From: emarsh@hernes-sun.Eng.Sun.COM (Eric Marsh)
Newsgroups: talk.abortion
Subject: Is talk.abortion an NCSU psychology class project?
Date: 30 Sep 92 17:53:34 GMT
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mt. View, Ca.
NNTP-Posting-Host: hernes-sun

For some time now I've had a suspicion that several of the talk.abortion
posters from NSCU are not really people, but made up personalities. This
idea first occured to me when an NSCU student, Bekki, said that she had
looked around her school for David Rasmussen, and didn't seem to be able
find a student by that name. My suspicions about "David Rasmussen" became
stronger when a supposed fellow student wrote the following post:

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>From exodus!newstop!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!taco!news Fri Mar 22 09:40:44 PST 1991
>Article 26444 of talk.abortion:
>Path: exodus!newstop!sun-barr!olivea!samsung!uakari.primate.wisc.edu!sdd.hp.com!spool.mu.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!lll-winken!taco!news
>>From: boomer@csl.ncsu.edu (Boomer)
>Newsgroups: talk.abortion,alt.flame,talk.bizarre
>Subject: Rasmussen
>Keywords: talk to yourself, pace around, slap the keyboard, take a bath
>Message-ID: <1991Mar21.221411.12761@ncsu.edu>
>Date: 21 Mar 91 10:55:42 GMT
>Sender: news@ncsu.edu (USENET News System)
>Reply-To: boomer@csl.UUCP (Boomer)
>Followup-To: alt.flame,talk.bizarre
>Distribution: usa
>Organization: Normal Fuckers Who Are Fed Up With Rasmussen and His Crap
>Lines: 46
>Xref: exodus talk.abortion:26444 alt.flame:14127 talk.bizarre:27601

>I think that Dave J. Rasmussen is one strange mother. I know him cuz he 
>comes into this lab where I work, and spends the whole fucking day posting to 
>t.a. What really pisses me off is the strange way he acts when he's here. 
>He talks to himself ALL the time and pretty loud, so that everybody can hear. 
>It's like a running joke in the lab and everyone thinks he's strange as shit. 
>Even stranger than that, he'll get up from his chair and start PACING around 
>the room; he'll walk around the room in a really agitated manner, walk up
>to some walls, turn around, sit back down again, get back up again, start
>talking to himself while he's pacing around, make creepy gasping noises......
>IT'S DRIVING ME UP THE FUCKING WALL!!! Then there are the times when he gets
>really agitated at something he's read on talk.abortion. He'll start 
>slapping down on the space bar REALLY HARD when he sees posts he don't like.
>(dave, you can hit the 'n' key softly instead and help save my sanity.) 
>>From what I've been able to gather, the posts from Russell Turpin seem to 
>agitate him the most. (Yes dave, I am all-knowing and all-powerful in this 
>regard...I'm able to figure out everything that you're doing...doesn't that 
>scare you?) 

>I want to ask him to stop doing this crap, but he really scares the shit out 
>of me. The guy looks like he hasn't bathed in a week, and really -- would you 
>want to talk to someone so fucked up? There aren't many things I'm truly
>afraid of, but he's one of them. Anyways, dave if you're reading this -- CUT 
>THIS CRAP OUT OR I'M GONNA GET YOU IN A BAD WAY. I know some things about you
>that if I posted them, you would be get REALLY embarrassed. SO STOP THIS SHIT, 
>or get the fuck out of the lab so I can work in peace. I know that you have an 
>account on cscraz, so why don't you use that and leave us normal people alone, 
>people who are trying to get some work done instead of masturbating on the
>net all goddamn day long like you. 

>Oh yeah, one more thing. I think the people who started this boycott of DR 
>are a bunch of weenies. Granted, he's made some really fucked-up remarks but 
>I don't think that's any reason to boycott the boy. And besides, if his logic 
>is so fucked-up then you guys (and gals) should have a field day screwing
>him over. Instead, ya chicken out; you're all a bunch of sniveling, candy-ass 
>primadonnas. I think that some of ya are just a little bit afraid that ya 
>might be proven wrong on some points. So you wind up hiding behind the 
>protection of a boycott; the blessings of a "group" makes it easier for ya to 
>justify blowing him off. Fuck all of you twattle-fleas. The boycott has not
>worked; dave continues to post gobs of crap and he's not going to stop posting
>cuz of your fucked-up attitudes. 

>Add my (fictitious) name to the group of people opposing the boycott. 
>I'd enjoy seeing this fucker's logic get ripped to pieces by everyone
>on the net.
 
>Boomer
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While this "Boomer" could be for real, such a post could also be used
to throw anyone off the scent of "David Rasmussen"'s true nature.

It is also noteworthy that "David Rasmussen" spent more time posting
on talk.abortion than one would reasonably expect a student to be able
to afford to do.

I've noticed a strong simularity between the postings of "Doug Holtsinger"
and "David Rasmussen" as well. The spelling is much better, but many of
the arguments put forth by "Holtsinger", as well as his biases are the
same.

Finally, we have "Peter Nyikos", as supposed professor who has published
dozens of papers. The probem is, "Peter Nyikos" doesn't seem to be able
to debate the abortion issue any better than a first year student. I have
not seen anywhere in the arguments of "Peter Nyikos" the logic that one
would expect from a respected mathamatics professor.

What do these three have in common? Well, they all post from NCSU.
If they are indeed fictional charactors, then what would be the motivation
behind them? While I can't say for sure, I can throw out a couple of ideas;
they could be some sort of a psychology class project, or they could be
just a group of students who enjoy baiting talk.abortion participants.

This is just a thought that has been percolating in the back of my mind
for a while. I'd be interested in the thoughts of others on this subject.

Eric
Xref: sparky talk.abortion:39683 alt.abortion.inequity:4168 alt.birthright:492