ON ! ! I can't believe it any more. ! ! On Fri, 30 Aug 96 02:47:21 EDT, Dr. (of what, pray tell?) Vulis blathers first: ! ! >> > If you don't have the brains to forge the From:, then you have no ! >> > business being subscribed to any mailing list. ! ! and then again: ! ! >Whoever uses the term "spam" in derogatory manner, opposes free ! >speech and deserves to be caned. ! ! First, accusing someone of stupidity for not having learned how to telnet to ! an SMTP server is a bit harsh, especially since the guy might be stuck ! behind a firewall that mungs his addresses AFTER his messages goes out -- ! not that Dr. V bothered to find out before the accusation. ! ! Second, suggesting anyone be caned for their political beliefs (and ! resultant speech) is quite obviously NOT the action taken by someone who ! defends free speech. Again, Dr. V. put those beliefs in his words through ! his flawed logic. ! ! It's like watching a KKKlucker yelling, "you have no right to say that we ! don't support free speech," and not getting it. ! ! And for what -- the thoughtcrime of calling Dr. V a spammer? Hmm. About ! the closest I can come to finding a "crime" here is trademark infringement. ! I'm sure Hormel is following this closely. ! ! All of this is merely annoying. But slamming Tim May because of his ! heritage? "criminal Arm*nian grandparents"? Now it's a crime not only to ! call Dr. V a spammer, but to have ancestors born someplace his ancestors ! taught him to not approve of. (Can you say "racism", kids? Sure. I knew ! you could.) ! ! When I first started reading this list, it was about the time Jim Bell was ! espousing the A.P. theories, and I thought him a fool for it. I put his ! name in my filter, sending his posts to the trash. More and more, I found ! myself heading to the trash bin to follow a thread that Jim was contributing ! to. Valuable contributions, mind you, not just more of his A.P. stuff. Of ! course, I ended up removing him from my filter. (For missing that month of ! your posts, Jim, I owe you an apology.) ! ! At that time, I realized a few things: Filters certainly aren't the answer; ! and everybody can come up with valuable contributions. ! ! Anyway, my current status is to have the filters set to remove posts with ! the words [NOISE] or [OFF-TOPIC] somewhere in the headers. It helps weed ! out stuff that really isn't why I'm here reading this list. ! ! Given that I feel that even Dr. Vulis might possibly contribute something of ! value to this list at some unspecified time in the future, I have come to ! the conclusion that the only solution is to ask him to change his e-mail ! name field to: ! ! dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr.Dimitri Vulis KOTM [NOISE] ) ! ! until such time as he can actually come up with something useful to say to ! the rest of us. Maybe he could even throw in an [-L18] tag, if he's going ! to continue to [spit | fuck | fart] every posting that leaps through his screen. ! ! [ Note to everyone else: that's SARCASM there, hope you got it! ] ! ! So, my original question is: is there really a Dr. Dmitri Vulis (KOTM) ! somewhere? Or is he just some made-up straw man, created by Tim May, John ! Gilmore and Eric Hughes for their personal amusement, and to add a spot of ! controversy so we can feel like we're not preaching to the choir with every ! pro-cypher posting? I often thought that was the case with David Sternlight ! as well. Or is Dr. Vulis really best-buddies with Tim May, and his way of ! showing affection is to "fart in his general direction" with every post? ! ! If he exists, I pity the unsuspecting students who wander into his class who ! might not have the genetic makeup he approves of. And now I *completely* ! understand tenure. Fuckhead.