HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: The Battleship Maine, Lusitania  (Was: Re: Rape After Rape ...)
Date: 29 Dec 1992 18:29 PST
Organization: TRIUMF: Tri-University Meson Facility
Distribution: world
NNTP-Posting-Host: reg.triumf.ca
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

mfriedma@uucp (Michael Friedman) writes...
>In article <BzGL99.IHz@news.cso.uiuc.edu> 
bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman) writes:
> 
>>Or again, how about the Spanish-American war of 1898? At that time
>>one of our battleships, the Maine, blew up and sank while docked
>>in the harbor at Havana, Cuba. The newspapers sounded the alarm.
>>The Cubans had attacked our ship! "Remember the Maine!" became
>>our battle cry and we went to war. Later, of course, it turned
>>out that we had sunk our own ship so as to stir up the populace
>>and give us an excuse to once more go to war.
> 
>Mr. Redman, this is a lie.  I challenge you to provide supporting
>documentation.
> 

The U.S. Navy officially admitted only in 1976 that the battleship Maine
was destroyed by a boiler explosion, not enemy action.  (The "father of
the U.S. Nuclear Navy", Hyman G. Rickover, wrote a monograph on "How the
Battleship Maine was Destroyed" -- if memory serves, it is referenced in
the 1982 biography of Rickover by Norman Polmar and Thomas Allen.)  The
Cubans made every effort to placate the U.S. government to show their
good faith, but to no avail, because Washington wanted to use the
incident as a pretext for war.   Unless there is evidence otherwise,
I would be inclined to believe that the boiler explosion -- they were
common enough in the nineteenth century -- was an accident.
But irrespective of this, the essence of Mr. Redman's charge remains true --
that a known lie was deliberately promulgated as a pretext for war.

As an analogous case, it appears that a strong argument can be made that the
British government, while not actually *arranging* the sinking of the
Lusitania in 1915, certainly did all it could to *expedite* it by German
U-boats as a pretext to draw the U.S. into WWI against Germany.  (This is
discussed in Christopher Hitchens's 1990 book "Blood, Class, and Nostalgia:
Anglo-American Ironies" -- Hitchens draws upon an investigative account
written by a British naval officer circa 1980.)  Washington connived
in this pretext by denying that the Lusitania was carrying armaments --
something that I believe was officially admitted only recently.

Ron Balden

Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.misc,sci.space.shuttle,sci.space,sci.astro
From: dona@bilver.uucp (Don Allen)
Subject: Re: "Moonraker" -- fact or fiction?
Organization: W. J. Vermillion - Winter Park, FL
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 02:26:44 GMT

In article <1992Dec29.153020.14391@cas.org> jac54@cas.org () writes:
>In article <1hjhhgINN7q0@news.cerf.net> eidetics@nic.cerf.net (Eidetics Int'l) writes:
>>
>>   In writing his stories, Ian Fleming was drawing upon his own
>>secret weapon.  That weapon was knowledge.  Fleming had been a
>>high-ranking officer of Britain's crack Intelligence agency
>>called MI-5.
>
>	This is, in fact, nonsense.  Flemings contribution to
>	intelligence was to act as a paper-pusher for Stephensons'
>	BSC in New York.  He had no training in, and never was, an
>	intelligence officer of any form.  He was, by all accounts,
>	an irritating little intel.-groupie.
>
>	The rest of this post is nonsense that even Munchhausen would
>	be ashamed to come up with.
>
>	Alec Chambers

Well said :-)
 
Of course this is nonsense..in fact, these Beter letters are the purest
baloney you'll ever come across..right up there with "Secret ET underground
bases" (show me the evidence) and other such dreck..
 
It _is_ good for a chuckle or too so I guess we should give the Eidetics
people a hand for entertainment. :}

Don


-- 
<*> Don Allen <*>             1:363/81.1 - Fidonet #1 - Homebody BBS
dona@bilver.uucp - Internet   1:363/29.8 - Fidonet #2 - Gourmet Delight
88:4205/1.1  - MUFON Network  1:3607/20.2  -- Odyssey - Alabama UFO Net
NSA grep food: Aviary, Ed Dames, Los Alamos - Majestic - Jason - RIIA - UN
From: ccdarg@dct.ac.uk (Alan Greig)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Paul
Date: 22 Dec 92 11:42:50 GMT
Organization: Dundee Institute of Technology

In article <BzMrAn.JC5@boi.hp.com>, kde@boi.hp.com (Keith Emmen) writes:
>> 	Does anyone here really believe Paul is dead?
>> 
> Paul who?

I buried Paul or Cranberry sauce? You decide.

Yesterday,
Airport Customs took my drugs away.
Ten thousand pounds a lot of fine to pay
But I earn ten times
As much a day...

[Heard at the Edinburgh festival once upon a time]

-- 
Alan Greig                            Janet: Alan@UK.AC.DUNDEE-TECH
Dundee Institute of Technology	   Internet: Alan@DCT.AC.UK
Tel: (0382) 308810                 Int: +44 382 308810
              -- There is only one true conspiracy --
From: v140pxgt@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Bohemian Grove (was: Re: Bohemian Party???)
Date: 22 Dec 92 05:12:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41

In article <21DEC199213240083@reg.triumf.ca>, orwell@reg.triumf.ca (BALDEN, RON) writes...
>Well, I myself wasn't claiming anything *especially* sinister about Bohemian
>Grove; it's no more sinister than other coordination mechanisms (e.g. the

Okay, that's fine. It's not worth flaming each other over.

>Business Roundtable) of the ruling elite of the United States. It just happens
>to be one of the places where *some* of "the elite meet to eat", as it were.  
>(Please, no uninformed idiocies complaining about the phrase "ruling elite". 
>It's not ten people meeting in a conference room.  Start with C. Wright Mill's
>"The Power Elite" (1956) and move on to Domhoff and colleagues.) 
> 
>Other references (I haven't read these myself) on Bohemian Grove I found in
>secondary sources: 
> 
>The book I referred to by G. William Domhoff is
>"The Bohemian Grove and Other Retreats: A Study of Ruling Class
>Consciousness", 1974, Harper and Row.  
> 
>An essay of Domhoff's, "Politics among the Redwoods",
>The Progressive (magazine), January 1981, pp. 32-36
> 
>Rick Clogher, "Weaving Spiders Come Not Here", Mother Jones,
>August  1981.  (The title is from some kind of motto of the
>Bohemian Club.)  I found this reference in "The Big Boys"

"weaving spiders come not here" as I have said previously, is the way the club
phrases its mainly-honored-in-the-breach rule against doing business on club 
grounds.

>by Nader and Taylor (1986) (in the profile of Thomas Jones, CEO of Northrop
>-- not T.K. Jones, he is someone else).
> 
>Ron Balden 
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:13430 talk.politics.misc:65385
From: titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com (Eric Titmas)
Subject: Re: Weinberger's Pardon
Organization: SPS
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 23:07:29 GMT

In article <1992Dec31.190521.26189@unet.net.com>, steven@guava.net.com (Steve Nelson) writes:

|> >Next, much of the alleged lying was not done under oath. This is the
|> >first time (I believe) that anyone has tried to prosecute non oath
|> >testimony before Congress. Next, much of the alleged lying was
|> >omission, not commission (i.e. things were left out).
|> >Finally, Walsh is as guilty of it as Weinberger - in his statements
|> >about where he lives and reimbursements thereof.
|> >
|> 
|> Again, please provide the above requested information to support your
|> allegations concerning Lawrence Walsh.

Elliot Abram's recent book describes the abuses of Mr. Walsh as a prosecutor.
The Wall St. Journal has carried articles recently about Walsh and his chief
aide's lies about place of residence and improperly received monies.
-- 
Eric Titmas      Motorola ASIC       titmas@chdasic.sps.mot.com               

It is impossible to take in more money than Congress can spend.  - Thomas Sowell
From: v140pxgt@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu (Daniel B Case)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Pan Am 103-Four years after
Date: 21 Dec 92 17:37:00 GMT
Organization: University at Buffalo
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41


	Last night CBS's 60 Minutes ran a report about the allegations that the
CIA knew about the bomb being put on Pan Am flight 103 four years ago today, and
did nothing to stop it, meaning that the deaths of 270 people, including a 
friend of mine, could have been averted. The story goes that the CIA was running
a drug courier operation and the terrorists knew about it and put the bomb on 
the plane to a) kill some CIA people who were planning a raid to free US 
hostages in Lebanon, and b) embarass the CIA by the hoped-for revelation of the 
drug operation.

	Well, I think 60 Minutes got the right conclusion, which is, to put it
simply: Bullshit. As numerous articles have documented, Pan Am's security at
Frankfurt was a joke-so much so that its in-house security firm, Alert 
Management, was known around Pan Am as Inert Management. It doesn't matter too
much whether the story about the CIA is true or not-it might well be for all I
know, and it's not surprising given the CIA's history. But one story I read said
that although the CIA knew about it, they fully expected Pan Am's security to
catch it. That it didn't is a big part of the reason Pan Am is out of business
today-as another one of my friends when I was at Syracuse, Lucas Lowenstein,
whose older brother Alex was killed in the bombing, accurately prophesied.

	I posted this here because somebody will invariably pick up on this 
given the anniversary and the plane crash reported this morning. All I can say
is: It's been four years. Can't you let those people rest in peace? Can 
Lockerbie and Syracuse be left alone?

	And also, if anybody sees Ahmed Jibril, make him die slowly. I don't 
care what he says-he bears a major share of the responsibility for this. It was
reported that he threw a party the night of the bombing. While we were crying,
he was drinking. Or if you can't make him die slowly, at least tell him there 
are people out there who hate him enough to want to give him the torture of a 
thousand cuts-in a warmwater bath.

	Any flames or other responses should bear in mind that my access to the
net will be somewhat limited for the next few weeks. I will try to keep up but
I can't guarantee it. So unless you've got something serious to say, don't waste
bandwidth (A rule which should always apply anyway, but, alas, never does).

							Dan Case
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.fan.dale.bass
From: dcriswel@oracle.uucp (David Criswell)
Subject: Re: Dale Bass on The Good, the Bad, and The Bogus
Organization: Oracle Corporation, Redwood Shores CA
Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 22:46:35 GMT
X-Disclaimer: This message was written by an unauthenticated user
              at Oracle Corporation.  The opinions expressed are those
              of the user and not necessarily those of Oracle.

In article <1992Dec26.021228.3457@nuscc.nus.sg> matmcinn@nuscc.nus.sg (Brett McInnes) writes:
>Hmm, so alt.conspiracy really exists.

No it doesn't. But don't tell anyone.
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:13569 alt.activism:19931 talk.politics.misc:65836 pa.general:452 phl.misc:330
From: patth@panix.com (Patt Bromberger)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: Weinberger's Pardon
Summary: Why a Pardon?
Date: 29 Dec 92 15:40:59 GMT
Followup-To: alt.conspiracy
Organization: PANIX Public Access Unix & Internet, NYC

In article <1992Dec28.215115.2267@ccsvax.sfasu.edu> f_gautjw@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:
>In article <BzzH4s.M60@well.sf.ca.us>, sarfatti@well.sf.ca.us (Jack Sarfatti) writes:
>> 
>> Please circulate this to other relevant usenet conferences thankyou.
>> 
>> Letters Editor
>> San Francisco Chronicle
>> 
>> I applaud President Bush's pardon of Cap Weinberger and the others.  It is
>> not a question that these patriots are "above the law" as President Clinton
>> fears. The real issue is justice and the balance of power between the
>> Congress and the Executive. Nazi Germany made racial laws, were they just?
>> The Boland ammendment is such an unjust law that cripples the Presidency.
>> 
>[deleted]
>
>It is bad enough but certainly not unexpected that Bush issued these
>pardons.  But it is truly pathetic that he praises criminal activity
>as patriotic.  That he would issue the pardons on Christmas eve to
>minimize public awareness of his action speaks volumes about the
>character of the man.
>
	Why did Bush feel a pardon was necessary if these
	"patriots" did nothing wrong?

Reposted:
From: weverka@csn.org (Robert T. Weverka)
Newsgroups: alt.politics.usa.constitution,alt.society.civil-liberty
Subject: Re: Proposed ban on Presidential pardon for own appointees
Date: 29 Dec 92 10:16:46 GMT
Organization: University of Colorado, Boulder

An alternate might be to ban blanket pardons of the unconvicted.
Let them go through the judicial process, so that we know what
they are guilty ( and incocent) of before a pardon is allowed.

That way
* we know when they have been found innocent.
* we know what exactly the president is pardoning them for when they
  are found guilty (we know what the president finds pardonable)
* we don't have the kind of blanket pardons that release the criminal
  from anything he might have done (including murder) (read Nixons pardon).

-Ted


-- 
Patricia Ann Bromberger                            patth@panix.com
P.O.Box 273 - Island Station
New York, NY 10044 USA
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.food
From: bill@cognet.ucla.edu (William M. Eldridge)
Subject: Re: Beef
Organization: UCLA Cognitive Science Research Program
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 01:35:03 GMT

Simple solution: don't eat meat.  The world will be better
off, and you in particular will be too.
-- 
{{{{ bill eldridge           310-206-3960                x                }}}}
{{{{ bill@cognet.ucla.edu    310-206-3987 fax           xxx              }}}}
{{{{ ~more, ~better, ~faster [80's motto]                x              }}}}
{{{{ ~hot, ~toxic, and ~shallow [90's motto]                              }}}}
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.alien.visitors
From: jenk@microsoft.com (Jen Kilmer)
Subject: Re: _Jesus: A Life_ by A.N. Wilson
Date: 04 Jan 93 03:50:14 GMT
Organization: Microsoft Corporation

In article <adams.726020083@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>muttiah@thistle.ecn.purdue.edu (Ranjan S Muttiah) writes:
>
>>In article <adams.725991192@spssig> adams@spss.com (Steve Adams) writes:
>>>The big question is who wrote them.  If you assign the traditional
>>>authorship, late dates are tough, because of the advanced age of the
>>>authors.  If you are willing to reject traditional authorship, then 
>>>the dates open up quite a bit.
>>
>>I guess the big question could be answered by considering whether there was
>>a sequence in which the books appeared or whether they were written in 
>>different geo. locations by different authors.  Far more probable that Mark 
>>came first and then interpolations and additions followed.
>
>There are a couple of main theories, and they place Mark first, with
>Matthew and Luke using Mark, and some common sayings source, or Mark first,
>with Matthew & Luke constructed without Mark, but some other common source
>that Mark too may have used.

Note also that textual analysis confirms that Luke and Acts were written
by the same author, and the author indicates at the beginning of Acts
that Luke was written first.

A note on non-traditional authors: as I understand it, it wasn't uncommon 
for a student to record the "master's" teachings. IE Plato's writings
speak of Socrates (whose existence is questioned by some scholars) and
Aristotle's speak of Plato.  "Gospel of Matthew" might have been the
"Gospel as was taught by Matthew"...ie "Gospel of Matthew".

-jen

Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:13592 talk.politics.misc:65929 sci.space.shuttle:3070 sci.space:18541 sci.astro:13571
From: tzs@stein.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,talk.politics.misc,sci.space.shuttle,sci.space,sci.astro
Subject: Re: "Moonraker" -- fact or fiction?
Date: 1 Jan 93 01:58:01 GMT
Article-I.D.: shelley.1i08f9INNjr9
Distribution: world
Organization: University of Washington School of Law, Class of '95
NNTP-Posting-Host: stein.u.washington.edu

>story readable.  For that reason Fleming completed a new James
>Bond novel only about once a year.  If it had all been
>imagination, as many people believe, he would have been capable
>of producing a new book every few months, making himself far
>richer.

Hmmm...Zahn's "Star Wars" novels are coming out once a year.  Does this
mean that they are not fiction?  And Asimov spent a lot of time between
the original Foundation trilogy and the last few novels.  Hmmm...

Dr. Beter is an idiot.

--Tim Smith
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
From: cottle@prism1 (Rick Cottle)
Subject: Re: _Jesus: A Life_ by A.N. Wilson
Organization: SPS
Date: Thu, 31 Dec 1992 18:10:09 GMT

In article <63119@mimsy.umd.edu> mangoe@cs.umd.edu (Charley Wingate)  
writes:
> Albert Schweitzer had these books pegged years before they were written.
> There is no historical Jesus-- at least, there is no Jesus which a  
historian
> can reconstruct.  Only the Jesus of religion has been left to us.
> -- 
> C. Wingate        + "The peace of God, it is no peace,
>                   +    but strife closed in the sod.
> mangoe@cs.umd.edu +  Yet, brothers, pray for but one thing:
> tove!mangoe       +    the marv'lous peace of God."

I don't follow.  Are you saying that there was no Jesus, or that
Jesus Is Not whom religion says He is, or that Jesus IS whom
religion says He is?

R. Cottle
cottle@prism.sps.mot.com
From: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
Subject: Re: A Letter to the Editor
Date: 23 Dec 92 16:19:53 GMT
Reply-To: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk (Jack Campin)
Organization: COMANDOS Project, Glesga Yoonie

gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal) wrote:
> f_gautjw@ccsvax.sfasu.edu writes:
>: But Bhutros Bhutros is only a puppet.  Who really swings the hammer?
>: Is the US going down the vortex of internationalism or are the US/British
>: oligarchy using the UN to recolonize the third world?  Or both?  What
>: gives?

Boutros Boutros Ghali is from the Anglophile elite of Egypt.  I would
recommend a couple of books by and about his suicidal-depressive-novelist
kid brother Waguih Ghali for an insight into his background: Waguih's novel
"Beer in the Snooker Club" (published by Serpent's Tail) and Diana Athill's
"After a Funeral" (first published in the UK and once available in
paperback there; reprinted in the US by Ticknor & Fields in 1986).  Prepare
for a few hundred pages of unremitting spleen and misery.  I doubt whether
Boutros Boutros is very happy that these books are in circulation.


> On a related tack, is this Panic character in Yugoslavia who is being pushed
> as the 'western businessman' trying to make President the same Colonel Panic
> who was mentioned in reports of the original split a long time ago?  Did he
> dump his Corps and pretend to be a civilian?  I wonder if he's a US puppet
> in the making?

He's an American millionaire with dual US-Serbian citizenship and supposed
to be the richest Serb alive.  More an organ-grinder than a monkey, I'd think.

-- 
--  Jack Campin    room G092, Computing Science Department, Glasgow University,
17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8RZ, Scotland   TEL: 041 339 8855 x6854 (work)
INTERNET: jack@dcs.glasgow.ac.uk or via nsfnet-relay.ac.uk    FAX: 041 330 4913
BANG!net: via mcsun and uknet     BITNET: via UKACRL    UUCP: jack@glasgow.uucp
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy
From: maz@Turing.ORG (Michael A. Zang)
Subject: Re: Where is John Dinardo?
Organization: The Turing Project, Public Access Internet Host
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 11:41:22 GMT


Have you tried jad@turing.org? That should be his current mail address.
Though all of us here at Turing.org will be moving soon. Due to some
inflamatory talk on the christian channel on IRC by our systems administrator
Turing.org's link is being jerked. One more example of the limited nature
of the first ammendment. The "christians" wrote a letter to our Sysadm's
bosses requesting that our machine be jerked and they wasted no time in 
slamming us. Turing.org will be going down sometime around the first of the
year. We hope the spitefull powers that be here will let us stay up that long.

Silenced we will not be though, Turing.org may be in it's death throws but
soon our users should have another public access machine to take it's place.
The new machine will also be receiving a feed from UVa, so of course freedom
of speech is not guaranteed.

Later

My opinions of course do not reflect those of UVa in any way :)
-- 
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Michael A. Zang                              "And the kids they dance and   -
- Computer Operations ITC                       shake their bones while the   -
- The University of Virginia                    politician's throwing stones, -
Xref: sparky alt.conspiracy:13600 alt.atheism:24734 talk.religion.misc:24902
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.atheism,talk.religion.misc
Subject: Re: _Jesus: A Life_ by A.N. Wilson
From: adams@spss.com (Steve Adams)
Date: Fri, 1 Jan 1993 18:45:27 GMT
Organization: SPSS Inc.

tp0x+@cs.cmu.edu (Thomas Price) writes:

>>Some quotes from Larry Stammer, ``Not the Stuff of Sermons'', Los
>>Angeles Times Book Review, Sunday, December 20, 1992, pp. 2,4. The
>>article is a review of the book _Jesus: A Life_ by A.N. Wilson (W.W.
>>Norton: $22.95; 256 pp.).
>>
>>   "+ The resurrection is a `whopping lie.' The Risen Christ, as
>>      opposed to the historical Jesus, is `an invention of Paul's
>>      religious genius.'
>>
>
>I find this the most interesting. How does Paul's genius account for the 
>resurrection stories in the gospels? Are they supposed to have been
>added much later?

Depending on datings, either all, or nearly all, of Paul's letters were
written BEFORE the Gospels.  The earliest Gospel, Mark, has no post 
resurection appearences of Jesus in the best early manuscripts.  The tomb
is empty, and 'a young man in a white robe' told the women that Christ was
risen.

I'll give the extremes of the dates for the Gospels, without going into the
long discussion...basically, earlier dates are 'conservative' scholarship,
later ones, 'liberal' scholarship...

Gospel/Acts dates:

    Mark.................50-70AD
    Matthew..............55-75AD
    Luke.................59-75AD
    John.................53-85AD
    Acts.................63-70AD*

* Could be much later than 70, and no earlier than 'Luke'

Looking at the evidence, the earliest solid claims for Mark are in the 
late 50's or early 60's.  By the early 60's, the following letters by 
Paul had likely been written (dates apromixmate):

   I Thessalonians.......51AD
   II Thessalonians......52AD
   Galatians.............53AD
   I & II Corinthians....55AD
   Romans................57AD
   Colossians............60AD
   Ephesians.............60AD
   Philipians............61AD

Rest of NT Books for reference:

   James.................63AD%
   I Timothy.............63AD*
   Titus.................63AD*
   I & II Peter..........65-68AD
   II Timothy............66AD*
   Hebrews...............65-70AD+
   I, II & III John......85-95AD
   Revelation............95AD

% Textual evidence suggests possible dating before 50AD
* Paul's authorship challenged
+ Author unknown (could be Barnabus, Apollos, or someone else)

In any eveny, all of the letters agreed upon as authentic Paul, are written
prior to the 'best' datings for the Gospel of Mark.  So the resurection
stories in the Gospels are later than Paul...whatever that means.

 -Steve
--
  The opinions expressed above are those of the author and not SPSS, Inc.
                         -------------------
   adams@spss.com                                  Phone: (312) 329-3522
   Steve Adams        "Space-age cybernomad"       Fax:   (312) 329-3558
Newsgroups: alt.conspiracy,alt.angst