On Sat, Mar 22, 2003 at 05:53:37PM -0600, David Dyer-Bennet <dd-b at dd-b.net> wrote: > Matthew Hunter <matthew at infodancer.org> writes: > > > On Fri, Mar 21, 2003 at 01:19:31PM -0500, Richard Congdon <richard at pikachu.harvard.edu> wrote: > > > > > Really? I was told that Hungarians invented beer, and > > > > > that they make the best beer in the world. Hmm ... I think > > > > > the same guy said they invented sex, Whiskey, and some other > > > > > stuff too, now that I think of it.... > > > > Will you people *stop* listening to Al Gore ? > > > I know it's off topic, but given current events, I can't resist. Al Gore, > > > who except for a judicial coup might well be president, would not be the > > > cause of so many deaths just to please his oil industry buddies. > > > Furthermore, if you are alluding the alleged remark of his that he created > > > the internet, it simply isn't true that he said that. Yes, he has a > > > tendency to exaggerate, but what he said was that he was very important in > > > getting the internet (nee DARPA net) commercialized. (I wish I had a URL > > > handy, so that you could read his words.) > > Didn't we just go over this? > Not that I remember, but so it goes. I was referring to the reaction to Mia's accidental post. > But the "stop listening to Al > Gore" line is a very partisan poke; in fact to the extent it means > anything, it's a *lie*. That kind of thing tends to draw responses > from people (like me) who normally try to stop badly political > off-topic threads. Yes, it's a very partisan poke. And it's very hard to resist that sort of thing when you care about the issues. I know; I have a hard time resisting it when it comes on issues I care about (mostly gnu control). > > Making this kind of remark in an inappropriate forum only pisses > > off people who *really* do care about the issues and want to > > respond... but feel they cannot because of the forum. It's sort > > of like saying "Your mother wears army boots" from behind an > > army; not terribly fair and certainly not conducive to useful > > discussion. > Now I'm confused, actually; I can't tell who you think did something > wrong. Both of them. The initial quoted comment ("I was told the Hungarians invented...") didn't seem to be referring to Gore at all, but rather Brust. The response ("... stop listning to Al Gore") was IMHO a misreading of the original comment and an inappropriate politicization. The response to that ("I know it's off topic, but...") was similarly inappropriate for the political content, and more annoying to me personally (because it contains some things that I would dispute and don't like to leave unchallenged). But I will resist. -- Matthew Hunter (matthew at infodancer.org) Public Key: http://matthew.infodancer.org/public_key.txt Homepage: http://matthew.infodancer.org/index.jsp Politics: http://www.triggerfinger.org/index.jsp