Subject: TURMEL: Fracturing discussion?
Date: 27 Nov 1997 10:59:12

TURMEL: Fracturing discussion?

     Upon my return after 2 weeks, what do I find making up the bulk
of the discussion on econ-lets? All about fracturing discussion.

*Subject: Re: Making this list work for all
*Date: Mon Nov 24 16:15:13 1997
*From: cs@oden.se (Christina Svensson)
*I don't have much time to spend on econ-lets these days (and I rarely
*see anything that interest me), but as I now dive back into it I see
*it's my favorite subject that is up again  :-)
     JCT: That's right. It is her favorite subject.

*For example I subscribe several list of the type "interestgroups"
*where in one list we discuss how to deal with our common interest,
*and in the other list how to deal with more administrative matters
*off the group in itself.
*It is very easy to miss something interesting and valuable because of
*the ob-focus of the list. (As the work-gang thing that I only
*discovered because someone forwarded it to me privately)
*Oh, why oh why can't we just split the list..?
     JCT: With one list, she wouldn't have missed the good bit.

*Date: Mon Nov 24 19:36:08 1997
*From: bo.ljungqvist@ctv.gu.se (Bo Ljungqvist)
*Subject: Re: Making this list work for all
*To: econ-lets@mailbase.ac.uk
*Please, let us not split this list!
*I do not find it difficult to select from the list to read what
*interests me; sometimes about "workgangs" sometimes about money
*theory. No one is forced to read everything. The system with labels
*of topics works quit well. For example it just take me some seconds a
*day to transfer the mail from John Turmel into a safe place where it
*does not block my computer system and where I can read it later if I
*want.
     JCT: And I think that is the problem with many of these other
people. They read their mail on-line because they don't know how to
save their mail for later reading. Christina has complained that she
hates my long posts because she knows there's interesting stuff in
them but would prefer if I would not post the parts she won't find
interesting. I put the TURMEL flag in the topic so they have the
option of quick stowing for free off-line perusal.

*Subject: Splitting the list.
*Date: Tue Nov 25 04:30:34 1997
*From: xuegx@csv.warwick.ac.uk (Tom Holloway)
*What I _don't_ want to share are absurdly long and tedious speeches.
*If setting up a separate practical list will be seen as 'separatist'
*and unconstructive, then I will not do it. I already have 7 lists to
*contend with; my only wish was to create a forum where practitioners
*could discuss day-to-day matters without having to download the
*thoughts of Canadian candidates for office.
     JCT: I could understand his wanting to get away from my posts if
I was cross-posting to all 7 of his LETS lists but I only post to one
of his 7 lists. I don't post to 6. How is creating another list I
won't post to going to help? Don't the other lists where I don't post
provide that silence six-fold?

*There is a simple practical solution which I have adopted for the
*largest and most active of my lists. If those subscribers who have
*long polemics that they wish to deliver will put them on a suitable
*web-site, they can then use the EconLets List to draw attention to
*them and provide the www or ftp address so that they can be
*downloaded by those who want to read them. It was also suggested....
     JCT: And if many people start offering lengthier discussions,
we'll have 20 or 30 web sites a day we'll have to check out rather
than having it mailed to our boxes, the whole purpose of a news list.
No thanks. As many of you may remember, there was a similar movement
to get away from TURMEL posts in the ncf.ca.lets newsgroup by creating
an ott.community.lets newsgroup as a place where Ottawa LETS members
could hold discussions without TURMEL by prohibiting cross-posting to
other related newsgroups. After a year, it sits there empty of
contributions.

*Date: Tue Nov 25 07:26:52 1997
*From: edbenjamin@brookes.ac.uk (Elise Benjamin)
*Despite being a professional typist (which
*does help to get messages out  quickly) I find I have little time to
*read many of the postings on this conference.... this then means that
*I have even less time to reply. It's  almost as if some contributors
*to the conference can't distinguish between a simple question and an
*essay title - no offence meant it's just that I always feel why use
*50 words when 20 will do.
     JCT: Some of us provide essay answers, she wants blurbs because
she can't speed-read to match her speed-type. I can play up to 8 notes
a second on my accordion and I can type pretty fast too. Nothing wrong
with essays.

**of Canadian candidates for office.
*Who could this be referring to I wonder!
     JCT: The only candidate to nationally raise LETS in the 1997
Canadian Federal General Election and I'm proud of that notorious
distinction.

**they can then use the EconLets List to draw attention to them and
**provide the www or ftp address so that they can be downloaded by
**those who want to read them.
*I'm sure this, or something similar, has been suggested before, which
*I presume is the reason why I haven't received many Turmel postings
*recently!
     JCT: No, if you subscribe to econ-lets, you are getting a copy of
everything I post on public newsgroups. You've missed nothing you
didn't skip over yourself.
     This is just another attempt to get away from Turmel's posts that
they hate to skip over. They search for more and more newsgroups where
they won't tempted by Turmel's posts. I'm used to it. It explains how
someone created the alt.fan.john-turmel newsgroup.

Article #35950 (36119 is last):
From: mcr@amaterasu.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca (Michael Richardson)
Newsgroups: alt.config,ott.general,ncf.general
Subject: PROPOSAL: alt.fan.john-turmel
Date: Wed Jan 22 11:49:40 1997
  Many of you have enjoyed the posts of Ottawa's John Turmel.
Many of you shudder when your newsreader comes up with a subject
line "TURMEL". In any case, you know it will be an interesting
day. Those of you with kill files probably don't know what you
are missing.
  Who is this man? Is John Turmel his real name? Rumour has it
that he is fabulously rich. Others say that is just posturing.
Charter:
  alt.fan.john-turmel is a place to post questions, queries, and
debate about this well spoken, widely crossposted person. Where
else can you go and *know* you'll find posts from this master of
words and rhetoric?
- --
:!mcr!:            |  Network security consulting and
Michael Richardson |      contract programming
WWW: <A HREF="http://www.sandelman.ottawa.on.ca/Peo

     JCT: So they shudder. Yet, the first thing anyone reads when they
search the net for John Turmel is
http://www.interaus.net/1995/10/kooks.html
*Net Kooks
*by Morris Jones
*The term 'kook', according to one definition, is a corruption of
*the word 'cuckoo', and carries exactly the same meaning.
*Another contemporary Canadian Net kook who is somewhat eclipsed by
*Bob Allisat's stellar performances is John Turmel. His postings
*have reached Australia, the UK, and other places where they are
*most unwelcome, such as his own nation. Turmel pushes a strange
*blend of Christianity and economics, and believes that he can
*derive differential equations by studying verses from the Bible.
*The backlash against Turmel's messages have followed a similar
*pattern, although someone in Canada recently released a cancelbot
*against his postings to more than 14 newsgroups. Turmel is also
*still at large, so watch out for his postings on aus.general or
*nz.general.

*Article #37885 (38072 is last):
*From: kamamer@io.org (karl mamer)
*Newsgroups: tor.general,ont.general,
*Subject: Kook of the Month, guess who?
*Date: Tue Aug  8 10:29:19 1995
*Newsgroups: alt.usenet.kooks
*Subject: KotM July - What, already?
*Organization: arcana on spec
*KOOK OF THE MONTH FOR JULY 1995 - John "Turmoil" Turmel
*(johnturmel@yahoo.com)
*in tor.general,ont.general,can.general,can.taxes, and a whole
*lotta other newsgroups, John leads a One-Man Crusade to explain
*that Christ spoke in differential equations.

     JCT: Of course, a physics student took the same verse from the
Bible and derived the same differential equation that I did so I don't
care how many people don't see it too.
     Of course, many LETSers get steamed is that I call myself the
LETS Papa Engineer because they think I bring LETS into disrepute by
promoting it as my baby. I think not. My only sin has been in
preaching loud, louder, loudest  that LETS are turning into bruisers
that are going to beat the usury banks into submission.
     I admit that there are some topics like Poker hands that I do not
post to econ-lets and cross-post only to alt.fan.john-turmel where you
can find everything, if it has to deal with LETS economics, you get it
all if you subscribe econ-lets.
     I myself would be happy to see the LETS hardware technicalities
shunted away from the engineering division. A CBC newscast once
defined the difference between an engineer and a technologist in the
aero-space industry. When something with the engine goes wrong, the
technologist gets out his tools and goes in while the engineer gets
out the blue-prints and tells him where to look.
     I, as the world's longest-serving professional banking systems
engineer, consider the technological aspects trivial. Every casino
accounting software package is a 1/s software capable of handling
not only personal credits, a la LETS, but also collateral, a la banks.
     No, the true challenge is delivering financial freedom to the
whole world fastest and that needs Big Money support for our grass-
root branches.
     Econ-lets is the only list where you'll find world engineering
analysis. Everything else is technician-talk. There's nothing wrong
with technician talk but it doesn't help when existing financial
networks can be programmed to run LETS better than we locally often
could.

*Subject: Making this list work for all
*Date: Mon Nov 24 17:37:50 1997
*From: sparky@pipcom.com ("Chris Hohner")
*I would even like to see mainstream politicians wade in; we're facing
*a promotional mission to Latin America in January that will include
*the Canadian Prime Minister- a unique chance to  bring LETS to his
*attention, perhaps for the first time.
     JCT: Eleven years ago in 1986, Jean Chretien resigned his seat in
St. Maurice and I doubt he could have missed Turmel promoting LETS on
my Creditist program in the by-election after I made the news being
arrested for attempting to participate in an election debate with his
Liberal protege. Besides, we'd bumped into each other so many times on
Parliament Hill in my first 5 years of weekly picketing of the Bank of
Canada and Parliament Hill that there is virtually no chance he has
missed John Turmel screaming for National LETS from every open
political pulpit in the land.
     I hope you're successful and if you do see Jean, make sure to
ask: Why didn't you see the benefit of LETS 11 years ago? Had Jean
adopted LETS 11 years ago, the bad times would have been avoided. And
his maker's going to hold him responsible for the fact that there were
more children existing in poverty when he was through than when he got
started, the true indictment of political justice. There aren't many
political leaders who can boast having reduced child poverty and those
who have are usually portrayed as "mad dogs" in the news.
     I think it's a shame to spend time on such discussions but if not
dealt with decisively once in a while, they do tend to dominate
discussion. I always play by the rules. Set limits on volume which I
will stick to or get back to the topic which you should stick to.

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