herself with copies of me
if she wants.
: To learn you must accept that which you don't know.
What does this mean? To learn you must accept that you don't know
something, right-o. But to learn you must _accept_ something I don't
know, why? This is not the way I prefer to learn. It is unwise to
merely swallow everything you read. Suppose I write a book telling
how the Great Invisible Pink Unicorn (tm) has helped me in my
daily problems, would you accept this, since you can't know whether
it is true or not?
Note that the GIPU is also omnipotent, omnipresent, and loves just
about everyone. Besides, He (and She) is guiding every writer on this planet,
you and me, and not just some people who write legendary stories
2000 years ago.
Your god is just one aspect of His and Her Presence.
Petri
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No, they do not work well. My doctor started using one recently, and I
thought the concept was so amazing that I bought one too.
The thing works by reading the infrared emissions from the ear drum.
The ear drum is hotter than the ear canal walls, so you have to point
the thing very carefully. This means tugging on the top of the ear
to straighten out the ear canal, then inserting the thing snugly, then
pushing a button. Unfortunately, there are many things that can go wrong.
It is almost impossible to aim the thing correctly when you do it on
yourself. I get readings which differ from each other by up to 2 degrees,
and may differ from an oral thermometer by up to 2 degrees.
I talked to one of the nurses in my doctor's office recently about this,
and she said she didn't like them either, for same reasons. She did give
me some instruction on how to tug on my ear, and what correct insertion
feels like, but she said she thought it was impossible to do correctly
on one's self. She also said that she and other nurses had complained to
the company about inaccurate readings, and that someone from the company
had told them to take great care to clean the infrared window at the end
of the probe with alcohol from time to time. She demonstrated this prior
to reading my temperature, and managed to get a reading within 0.5 degree
of the oral temperature I took at home before driving to the Dr's office.
I have also noticed tha some nurses click the button, then remove the
probe immediately. This causes wrong readings. In my experience, you
have to leave the probe in a good 1 to 2 seconds after clicking the button
to get a good measurement. The nurse I talked with agreed. I suspect
that many people don't realize this, and therefore get bad readings for
yet another reason.
| 9
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|
nelson_p@apollo.hp.com (Peter Nelson) writes...
The rest of the story seems to be that the agreement for the broadcast
was for prime-time, and that Koresh never even heard it played. Wasn't
even tuned in to the radio when it aired -- so no reason to come out.
If later they had given him a copy of the grossly twisted newswire
transcript -- I'm certain Koresh would think he was at the mercy of
evil itself.
As to coming out after Passover, wasn't that just one of the lawyer's
speculations Peter?
| 8
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|
Is this "White House e-mail address" really working yet? Someone
posted such an address on CompuServe a few months ago, but apparently
the White House wasn't really set up to recive hundreds (thousands?)
of messages a day to that account and didn't want people to use it
yet. So is this MCI address something the people at the White House
actually read, or is it another Craig Shergold story? I don't know --
I'm just asking.
Unless the people at the White House print and distribute this mail
every day, you may have better luck printing out a letter (on paper,
that flat white stuff all over my desk) and Snail-Mailing it to the
White House. I imagine writing to your local representative and
senator wouldn't hurt either. Heck, why not write to Al Gore while
you're at it?
greg
| 3
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|
As I understand, that number is deceptive. The reason is that the money
cost was in non-oil sales for the most part. Iraq still is not allowed
to sell oil, or do many of the things under the initial sanctions, but
is still surviving.
Of the ~93% (I have heard figures closer to 80%, but I won't quibble your
figures), most was dropped in carpet bombing of regions only occupied by
enemy troops. A B-52 drops a lot of bombs in one sortie, and we used them
around the clock. Not to mention other smaller aircraft using dumb
munitions.
2. The Patriot uses a proximity fuse. The adjusted figures for number
of Patriot kills of SS-1 derivitives is ~60-70%. That figure came
not from some fluke in the Pentagon, but a someone working with such
stuff in another part of DoD.
3. The statement precision bombing was the norm, is true around areas
where civilians were close to the target. We dropped by tonnage very
little bombs in populated regions, explaining the figures.
This figure, is far below all the other figures I have seen. If it
is indeed accurate, then how do you explain the discrepancy between
that figure, and other figures from international organizations?
Most figures I have seen place the hit ratio close to 70%, which is
still far higher than your 35%. Or does your figure say a bomb
missed if the plane took off with it, and the bomb never hit the target,
regardless of whether or not the bomb was dropped? Such methods
are used all the time to lie with statistics.
I have _never_ seen any source that was claiming such a figure. Please
post the source so its reliability can be judged.
| 14
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|
Hey! What's this? We agree!
No platoon advantage (Sabo vs. Samuel).
Both players have a reputation of being excellent fastball hitters,
and both have a reputation of being fooled too often with
slow curves and change ups.
Sabo has more power, and a little bit of a better batting eye. Samuel
is noted as an agressive free-swinger. Sabo has more homerun power.
Both players started the game hitting below .200.
There may have been some game considerations that might have prompted
Perez to want to reserve Samuel for use later. But the game
*was* on the line, and Samuel never did get in.
Given all of this, I don't see a lot to suggest pinch-hitting, nor do
I see anything to suggest no pinch-hitting. There is, of course, the
clutch-hitting information. But if that's useless...
Then again. If it's not...
| 11
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I'd hardly call the current Pluto Fast Flyby proposal "too large" (if the
new technology insertion currently taking place succeeds, the S/C mass will
drop to 110-120 kg) or "too expensive" ($400 million [FY92 $] for two S/C),
especially when compared to other NASA planetary missions.
This proposal would work only if your various targets are relaively nearby and
the require minimal delta-v from the mother ship. A mission to the main belt
might be one possibility for such a mission -- I recall a paper being presented
at an AIAA deisgn conference in Irvine in February where such a proposed
spacecraft was designed by some grad students at UT Austin (I think). Four
mini-spacecraft would detatch from the main S/C, each visiting a seperate
asteroid and then returning to the main S/C. After analysis, the main S/C
would then be targeted for the most "interesting" object for further study.
Now, if I could only *find* that paper... =)
| 12
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|
: >|> >(2) Having Bonds batting behind Williams means that Matt will get
: >|> > more good pitches to hit. This is important since he struggles
: >|> > so much with breaking balls. Opposing pitchers don't want to
: >|> > walk Williams to get to Bonds.
: >
: >I have to wonder if this "good hitter behind you" argument is really valid.
: >Has anyone done a study on this.
:
: You want a study? Look at Matt Williams the year after
: Mitchell was gone. Look no further. Not a scientific
: study, but it'll show the truth for Matt. Besides, Bonds
: _wants_ to bat 5th
I had thought that Williams batted after Mitchell. Wouldn't that show that
Williams does better at 5th rather than 4th?
The point is moot, though, becase Clark pretty much demands to be 3rd
and, like you point out, Bonds does like to bat 5th. The only person
left to bat 4th is Williams.
| 11
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|
It's about time the boys got it together!!
They were outworked and outplayed by the Wings in the first two games.
But Burns must have kicked their behinds cause they sure came out in full
gear (or is that high gear?) in game 3. Except for a 10-15 minute stretch
in the 2nd period, they outskated and outworked the Wings. Please don't
flame this statement 'cos you know it's true! I have to admit that
goaltending was the key. Potvin kept the Leafs ahead during the sleepy
stretch the Leafs went through in the 2nd. He also kept the rebounds to a
minimum, something that cost Cheveldae 2 goals. Clark even looked like
he had stopped moping (first star!), although I still don't know why he
was so flat in games 1 and 2.
If the Leafs play the same style and can keep the pace they had in game
3, they may actually have a chance of winning this series (a slim chance,
but a chance....I'm no RM.....where is he anyways? haha).
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It is NOT a homeopathic remedy. Improvement began in a few months.
I am allergic to bermuda grass and if anyone nearby was mowing a lawn
my nose would start to run. Now I can walk right by and it doesn't bother
me at all. The same success with desert ragweed.
| 9
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|
This is not flame, or abuse, nor do I want to start another thread (this
is, after all, supposed to be about IMAGE PROCESSING).
| 9
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|
I have often thought about, if its possible to have a powerfull laser
on earth, to light at the Moon, and show lasergraphics at the surface
so clearly that you can see it with your eyes when there is a new
moon.
How about a Coca Cola logo at the moon, easy way to target billions of
people.
Do you know if its possible?
| 12
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|
[I write:]
#>>> Imagine that 1000000 Alterian dollars turn up in your bank account every
#>>> month. Suppose further that this money is being paid to you by (a) your
#>>> big-hearted Alterian benefactor, or (b) a bug in an Alterian ATM. Let's
#>>> suppose that this is a true dichotomy, so P(a)+P(b)=1. Trouble is, Alterius
#>>> is in a different universe, so that no observations of Alterius are possible
#>>> (except for the banks - you couldn't possibly afford it ;-)
#>>>
#>>> Now let's examine the case for (a). There is no evidence whatsoever that
#>>> there is any such thing as a big-hearted Alterian benefactor. However,
#>>> P(exists(b-h A b)) + P(not(exists(b-h A b)) = 1. On the grounds that
#>>> lack_of_evidence_for is evidence_against when we have a partition like
#>>> that, we dismiss hypothesis (a).
#>>>
#>>> Turning, therefore, to (b), we also find no evidence to support that
#>>> hypothesis. On the same grounds as before, we dismiss hypothesis (b).
#>>>
#>>> The problem with this is that we have dismissed *all* of the possible
#>>> hypotheses, and even though we know by construction that the money
#>>> arrives every month, we have proven that it can't, because we
#>>> have dismissed all of its potential causes.
#
#>> That's an *extremely* poor argument, and here's why.
#>>
#>> Premise 1: "...this money is being paid to you by [either] (a) your big-
#>> hearted Alterian benefactor, or (b) a bug in an Alterian ATM".
#>>
#>> Thus each monthly appearance of the bucks, should it happen, is an
#>> observation on Alterius, and by construction, is evidence for the
#>> existence of [either the benefactor or the bug in the ATM].
#>>
#>> Premise 2: no observations on Alterius are possible.
#
#> #> (except for the banks - you couldn't possibly afford it ;-)
#>
#> You forgot to include this. My premise is actually:
#>
#> Premise 2: The cardinality of the set of possible observations on Alterius
#> is one.
#
#>> This is clearly contradictory to the first.
#
#> Not if you state it properly.
#
#>> Trouble is, on the basis of premise 2, you say that there can be no evidence
#>> of [either the benefactor or the bug], but the first premise leads to the
#>> conclusion that the appearance of the bucks, should it happen, is evidence
#>> for the existence of [either the benefactor or the bug].
#>>
#>> Voila, a screaming contradiction.
#
#[with my highlights - SC]
#> But in a strawman argument. There is only evidence for OneOf(Benefactor,Bug).
#> No observation to distinguish Benefactor from Bug is possible. That is
#> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#> not evidence for Bug, and neither is it evidence for Benefactor. Nor
#> ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
#> is true to say that this hypothetical universe appears exactly as
#> if there were no Benefactor/Bug (two statements, both would be false).
#
#This is still contradictory. It reduces to
#
# (1): Alterian dosh arriving in my account is due to [benefactor or bug].
#
# (2): this is not evidence for [benefactor], neither is it evidence for
# [bug] (meaning that it doesn't lend more weight to one than to the
# other)
#
# (3): therefore no evidence can exist for [benefactor] and no evidence
# can exist for [bug].
#
#But (3) relies on a shift in meaning from (2). When you say (paraphrased)
#in (2) that this is not "evidence for [benefactor]", for example, what you
#mean is that it's no *more* evidence for [benefactor] than it is for [bug].
Yes, that's what I mean.
#In (3), however, you've shifted the meaning of "evidence for [benefactor]"
#so that it now means `absolute' "evidence for [benefactor]" rather than
#`relative' "evidence for [benefactor]" w.r.t. [bug].
Not really, I meant evidence that would tend to one over the other. I
think this is just a communications problem. What I am trying to say,
in my clumsy way, is that while I buy your theory as far as it relates
to theism making predictions (prayer, your 'Rapture' example), I don't
buy your use of Occam's razor in all cases where A=0.
In my example, one couldn't dismiss
[benefactor] or [bug] on the grounds of simplicity - one of these is necessary
to explain the dosh. I brought up the 'one-by-one dismissal' process to
show that it would be wrong to do so. From what you're saying in this
post, it seems you agree, and we're talking at cross-purposes.
#(3) is still in contradiction to (1).
#
#Some sums may help. With B = benefactor, b = bug, d = dosh arrives in account:
#
# (1) implies P(B+b | d) = 1
#
#Assuming that P(Bb | d) = 0, so it's either the benefactor *or* a bug
#which is responsible if the bucks arrive, but not both, then
#
# P(B+b | d) = P(B | d) + P(b | d)
#
#so
#
# P(B | d) + P(b | d) = 1
#
#but (3) implies that
#
# P(B | d) = 0 and P(b | d) = 0.
No, this isn't what I meant. P(B | d) = 0.5 and P(b | d) = 0.5, with
necessarily no new observation (we've already seen the dosh) to change
those estimates. I was trying to say (again, in my clumsy way) that
it would be _wrong_ to assign 0 probability to either of these. And that's
precisely what use of the Razor does in the case of gods - gods are
one class of hypothesis (there are many others) belonging to a set of
hypotheses _one_of_which_ is necessary to explain something which otherwise
would _not_ be satisfactorily explained. It can be thrown out or
retained on grounds of non-rational preference, not of science or statistics.
Alternatively, one could chuck out or retain the lot, on the grounds
that the answer can't be known, or that the notional probability estimates
are effectively useless, being equal (agnosticism/weak atheism).
#> As they do when the set M is filled by "the universe is caused by x",
#> where x is gods, pink unicorns, nothing, etc. - and no observation
#> tends to one conclusion over the other.
#
#Exactly the point I was making, I think. So we don't "throw out" any of
#these, contrary to your assertion above that we do.
Some people do, Simon, and they think they are doing excellent science.
My sole point was that they aren't.
#>> Only observations which directly contradict the hypothesis H[i] (i.e. x
#>> where P(x | H[i]) = 0) can cause P(H[i]) to go to zero after a finite
#>> number of observations. Only in this case do we get to throw any of the
#>> hypotheses out.
#
#> Exactly my point, though I may have been unclear.
#
#You said the diametric opposite, which I guess is the source of my confusion.
I was merely trying to illustrate the incorrectness of doing so.
#> What I'm trying to say is that while you are correct to say that absence of
#> evidence can sometimes be evidence of absence, this does not hold true for
#> all, or perhaps any, versions of theism - and it isn't true that those for
#> which it does not hold can be discarded using the razor.
#
#On the contrary, those for which it does not hold are *exactly* those which
#can be discarded using the Razor. See my post on the other branch of this
#thread.
Then you seem to be guilty of the contradiction you accuse me of. If
the razor holds for gods, then it holds for all like hypotheses. Which
means that you're assigning P(x | H[i]) =0 for all i, though we've already
established that it's not correct to do so when SUM(P(x|H[i]))=1 over
all i.
#> Simply put, anyone who claims to have a viable proof of the existence or
#> non-existence of gods, whether inductive or no, is at best mistaken, and
#> at worst barking mad.
#
#Luckily I make no such claim, and have specifically said as much on numerous
#occasions. You wouldn't be constructing a strawman here, would you Frank?
#Although that doesn't, of course, rule out my being barking mad in any case
#(I could be barking mad in my spare time, with apologies to Cleese et al).
#
#But I think you miss the point once again. When I say that something is
#"evidence against" an hypothesis, that doesn't imply that observation of
#the said something necessarily *falsifies* the hypothesis, reducing the
#estimate of P(H | data) to zero. If it *reduces* this quantity, it's still
#evidence against H.
No, I got that. I'm talking about the case when A=0. You're clearly
correct when A!=0. And I'm not constructing a strawman (though it's
certainly possible that I've misunderstood what you're saying). However,
by any standards, a system that says when A=0, gods are highly unlikely,
and when A!=0 gods can be dismissed using the Razor, is a system purporting
to be an inductive proof that gods either don't exist, or are unnecessary
to explain any or all phenomena. In my experience, systems such as this
(including those which purport to prove that gods exist) always contain
a fallacy upon close examination. If that's not what you're saying, then
please put me straight.
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|
[Stuff deleted]
Would Mr. Hart please explain how one could get every nation on
earth and every corporation to agree that astronomers own the
night sky without `coercion'. Remember that not every nation
follows the English common law. In most countries, for most of
history, it was probably true that the rulers `owned' everything
not explicitly owned by individuals. Even in North America,
where by the principle enunciated, the aboriginal inhabitants should
have owned everything, when new arrivals wanted to use land
and resources, they just took it over. In case Mr. Hart hasn't noticed,
there is currently a brutal war going on in Bosnia about who owns what.
Of course, if some friendly super power were to give an international
astronomy organization some anti-satelite missiles and also agree
to defend it if attacked, such a proposal might work, but it
would hardly be non-coercive.
Some of us nutty environmentalists think it might make sense first
to try to mobilize public opinion against advertising in space
and also to use governmental actions (like taxing power, for example)
to discourage them. This of course would be too coercive for
Mr. Hart.
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|
+>The paranoid assertion that the BATF fired first in an unprovoked
+>assault assumes that the BATF were on a death wish. Had they
+>expected the B-D to be anything other than peacefull citizens who
+>would accept a search authorized by a court they would have turned up
+>in a tank and broken the door down on day one.
The search was a "no-knock" warrent. Meaning that what
those on the scene see is a bunch of men with guns storming
their compound and lobbing grenades at them. The terms of the
search warrent are secret and the BATF has yet to even reveal
what they were.
+>The stupidity was the attempt to serve a warant on the place by
+>ludicrously underarmed and unprotected police.
They did not serve a warrent, they basically attacked the
compound and expected a surrender. They had semiautomatics and
concussion grenades that we KNOW about.
Look at the death and injury toll inflicted on both sides in the first
battle and its difficult to believe that either side had any
superiority in weapons.
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Most DOS X servers are terribly slow to use in my experience - and no, I guess
performance would be pretty bad. I believe the discussion is valid for an X
server on a decent workstation.
| 6
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|
After setting up a very large (>4 pages) table in Word for Windows
I asked word to print it to my HP laserjet II -- worked fine at first.
After much editing of the table contents (but not structure) output
requests now kick the LJ into manual feed mode for the document
containing the table. Other documents without tables print correctly.
Where should I look and what should I change to get the document with
the long table to use the paper drawer rather than kick into manual
feed mode? [I believe I've tried all the obvious printer manager changes
as well as replacing the hppcl.[lp]00 files with archived versions.]
Thanks for any and all help.
Peter
| 17
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[obnoxious name-calling deleted]
Ok, who wants rm off of here? I say we get his net privleges revoked.
Any seconds?
| 16
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|
IMO, the influence of Stalin, or for that matter, Ayn Rand, invalidates your
assumption that theism is the factor to be considered. Gullibility,
blind obedience to authority, lack of scepticism, and so on, are all more
reliable indicators. And the really dangerous people - the sources of
fanaticism - are often none of these things. They are cynical manipulators
of the gullible, who know precisely what they are doing. Now, *some*
brands of theism, and more precisely *some* theists, do tend to fanaticism,
I grant you. To tar all theists with this brush is bigotry, not a reasoned
argument - and it reads to me like a warm-up for censorship and restriction
of religious freedom. Ever read Animal Farm?
Well, there is a glaring paradox here: an argument that reason is useful
based on reason would be circular, and argument not based on reason would
be irrational. Which is it?
The first part of the second statement contains no information, because
you don't say what "the beliefs" are. If "the beliefs" are strong theism
and/or strong atheism, then your statement is not in general true. The
second part of your sentence is patently false - counterexample: an
axiomatic datum does not lend itself to rational analysis, but is
assumed to contain reliable information regardless of what process is
used to obtain it.
I can't agree with this until you are specific - *which* theism? To
say that all theism is necessarily antirational requires a proof which
I suspect you do not have.
I don't understand this. Can you formalise your argument?
| 14
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|
Think for a moment about the technology required to do that. By
the time they could make the Earth's sky look like Las Vegas,
the people could afford to go backpacking on the Moon. Round
trip costs for 500 kg to the Moon would be about the same as
5000 kg in a Low Earth "advertising" orbit: Very roughly the
same cost as a smallish billboard, therefore. If such ads were
to become common place, that would have to be a very low price...
The night sky on a Lunar backpacking trip would still be very
pristine...
There's always been a problem of having to get
away from civilization before you can really find "natural"
scenery. 100 years ago, this usually didn't take a trip
of over 5 miles. Today, most people would have to go 100 miles
or more. If we ever get to the point where we have billboards
on orbit, that essentially means that no place on Earth is still
"wild." While that may or may not be a good thing, the orbital
billboards aren't the problem: They are just a symptom of
growing, densely-populated civilization. Banning such ads will
not save your view of the night sky, because by the time
such ads could become widespread you will probably have trouble
finding a place without street lights, where you can _see_
the stars...
An ad on a moon of Jupiter would be rather pointless, since you need
a telescope to see them. However, I'd love to see them get all
the publicity they could from underwritting the "Coca Cola Io
Orbital Mapping Probe."
They already can, to some extent: The IAU allows names derived from
sponsors or patrons of scientific research. If Microscum donates
money to a university astronomy program, one of the galactic
astronomers could easily get a newly discovered galaxy named after
them.
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Note: the following article is submitted on behalf of someone (Frank
daniels) who has difficulty posting to s.r.c, email replies to
daniels@math.ufl.edu
I am unable to post to the bitnet groups.
Here is a capsule history of the Shepherding/Discipleship Movement in
the Churches of Christ (i.e. Crossroads/Boston):
I could trace the Movement back as far as 1800, and indeed some of its
roots go back that far, but these were really "influences" on the Movement,
and not the actual movement, per se.
I will start in c.1920.
In that day, there were 'white' churches and 'colored' churches in
nearly every area (due to segregation). Modern Pentecostalism was developing
as a predominantly 'colored' phenomenon. Here, there was great fanaticism,
emphasis on emotional experiences, and belief in a personal guidance and
indwelling of the Holy Spirit.
Many 'white' Protestant churches were growing into what became known
as conservative fundamentalism. By the 1940s, the evangelical movement was
in full swing, and many groups were becoming part of it.
When the civil rights movement grew stronger (in the 1950's and
1960's),
many 'white' church groups began to be influenced by the 'black' churches and
by what was going on there. This spread started in the most liberal of groups
and spread to the more conservative ones by the late '60's. In 1969, even the
Catholic Church was displaying evidence of influence by the other
groups...still
evident today.
The Churches of Christ are (and were) a very conservative Protestant
group. When the influence from outside began to reach the CofC in c.1965, it
was generally not appreciated. Conservative groups are very strongly
resistant
to change, and the new movement was VERY different from the CofC status quo.
The magazines put out at that time by CofC folks tell the story as it
unfolds. New ideas came into the CofC. There was a big push to reach out to
college students, young adults, and teens. Some called this the Campus
Evangel-
ism Movement. Emotions, generally not highly regarded in the CofC at large,
played a more important role in the new movement. In some places, people
began
to speak in tongues (as their Pentecostal predecessors did).
This was met with extreme criticism from within the Churches of
Christ.
In some places, people were fired from their jobs for speaking in tongues or
for
advocating the "Holy Spirit Movement", another name for the new branch. The
term "Underground Church of Christ" also came into use because these people
had
to hide their differences (or they might be ostricised).
There were several congregations, however, whose leaderships were
receptive to the new ideas (at least in part; the tongues-speaking never
really
caught on). One of these was the 14th Street Church of Christ in Gainesville,
FL. Campus Ministry had already been regarded as important at 14th Street,
and
the new ideas seemed to be very helpful tools for evangelism. They also
seemed
to put vitality into the church, which many felt had been lacking.
In October of 1967, the 14th Street congregation hired Chuck Lucas to
be its Campus Minister. By 1970, he would move to being the congregation's
(lead) Minister. In the late 60's/early 70's, the congregation worked with
many
other groups. They held Bible discussions at Daytona Beach during Spring
Break.
They organized talks in the fraternities on the University of Florida campus.
They also worked with UF sports people.
In 1972, the congregation ordered a larger building to be constructed.
When it was finished, the group moved and changed its name (now no longer
appropriate). It became the Crossroads Church of Christ from then on, a name
that would become legendary.
By this time, Crossroads was basically the only CofC whose programs
were fully aligned to the new movement. While they didn't start it, they
continued it and were responsible for where it wound up going.
By 1975, none of the other Churches of Christ in the area felt that
they could cooperate with Crossroads, due to what they recognized as doctrinal
problems at Crossroads.
Crossroads had begun to heavily emphasize, and later require
attendance
at all church functions. It was seen as a good thing for each member to have
at least one close relationship, a person with whom you would share all of
your problems, pray, and get help from. The concept was called Prayer
Partners,
which later became Discipleship Partners and also later became mandatory. The
leadership was assigning prayer partners to people for a while.
The book called "The Master Plan of Evangelism" was a strong influence
on Chuck Lucas. He (and the group) believed that it was every person's duty
and life purpose to carry out the great commission. Crossroads was growing
in number, and numbers became VERY important (some would say all-important).
A person who "was evangelistic" was "spiritual". Evangelism meant
inviting people to Crossroads events; if you did this a lot and some of them
converted, then you were "spiritual". There were sermons about how if you
bought groceries, the cashier and bag boy ought to receive invitations to
services. Everyone at your job ought to receive invitations. Since these
people needed Jesus, you should be "aggressive"--don't take 'no' for an
answer.
If you did not evangelize enough, you came to be called "lazy" or
"unspiritual".
By the end of the decade, the Prayer Partner system was integrated
into
a structure. The Elders and Ministers were on top (like a big pyramid). Then
the group leaders, Bible study leaders, and members. Everyone who came in had
someone placed over them.
It is at this time, 1978-1980, that the bad press about Crossroads
began to circulate. The problem with rape on the University of Florida campus
was tremendous, but Crossroads was considered a bigger and more immediate
problem. There were many complaints about the congregation and its "pushy"
evangelistic tactics. Crossroads was considering the other Churches of Christ
to be "dead" churches, which aggravated them; it was aggressively recruiting
out of the other church groups (denominations), which aggravated THEM.
By this time, Crossroads had grown numerically to the point (1100)
where not only did they believe that they would soon need a new building, but
also they were sending out "planting" [create a new church] and
"reconstructing"
[reorganize an existing church] teams to other cities. By this time, the
Crossroads Movement was underway.
A group was sent to the 30-member Lexington Church of Christ in
Boston,
MA. The team was headed up by Kip McKean, who had been converted out of a
fraternity by Crossroads (in Gainesville). Kip held a still stronger view of
church authority, which he believed was heavily vested in the Evangelist(s),
and not so much in the Elders. He had been fired in 1977 from the
congregation
that he had been working at when the elders there found numerous things wrong
with his theology, including the practice of what came to be called one-over-
one
Christianity. [Called this by critics]
In the first year, half of the 30 people felt that they did not want
to
be a part of the new congregation. They left. But others began coming into
the new Boston Church of Christ.
Ah, but I'm ahead of myself.
At Crossroads, the heavy-handed system had begun to take its toll on
the members. Many have said that they felt that they were working hard, but
they were not achieving the results that were so important. The numbers were
dropping. From 1978, Crossroads membership declined steadily. The leadership
began to tighten the reigns on the congregation, who was seen as being largely
"unproductive" and "unfruitful". The "fruit" passages in the NT were
interpreted
as referring to new converts. If you were not bearing fruit, said John 15,
you
would be cast into the fire! [Boston still teaches this.]
If you love your neighbor, you'll save his soul (invite him to church
and convert him). If you're not doing that, you don't love your neighbor.
And if you don't love, you're in danger of backsliding. The logical arguments
continue in this vein.
In 1985, Chuck Lucas was fired from his job as minister, due to
recurring
sins in his life. These struggles were never revealed to the congregation at
large, although many people outside the congregation had heard about them.
For
by now, there was very little contact (on a friendship level) between most
Crossroads members and those outside. [If you have contact, your focus should
be on converting them. Bring them to a Bible Study.]
Chuck's replacement was Joe Woods, who was fully supportive of the
Boston system. As Boston grew in number, they began to offer 'training'
sessions
for other ministers. Joe went to Boston to be trained and returned to Cross-
roads ready to emphasize the "total commitment" to the church that Boston and
Kip McKean were now emphasizing. Eventually, in Fall of 1987, the Elders at
Crossroads (now 2 in number--Dick Whitehead and Bill Hogle) made a decision.
Boston was demanding that all of the other churches in the movement come under
the direction of the church in Boston. The Elders refused, citing their
belief
that each church should be autonomous (something true in all non-Boston
Churches
of Christ). Perhaps there was also some degree of offense done here, since
Crossroads was no longer the 'example' to the rest of the Movement. The group
now numbered about 800, while Boston was now larger (in membership).
The Churches of Christ generally teach that baptism is a necessary
element of salvation. At Crossroads, they taught what was called 'Lordship'
baptism: you had to understand the commitment involved before you could be
baptized. You had to 'count the cost'. At Boston, they took this a step
further. If at some time you became "unproductive", then your spirituality
was suspect. People would begin to ask you if you REALLY understood what you
were getting into. Anyone who said 'no' had their baptism deemed invalid:
they
hadn't counted the cost properly. They still had to be baptized. Others
called
this "rebaptism", and Crossroads didn't approve of this practice.
When Crossroads announced that it would not follow Boston, many of its
members left Crossroads and went to Movement-related ministries, which were
now called Discipling Ministries. You were either discipling (evangelizing)
or
you were "dead". They also used the nickname "Movement of God" for a while.
By Summer of 1988, Crossroads was withdrawn from the Movement and now
stood alone. They had few to no allies in the mainstream Churches of Christ,
and now none in the Movement.
Boston, however, continued to chart its course in the direction that
they had been following. They sent "reconstruction teams" to many cities,
which
usually meant that they split the church there. They stopped acknowledging
other
churches of Christ as Christians and began to call themselves the "remnant".
The "remnant" of the Jews in the OT are those who are saved by God. It was
felt that the "remnant" today represents all the Christians. Sometimes they
would simply call their Movement "the church".
They usually took the name of the city for their name, implying to the
other Churches of Christ that Boston did not recognize their existence. Many
campuses have now formally forbidden Boston ministries from recruiting there
due to the number of complaints. In some cases, it has been documented that
Boston ministries have lied to University officials in order to continue to
have
access to the campus. Any resistance that they experience is termed "perse-
cution", which all true Christians are expected to experience. Are you really
a Christian if you're not being persecuted?
The numbers at Boston peaked at c.3000 in 1989. Since then, they have
fought to remain steady. I have heard a tape of Kip McKean shouting at the
leaders for failing to fulfill the Great Commission (their life's purpose) as
God commanded them. Their Christianity is highly centered on commands and
obedience.
Crossroads once was called a cult. Boston is now recognized by the
Cult Awareness Network and other national and international groups as a cult,
under a formal definition, because of the techniques which they employ. The
term "cult" is usually differentiated from "sect" by the practice of those
techniques. The techniques which they employ are recognized by many as being
techniques of destructive pursuasion, also used by other Shepherding
Discipleship groups. [Robert Jay Lifton, Margaret Thaler Singer, and many
others have written about the topic.] These techniques include guilt
motivation,
emotional manipulation, loaded language, the aura of sacred science (a sort
of mystic element seen in everyday events), and others.
I have no particular axe to grind against the Movement. I have numer-
ous friends who are still part of the Movement. I have never had a 'falling
out' with anyone in the Movement. I disagree with many things which they
teach.
I recognize the psychological damage done by being involved in such a system.
I hold no loyalty to the mainstream Churches of Christ and do not defend their
mistakes either.
I want to point out, though, that unlike in many other systems which
are in other ways similar, the Leadership of the Boston Movement are as much
victims of the system as the members. We do not have a leader who enjoys
manipulating his people. The leaders believe what they teach, and they feel
accountable for the activites (and spiritual welfare) of the members. When
members do not evangelize to their expectations, for example, the leaders feel
personally responsible as well. The leaders are not out for money or power.
They want to evangelize the world in their lifetime.
I have said too much, but there is much more to say. There are many
examples I could give and quotes from other sources (including Boston
bulletins)
that I could include. But this is too long already. You may post this if
you so desire.
Frank D.
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He's a Canadian "thing". Former coach of the Boston Bruins and Colorado
Rockies. From the summaries that get posted I gather that his ongoing beef
this year has been the conventional wisdom that Canadian hockey is doomed
to be second or third rate behind the perceived emergence of the U.S.
and European programs.
After he left the Rockies, he got a job with CBC's Hockey Night in Canada
and hasn't looked back since. Actually, he did work for CBC at least
on playoff season after the Rockies were eliminated.
I'd say it's a combination of flame bait and serious journalism. The closest
thing you'll find to Cherry in the U.S. is Stan Fischler, a self-described
hockey maven. The similarities are that they both say things that get
people upset. The difference is that Cherry knows the game and Fischler
doesn't.
Don's a character. If he were completely rational and noncontroversial
he wouldn't have a job. By some definitions, he could be called an ass.
But then some people feel the same about Mike Lang, another character that
I wish would get wider exposure (only one national telecast last year).
| 16
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|
Wake up and smell the Norris!! Rick Zombo was traded to the Blues for Vince
Riendo (sp?) last season.
| 16
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|
The paper was distributed (against the wishes of the NSA - I have a copy
with a few 'illicit distribution' footnotes scribbled on it :-), and eventually
published at one of the crypto conferences. Things were looking good.
Then Xerox patented the algorithms. <Plonk!>
I don't know of anything which uses them. Also, Khafre was broken at a
later conference and from work on a related algorithm I don't think the
existing Khufu would hold up too well against a converted differential
cryptanalysis attack, although it can probably be changed to resist this
type of attack....
Peter.
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|
Nope. Your problem is either being caused by excessive voltage drop in the
long cable from the generator, or just plain not having enough power. I
would suspect that those amps are going to draw a lot of current on short
peaks.
You can try using larger (and shorter) cables to the generator, or try
strapping the amps for 240V service and running 240V mains cables out,
which will minimize the line drop. If these don't work, though, you're
going to need a bigger generator.
I assume that you're using well-maintained generators, and have watched the
voltage output on the generator properly. If you don't have 120V coming out
of the unloaded generator you'll never get 120V at the other end.
| 15
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Blessed are those
who hunger and thirst
for righteousness,
for they will be filled.
| 8
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2,930
| 15
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[...]
Does this imply the German tone dialing is compatible with the American
one? I know at least the British system is not -- it is supposedly close
enough though that an American phone will work. But my modem (American)
has a special setting for British standards...
Michael
| 15
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|
I am working for a company which has only one connection to the Internet.
This is through a firewall gateway (unix workstation). I would like to be
able to telnet to a host outside the company and set the DISPLAY to my PC
which is running an X-terminal emulator (eXceed/W). The display can be set
to the gateway workstation with no problem but when I set the variable to
my IP address I get a "Error: Can't open display" message.
This can't be that hard to work around can it?
BTW I have no trouble running x-clients on local workstations (in the company)
and having them display on my PC.
| 6
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|
If the BT phone system is anything to go by...me thinks this should be
approached with great caution.
Mark
| 3
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2,934
|
I am selling the following sets of comics. Listed are the guide
prices (Overstreet, or Comics Values Monthly or Wizard if I couldn't
find it in Overstreet) as well as my price.
Feel free to ask me about single items from the sets, as I often have
extra copies of some of the items in the set.
All comics are Near Mint to Mint unless otherwise noted.
Set # Titles Guide PRICE
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. Adventure Comics Set (VF-NM unless noted) $130.00 $100.00
296, 304, 312, 313, 319 (F-VF)
2. Animal Man Set $ 46.00 $ 30.00
Animal Man 35-38, 41
Animal Man TPB Reprint #1
Wonder Woman 267 (Re-intro Animal Man)
3. Avengers Set $ 21.00 $ 9.00
Avengers 263, 272, 300, 306, 324, 329
Avengers Annual 15, 18, 19
4. Fish Police $ 22.50 $ 9.00
Fish Police 3-7, 9
5. Green Arrow $ 35.50 $ 15.00
Green Arrow 1-9, 12, 47-51
6. Infinity Gauntlet $ 17.00 $ 9.00
Infinity Gauntlet 1-3
7. Legion of Super-Heroes $ 8.00 $ 5.00
Legion of Super-Heroes 294
Legion of Super-Heroes (1989) 1, 21
L.E.G.I.O.N. 29, 30
8. Lone Wolf and Cub $ 22.00 $ 15.00
Lone Wolf and Cub 5-10, 18, 19, 21-23
9. Omega Men $ 23.00 $ 15.00
Omega Men 3, 10
Omega Men Annual 1, 2
10. Outcasts $ 21.00 $ 10.00
Outcasts 1-12
11. Ragman $ 9.00 $ 5.00
Ragman 1-5
12. Retief $ 16.25 $ 9.00
Retief Volume 1 (Mad Dog) 1-6
Retief Volume 2 (Adventure) 1
Retief of the C.D.T.
13. Silver Blade $ 24.00 $ 9.00
Silver Blade 1-12
16. Slash Maraud $ 10.50 $ 5.00
Slash Maraud 1-6
17. Sleepwalker $ 16.25 $ 10.00
Sleepwalker 1, 4-13
18. Star Trek $ 30.00 $ 20.00
Star Trek (Marvel) 3 (VG), 6 (F),
10 (VF)
Star Trek: Next Generation (mini) 1
Star Trek: Next Generation (series) 1,2
19. Strange Adventures (VF-NM unless noted) $260.00 $200.00
Strange Adventures 91, 124, 125, 128,
140, 144, 146 (F-VF),
147 (G), 148 (G), 150,
152, 166, 169, 171,
174, 205 (F-VF)
20. Superman $ 18.40 $ 10.00
Superman 2, 4, 7, 53
Superman Annual 1-3
Superman The Earth Stealers
Superman The Man of Steel 1
21. Trekker $ 9.50 $ 5.00
Trekker 1-6
22. Trouble with Girls $ 20.00 $ 9.00
Apache Dick 1-3
Trouble with Girls (Eternity) 5, 11-14
Trouble with Girls (Comico) 2, 4
23. V For Vendetta $ 8.00 $ 5.00
V For Vendetta 6, 7, 9, 10
24. Video Jack $ 12.00 $ 5.00
Video Jack 1-6
25. Warlock and The Infinity Watch $ 19.00 $ 10.00
Warlock and the Infinity Watch 2-9
26. Warriors $ 6.50 $ 5.00
Warriors 1-3
27. X-Terminators $ 7.25 $ 5.00
X-Terminators 1-4
I guarantee comic grading satisfaction. If you are not satisfied with the
grade I've assigned to the book, you can send it back and I will refund your
money minus shipping costs.
I have thousands of other comics, so if you are looking for something in
particular, please let me know. I might be able to help out.
I reserve the right to refuse any offer.
| 1
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Posted for a friend without posting access (but with e-mail access...)
----------------------------
Help, anyone!
I have a X client that is abnormally terminated with the following message:
XIO: fatal IO error 22 (Invalid argument) on X server "xxxxx:0.0"
after 10058 requests (10057 known processed) with 78 events remaining.
It has been known to occur when displaying on the Xsun (X11R4) server. It
occurs with a higher frequency when the client displays on the Xdomain
(X11R4) server running on DomainOS 10.3.5 on an Apollo.
Anybody know why this may be happening? Any suggestions would be greatly
appreciated.
Reply-To: has been set to me. I'll summarize to the net.
Doug Leary
REDARS Software Development
Boeing Computer Services
dcl@luey.ca.Boeing.COM
| 6
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2,936
|
For Sale: 386SX-16Mz, 8 meg RAM!, 120 meg Maxtor IDE hard disk, AMI BIOS
STB PowerGraph SVGA, 1MB (up to 1024x768x256)
LOOP 14" color SVGA monitor (.28 dot pitch)
1.2 & 1.44 diskette drives
Desktop case, turbo & reset switches, Hard Drive LED
101 keyboard, 2 Serial/1 Parallel/ 1 Game Port
Serial, 2-button, fully MS-compatible mouse.
Everex 2400 bps External modem with MNP5
DOS 5.0, Windows 3.1
Logitech ScanMan 32 HandScanner with all software,docs,box.
| 1
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From: Center for Policy Research <cpr>
Subject: Labour's enclaves policy.IMPORTANT
Labour's enclaves policy in the occupied territories
by Israel Shahak
publ. in Middle East International, London, 30.4.93
It is not difficult to discover Israel's policy towards the
Palestinians at any given time. It can be easily inferred
from the facts on the ground and from the information
provided by the Hebrew press. There is one condition,
though. The torrents of claptrap about "the peace
process" must be totally ignored, as must Israel's official
pronouncements, whole sole purpose is to distort reality.
By concentrating only on the facts, it was early apparent
that Labour's policies were no different from those of
Shamir but for their greater reliance on deceit and their
more effective implementation.
Likud's policies were accurately described by Ariel
Sharon in an article, accompanied by a map, in Yediot
Aharonot last August. The Sharon plan envisaged a
division of the West Bank into seven, and the Gaza Strip
into four, "autonomous" Palestinian enclaves, all of them
under Israeli supervision. The total area of these
enclaves amounted to about 15 per cent of the
territories. The rest was to be controlled by the Israeli
settlements and the highways built around the enclaves.
The entire area around Jerusalem, from the outskirts of
Ramallah to the boundaries of Bethlehem, has already
been turned into a "Greater Jerusalem" where the Arab-
inhabited localities amount to small enclaves surrounded
by areas occupied by Israeli settlements or reserved for
them.
Judging from Labour's settlement policy, it may be
assumed that it may content itself with a lesser number
of Arab enclaves of a rather larger size than Sharon had
planned. But the principle of surrounding the enclaves by
settlements strategically dispersed along the highways
remains unchanged. Labour plans only four enclaves in
the West Bank: two in "Samaria" and two in "Judea" (i.e.
north and south of Jerusalem respectively), and no more
than two in the Gaza Strip. In regard to "Greater
Jerusalem", Labour's policies hardly deviate from
Sharon's.
A saner version of Likud policy
As some Israeli correspondents at once realised, Labour
policies were but a saner version of Sharon's
extravaganza. Last July, Gideon Eshet wrote in Yediot
Aharonot that, while "barely a few months ago" Labour
supported the demand to freeze all construction beyond
the Green Line, "no specific decision to freeze
construction in the territories has been taken". And Uzi
Benziman wrote in Ha'aretz that "as far as can be judged
on the basis of the internal political discussions in
Jerusalem, Rabin intends to stick to Likud's ways".
The two biggest enclaves envisaged by Labour are
located in "Samaria". Therefore the belt of settlements
around the "Trans-Samaria Highway", designed to
separate those enclaves from each other, is of paramount
importance. According to the latest data, the percentage
of Israeli settlers in the entire West Bank population
(apart from East Jerusalem) is a mere 5.5 per cent. But
for the area around the "Trans-Samaria Highway", the
corresponding figure is almost 20 per cent, and it is
increasing steadily. The situation in the settlements of
the "Efrat Block" south of Jerusalem, designed to sever
the enclave around Bethlehem from the one around
Hebron, is pretty much the same. The "Efrat Block" is now
being connected with West Jerusalem by a highway.
The project is costly in the extreme, because the highway
is designed to bypass Bethlehem by a sequence of long
tunnels. The final decision to build this highway was
suspended until Rabin's return from his US visit in
March. The subsequent decision to renew its construction
can be seen as US approval for the enclaves plan as a
whole.
Process of impoverishment
The enclaves plan implies deliberate and steady
impoverishment of the Palestinians. This is well known
in Israel but ignored abroad by all who should be
concerned, including the PLO. In regard to the Gaza Strip,
the whole process was best described by Ze'ev Shiff in
Ha'aretz in March. He mentions having seen "a pamphlet
issued six years ago by the Civil Administration
forecasting the conditions in the Gaza Strip under Israeli
rule in 2000". His analysis deserves to be quoted
extensively:
"We continue to steal the Strip's water, even though its
quality deteriorates from year to year. We continue to
steal the Strip's tiny land resources, in order to found
there more and more settlements, as if we deliberately
want to make the inhabitants despair, and in their
despair think in termws of having nothing to lose. It is
by our own doing that the Strip's workers must now
spend travelling to their workplaces almost as much time
as they spend working. From the military point of view,
we have kept control of no more than half the Strip's
area at an increasingly exorbitant price in manpower and
resources. About a year before Moshe Arens left the
defence ministry, I heard him saying that we should
withdraw from the Strip come what may. His argument
was that Israel sinks into the Strip ever deeper and
deeper. He told me he had proposed this to Yitzhak
Shamir but he rejected it." Yitzhak Rabin rejects it too.
Enormous state support for the Qatif Block settlers can
also be cited as proof that the enclaves plan is being
implemented. The Qatif Block settlements, founded by
the first Rabin government of 1974-77, are intended to
divide the Gaza Strip into two separate enclaves. Efraim
Davidi of Davar had data showing how vital for Israeli
this enterprise is. "The Qatif Block is now producing 40
per cent of Israeli tomatoes destined for export, and a
substantial proportion of cut flowers." He also deals with
the subsidies the settlers receive, considerably
augmented by the present government. Owing to them,
housing units are cheap. The present government does
not spare efforts to recruit new settlers to the block.
"Any prospective settler will get a 95 per cent mortgage
for his house on top of a grant of 18,000 shekels
($6,500)."
Such data shows that Israel's plans apply whether the
Palestinians of the Gaza Strip are allowed or forbidden to
work in Israel. The economic motivations were explained
by Danny Rubinstein in Ha'aretz in March:
"From the economic viewpoint Gaza could already be
sealed off hermetically and all the Strip's workers could
be barred from entering Israel...Even though accurate
data is hard to come by, it is indisputable that during the
last two years the numbes of Gazan workers arriving
daily to work in Israel has markedly decreased, from
80,000 in the mid'80s to 40,000 today. But the decrease
is not only due to restrictions imposed on entering Israel
from Gaza. It is also due to the drastic curtailment of
demand for Gazan labour in Israel. With unemployment
in Israel soaring and the construction of apartments
blocks virtually halted, the workers from Gaza are no
longer really needed..."
Gaza's total dependence
The entire economy of the Gaza Strip is totally dependent
on Israel. In recent years in the Gaza Strip there has
been an increase in sub-contracted work for Israeli
factories, mostly footware and textiles. Thousands of
small workshops, employing an average of four workers,
get their raw materials or unfinished products, together
with detailed working instructions, from Israeli factories.
Rubinstein attributes this development to the fact that
"the average wage in the Gaza Strip is merely 40 per cent
of that in the West Bank, which in turn stands at half the
average wage in Israel; and besides the Gazan employer
does not pay any social security for his employees." If
the average wage in the Gaza Strip is just a fifth of that
in Israel, the profits of Israeli factories and even of
Palestinian sub-contractors must be vast.
They are higher still when "a Gazan sub-contractor
provides labour to be performed at home, with the
family's help. The livelihood of tens of thousands of
Gazans depends on such sub-contracted work." Many of
them are women and children, paid about ten shekels
($3.50) a day which can last 12 hours or more. There can
be no doubt that profits from exploiting cheap Gazan
labour are one of the reasons for the stubborn opposition
of Rabin and other Israeli ministers to withdrawal from
the Strip.
Economic conditions in the Gaza Strip differ little from
what was created straight after Israel's conquest [in
1967]. In this respect, one should not be deluded by the
talk, nowadays fashionable, about Israeli gestures
intended to "encourage economic development in the
territories", As Israeli journalists point out, all permits
for opening new businesses depend on a prior approval
by the Shin Bet. "Behind all the professed goodwill there
is no desire to solve problems, just the attitude of a good
colonialist, willing to do something for the benefit of the
natives, but on condition that they behave nicely, do not
become rebellious, and never do anything against the
interests of the metropolis, its economic interests
included," wrote Michal Sela in Davar in February. The
development of sub-contracted work in the Gaza Strip
accords perfectly with Sela's diagnosis.
Sela also shows how exactly the economic controls work.
"In all branches of the economy, lobbies have been set in
motion for purposes of freeing Israeli production from
the threat of any Palestinian competition. The method is
simplicity itself. As soon as any Israeli producer succeeds
in persuading the government, or even the trade and
industry minister alone, a military order is issued
prohibiting the export of a given produce to Israel. If this
does not suffice, a Palestinian factory may be denied a
licence to operate or bureaucratic obstacles may paralyse
its production." Among the most active of such lobbies is
the agricultural one. It has succeeded in limiting exports
of Gazan vegetables (except for those grown by settlers)
not only to Israel but also to Europe, where they
otherwise might compete with Israeli exports.
Perpetuaring apartheid
Labour's goal is to perpetuate this apartheid regime in
the territories. The same goal is shared by the US, which
otherwise could not support the Labour government so
firmly. In my view one of the reasons the US feels
happier about supporting Labour than Likud is its
greater efficiency in pursuing the settlement drive. This
point was brought home by Ofer Shelah in Ma'ariv, who
deplored the settlers' failure which he attributed to
Likud's inefficiency. he showed that the peak yearly
settlement growth "occured during the term of office of
the National Unity government (i.e. 1984-90) in which
Rabin served throughout as the defence minister".
Likud's reputation for settling the territories better than
Labour is false, attributable to the many tiny settlements
without strategic value founded under Shamir for
symbolic reasons.
To sum up: Labour's policy, unconditionally supported by
the US differs from that of Likud primarily in the
efficiency with which it is implemented. According to
that policy the territories are to be divided into two
parts. The major part is to be ruled by Israel directly,
and the minor part indirectly. In my view, this racist
scheme is doomed to ultimately fail, but at a horrifying
price in human suffering. The sooner its true nature is
recognised, the less suffering it may cause.
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Bzzzzt. THANK you for playing, but obviously you are not reading the
material as it is presented. According to the report I've got in my
hands, the Newsweek article (which reported that "2 to 3 percent" of the
population is gay) used the criteria of "No heterosexual contact in the
past year." But at the same time, the University of Denver study points
out, quite dramatically, that 60% of all self-identifying gay men have
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Those are pretty typical, I believe.
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I'd like to add that I think Canadian hockey fans like Don because his kind of hockey (the hockey he promotes in his TV appearances) is the kind that they think used to get played in the old 6 team NHL. So there's a kind of nostagia for the old days, before expansion, the Soviet series, Gretzky and even Bobby Orr, when guys weren't afraid to take a hit, nobody floated and defensemen played defence. Who cares that that probably never really existed, the myth is still around in Canada and all the European in
fluence on the game has diminished it in some people's eyes.
Personally, I'd like to add before I get flamed, I love the fast-paced "European" game and think Don Cherry is a bit of an idiot. I have to say that I missed him when I was living in the States, though. He is entertaining, even if you end up throwing your popcorn at the screen when he's on.
--
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I stand by all the misstatements that I've made.
-- Vice President Dan Quayle to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/89
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|
Feeding frenzy!!!
Ah, 'tis April in rec.moto and the newbies are bitin'! Catch all you want,
we'll make more!
| 0
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|
Hijaak claims to convert .dxf to .iff, although Hijaak claims some stuff
that I have never gotten to work (for example, not long ago I tried to
convert some .iff files from an Amiga video toaster (using CrossDos, so my
PC could read the disks) int Targa files. Hijaak made some gorgeous 1.5
megabyte Targa files from the .iffs -- all totally black!
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...
I must object to the characterization of those opposed to the
government's handling of the Waco situation as "gun supporters".
Your argument tries to paint the BATF critics as right-wing
gun nuts, and just mixes up two issues.
I am one of the BATF/FBI critics, and yet I am a liberal
and just as anti-gun as you are. I just happen to believe
that everyone has civil rights, even religious crazies.
They're all human beings, not some nest of wasps that
you're trying to exterminate.
The BATF created the crisis situation by the way they handled
the original raid. It was well known that Koresh regularly
went jogging outside his property. He could have been served
with a search warrant then. He could have been arrested if
he had refused to comply. Instead officers armed with grenades
invaded the property. This escalated into a shooting war
with tragic deaths on both sides.
Those were the first two mistakes: the bad judgment of
asking for a no-knock warrant, and the bad and probably
illegal way the already-unwise warrant was served.
At this point, the situation escalated to where it was
described as an armed standoff and a hostage crisis.
That's when the government started covering their traces,
sealing the warrant, revising their reported history of
the incident, etc.
Things were already building up to disaster. Now the
government could have simply closed the supply routes
and waited. But according to Janet Reno, that option
had "never been seriously considered". So, supposedly
because the agents were "frustrated and fatigued", and
because there supposedly were no backups, they felt
they had to go in.
Now it's entirely possible that Koresh was responsible
for the fire. If that's so, he deserves the blame
for the deaths of the people in his compound.
But the government's hands are far from clean.
Their first raid demonstrated bad judgment plus
contempt for the 4th amendment. The motivations
for the second raid are just too unbelievable.
And their coverup of the events of the first
raid undermines their credibility in anything
they do thereafter. We have only some very
biased FBI agents' word for what happened.
And please let's not turn this into a pro-gun vs. anti-gun
discussion. Anti-gun people do not believe that gun-owners
deserve to get frontally assaulted by armed government
agents. And Koresh's civil rights exist whether his
guns were legal, illegal, illegal-but-should-have-been-legal,
or whatever!
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Sorry, this must be a FAQ, but it's a quick fix that I need to take care of
before a demo in less than 24 hours from now! Couldn't think of a better place
for a rapid answer than comp.sys.mac.hardware.
I need to connect the Serial A of a Compac 386/20 PC to the printer port of a
Mac IIci. Does anyone have handy the pin-pin routing for the cable that would
allow this connection?
The serial port on the Compaq is a MALE DB9. How would this map to the DIN8 of
the Mac serial? I tried one of those really short femaleDB9-maleDIN8 cables
that Apple sold as adaptors to plug in Macintosh serial peripherals from the
pre-MacPlus era. This cable didn't do it. Do I need a null modem adaptor as
well on the DB9 side of things?
I just need to be able to map the data TX and RX pins correctly.
thanks kindly,
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|
...
The so-called Athanasian Creed has never been a recognized standard of faith
in the Orthodox Church. It was introduced (without the Filioque) in certain
service-books in the 17th and 18th centuries at a time when there was a
strong Western influence on Orhtodoxy.
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My Windows 3.1 installation has somehow gone awry. Whenever I try to run
Windows now, the logo comes up OK, but when it tries to enter Windows
itself, the screen gets totally screwed up as if it's in the wrong
graphics mode or something. It's completely illegible although functional
as I can still exit to DOS with an ALT-E RETURN combination.
I tried to reinstall Windows again, but if you recall, halfway through the
installation process, install takes you into Windows and there my graphics
problem surfaces again so I cannot complete the re-installation.
All this started after trying to get a game working on my system but my
config.sys and autoexec.bat have been restored to what they were before
this problem cropped up.
I'm running a 486-33DX with a Diamond Stealth VRAM (I've resinstalled the
Stealth video drivers again but with no luck). I'm also using QEMM and
Stacker 3.0 but Windows is installed on an un-stacked partition. And of
course, it worked perfectly before.
Any email replies and suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks.
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If you brighten up the dark part of CV043015.GIF with your viewer you
will see two other objects near the upper left part of the moon.
One is actually between the weather satellite and the moon.
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The temperature of intergalactic space (or intercluster or
intersupercluster space) would be very, very close to the microwave
background temperature, 2.73 kelvins. I recall that in interstellar
space in our neighborhood of the galaxy it's something like 4 K.
Is that what you were looking for?
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Frankly, I'm sick of being lied to. It was bad before Clinton,
and now it's worse. Here, listen to Ricks' ( FBI ) words,
ONE-HALF hour before the fire:
" Come out with your hands up. This matter is NOW OVER. "
Now, I hear Ricks ( and REno ) claiming that this was just
"another incremental step in pressure". More bullshit.
Why did they pick 6 AM Monday morning? So nobody would
NOTICE. So everyone would be busy at work, starting a new
week. More bullshit.
Did the FBI hold back fire engines? Here, let me paraphrase
Sessions"
" no, we didn't hold back the engines. We had them on
stand-by, blah, balh, blah... And so, to protect the
the fireman, we didn't allow the engines to enter until
it was safe "
WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS? " YES, WE HAVE NO BANANAS? "
What the HELL kind of double-talk is this? No, we didn't, so
blah, balh, we did. Huh?
I WATCHED this.
Clinton takes responsibility, "EVEN THOUGH" it wasn't his
decision. MOre BULLSHIT. Does he, or does he NOT, take
responsibility?! No more "even though" bullshit. Yes.
Or no.
Christ.
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|
The concrete floor accelerates the problem because it is a heat sink and a
colder lead-acid battery self-discharges at a slightly faster rate. That's
why the old wives' tale of sitting it on a piece of wood on the floor works
to help keep from killing the battery as fast ---- it insulates the battery
thermally. It you'll set the battery down on a piece of styrofoam, it will
self-discharge even slower. The best thing would be to attach a small load
such as a small transistor radio with the volume turned down low and leave it
on constantly, but also trickle-charge it every couple days too to "shallow-
cycle" the charge in the battery. Such mild "exercising" of a lead-acid
battery is the next best thing to completely removing the electrolyte for
storage. If you do remove the electrolyte, may sure you keep separate storage
containers for each cell's electrolyte and put it back into the same cells
when you refill the battery. This isn't so critical for a brand-new battery
in a fully charged state, but will maximize the restored output of an older
battery which may not be fully charged when you remove the electrolyte for
storage.
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# Recent studies have shown that the number of men who have
# engaged in homosexual activities in the last decade is 2.3%
# and the number of men who are exclusively homosexual is 1.1%.
# These figures are much less than those that came from earlier
# studies that showed that homosexuality among men is a lot
# higher.
#
# So, what can we deduce from these figures? Are there a lot
# less male homosexuals than there used to be or are men
# (perhaps women too) not as honest as they used to be about
# there sexuality? Presumably, the people that were polled in
You mean, in the 1940s, men and women were much more open about
their homosexuality than today? Want to try that one again?
# this survey were assured of their anonymnity so they should
# have answered the questions honestly I suppose. However, it
# could be that gays feel so repressed and denigrated by society
# that they didn't feel that they could be forthcoming about there
# sexuality in something like a survey. If this true then is it
# possible that there is a lot more gays out there than we are led
# to believe?
#
# Perhaps if Americans were more open about there sexuality---I think
# most Americans aren't---then we might discover that there are really
# quite a few more people out there who are orientated toward the same
# sex---men and women included. I'd venture a guess that there is a
# lot of people out there who have considered having a relationship
# with someone of the same sex at some point in there life. Maybe they
# didn't take their longings seriously, but this doesn't make these
# longings any less valid. Therefore, if Americans weren't so
# repressed about their sexuality in general---as I believe they may be
# ---then we'd see a lot more people "coming out of the closet".
You mean, ignore study after study, so that we can continue to
accept a study (Kinsey's) that is obviously wrong?
# As for myself, I'm a heterosexual and I've never considered having
# sex with another man. That's just the way I am...I could have just
# as easily of been gay I suppose. One of the big debates about
# homosexuality is whether or not it's a type of behavior that is
# learned or if one is just born that way. IMHO, the more likely
# explanation is that it's some combination of the two.
Based on what, besides your own warm fuzzy feelings?
# Here's something to ponder upon: have any of you gay-bashers out
# there ever considered that homosexuals probably deem their sexual
# orientation as being a state of affairs that is just as much an
# intrinsic and "natural" part of their life as heterosexuals do
# about their own sexuality? In other words, someone who is *truly*
Alcoholics share that feeling, until they hit bottom.
# gay may not be able to live any other way. Even if they date someone
# of the opposite sex or get married, in their *heart* they are still a
# homosexual. Likewise, if someone who is *truly* heterosexual forms
# a relationship with someone of the same sex, then they are *still*
# a heterosexual even though outward appearances may suggest otherwise.
#
# Scott Kennedy, Brewer and Patriot
Unless, of course, the problem is that homosexuality is a form
of mental disorder, caused by childhood sexual abuse, as a number of
recent works suggest.
If homosexuals would stop using the government to impose their
morality on others (antidiscrimination laws) and leave our children
alone, I wouldn't care in the least what they did in private. But
until they get over the liberal notion that the proper role of
government is to tell peaceful people how to live, I have no choice
but to continue to point out that homosexuality is not an "alternative
lifestyle," but a sickness.
# Before: "David Koresh is a cheap thug who interprets
# the Bible through the barrel of a gun..." --ATF spokesman
# After: "[The ATF] is a cheap thug who interprets
# [the Constitution] through the barrel of a gun..." --Me
Good signature!
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\\).
Silly you. Don't you know the only division at Apple allowed to use the
Cray is the legal department?
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fc> Exactly what fraction of current research is done on the big,
fc> visable light telescopes? From what I've seen, 10% or less
fc> (down from amlost 100% 25 years ago.) That sounds like "dying"
fc> to me...
That doesn't seem like a fair comparison. Infrared astronomy
didn't really get started until something like 25 yrs. ago; it
didn't explode until IRAS in 1983. Gamma-ray (and I think
X-ray) observations didn't really get started until the '70s.
I believe the same is true of ultraviolet observations in
general, and I know that extreme UV (short of 1000 Angstroms)
observations, until the EUVE (launched last year) had almost
no history except a few observations on Skylab in the '70s.
Twenty-five years ago, the vast majority of astronomers only
had access to optical or radio instruments. Now, with far more
instruments available, growth in some of these new fields has
resulted in optical work representing a smaller fraction of
total astronomical work.
fc> That would be true, if adaptive optics worked well in the visable.
fc> But take a look at the papers on the subject: They refer to anything
fc> up to 100 microns as "visable". I don't know about you, but most
fc> people have trouble seeing beyond 7 microns or so... There are
fc> reasons to think adaptive optics will not work at shorter
fc> wavelengths without truely radical improvements in technology.
Hmm, some of the folks in this department planning on using
adaptive optics at the 5 m at Palomar for near-infrared
observations (1 and 2 microns) might be surprised to hear this.
And isn't the NTT already pushing toward 0.1 arcsecond resolution,
from a ground-based site (remember 0.1 arcseconds was one of the
selling points of HST).
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|
Hi there kids and kidlets...
It your ol' pal the KotPM (Keeper of the Pin Money!)
I've got good new and bad news...
Good news - I got laid..er...
The pins will be coming, to use the computer software phrase, "real
soon now"
Bad news - Right after we placed our order, the company upped its
minimum order for manufacturing. We got in under the wire (with
an order of 115 or so pins), but as a result of the low number of
pins, we were relegated to the "we'll get to it in-between other
runs" bin. As a result, it seems that it may be another 4 or 5 weeks
until your beloved Geeky is guiding you along the blacktop.. (And
we thought madonnas on the dashboard were foolish; hmmm, now, if that
were Madonna sitting on my dashboard, that could be DANGEROUS...hell.
I'm tough.)
SO...please continue to be patient. As soon as they arrive, I'll post
the grand announcement, and rush our Messiah on his way directly
to your abode. In the meantime, if you need revised versions of the
holy word of Geeky, please send $15.95 cash or money order (no COD's)
to:
Ranch Apocalyp...er......Ashram Geeky, 305 Cyberspace Place...
I'm off to MSF class...hope it's not too BORING...my wife made me go
with her!
| 0
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|
Someone mentioned a while ago that the Duos were scheduled for a
10-18% price reduction, according to 'newsbytes'. Is this definite?
Does anyone know when it will take effect? And what is 'newsbytes'?
Thanks.
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|
Novell 386dx16 motherboard with cpu, 4 megs of memory and I/O ports for
$160 + shipping / firm.
let me know if you are interested.
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|
Does anyone have a listing of Pontiac's three-letter option codes and
what they mean?
Thanks.
-Oliver
---
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Oliver Scholz DG4NEM
Graduate Student of Computer Sciences at the University of Erlangen, Germany
"You're killing me, Peg!" "Oh, shut up, Al, like I care..."
| 4
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|
# #However, monogamous homosexual male sex is so rare that for practical
# #purposes, homosexuality spreads AIDS.
# #--
# #Clayton E. Cramer {uunet,pyramid}!optilink!cramer My opinions, all mine!
# #Relations between people to be by mutual consent, or not at all.
# You fucking homophobic moron!!!!!!!!! What about IV drug use? What about
# tainted blood? What about multi-sexual partners? If you knew anything
What about them? Those also spread AIDS. Where did I say anything
different? Go back and read what I wrote. The statement "homosexuality
spreads AIDS" is not made false by the fact that there are other
methods of spreading it as well.
# about what you are talking about, you would be dangerous. As it is right now,
# you are a persistent boil on the skin of humanity that needs to be lanced.
#
# Joe Cipale
Typical homosexual response.
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It would help if his OBP were higher than his batting average. Yes, the
April 12 USA Today lists Le Grand Chapeau as having a .422 batting average
and a .413 OBP. That's on 19-for-45 hitting with 0 (zip, nil, nada) walks.
The reason a lot of us are down on Galarraga is that he's has a long history
of showing that this is nowhere near his real level of ability (except for
drawing walks). If he hit .400 for, say, even 250 AB's I'd be convinced that
there was a real change in his ability. If he did it with an OBP<AVG, I'd
not only be amazed but I'd make a bet that that would be a unique feat in
the history of the game. But what do 45 AB's prove? Look at some of the
other fluke players at this point in the season:
Player AVG AB
Blauser .367 49
Grace .391 48
Milligan .400 35
Conine .375 40
Lansing .400 50
Slaught .406 32
Are any of these guys really that good? Well, in a word, no. How significant
is Galarraga's average? At the 45 AB level, a hit is worth about .020. If
he'd had one of those hits called an error and one taken away by a good
defensive play, he'd be in the .380 range. If he goes 0-for-4 in his next
game he's all the way down to .388. In one game. Come back in June. Let's
talk then.
It's history, Greg. Andres' history is that he doesn't walk much because he
swings at bad pitches, so his average isn't very good. 45 AB's doesn't mean
an awful lot compared to a history of a couple of thousand, especially when
there's ample evidence (0 BB in 1992) that his basic hitting approach hasn't
changed. Yeah, he might suddenly have turned into a .400 hitter who never
walks, but don't bet the rent money on it.
Mike Jones | AIX High-End Development | mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
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|
X Resource, Issue 6
| 6
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|
[much deleted]
[much deleted]
It bugs me when I see this kind of nonsense.
First, there is no reasonable evidence linking Masonry to ancient
Egypt, or even that it existed prior to the late 14th century (and
there's nothing definitive before the 17th).
Second, worship of Osiris is not, nor has it ever been, a part of
Masonic practice (we are strictly non-denominational).
You said it!
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|
"I have no question that our plan was correct?" Months to
get ready, unlimited funds, knowledge of a threatened mass suicide by fire,
and no fire trucks on hand? This is "extreme professionalism and care?"
I can understand the first screwed-up raid by the BATF. They
underestimated the opposition, which happens. But not this one.
The FBI had their first team in place, massive resources, ample time
for planning and bringing up any specialized equipment or people necessary.
They still botched it.
The FBI Director and the FBI SAC in overall charge should resign,
or be fired for incompetence.
I don't blame Reno or Clinton. They gave the FBI clear orders:
don't go in unless you can do it without casualties; if you can't do that,
wait it out. Those were reasonable orders. The FBI said they could
pull off a tactical solution, and they couldn't.
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|
I'm personally expecting Moog. Blue played fairly decent (alright
spectacular at times) in his 1/2 a game but Moog has the experience.
What Did Blue have going for him, nothing, What would happen in a Tie
game, the prssure is then on the Goal tender to insure that you keep the
puck out (at the very least until your team scores) Blue didn't face that
kind of pressure on Tuesday. The Bruins will come out storming that
is for sure. I really think that this series is up to Buffalo, Boston
(except for two bad passes in game one) really hasn't played that bad
, As a believer is statistics, you know that your going to get the
puck by fuhr sooner or later, just keep shooting. There game plan is
sound but they need to take the lead first, and control the tempo.....
IMHO
Pat Ellis
P.S. GO BRUINS GO UMAINE BLACK BEARS 42-1-2 NUMBER 1......
HOCKEY EAST REGULARS SEASON CHAMPIONS.....
HOCKEY EAST TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS>......
PAUL KARIYA, HOBEY BAKER AWARD WINNER.......
NCAA DIV. 1 HOCKEY TOURNAMENT CHAMPIONS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
| 16
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|
I was wondering if a group called 'sci.pharmacology' would be relevent.
This would be used for a more formal discussion about pharmacological
issues (pharmacodynamics, neuropharmacology, etc.)
Just an informal proposal (I don't know anything about the net.politics
for adding a newsgroup, etc.)
[more alt.psychoactives stuff deleted]
| 9
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|
Well, here goes.
The first item of business is to establish the importance space life
sciences in the whole of scheme of humankind. I mean compared
to football and baseball, the average joe schmoe doesn't seem interested
or even curious about spaceflight. I think that this forum can
make a major change in that lack of insight and education.
All of us, in our own way, can contribute to a comprehensive document
which can be released to the general public around the world. The
document would scientifically analyze the technical aspects of long
term human habitation in space.
I believe that if any long-term space exploration program is to
succeed we need to basically learn how to engineer our own microworld
(i.e. the spacecraft). Only through the careful analyses of engineering,
chemical, biological, and medical factors will a good ecosystem be created
to facilitate human life on a long-duration flight.
So, I would like to see posts of opinions regarding the most objective
methods to analyze the accepted scientific literature for technologies
which can be applied to long-duration spaceflight. Such a detailed
literature search would be of interest to ourselves as space advocates
and clearly important to existing space programs.
In essence, we would be dividing the space life science issues into
various technical problems which could be solved with various technologies.
This database of acceptable solutions to various problems could form the
basis of detailed discussions involving people from the bionet, isunet,
and any other source!
| 12
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|
ESPN is pathetic, I have been watching everybody complain about ESPN's coverage
and I agree with all of you. Might I suggest that we are getting all worked up
over nothing. We ALL knew that ESPN's coverage was going to suck. I mean have
you ever watched during the regular season Sportscenter coverage of hockey? It
sucks, I mean really sucks!!! ESPN does not know hockey if it shot them in the
ass. I was really pissed of about last night, coverage. I go to school in Ohio
I *know* the Indians suck, so why show them? If I were Bill Clement I would
shoot myself.
Anyway after I calmed down after I realized that they were not going to show
overtime of the Caps Isles game I thought to myself I knew that this was going
to happen, in fact I remerbed myself praying that at least they would keep even
the boring Devils game.
Overall I think ESPN does not care if they show hockey or not and I firmly
belive that they have know respect for the fans. ie *because of contract
obligations*, screw you ESPN.
Praise be to all hockey fans who put up with this shit!
GO HAWKS!!!
| 16
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Bufflo Sabres has just finished their great four wins over Boston. All
Sabres players contribute to those great wins but those talent players
including Mogily, Fuhr, Kemhlev and Lafontin impressed me most. Their
skills showed the art of sport, not like the garbage speech from the
coach's corner.
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My apologies if this is a re-post - I submitted it on Friday, but
got a message that my post might not have gone out. Considering
the confusing spitting contest over 'rights', (there are TOO
inalienable rights damn it! The majority can be just as destructive
of liberty as a despot), I suspect that my post did not get out
of my site. (I ain't saying that dark skies are included in these
rights, although we can only preserve any rights by exercising them.)
Anyway, here are my thoughts on this:
I'd like to add that some of the "protests" do not come from a strictly
practical consideration of what pollution levels are acceptable for
research activities by professional astronomers. Some of what I
would complain about is rooted in aesthetics. Many readers may
never have known a time where the heavens were pristine - sacred -
unsullied by the actions of humans. The space between the stars
as profoundly black as an abyss can be. With full horizons and
a pure sky one could look out upon half of all creation at a time
- none of which had any connection with the petty matters of man.
Any lights were supplied solely by nature; uncorruptable by men.
Whole religions were based on mortal man somehow getting up there
and becoming immortal as the stars, whether by apotheosis or a belief
in an afterlife.
The Space Age changed all that. The effect of the first Sputniks
and Echo, etc. on this view could only happen once. To see a light
crossing the night sky and know it was put there by us puny people
is still impressive and the sense of size one gets by assimilating
the scales involved is also awesome - even if the few hundreds or
thousands of miles involved is still dwarfed by the rest of the universe.
But there is still a hunger for the pure beauty of a virgin sky.
Yes, I know aircraft are almost always in sight. I have to live
in a very populated area (6 miles from an international airport
currently) where light pollution on the ground is ghastly. The
impact of humans is so extreme here - virtually no place exists
that has not been shaped, sculpted, modified, trashed or whipped
into shape by the hands of man. In some places the only life
forms larger than bacteria are humans, cockroaches, and squirrels
(or rats). I visited some friends up in the Appalacian mountains
one weekend, "getting away from it all" (paved roads, indoor plumbing,
malls, ...) and it felt good for a while - then I quickly noticed
the hollow was directly under the main flight path into Dulles - 60-80
miles to the east. (Their 'security light' didn't help matters
much either.) But I've heard the artic wilderness gets lots of
high air traffic. So I know the skies are rarely perfect.
But there is still this desire to see a place that man hasn't
fouled in some way. (I mean they've been TRYING this forever -
like, concerning Tesla's idea to banish night, - wow!) I don't watch
commercial television, but I can imagine just how disgusting beer,
truck, or hemmorrhoid ointment advertisements would be if seen up so high.
If ya' gotta make a buck on it (displaying products in heaven), at
least consider the reactions from those for whom the sky is a last
beautiful refuge from the baseness of modern life.
To be open about this though, I have here my listing of the passage
of HST in the evening sky for this weekend - tonight Friday at
8:25 p.m. EDT it will reach an altitude of 20.1 degrees on the
local meridian from Baltimore vicinity. I'll be trying to see it
if I can - it _is_ my mealticket after all. So I suppose I could
be called an elitist for supporting this intrusion on the night sky
while complaining about billboards proposed by others. Be that
as it may, I think my point about a desire for beauty is valid,
even if it can't ever be perfectly achieved.
Regards,
Wm. Hathaway
Baltimore MD
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The NY Times is in error. This is not simply my opinion; even the Arab sources
that I use do not make this claim. This, of course, is assuming that the NY
Times was refering to the islands that I named above. Of those islands, only
Abu Musa has been in dispute and Iranian occupation of that island predates
the existence of the UAE.
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Accounts of Anti-Armenian Human Right Violations in Azerbaijan #015
Prelude to Current Events in Nagorno-Karabakh
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
| |
| . . . They beat up the husband, dragged the wife outside, |
| and stood her naked next to our burning things; her |
| husband was lying at her feet on the ground. The crowd |
| shouted, "Look at the naked Armenian!" They were going to |
| throw the poor woman into the fire...Mamma wouldn't allow |
| it but I went to the window and saw her standing there, |
| and they took skewers that had been heated in the fire |
| and stuck them into her body. |
| |
+-----------------------------------------------------------+
DEPOSITIONS OF:
ZINAIDA POGHOSOVNA HAKOPIAN
Born 1937
Dispatcher
Kavkazenergoremont Electric Booster Station
Her daughters
GAYANE (GAYA) VAZGENOVNA HAKOPIAN
Born 1970
Orderly
Sumgait Municipal Hospital No. 1
DIANA VAZGENOVNA HAKOPIAN
Born 1978
Second-Year Student
Sumgait Secondary School No. 13
Residents at Building 21/31, Apartment 47
Microdistrict No. 3
Sumgait [Azerbaijan]
-Zinaida: On March 20 we arrived in Yerevan, and the next day they registered
us at the train station and took us to the boarding house. The conditions were
wonderful, thanks to our Armenians, who received us. But it's not relaxing all
the same. I don't know how everyone else feels about it, but for me it's
torture. We don't have a place to call our own. I had a two bedroom apartment
in Sumgait, my children went to school and we lived well, in friendship. It's
painful that in our times, in 1988, in the Soviet period, people can break
into our apartment and try to kill me and my children, in whom I've put all my
efforts and my whole youth. Everything was going well for us: my older
daughter was studying at the Institute, the middle one was preparing to enter
medical school and was interning as an orderly, and my youngest had been sick
for a long time, but had returned to health. I have been though a lot in my
life: it's been seven years since I lost my husband, I raised my children by
myself. Lots of women have similar fates, but there's nothing to be done about
it. But I can't control myself when I remember what happened in Sumgait on
February 27, 28, and 29, it was just a horror, it's indescribable.
On February 27 our relative, Ira, came to visit us. She's better friends with
my oldest daughter, and so right away she asked, "Where's Vika?" I say,
"Vika's off in Pirkuli on a trip for three days, she's supposed to come back
tomorrow." My middle daughter, Gaya, had baked a cake and we sat there talking
and laughing, drinking tea. Then Gaya and Diana went to walk Ira home.
They left and a few minutes went by; suddenly I hear noise. I raced out to
the balcony--our balcony is right across from the bus station, we live at the
corner of Mir and Druzhba Streets--I look and see that there are hoards of
people near the bus station and they're all shouting something. What they're
shouting I can't understand. Our neighbor is standing on his balcony, too. I
ask, "Nufar, what's happened?" He says, "I don't know, I can't figure it out
either." I got scared--the kids had gone outside, and I wanted to run after
them, but then there was a knock at the door. I open the door and it's the
kids. "Mamma," says Gayane, "you'll never believe what's going on out there!
It's awful!" Ira says, "Aunt Zina, they're shouting, 'Karabagh! Karabagh!
Karabagh is ours!' We didn't know what was going on. They're threatening to
drive out the Armenians and slaughter them."
I called my brother, and his wife answered the phone. I said, "Aunt Tamara,
don't worry, Ira is staying here with us, and we'll see her home later." I
couldn't shut my eyes all night long, even until morning. I was worried about
Vika. My God, what was going on, what had happened?!
-Gayane: That day, on the 27th, we stood on the balcony and observed what was
happening, although Mamma wouldn't allow us to watch all of it. There weren't
50 yards between our building and the bus station. We could see and hear
everything perfectly. They were stopping buses, dragging people out, leading
all the passengers out, looking for Armenians. If they found an Armenian on
the bus, then it started . . .I don't know what to call it . . .
-Zinaida: It's called slaughter.
-Gayane: The mob would descend on people and beat them. I don't know if they
were killing them or not, but when they left them, they lay still, not moving,
as though nothing was left of them. One person was lying there and they
started dragging him. The police were standing right there, to the side, not
doing anything, they didn't take any steps to calm that mob.
It was awful to stand there and watch it all from the balcony. And you
couldn't go anywhere, somehow . . . you wanted to be able to see everything
so as to tell of it later. We wanted to leave Sumgait that day. What kept us
was the idea that we live in the Soviet Union, and that something would be
done about it. Where in the world was our government?!
-Zinaida: We couldn't leave town, of course, because our older daughter wasn't
home. And at the same time I was terrified for Gaya and Diana. On Sunday
morning when I went to see Ira home, our neighbor said, "Zin', you know they
went into Valodya's house and smashed everything he had. They murdered his
father and two sons." Valodya is our neighbor, he's an Armenian, he lives on
the first floor. I think, my God, what is happening?! And in broad daylight!
I saw Ira home and when on the way back I came across a mob shouting "Slay the
Armenians! Karabagh is ours!" This was at 12 o'clock in the afternoon. On the
way I stopped into a bread store and the saleswoman says, "They beat our store
manager, they thought he was an Armenian and they beat him, but he was an
Azerbaijani." And I asked, "Did they kill him?" She says, "No, he's in serious
condition." I left there and started to walk home on that same street, but the
mob started moving in my direction. I turned off the street and went down the
little way that goes toward the Sputnik store. There I met another crowd, but
these weren't bandits, these were our people from Sumgait. I was so frightened
that I walked without knowing where was going, I couldn't feel my legs or the
ground under my feet. I was walking and there was a boy standing before my
eyes. This was on the 27th, around evening time. He ran under our balcony, and
the mob surged toward him shouting, "He's an Armenian, get him!" He wore a
black coat. They grabbed him, that boy, near the bus stop, I saw it. They
grabbed him by the legs and struck his head on the asphalt.
I made it home but I just couldn't calm down. My oldest daughter was in my
thoughts. I was thinking, my daughter's coming home now, they'll stop her bus
and she'll be gone. There's no police, no protection, nothing. It's like they
had all died, there's no one, nothing, no authorities whatsoever. I can't even
find the words for it! I look and see an Ikarus arriving. Before going to the
bus station they stop near our place, across from the Kosmos movie theater. So
this Ikarus stops there and the gang is yelling, the Azerbaijanis are running
toward it yelling, "Armenians out!" And I see them take the Armenians and beat
them, killing them. I can't watch it any more. It was a nightmare. I just
couldn't watch it. But Gaya was standing there watching it, and I scolded her.
She says, "Mamma, I have to see it, I have to know what's happening, I have to
see it with my own eyes so I can tell our people of it later. So our children
will know."
Gayane: We saw a great deal on the 27th. They caught no less than 20 people
before my eyes. I can't say for sure if they killed them or not . . .
-Zinaida: There were too many people there, the mob was too big. You couldn't
make anything out. But I saw that boy in the black coat with my own eyes. He
was 18 or 19 years old.
-Gayane: I think he was older, probably, about 22. A tall fellow, a big guy,
in a coat. He was walking quickly, but when they shouted that he was an
Armenian, he tore off running. And the mob went after him. They caught him
right under our balcony. I don't know. I don't think there could have been
much left of him after that. You can imagine what happens when a crowd attacks
one person. It was a mob, big, angry, and featureless. You know, there was a
similarity in the way they were dressed, mostly they were wearing long black
coats. You couldn't even tell them apart, they were all wearing black and they
all looked alike.
-Zinaida: When they picked up that boy and struck him against the asphalt and
he cried "Mamma!" I ran into the room. I couldn't watch any longer. An awful
lot was going on right then, in various places, it wasn't only that boy,
several people were being beaten up. You couldn't see all of it at once, but
when that boy cried "Mamma!" I immediately started watching only him.
-Gayane: On that first day it went on from about six in the morning until
twelve at night. At midnight they dispersed and the police took their place.
They were scattered about in all districts. But how can you explain the fact
that by morning, when it had already started getting light, around seven
o'clock, our police were gone? The police disappeared and yielded their
positions to the bandits. In the morning they started gathering at our inter-
section again, at the bus station and at the entrance to downtown. From
morning on all the roads and mass transit stops were covered, and by nine
o'clock you couldn't even see the ground. There were thousands of people in
the crowd. Again they began stopping vehicles and checking for Armenians.
-Zinaida: They had signals. I realized that when I noticed that they made a
cross with their arms, they crossed their arms over their heads. The cross,
evidently, meant that the vehicle had Armenians in it. They let the
Azerbaijani cars through, and they stopped the Armenian ones and started
their pogrom.
-Gayane: They stopped a white Zhiguli and asked the driver what his
nationality was. He got out and said they were from Baku. "But what is your
nationality?" He says Armenian. They immediately start shouting, "Ermeni,
Ermeni!" And he says, "What's going on? I'm coming from Baku. I don't live
in Sumgait." "Doesn't matter, who cares if you're from Baku or Sumgait."
Anyway the crowd pounced on him and started beating him, and they dragged a
woman--his wife, probably--out of the car. At this point the police came and
took the two and led them away. Then the mob started smashing the car, and
then burned it. The flames blazed . . . it was a horrible fire! Then everyone
ran away, they thought the car was going to explode. About 20 minutes later
another car comes along, a green Moskvich. They ran up shouting "Ermeni!
Ermeni!" But this time they didn't pull the people out of the car, they didn't
beat them. Maybe they burned them along with the car, because no one emerged
from the flames. The neighbor boy Vakhit was standing on the balcony too,
acquaintances of his walked by below, and he asked them and they said, "Yes,
they burned them along with the car." About two hours later a whole wedding
procession came by, and there was a doll on the first car. We thought they
were Armenians, but the cars started to honk loudly. They were Azerbaijanis,
and they were immediately allowed through.
-Zinaida: The driver waved his hand as if to say 'get out of the way.' The
whole crowd parted and the procession passed through freely.
-Gayane: By the way, at the marriage hall, which is right in the courtyard
of our building, there was a wedding that day. The Azerbaijanis were cele-
brating and dancing. On the streets there was grief and death, people were
being killed, and people were celebrating the whole time.
-Zinaida: Before the apartment itself was attacked I asked Gaya to call and
find out when the tourist bus was supposed to arrive. She went to her
girlfriend's in the building, she lives in the first entryway, on the third
floor. Gaya came back and said, "Mamma, the bus is supposed to come around
eight, after eight." You can imagine what I was feeling, how hard it was:
Vika knew nothing about what was happening and was coming to meet her death.
Then I heard shouting. I raced to the window and see that the belongings of
our neighbors from the second entryway are being thrown outdoors. They were
thrashing about with the pillows and the feathers were lying like snow. I
started to cry. I am walking around the room, crying, wailing: Vika's not
here, what will come of her . . . Gaya, of course, was consoling me: "Mamma,
nothing will happen to her, don't worry, calm down, she's in good company,
they'll look out for her."
Diana: I saw the green car burn. The car was burning when we went out onto the
balcony. Gaya pushed me away, telling me to get off the balcony. I left. Then
they came up to the balcony and asked if there were any Armenians here.
-Zinaida: You're right, I forgot about that, that was on the 27th.
Diana: There's a small, grassy area in front of our balcony; there are trees
planted there. The mob asked if there were any Armenians in the building.
All the neighbors said, no, there are no Armenians here. There weren't a lot
of Armenians in our building, but there weren't just a few Armenian families,
either.
-Gayane: They fell upon the apartments on the 28th. There were terribly many
of them. Our courtyard is huge, and it was completely filled with them.
-Zinaida: Katusev had made an appearance on television earlier. He said that
two people, Azerbaijanis, had been killed in Karabagh. And when he said that
. . . you know how bees sound, have you heard how they buzz? It was like the
buzzing of millions of bees . . . and with this buzzing they flew into our
courtyard, howling and shouting. I don't know how to describe it. By this
point we were afraid to watch from the balcony, but when I looked out of the
bedroom window--the Znaniye Bookstore is down there, and Armenians live on the
second and fourth floors--I saw their things being thrown out the windows. I
realized that they would be upon us any minute. I shouted to Gayane, "Gaya,
hide the gold." That's honestly what I told my child. I grabbed Diana. I
didn't know what to do! Vika still wasn't home, and it was already getting
dark. I was afraid to look at the time because I was already horrified as it
was.
-Gayane: Just in case, we changed the television channel from the Moscow
station to the Azerbaijani one.
-Zinaida: And turned it up loud.
-Gayane: We never listened to Azerbaijani music. It just didn't do much for
us. In all those years we almost never listened to it. But sometimes we would
watch some entertainment show or film on Azerbaijani television. And that was
it. And here we had it turned up full blast. So they would think we were
Azerbaijanis.
-Zinaida: Well you can imagine, they're slaughtering Armenians, robbing them,
and we're listening to this concert music from Baku. Our Azerbaijani neighbors
suggested we do it, they knocked on the door and told Gaya to turn on
Azerbaijani music. But we already had it on anyway. Turn on the lights, they
told us, so they will think you're not Armenians. They're saying the Armenians
are afraid to turn on their lights, they're hiding.
-Gayane: Apparently there was some kind of arrangement, because we noticed
that the lights were off only in Armenian apartments, that is, the
Azerbaijanis were warned, and every last one of them had their lights on.
When we turned the lights off two of our neighbors came immediately, and
later, another one. "Turn on the lights," they told us, "please. Nothing will
happen. Be calm. Nothing will happen."
-Zinaida: "We won't allow them to come into your apartment."
-Gayane: We believed those people. We had never done anything bad to them.
-Zinaida: After the whole nightmare, about March 15, before we left for
Armenia, when I was coming into the building they were all crying. The
Azerbaijanis were crying, saying, "Can it be there is no God? How could
they raise their hands against your family? You never did anyone any harm,
you never refused anyone anything, not in hard times, or in time of fortune,
or in time of mourning. How could they give you away? How could they sell you
down the river?" They really had given us away. Some of them protected us, but
others gave us away. They sold us down the river.
-Gayane: I was wearing slacks that day, and when it all began I became
cautious for some reason and I changed my clothes. Azerbaijani women don't
wear pants. Young Armenian and Russian girls in Sumgait wore pants, but the
Azerbaijanis found that very strange. And I thought I better put on a skirt,
otherwise they won't believe me if I told them we were Azerbaijanis. There was
nothing else we could do. No other way out. I was forced to turn myself into
God knows who. I let my hair down, tousled it, and threw a scarf over my head.
-Zinaida: And she told me, "Mamma, you hide. Take Diana and go into the other
room. You two look more like Armenians. They'll figure out that we're
Armenians right away." But how could I go away and leave her there?!
-Gayane: I went out onto the balcony. It worked out better that way. We were
the only Armenian family in the fourth entryway. This gave us hope: we were
the only ones, the neighbors wouldn't let them in. They, the Azerbaijanis,
would fear for themselves and for their children. I looked and saw someone
crawling up on the balcony from below, it was easy to get up onto our balcony.
When we would lose the keys the neighbors would let up into their places and
we would crawl across onto our balcony and get in that way. So I turned around
and saw a guy with a knife on our balcony. He looks at me and shouts, "What
nationality are you here?"
-Zinaida: At the same time they were knocking on the door.
-Gayane: "What nationality are you?" he's shouting. Well at first I was
frightened, but then I got control of myself and answered in perfect
Azerbaijani, "You should be ashamed of yourself, asking a question like that.
Can't you see I'm an Azerbaijani? If I were an Armenian would I come out to
meet you face to face and look you in the eyes?" He looks at me and tells the
people with him, "Yes, Azerbaijanis live here." From below they tell him,
"Check it out, it can't be, they have to be Armenians." And he asks me again,
"What nationality are you?" I say, "Can't you see?" I started fuming. I could
not say anything else. "You're blind, that's for sure! You can yell all you
want, but that won't make us Armenians." I hear them breaking down our
door, and Mamma went toward the door. I say, "I don't have time to deal
with you, they're breaking down our door." 1 go to the door and ask, "Who is
it?" They answer, "Open up!" I say, "Wait, why are you breaking the door?
What's going on? I'm opening up." We never locked the lower lock, it was
broken, but now they had locked it out of fear, and I couldn't get it open. I
say wait, I'm looking for the key. I opened the door--it was almost broken
down already. I opened the door and they burst in. I say, "What's going on?
Why are you breaking down our door?"
-Zinaida: Then they started climbing in from the balcony. They're shouting,
"Why don't you open the door?" And I say, "Well you've already come in the
balcony." Then Diana sees their knives, runs into the bathroom, and closes the
door. Gaya cries out, "Mamma, Diana ran into the bathroom!" I ran to the door
and forgot that we were pretending to be Azerbaijanis, and said in Armenian:
"Diana, open the door!" Gaya tried to calm them down, and I'm shouting with
tears in my eyes for Diana to open the door.
-Diana I was sitting on the couch with my doll, Little Red Riding Hood. That
guy climbed in from the balcony with a big knife with a yellow handle. They
put it up to Mamma's stomach. I ran to the bathroom, opened the door, and
slammed it behind me. I was frightened, and started to cry. I shouted, "Mamma,
they want to kill you!" And then . . . then they started shouting, "Give us
your passports." And Gaya says, "What do you need passports for, we're
Azerbaijanis."
-Gayane: I tried to convince them that we were Azerbaijanis, I was trying
everything I could, I could get on my knees and plead. I could humble myself,
because at that moment I was worried about other lives than just my own. To be
honest I didn't care about anything else, as long as my little sister would
survive, her life and health had cost us so dearly! I tell them, "What, don't
you understand anything?" They started shouting, they were tremendously
excited, shouting with terribly loud voices, saying that in Stepanakert their
girls were being killed, raped, and tossed around with pitchforks. Why
shouldn't they do the same to us? I said, "Who's doing all that? Who is doing
it? Some Armenians! What does that have to do with us? Give me the knife, I'll
cut my own face." "Now you calm down," they tell me.
Zinaida: I told them, "Why didn't you deal with them there! There, in
Karabakh? Nothing has happened here, no one has been fighting here, not we
with the Armenians, nor they with us. Why didn't you give it right back to
them there? What've we got to do with this?" I got confused. I had been
saying that we were Azerbaijanis, but suddenly I started speaking as though
I were an Armenian, but they didn't notice. One of them was next to me,
with a knife at my breast. And he says to the others, "What pretty girls." He
meant Gaya and my 10-year-old Diana. I was terrified. Gaya started assuring
them that we were Azerbaijanis. One guy stood in the doorway and gave us bad
looks.
-Gayane: He demanded the passports. I said, "Young man, I don't have my
passport here." He says, "Let's have the passport, we won't believe you
without your passport." And one of them started hurriedly searching for
documents. They turned the wardrobe in the other room upside down, took the
picture off the wall, and started pulling the clothes off their hooks, yelling
and shouting, "Passport! Passport!" They all started yelling, there was so
much noise in the apartment. They were all shouting. My hair stood on end.
Suddenly I said, "Listen, my Papa died, 40 days haven't passed yet, we have a
Muslim household, we're in mourning, you should be ashamed of yourselves,
you've disgraced your honor." And then Mamma started to cry.
-Zinaida: I started crying: "My husband died, 40 days haven't yet passed,
aren't you ashamed of yourselves!" In fact my husband had died seven years
earlier, in 1981. "We're in mourning, and you burst in here demanding docu-
ments. The documents are at the housing office, I'm filing for my pension."
Well it seemed like they believed us. Then one guy said, "They're Lezgins.
Can't you see, there are no men here, only women. Leave." Another fellow in
the group agreed with him, he also said that we were Lezgins. But a third
said, "No, they're Armenians." Well the other two convinced him, I don t know
how, and all the rest of them listened to them too. There were about 50 of
them, if not more, all in our three-room apartment, even the entryway was
filled. They started leaving. Yes, we're Lezgins, we're Lezgins." They started
leaving, and one of them took our tape recorder with him. And the one who had
first called us Lezgins says, "Leave that, what are you doing?" They seemed to
obey that guy.
-Gayane: He was tall, wearing baggy jeans and a coat.
-Zinaida: With a little moustache, I think.
-Gayane: No, he didn't have a moustache, he was tall with brown hair, he
wasn't a bad-looking sort. He didn't have anything in his hands.
-Zinaida: He stood at the threshold.
-Gayane: Yes, he didn't look like a bad guy, and you know, his face seemed
familiar to me. I had seen him somewhere. And more than once. But I can't
remember where. When he came in I was stupefied, I had a premonition that he
wouldn't be able to remain indifferent. When he said that we were Lezgins and
that they should leave, such gladness started to glow inside of me. Hope. They
continued to argue on their way out. Some said, "They're Armenians all the
same." And that fellow answered, "even if they are Armenians, it's shameful,
the father died, they're mourning, there's nothing but women in the house,
there's no men. We should stay out of the apartment." "What do you mean, stay
out? We can go in there!" And he said, "No, we should stay out, they're
Lezgins, we're leaving here." The three of them protected us.
-Zinaida: No, the two of them. The one in the short coat and the one in the
grey suit, who stood at the threshold, about 19 or 20 years old. Well they
were all young really. The two of them defended us.
-Diana: Three, three!
-Zinaida: Do you remember the third one, Diana?
-Diana: Yes, he was wearing dark clothes.
-Gayane: The third one was the one who came back. He wore a long brown coat.
-Diana: He wore a long, darkish brown coat, and his hair was dark too. When
they left, they told him downstairs that those women were Armenians, and ran
back and said that they were going to kill us.
-Zinaida: They had all left, and we had started to calm down a little, and I
closed the door. And then there is a knock. I told Gaya, "Take Diana and go
into the other room." My daughters went into the dining room, and I opened the
door. There was a guy there who said, "Run, hide! They're coming to kill you
now!" We ran up to the third floor. We had some good neighbors up there,
Azerbaijanis. I sent the kids and stood there alone, not knowing what to do.
I was so far gone . . . Out of a whole room I couldn't even think of anything
to take. I even forgot to take my work documents; at the time I had been
preparing a report to send to Baku, and the documents were at home. I couldn't
see anything . . . I could only see Vika, my older daughter. I sent Gaya and
Diana upstairs, and stood there asking that fellow, "Should I close the door
and leave everything like this?" He says, "What do you mean, door? Get out of
here, they're coming to kill you! What are you standing there for?" And I ran
after the children.
-Gayane: We barely had time to get up to the third floor when they burst into
our apartment and started shouting, "Where are the Armenians?" We were already
at the neighbors'. They had an infant at the time, and the neighbor said,
"Don't you worry, I'm not letting anyone in this apartment no matter what."
-Zinaida: On the third floor there I started asking the folks, our neighbors,
to go meet Vika. The bus was due to arrive at eight o'clock. I dissolved in
tears, Gaya was soothing me, Diana was next to us, she was crying too, and I'm
already thinking that I've lost my older daughter, but deep in my heart I
still believe she's alive . . . And my tears choked me. I was going out of my
mind. But no one could leave the building, the courtyard was packed with
people, swarming with them. From the balcony the neighbor in whose apartment
we were hiding asked the bandits, "Where are those Armenians, the ones who
were at home? Where did they make off to?" They told him they didn't know.
They asked him where he lived. He answered, "Can't you see, on the third
floor." He asked them specially to divert attention from his own apartment. We
heard them taking free reign of our apartment, and they threw our color
television off the balcony and it exploded.
-Gayane: Mamma was crying the whole time. She fell into a faint and we brought
her around and held her back, because the whole time she kept making for the
door to go outside, alternately raving and sobbing, shouting, and calling
Vika. She didn't notice us, probably because we were next to her. Her thoughts
were only on Vika. The neighbors who were hiding us were calming her too,
offering tea.
-Zinaida: We are very grateful to them. Thanks to them my children and I are
alive, well, and unharmed. When they were throwing our belongings out and
burning them--the beds, the pillows, and the chairs--our neighbor came to us
and said, "How lucky you are that it's not you standing there naked, but some
other woman instead. You're from our part of the building you lost your
husband, you have children, thank God you're not in her position, we wouldn't
have been able to take it. I don't know what I would do." He of course
wouldn't have done anything, he was just trying to calm us down. In the yard
they were torturing our neighbors, fellow Armenians They lived on the fifth
floor, in the third entryway. A married couple, Vanya and Nina, and their
three children. Their last name is V. They hid their two daughters, and stayed
with their son to defend themselves, they even got boiling water ready, and an
axe, and held them off for a long time, but the . . . They beat up the
husband, dragged the wife outside, and stood her naked next to our burning
things; her husband was lying at her feet on the ground. The crowd shouted,
"Look at the naked Armenian!" They were going to throw the poor woman into the
fire. The neighbors came out, an Azerbaijani woman threw her a scarf, and she
covered herself with it, and the neighbors led her off to their apartment.
All the neighbors saw and heard it . . .
-Gayane: Mamma wouldn't allow it but I went to the window and saw her standing
there, and they took skewers that had been heated in the fire and stuck them
into her body. Our neighbor, who lived in the same entryway as Nina--she
lives with us in the same boarding house now--saw what they had done, Nina
showed her, from her knees up, almost up to her neck, her whole body was
covered, riddled, with wounds.
-Zinaida: In the morning, during the night of the 29th, rather, after one
o'clock, two buses approached the station. I wanted to run out. By then I
didn't care any more if I lived or died, but Gayane wouldn't let me go, and
the neighbors said that I would bring disaster to them and they would be
slain along with their children. Gaya was crying and said that I forgot about
them, my other children, but I could only think of Vika. I imagined her torn
to pieces, I'm a mother, and they're just children, they don't understand I
would have jumped off the balcony and run to the soldiers for help. I was
going to do it but Gayane wouldn't let me: "Mamma, please! Mamma, I beg of
you!" The neighbors were sleeping and Gayane woke them with her cries. So we
held on that way till morning.
On the morning of the 29th I told our neighbor I was going to go downstairs to
our apartment, maybe Vika was lying there, murdered. He told me he would go
himself. He was gone for about five minutes, but it seemed like an eternity to
me. He returned and said there was no one there, nothing. I went down too,
stole down like a mouse, and slipped in everything was thrown all about. I
didn't go to the soldiers because the armored personnel carriers were far
away, farther than the bus station. I began looking for the briefcase with my
work in it. I was miserable because of my daughter, and at the same time
because of my work. My documents were there, my travel papers--I worked in the
transport division -- and my trip sheets.
-Gayane: Mamma is a very responsible person, she was always ready to work
around the clock to do her job.
-Zinaida: I look around and I can't find the briefcase. I didn't care about
the fact that everything had been stolen out of all three of my rooms, that
everything was smashed, and the furniture was broken, I worried about that
later, but at first I was concerned about the lost documents. I went into the
kitchen. My daughter had hidden some valuables in the gas stove: my ring and
my earrings. It was all there. Five minutes passed and Gayane ran in and said,
"Mamma, hurry." And Diana came downstairs too. Gayane found her coat among
the debris, and Diana found her track shoes, her coat, and some of her
dresses.
-Diana: Immediately after we got back up to the neighbors they started
throwing things around in the apartment under us. They threw a television onto
the asphalt, it exploded so violently it sounded like a thunderclap. Then,
when Vika wasn't there, I wouldn't eat, and they forced me, but I couldn't
eat. Because I loved Vika terribly and she and I had always gone to the movies
and gone for walks in the park. When we went into our apartment the next day
and everything was broken, right away I started looking for my dolls and my
books, but I didn't see anything. When we went back upstairs I managed to take
two cups from my tea service, and Gaya took Vika's suit and one of her own
dresses. My Italian boots were gone, my brown coat, it was beautiful, there
wasn't a one of my beautiful dolls, and my giant lion was gone too, the one
that had been on top of the television. He was very large and very handsome.
I had two satchels, one for first grade and the other for second grade, one
was yellow-green with a boy and a girl on it, they're playing a drum and a
violin, and there is a dog sitting there closing its ears, and on the other
one were the letters A, B, C, D, E and the numbers 4+5, two girls and a boy
with their mouths open like they are singing. They were beautiful satchels.
They were gone too. I had many books, I collected them, they were in the
bedside tables. And a boy had given me a little apron and a headband for my
birthday, they weren't around either. And I had some big books, fat ones, and
they disappeared, only one was left, The Malachite Box. The Adventures of
Karlson, Pippi Longstockings, and Fairy Tales of the World were left. All the
other books were gone.
-Zinaida: I continued searching for my briefcase, and then my supervisor
arrived. He had waited for me until nine o'clock, but I didn't appear, and he
thought something must have happened, so he came. He's a Russian, Aleksei
Semyonovich Lomakin. Alik Aliyev, the mechanic, came with him. When they saw
my wrecked apartment they were just petrified, they could not say a thing.
When I saw them I started crying. My Azerbaijani neighbors came in. Some of
them were crying, others were helping me pick up. I go on looking for my
documents and at the same time put things into the wardrobe. Now that I
remember it it's both funny and painful: How could I have thought that I had
returned to my apartment and that everything had gone back to normal?
Incidentally, later, when I went back to the apartment again those things were
gone too. And the door was gone. After my supervisor left, in the afternoon,
the neighbor said that we should leave, find another refuge. "I'm afraid," he
said, "that someone saw you come to my apartment, and that they could kill you
and us too. My God, where could I go it was daytime and those . . . I don't
even know what to call them, the bandits, those marauders, those jackals, I
don't know what to call them, I can't find the words, they were everywhere.
Where should I go with two girls? When I opened the door I had tears in my
eyes, and I was terrified . . . And he said, "Go to Alik's, he's an
Azerbaijani, too." and I say, "You should have said that earlier, when my
supervisor was here with the car, he could have taken us with him." Everyone
feared for their own lives. What could I do? I went out into the entryway and
stood. And he says, "any other time I would keep you here a year, or two. But
right now, I'm sorry . . . " Then another door opened, also on the third
floor. I ask the neighbor, "Tayara, can we hide at your place?" She's an
Azerbaijani too. She says, "What kind of question is that? Come in!" She hid
us. There were many people in the courtyard, and Gaya and I hid in the
wardrobe, and they put Diana under a mattress, leaving a small opening so the
child could breathe. Tayara said that when the bandits left she would let us
out, and when they came back she would hide us again.
We sat in the wardrobe for about a half hour. Gaya became ill, and I allowed
her to get out. My legs fell asleep and felt like cannons. We hadn't eaten or
drunk anything for so long, since the 27th, when we saw that horror--and all
of it just snapped in me. Tayara's husband went outside, even though I begged
him to stay, saying there should be a man in the house. He said that he'd be
in the courtyard, and if anything happened his wife would signal him. She put
her passport and all of their documents on the table so if they suddenly came
in she could show them that they were an Azerbaijani family. My girls went to
the window--and what was going on out there! I feared for my children, that
someone would recognize them from the street. Gaya let her hair down and put
on a scarf so she would resemble an Azerbaijani, but directly across there was
a 9-story building, their windows were right across from us, and I shouted
that someone would see her and give us away on the spot. But she kept on
looking.
-Diana: I watched too.
-Zinaida: Downstairs the bandits were fighting with the soldiers. The soldiers
didn't shoot, they didn't have orders to. I saw them throwing rocks at
the soldiers, they were young boys, 18- and 19-year olds, and they defended
themselves . . . I'm a mother after all, and they were no different from my
children. When one of the soldiers fell and his head started bleeding I had to
stop looking, l couldn't watch anymore . . . I imagined my children in their
shoes . . .
-Gayane: The troops had assumed their defense that morning and had cordoned
off the buildings, and some of the soldiers surrounded the bus station, Block
36, and our Microdistrict 3. But they only cordoned them off from the outside.
The mob fell upon the soldiers, who started to protect themselves, and the mob
surged into the courtyard with the soldiers after it. They caught several
Azerbaijanis and started beating them with their clubs. One fell down and they
cracked open another's head . . .
-Zinaida: They show Lebanon on television, and the war in Afghanistan--that's just
what it was like. Like in America, how they attack demonstrations with shields
and clubs--that's just how it was in our courtyard.
-Gayane: Don't compare it with America, those were peaceful demonstrations,
but these?!
-Zinaida: But how could it happen here and not off somewhere in America! They
attacked the soldiers, hurled stones at them . . . Then I thought, where's the
tear gas that the Americans use to disperse demonstrators? If they had used
gas on those jackals they all would have scattered.
-Gayane: They would not have scattered. The soldiers had been there since
morning, they didn't bring in fresh troops. They hadn't eaten, they were fine
standing there for about three hours, but then they got tired. They weren't
even allowed to sit down . . . At noon they, the soldiers, attacked them, and
then the tables were turned. The mob went after the soldiers, the guys were
bunched into a group in the center street and covered themselves with their
shields, and the Azerbaijanis surrounded them and threw paving stones at them.
And those guys sat there covering themselves with their shields. And meanwhile
tanks with machine guns were cruising the streets . . . They always say, "Our
children have never seen war." I never even dreamed about it, there was no
need to. But then I thought about those people who had lived through a war. It
was truly horrible . . . The guys were tired, exhausted, some had had their
clubs taken away, others, their shields, they had been beaten, they were
covered in blood . . . so many died! They beat the soldiers with their own
clubs and shields. And those guys stood there and couldn't defend themselves,
they couldn't open fire. They couldn't even defend themselves, let alone us.
It's comical . . .
-Zinaida: What are you saying? How can it be funny?
-Gayane: No, I didn't mean that: How could something like that happen during
our Soviet period? It's painfully embarrassing! And they burned the armored
personnel carriers, too. Someone shouted, "Get away, it's going to blow!"
Everyone scattered away, and the armored personnel carrier exploded. The
soldiers lost their senses. And when they drove the personnel carrier and the
bus at the mob out of rage and fury, they drove right up on the sidewalk.
-Zinaida: The bus that had brought the troops. Only the driver was in it. The
bus ran over three people straight off, I saw it. And two armored personnel
carriers ran over four more. All in one or two minutes. The bus ran over
three, one of the carriers ran over two, and the second, two more. Right on
our street there's a dry cleaners and appliance and watch repair places; one
of the armored personnel carriers went that way, and they say it ran over
several over there, too. But they ran over seven before our eyes. Then the bus
ploughed into a book kiosk.
-Gayane: No, that was a flower place. It was a new booth. He drove straight
into it.
-Zinaida: The driver jumped out and they dragged the vehicle out to the
middle of the road and set it on fire.
-Gayane: And I also saw the troops put a bunch of Azerbaijanis in a bus and
take them in a convoy to Baku. There were many arrests.
-Zinaida: Our neighbor, the one who hid us, couldn't take it, and he told his
wife that we should leave. They were running around in the courtyard looking
for the Armenians. They knew that they were hiding with Azerbaijanis, and they
were saying that they were going to check the Azerbaijani families. Poor
Tayara got scared too, and started to cry; I pleaded with her, I said that I
would remember forever how she saved my children and me, but where could we
go?
-Gayane: She didn't make us leave, she said that she would do anything, but
she was afraid.
-Zinaida: I told Tayara that we would just stay a little longer and that at
night we would return to our apartment. Then her husband came back and said
that a curfew had been imposed. He says, "Zina, you owe us a drink. Gorbachev
announced a curfew." And Bagirov [First Secretary of the Communist Party of
Azerbaijan SSR] was on television, he said that two people had been killed in
Karabagh, but nothing was wrong, automobile windows had been broken, but there
hadn't been any killings. He kept making statements, and there were
Azerbaijani songs and dances. Tayara turned the TV all the way up. When we
learned of the curfew we calmed down, but then a crowd ran into the courtyard
again, a large one. Our neighbor told them that there had been only one
Armenian family here, but they had already killed them all, there was no one
left. We hid in the wardrobe again. and they stuck Diana back under the bed.
-Gayane: Tayara went down to our apartment to see what was happened there, and
found two bandits. They asked her, "What are you doing here" Tayara answered,
"I came to take something for myself." "Take all you want, they're gone now."
-Zinaida: Yes, she had wanted to get something for us, at least some bedding.
She said, "What are you going to do, empty handed, naked, with three children,
nothing remains of your entire apartment." In short, we calmed down, and the
crowd raced off to the other building, the one across from us. I don't know
what went on there.
-Gayane: The curfew had its effect on the gangs, many started to disperse:
they were warned that they would open fire on them. The soldiers didn't know
the city, they couldn't get oriented, they drove up and down the main streets,
but didn't go into the courtyards. When we were at the City Party Committee
they asked people from Sumgait to go with them and show them the way.
-Zinaida: The tanks entered the city on the night of the 29th.
-Gayane: No, Mamma, the tanks had been there earlier, but were near the City
Party Committee, where the Armenians were . . . After midnight, on March 1,
when I had finally gotten to sleep after two sleepless nights, Mamma said,
"Get your things together, they have sent buses for us." As it was we had been
dressed the entire time. Mamma went to check it out . . .and came back for us.
-Zinaida: When I came back for the children Tayara said that Vika was alive
and well, some guys had come and told her that they had hidden her in a safe
place. I both believed it and didn't believe it. We ran out to the tanks. The
Gambarians were there, Roman and Sasha; their father, Shurik, the clarinetist,
was killed, and their mother was there. Sasha came over and asked about the
girls. I was surprised, how did he know my girls? He said that he knew me and
the girls. Our neighbor himself went for Gaya and Diana and it seemed like he
was taking forever so I went after him. Another neighbor came out, Anna
Vasilyevna, a Russian: "Zinochka, my dear, goodbye and good luck." She kissed
Diana. They put us in the bus and the captain gave the order for us to be
taken to the City Party Committee. The bus wouldn't start, so they put us on
another one. It was pouring rain.
-Diana: When they imposed the curfew there were many soldiers on the streets,
and they all had clubs and shields. And when the Azerbaijanis attacked them,
many of the soldiers died. They threw paving stones--huge rocks--at the
soldiers. I saw this myself. The soldiers ran over those Azerbaijanis with the
tanks. The soldiers saw that the Azerbaijanis were doing violence to people
and they ran over them out of rage. We got scared and they hid me under a
mattress and a blanket, and Gaya and Mamma crawled into the wardrobe. And they
were fighting right down there on the street . . . Near the building they were
blowing up buses and tanks, and cars were burning, and there were many dead in
the courtyard. They drove without looking to see if it was a sidewalk or a
street, they just drove, and the ones who didn't manage to get out of the way
were run over by the tanks. And when we left--it was evening, it was already
dark--there were three buses, and one of them had soldiers in it. Mamma ran up
and said, "Get your clothes on, let's go." Gaya was wearing slippers, and I
had on my blue dress, but it was an old one. I was wearing my old jacket, my
old dress, and slippers. And nothing else. Gaya had on a skirt, her Angora
sweater, and slippers. It was raining hard, and there were puddles on the
street. They gave Mamma an old coat because she was wearing a short-sleeved
dress; she put it on and we ran out. We got onto the bus and I was hungry, one
of the soldiers from Yerevan gave me rations and carried me from one bus to
the other in his arms. I gave him the little glass that remained from Vika's
trousseau, and he gave me his telephone number.
-Gayane: In the bus there was a soldier with a shield sitting at every window.
We had to be ready for anything. They took us to the City Party Committee, let
us out, and then took us into the City Party Committee building under armed
guard. It was jammed with people and you couldn't breathe. We asked, "Are
these all us? Armenians?" They answered yes. We were surprised that there were
so many Armenians in Sumgait. All those years we lived there and didn't know
there were so many Armenians, 18,000. We were struck by that, we had never
noticed. Going downstairs the next day I ran into the Secretary of the
Komsomol from Vika's plant, the Khimprom. He said that Vika was alive and
well. When I told Mamma she of course calmed down some more. But you know,
after all that it was hard to believe anything, our faith in everything was
just gone. She didn't believe it completely.
-Zinaida: I didn't believe it because I had heard all kinds of things. When
we arrived at the City Party Committee we heard everything imaginable! It
was the fear of God. I saw many of our acquaintances, they were kissing each
other and asking how their children and homes were. Many people already knew
that there had been a pogrom of our apartment. They had seen the broken
windows. I cried, saying that I didn't know where Vika was. One woman said
that they had taken two of her daughters and that she couldn't find one of
them; the other had been slashed all over. A second said that her husband and
her son had been murdered. That was Nelli Aramian. She lived in Building 6 in
our microdistrict. They killed her husband, Armo, and her son Artur. I heard
so many things like that that I was already starting to lose touch; my
patience had run dry waiting for my daughter. Later an Azerbaijani fellow came
to me and said, Aunt Zina, Vika sent me, she's alive and well and hidden in a
safe place; if you want I'll call her there and you can speak with her. We
went downstairs to the first floor and he called Vika. I spoke with her, heard
the voice of my child. She had managed to survive in that hell. Then I started
begging that Azerbaijani to bring her to the City Party Committee. He tried to
talk me out of it: "I'll bring her wherever you go, don't worry, I've looked
after her better than a brother does a sister." All the same I asked him to
get her. He brought her and I calmed down. On the second day there was a
meeting with Demichev [Member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of the USSR,] and people started shouting. One shouted, "Give
me my son back!", another yelled, "Where is my daughter?!", a third wanted her
husband . . . Bagirov was there too, and he stood there blinking, not saying
anything.
-Gayane: When Demichev asked where we wanted to go, everyone shouted, "To
Russia!" To be honest we were all frightened of Armenia, there were such wild
rumors it was as though we were in a terrible dream, and no one wanted to go
to Armenia. But he said that he couldn't evacuate 18,000 people to Russia and
that he would meet with everyone individually the next day and speak with
them. And he also said that today he was going to go look at all of our
apartments. On March 3 we went to the military barracks in the village of
Nasosny. We were taken care of marvelously by the military. They sent special
flights of children right from there to Minvody, Yerevan, and Moscow. One
woman left for Moscow with a letter for Gorbachev and Gromyko.
-Zinaida: The worst was truly behind us by then. Everything had passed, but
the pain will remain for our whole lives. It cannot be forgotten. Under no
circumstances should we, our children, or our grandchildren forget. Who will
answer for those who died? For our mothers, sisters, brother, sons and
daughters? Who will bear the responsibility? Who will wash away their blood?
Someone should be made to answer, and severely, so it has an effect on the
people that did with us as they pleased . . . It isn't over yet, now we live
here, in Armenia, protected, but the issue isn't resolved. We would like
to stay in Armenia, in our homeland, so that all the Armenian people will be
united. Then we will be invincible. Armenians won't be scattered throughout
the Soviet Union, about the world, and if we're all together this won't happen
again. As a mother of three children, as a woman, as a sister, I ask Armenians
to be united so that what happened in Sumgait will never happen again. Our
homeland . . . The only request we have is that we be helped in obtaining an
apartment and getting jobs. So that our children can work for the good of
Armenia. If we aren't able to, then let our children do it. And if it's
possible, we'll work for the good of Armenia too. This is the land of our
forefathers. Our grandfathers and great-grandfathers lived here too, it was
only later that people dispersed all over. Like a mother, the land here bore
and reared us. It is our wife, and will protect us, too. I want but one thing:
that our people never see the hardship that our children saw, that your
children here, in Armenia, never see anything like it.
May 28, 1988
Yerevan
- - - reference - - -
[1] _The Sumgait Tragedy; Pogroms against Armenians in Soviet Azerbaijan,
Volume I, Eyewitness Accounts_, edited by Samuel Shahmuradian, forward by
Yelena Bonner, 1990, published by Aristide D. Caratzas, NY, pages 187-203
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Yup, I think you're right. My mistake. Now, how do I make
an "R" backwards using a computer keyboard?
I'll bet the gods know how (this is alt.atheism, after
all). Tell you what, if all my "R"s start coming out
backwards when I type from now on, I'll become a believer.
(And that's not asking for miracles. If I asked for a miracle,
I'd ask for a real miracle, like for Pat Buchanan to become
an out-of-the-closet drag queen - well...maybe that wouldn't be
so miraculous, but I think he'd look fabulous in a feather
boa and a sequined hat like Mia Farrow wore in Gatsby.)
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What we call today the "Old Testament" was being written up to approx-
imately 168 BCE, according to most modern scholars. Aside from the book of
Daniel, the whole OT predates Alexander (the Great). These books were written
(predominantly) in Hebrew.
There were also other books being written at about this time and later
by Greek-speaking, or "Hellenistic", Jews. These books are those which are
reckoned by many denominations as "Apocrypha".
Before the closing of the Writings, the third part of what is today
called the canon, all of the books were in use by Jews of the day. However,
there were those who reckoned (based on Zech. 13) that prophecy had ceased.
This faction maintained that there were no true prophets in their day. They
also maintained that literature of a prophetic character could not be genuine
teachings from God.
By the time of c.65 CE, another faction had entered the mess. Christians
had come in claiming that THEIR writings were also suitable to be read in
synagogues and used for worship. Therefore, the Palestinian Jewish leaders
got together and stated that the books written from the time of Ben Sira (Sirach)
onward were not sacred writings. They justified this from Zech. 13. In
particular, they said, the writings of the Christians (called heretics) were
not inspired.
At about 90 CE, they codified things further by closing the canon in
somewhat of an official sense at the Council of Jamnia. A few books (Ecclesi-
astes, Song of Songs, Esther) made it in after that date, but these were those
which had been written prior to the official cut off point (the time of Ben
Sira) for inclusion that they had established in order to keep out the Christian
and Hellenistic writings.
Jerome excluded the 'apocrypha' because they were not in use by Jews
of his day and because they were (except for Sirach) not found in Hebrew in his
time. His criterion for separating them from the other pre-Christian writings
was not based on 'inspiration'.
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Message-ID: <1993Apr26.202714.4519@Virginia.EDU>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 20:27:14 GMT
First, the following two quite normal phrases:
^^^^^^^^^^^
^^^^^^^^^^^
and then he shows us what HE means by "intelligent and unoffending manner"
and "INTELLIGENT conversation":
^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...deleted lines...]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...deleted lines...]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...deleted lines...]
Later he reveals the truth:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
[...deleted lines...]
Shurely he IS an anti-Semite (call it anti-Jew), maybe BECAUSE he
is "part Jewish" (e.g. his mother might have *dated* a Jew who
didn't marry her, and so she got a little bastard whom she taught
hatred).
He is also a coward since he doesn't dare to sign with his name.
At the end he signs with a highly intelligent and intellectual
phrase:
Message-ID: <1993Apr26.203425.4824@Virginia.EDU>
Date: Mon, 26 Apr 1993 20:34:25 GMT
The Nazis might also have sent this bastard to the gas chambers
because of his "part Jewish"ness (only that he is not aware of it).
PS: I wonder what kind of educational institution is @virginia.edu.
Could it be the "Free KKK-University of Virginia" ? ;-)
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Manfredo Tichauer M. EMAIL : tichauer@valpso.hanse.de
Opitzstrasse 14 VOICE : (++ 49 40) 27.42.27
2000 Hamburg 60 - GERMANY FAX : (++ 49 40) 270.53.09
| 2
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2,974
|
I have found a situation which I think is a bug in X or Motif, but I'm hoping
is really just a mistake on my part. Does anyone know anything about
this problem........
- I am using an XmTextField, and setting its XmNvalue to a hardcoded
text string (ascii or Kanji) either via XtSetValues or XmTextSetString.
The problem is that when the XmTextField is displayed, the text is getting
truncated, depending on the setting of the environment variables
LANG (more specifically LC_ALL). When they are set to japanese,
the text gets truncated. When they are set to english, everything
works fine. I am taking the default for XmNcolumns.
(Please note that hardcoding of text is NOT done in my actual
application, just in my sample code to make things easier)
- I am running Motif 1.2, X11R5 via HPUX9.01. My test program is set up
to handle 16 bit Kanji characters. I have remembered to do
XtSetLanguageProc() prior to my MrmInitialize and my font resources
are set to japanese fonts.
- Don't know if this matters, but my dialog box and TextField is initially
created with UIL.
The problem does NOT happen with XmText. Unfortunately substituting
XmTextFields with XmTexts in my application is not an acceptable
alternative (way too much code to be modified while in beta!)
I have a small test program which illustrates the problem if anyone
wants it. My best guess is that either the X code or Motif is not
properly allocating memory for japanese, but since I don't have the
source to look at it is just a guess.
Please let me know if this sounds familiar, or if you have a suggestion,
or if you want the sample program.
THANKS!!!!!!!!
- Susan
| 6
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2,975
|
I definitely do. That's why I don't like going to see games played
on artificial turf :-)
Well, your idea of "interesting" differs from mine. I think
batting practice is interesting, for example, and make a special
effort to get to the game very early in order to see it. I think the
delaying tactics of batters, pitchers, catchers, and managers are
interesting because they're attempts to gain advantage through control
of the flow and timing of the game. Of course, the umpires can, and
should, intervene when these tactics get out of hand. As Ryan Robbins
has pointed out, there are rules that cover this.
One of the more fascinating things about baseball, I think, is its
open-endedness with regard to time. You never know if the game is going
to zip right by and be over in less than two hours, or if it's going to
go on until four in the morning. Likewise, some games are action-packed,
and some games are slow and lazy. That's fine by me. Those folks who
want constant action should watch the games on TV so they can channel-
surf and cater to their short attention spans.
| 11
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2,976
|
I don't remember the formula's off hand as it has been awhile since
I took aerodynamics and haven't used the stuff since.
The Cd is related to the drag force which is what effects top speed and
fuel consumption. When the drag force on the car or aircraft is greater
than what the vehicle's engine can overcome it has reached its top speed.
(autos of course also have to overcome rolling resistance)
Since drag opposes the vehicle's motion, the engine must make up for that
by burning more fuel. Anyway, since the geometery of an auto is rather
complex, the Drag,pressure coeffiecent,etc is either found experimentaly, or
using a numerical method.
anyway for flow around a cylinder the drag coeff is:
Cd = d/(q*2R)
where d is the drag force, q the flow velocity and R is the radius
of the clyinder.
To get a rough (very rough) estimate, you can set R at 1/2 the car's
width, q at the car's speed and knowing the Cd, find the drag force that
the car would need to overcome.
| 4
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2,977
|
My wife has requested that I poll the Sages of Usenet to see what is
known about the use of chromium in weight-control diet suppliments.
She has seen multiple products advertising it and would like any kind
real information.
My first impulse was "Yuck! a metal!" but I have zero data on it.
What do you know?
| 9
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2,978
|
No joke. Here's another copy for you to save. NPR, hmmm? Did they
mention the part about "The fact of law enforcement access to the
escrowed keys will not be concealed from the American public." ...?
------------------------------------------------------------------------
| 19
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2,979
|
A program called Mac-ette allows you to read Mac 3.5"
high-density disks on a DOS machine. You can get the program from
simtel-20. I'm not sure of the directory location.
| 17
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2,980
|
A-hem. Two words: Russell Davis. Playing in the cavern at Albany (AA) last
year (375/410/385 down the alleys and to center), Davis went .285/.355/.483
with 22 homers. There aren't any small parks on the road in the Eastern
League, either. He's 23(!) and his MLE was .258/.308/.416, 17 HR. I have no
fielding statistics, but from seeing him a number of times last year I'd say
that he's not Brooks Robinson, but neither is he Howard Johnson. Unless they
think they can win the pennant *this year* (which seems possible) and need
Boggs to do it, I think they're making the same sort of mistake with Davis
that Boston made with Boggs, leaving him in the minors for two or three
years after he'd shown that he was a good hitter.
Hrm? They still have him on the roster (16 AB through the first two weeks).
They've just never figured out what to do with him. I suspect that he hits
enough (especially vs. lefties) to be a reasonable shortstop. One rumor
running around during spring training was that they wanted to convert
Silvestri to be a catcher(!) because "his body type was wrong for a
shortstop". You'd think that somebody in the same *division*, who plays
Baltimore about a dozen times a year, would know better.
Mike Jones | AIX High-End Development | mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com
| 11
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2,981
|
[some deletions]
Well, we agree on the last part.:-) One of the basic things you need to
have in a statistic to be able to predict a player's performance on it
in the future is for there to be a correlation from year to year. A
player's batting average is correlated fairly well from year to year.
A player's ability to walk or infielder's Defensive Average are correlated
better. That is to say, given their past performance in those statistics
we can have a pretty good handle on how they'll do next year. Put in
some simple information about aging and you can do even better. One of
the basic problems with something like "clutch" batting average - overall
batting average is that the correlation from year to year is almost zero.
Adding to the sample size doesn't seem to help much. As a counterexample to
what you showed, consider the following two players from 1984-1987:
Non-Clutch Clutch
AB H BA AB H BA
Maldonado 1060 260 .245 254 78 .307
Lemon 1643 457 .278 256 57 .223
If you had had these two players in 1988, by your logic, in those "clutch"
situations, you'd bat Maldonado for Lemon in a blink of an eye. Well, in
1988, Maldonado hit .267 in "non-clutch" and .190 in "clutch", while Lemon
hit .254 in "non-clutch" and .313 in "clutch". Before you accuse me of
completely cooking the data, there were 96 players who had 25+ "clutch"
at bats every year from 1984-1988 (according to Elias). As a simple
measure of clutchness, let's just look at clutch BA-non-clutch BA. If you use
'84-'87 to predict '88 for those 96 players, you'd find that 27 of the
96 were below league average in that measure both in '84-87 and in '88,
26 were above league average in both periods and the other 43 were
above in one and below in the other. If you were just flipping coins,
you'd expect to get 24 above/below in both and 48 that switched. The
difference between the observed results and the coin flip experiment
is not statisically significant.
BTW, correlating players' _overall_ batting average from '84-'87 with
'88 gives a correlation coefficient of 0.59, which is significant at
something better than the 99.9% confidence level. Correlating their
(clutch-non-clutch BA) for the same period gives a correlation of
0.088, significant at no level of any interest.
Actually, it's technically incorrect to say that we can't predict future
clutch performance. It's more correct to say that we can't predict
future clutch performance with any skill.
Harold
| 11
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2,982
|
I would appreciate any thoughts on what makes a planet habitable for Humans.
I am making asumptions that life and a similar atmosphere evolve given a range
of physical aspects of the planet. The question is what physical aspects
simply disallow earth like conditions.
eg Temperature range of 280K to 315K (where temp is purely dependant on dist
from the sun and the suns temperature..)
Atmospheric presure ? - I know nothing of human tolerance
Planetary Mass ? - again gravity at surface is important, how much
can human bodies take day after day. Also how does the mass effect
atmosphere. I thinking of planets between .3 and 3 times mass of the
earth. I suppose density should be important as well.
Climate etc does not concern me, nor does axial tilt etc etc. Just the above
three factors and how they relate to one another.
Jonathan
--
| 12
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2,983
|
[much munching and editing to get to the point]
[Brett D. Sherron-Ferrell writes]
[Mike Timbol responds]
While I do not think he is lying, I also feel hesitant to take anybody "on their
word" unless they can attribute a source for thier claims. With all the FUD
and misinformations and misconceptions and outright lies flying around the
advocacy newsgroups, I do not trust any unsubstantiated rumor or claim
- especially from any employees of IBM's OR MicroSoft, or anyone who seems to
have a vested interest.
Divya
--
Divya
| 17
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2,984
|
Hi there,
I'm looking for tools that can make X programming easy.
I would like to have a tool that will enable to create X motif
GUI Interactivly. Currently I'm Working on a SGI with forms.
A package that enables to create GUI with no coding at all
(but the callbacks).
Any help will be appreciated.
| 6
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2,985
|
OK, if I post where this comes from, will people stop sending email
asking where I negotiated the deal? ;-)
The deal is from "International Computer and Networking" in CA.
(I saw the ad int he back of MacWorld and MacUser)...
phone number is 310-441-9181 and the deal may have changed since
a few weeks ago, since they change prices about every ten minutes ;-)
Alas, this is a funny system, it SOUNDS like a good deal, but this is a
Centris 650, 4MB (on the motherboard) 4MB SIMM, 80MB HD, NO ETHERNET
and NO COPROCESSOR (well, actually it's a 68LC040 instead of a 68RC040,
'just had to say that to keep people from saying "there is no such thing
as an '040 without a coprocessor, since the FPU is built into the chip")
OK, there ya have it, but if I were you, I would wait untill the cyclones
come out and buy a Quadra 800 ;-)
-nate
| 10
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2,986
|
--
In 1972, they lowered the engine compression so that it would run on
regular gas (not to mention the addition of emission controls). The '72
also added pop-out rear quarter windows...
Alot of parts are available for the GT from C & R Small Cars in CT and
used from Bill Daley's Opel Parts in MA....
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Matthew R. Singer MIT Lincoln Laboratory
(617) 981-3771 244 Wood Street
singer@ll.mit.edu Lexington, MA 02173
| 4
|
2,987
|
I am finding the volume of stuff on rec.sport.baseball
overwhelming -- ca. 200 posts/day. An effect of this is
that a backlog builds up, and many posts get dumped from
my system. I could probably fix that--but don't have the
time to read them all in any event. My guess is that mine
is a common problem. I have some ideas that would help:
1. Each person generally post no more than one article/day.
2. Limit the extent to which previous posts are reproduced
in posts.
3. Don't post mindless `woofs,' or `anti-woofs,' e.g. "The
Jays are best!" or "The Jays suck."
4. Don't respond to mindless posts, e.g. "Jack Morris is
a better pitcher than Frank Viola because he's won a
World Series." I know that you can use the `n' key to
get by these posts, but they bump interesting posts from
my disk.
5. use the goddamn shift key etc it makes your posts easier
to read
| 11
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2,988
|
From: "Phil G. Fraering" <pgf@srl03.cacs.usl.edu>
>> Finally: this isn't the Bronze Age, [..]
>> please try to remember that there are more human activities than
>> those practiced by the Warrior Caste, the Farming Caste, and the
>> Priesthood.
F Baube responds;
Right, the Profiting Caste is blessed by God, and may
freely blare its presence in the evening twilight ..
Steinn Sez;
>The Priesthood has never quite forgiven
>the merchants (aka Profiting Caste [sic])
>for their rise to power, has it?
If we are looking for evidence of belessed-by-God-ness, I'd say the ability
to blare lights all over the evening sky is about the best evidence you
could ever hope to get. No wonder the preistly classes are upset :-)
-Tommy Mac
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Tom McWilliams 517-355-2178 wk \\ As the radius of vision increases,
18084tm@ibm.cl.msu.edu 336-9591 hm \\ the circumference of mystery grows.
| 12
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2,989
|
Please....Apples to Apples. Nt is a beta, and as such cannot be accepted as a
competitor to Win3.1-it's not on the market. Same for OS/2 2.1, for a couple or
weeks......
BTW, cute sig.
| 17
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2,990
|
I am not exactly known as a Flower Child Pacifist, but lets call
cowpoop cowpoop.
"The peaceful attempt to serve the warrant" consisted of the following
actions, in order:
1) BATF agents forcing their entry of the "compound" through second
story windows.
2) BATF agents loosing some grenades (allegedly "stun" or "flash"
grenades) which promptly detonated.
*After* which, according to the tapes I have seen, the B-D
started shooting back.
Now exactly how is it that someone breaking into private property
and tossing grenades around is considered "peaceful" by
*anyone*? You *think* on that.
(Which is not to say I do not still hold my previous and
entirely correct notions about what should be worn and
what arms should be used in assaulting a building.)
| 8
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2,991
|
I'm having trouble with installing a second IDE drive on a Promise IDE caching
controller. The first drive is a conner 3204 and works fine. The second drive
is a conner 30174, it is currently unjumpered to be the slave drive. The
problem is the slave drive is recognized but is reported back as having no
free space. Disabling cache has made no effect. What else should I check for?
| 5
|
2,992
|
Hi. Can anyone please give me some ftp sites to get IPAS processes for
3D Studio 2.0?
Thanks.
+Warren =8^)
| 7
|
2,993
|
Please help.
I have an IBM-compatible notebook computer with an LCD VGA screen. While I
was working with it this morning, the screen started to flicker a little,
which I thought was odd since I do use a surge-protector for my computer and
all peripherals. It only did this for a second and then stopped.
I left the room for several minutes and, when I returned, the screen was
completely dim, not blank, but very very dim. The contrast slider still
worked so that I could adjust it to where I could *faintly* make out what
was on the screen but the brightness slider had absolutely *no* effect.
I was plugged-in at the time (i.e., not using the battery) but I still
tried switching the battery, changing the power-saver features, etc., etc.,
all to no avail.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? If this just means that I
need to replace the screen then I guess I'll have to but I thought that the
"death" of my LCD screen would be a little less dramatic when it eventually
happened. I didn't want to take it in to be repaired before I asked on the
net about this because I already know what they'll say: "Yep, you gotta have
this replaced and it's gonna cost you $???."
I've only had the computer for about 21 months. Is that a reasonable life
cycle for a LCD display? Oh, I guess I ought to give specifics here: the
brand is Compudyne (Is this a reputable company?), it's a 386SX @ 20 MHz.
I forget the model number exactly and I was too ticked off to write it down
before coming in to work today.
If anyone can help me, PLEASE give me any advice you might have. I'm not
opposed to having it replaced, but I'd rather not if it's not absolutely
necessary. If you wouldn't mind, please e-mail me at mike@mik.uky.edu
but if you'd rather post I'll be checking back here in a couple of days.
BTW, if the answer to this question is already in a FAQ somewhere, feel
free to flame away but I would ask that you also include the location and
name of the FAQ if you don't mind.
Thanks in advance for any help...
| 7
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2,994
|
hausner@qucis.queensu.ca (Alejo Hausner) Pontificated:
To split a split hair, I believe that teflon (-CF4- monomer) was
"discovered" by accident when someone I don't remember
found what he thought was a liquid (or gas?) had turned to a
solid...
It just happend to fit the bill for the above use...
I'm crossposting to sci.materials so perhaps someone in the know
might elaborate...
| 12
|
2,995
|
Hello,
I install one wav driver: pc-speaker, then install mpeg 2.0
phoenix.oulu.fi:/pub/incoming/mpeg2_0/mpegexe.zip --/
in Windows 3.1. but when I load one MPEG file and make sound type to
WAV or MPEG,it always say error.
when I load one mpeg file which have wav file( ~.wav),then
select sound type to WAV,it is normal and no error,but I still can't
hear sound. What should I do? fix the SoundDrv number in MFW.INI?
Thankx for any help...
--
Internet Address: u7911093@cc.nctu.edu.tw
English Name: Erik Wang
Chinese Name: Wang Jyh-Shyang
| 17
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2,996
|
Please, read my post carefully, I am saying that lift the arms emargo
and let the MUSLIMS defend themselves. The point is these Europians
"civilized countries" neither want to get intervene militarily themselves
and nor they like to see the muslims of the world to help the oppressed.
(Remember what happened almost one year ago when the so called UN discovered
some riffles in an Iranian jet in Bosnia!). The west is not indifferent
in this matter they are siding with Serbs by keeping this embargo on only
muslim side (okay on-paper on both sides).
-Khalid
| 2
|
2,997
|
Hallo all...my girlfriend and I will be travelling across the US this summer,
so we won't be using our tickets to return to Hawaii. Please buy them.
The tickets are one-way, leaving Peoria, IL on May 17. It connects to the main
route in Minneapolis/St. Paul, and from there goes on to Honolulu...you'll be
in Honolulu at 2:42 pm, and flying via Northwest airlines.
Any offers will be considered, but please make sure these are serious offers.
Tickets to Hawaii aren't cheap, but we're aiming to make two people very happy
this summer.
| 1
|
2,998
|
Hi I'm new to imaging, and my advisor and I would like to
do some 3D reconstructions.
We take slides (biological), and image them on a 486. Then
the software allows us to trace the outline of the objects
we want to save. The outlines are stored as a TIFF file.
We would like to convert a group of these outlines into a
3D image. We are unsure as to where to begin. Someone mentioned
that if we could convert the TIFF into a vector format then
we could view them in Autocad.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
| 7
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2,999
|
Geico has purchased radar guns in several states, I know they have done
it here in CT.
I have also heard horror stories about people that have been insured by Geico
for years and then had 1 accident and were immediately dropped. And once
you've been dropped by any insruance company you become labled a high
risk, and end up forking out 3 or 4 times what you should be for insurance.
My suggestion, stay where you are, or shop around but STAY AWAY from Geico!
| 4
|
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