From: nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos)
Subject: Re: Why Peter can't count (or, posting email for fun and profit) (long)
Organization: USC  Department of Computer Science
Date: 17 Nov 92 18:44:21 GMT

In <1992Nov06.231043.147510@watson.ibm.com> margoli@watson.ibm.com (Larry Margolis) writes:

>Background:  I emailed Peter a copy of Chris' article that wondered if
>Peter had seen the Hanson followup.  He replied, then I replied, and
>this is Peter's response to that. 

And Adrienne pretended to be mystified as to why I was e-mailing Larry.


>Hints for the terminally clueless:
>Lines starting with:    Were written by:
>+> > > >                Chris Lyman (posted)
>+> >                    Peter Nyikos (mailed)
>+>                      Larry Margolis (mailed)
>+                       Peter Nyikos (mailed)
>                        Larry Margolis (this post)
>This does not apply to what Peter quoted between underscores; those are
>labeled explicitly.  Now, on to the fun!

>+> Well, I think the majority of the group thinks you're being dishonest
>+> (not to mention sleazy) for not apologizing to Adrienne for the
>+> libelous allegations you made.
>+
>+Leaving aside the incorrect characterization of what I "made" [I don't
>+expect you to believe me, but please at least hear me out]

>+> The reason I mailed you the thread
>+> was so that you'd have the opportunity to act responsibly in case you
>+> really did miss all the posts pointing out your stupidity.
>+
>+I missed some of the ones you sent me.  But I still don't see anything
>+that "points out my stupidity", as you so indelicately put it.  The closest
>+thing I can see is from Adrienne's 27 Oct 1992 posting:
>+                _____________________________
>+
>+Yeah, and heap-big-math-professor that you are, you can't count, either.
>+The number of arrows for a quote is one MORE that the number of arrows
>+to the correct attribution, dimwit.  Take a good look, above.  It says
>+"(NO arrow) Nyikos says:
>+> (note arrow)  Something incredibly stupid."
>+
>+The one arrow quote matches to the no arrow attribution line.
>+
>+Therefore, 5-arrow "Adrienne says" does NOT line up with a 5-arrow quote.
>+                _______________________________
>+
>[Back to Peter's note]
>+
>+The bizarre thing about this is that it AGREES with what I said in the
>+post I am being flamed for:
>+
>No, the bizarre thing is that you *still* don't get it.  What Adrienne
>said agrees with what you said, and yet you still got the wrong answer.

Very cute.  He does not tell me what the right "answer" is.  Nor does he
ask Adrienne to apologize for calling me a dimwit for supposedly not
knowing what I had given ample evidence of knowing:

>+                        ___________________________
>+
>+Note that there are exactly as many >>>> up there in the reference as
>+there are in the part quoted.  That is as it should be, because the
>+part quoted is from a FOLLOW-UP by Don Beaver to a post of yours.
>+It's always the case (don't ask me why; after seven years on the net,
>+you are in a much better position to know why) that there is one MORE
>+>  pointing to things in the text than there is pointing to the
>+reference from which that text came from.
>+
>+Of course, your post had >>> where now there is >>>>, and my post where
>+my alleged mis-attribution took place has >> in the same places, but
>+again, all is as it should be.
>+                _____________________________________-
>+
>[Back to Peter's note]
>+
>+And in Adrienne's post, which follows up to the one from which the above
>+is taken, there is now >>>>>, exactly as Adrienne says, and *yet again* exactly
>+as it should be.

>+Now, where do we disagree?  We disagree in that Adrienne said I was
>+attributing something to her which was said by Don Beaver, and this
>+is not the case at all.  I think I saved all of her post in my reply,

>Yes it is the case.  Recall above where Adrienne pointed out
>   The number of arrows for a quote is one MORE that the number of arrows
>   to the correct attribution, dimwit.
>You said that you agreed with that.

It would be more correct to say that she agreed with me, but deleted 
the thing she agreed with to make it look like she was disagreeing with
me.


>Hopefully, this is starting to sink in.  Should you still have problems,
>try looking at a few other posts.  Note that the number of '>' before
>the attribution line (the line saying "In article <message_id> someone writes:")
>is always one less than that number of '>' before the text written by that
>person in the referenced article.  Now, go back to the original article
>you saved.  Count the number of '>' before the paragraph starting with
>"After sex,".  Next, find the attribution line with one *less* '>' before
>it.  Note who wrote those words.

Larry e-mailed me a copy of the post to which I am following up, and
my e-mail reply to him says it all:

***************************************************

Very funny, Larry.  You keep telling me what I already know, what I have
already given you ample evidence of knowing, and you say I still don't
get it.

You also don't notice that I never explicitly accused Adrienne of
forgery.  Why do you think I put ?!?!?!?!? in the title?

You also don't explicitly tell me that it is WRONG to omit removing
an attribution at the beginning of an article if one deletes
everything from that particular post.

Why, even Chris Lyman did not complain when I did this, in spades.
I'll show you a copy of the post below.

The reason I haven't been doing it, by the way, is that things get
so mixed up in the table of contents, it is hard to see who is following
up to who, and if the number of >>>'s is one more than the one in the
preceding row, that's a very helpful clue.

Besides, do people really take that much care to check back at the
attributions to make sure they haven't deleted everything from the
earliest of the posts?  Should they?

I'm beginning to feel like the accused in Kafka's _The Castle_.
Nobody wants to tell me what my REAL mistake was.

Here's the post.


Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Re: The Mendacity of Gordon Storga
Distribution: world

In <1992Oct19.194402.2086@pwcs.stpaul.gov> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:

>nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>> chrisl@stpaul.gov (Chris A Lyman) writes:
>>> nyikos@math.scarolina.edu (Peter Nyikos) writes:
>>>> gordons@coopsol.com (Gordon Storga) writes:

I have deleted almost everything.  Chris Lyman has noticed that I will
go to great lengths to document the mendacity of Gordon Storga and 
M. Price and wants me to waste a couple of hours posting hundreds of
lines demonstrating the mendacity of Chris Lyman.  Sorry, Chris, it 
won't work.  I've saved your post in case you make some serious charges
against me that I think have a chance of being believed by anyone but 
a clueless newbie, but since you are such a nonentity on talk.abortion
I don't think that will ever happen.

Like Tweedledum, aka Larry Margolis, you have yet to demonstrate a
capacity for thinking deep original thoughts on abortion, or even 
for finding primary sources that we can all benefit from.  Sources
like the autopsy of Becky Bell and the Final Report of the State Board
of Medical Examiners on Ismail Elguindi, to name one still on the
boards and one which I plan to post tomorrow.  Or the South Carolina
State Law on Incest Abortions, also on the boards under the title
COERCED ABORTION MAY BE LEGAL IN SOME INCEST CASES. 

 All I see from
you and Margolis are stats from the Pro-Abortion Alan Guttmacher
Institute, or tertiary or quaternary or even further-removed sources
which could go back to the Alan Guttmacher institute for all the
documentation Larry bothered to provide.

If you want me to take you seriously, Chris, you need to start doing
some homework.  No, not the kind I assign my students.  I mean the
word "homework" figuratively, and I think you know what I mean, although
you may want to pull a Larry Margolis on me and start joking about 
me being a prof, just like you do below:

>If this math thing doesn't work out, Petey honey, you might consider writing
>for "Married, With Children."  You're a very funny guy, in a shlocky sort of
>way.

I saw only one and a half episodes of that stupid show, and considered
it wasted time.  It's the sort of thing you could easily write for, though.
Whether that would be an improvement on the tripe I saw, I don't know.
I'd think almost anything would be an improvement, but you might prove
me wrong, as usual. :-)

Peter Nyikos

PS  You should really read Andrea's post on sexual harassment.  You
obviously have a lot to learn about it.  
Newsgroups: talk.abortion