The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ The Hacker's Encyclopedia 1998 / hackers_encyclopedia.iso / zines / n_z / purps09.txt < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 2003-06-11 | 23.6 KB | 524 lines

CC:. Subj:.PURPS 9 ================================================================ THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE VOL 1, 9 ================================================================ "Kenyon's Very Own Non Alien Run REPLIES TO: VAX004::PURPS Electronic Magazine" "purps%vax004.decnet@vax001.kenyon.edu" * PPPPPP U U RRRRRR PPPPPP SSSSSS *** P P U U R R P P S ***** P P U U R R P P S ******* PPPPPP U U RRRRRR PPPPPP SSSSS ********* P U U R R P S *********** P U U R RR P S ***** P UUUUU R R P SSSSSS ***** ***** ***** ***** * **** * *** *** *** **** * ***** ************************************ **************************************** ************************************ **** ***** ***** *** ***** *** * ***** * ***** ***** ***** ***** ***** *********** ********* ******* ***** *** * ________________________________________________________________ SOMETHING WHICH MIGHT, IN THE CORRECT FRAME OF MIND, LOOK SORT OF LIKE A TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: The Pope Rants About New Members and the Upcoming "Golden 11th" issue of Purps! News: Attacks on the Freedom to Learn, The Dangers of Wham! and Pizza, Man Bites Dog, More! OTISian Rants: The Last Bnqut of the God/esse/s instalment before Christmas!, The Existence of Santa Claus, PROVED! Other Rants: An Erisian Rant About Daemons!, Scott Simpson gets the Last Word!, A Brief Spell to Enhance Your Life! ---------------------------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION (Never Pet a Burning Dog) Welcome to the Purple Thunderbolt of Spode, the internet's only non-alien run magazine, and a tome almost solely to the nifty, strange and bizarre things of this and other worlds. As you can see from the header, we are just one magazine away from the coveted double digits. That's right, kids, next magazine we will turn "10". I expect nothing particularly fantastic to happen then, but I will start now by calling for submissions for our "Golden 11th" magazine, which will be a 20ish page long celebration o f Purps. (We're extremely limber here and patting our own back is not beyond us). Anyone who feels compelled to write in and tell us what (s)he thinks of this magazine is more than welcome to do so. I promise to reprint the most interesting letters, and reserve the right to take what you say completely out of context or distort it all out of proportion. (We don't NEED you to write in, mind you. We can forge letters of unadulterated praise from respectful and greatfull readers at the rate of about two a minute. Still it might be nice to know what you really think...) Welcome (an old refrain at this point) to all our new members. There are a few of them this time around, and we've also (sniff!) almost lost one of our company. I say "almost" because, after receiving a mail message saying "Take me OFF Purps", I inadvertently deleted it (Hail Spode) and can't quite remember who it was from, which means that someone who doesn't want it is still getting this magazine. If you are that person, PLEASE send a mail message and accept my most sincere apologies. (It won't be necessary to run over my dog or anything. Really). The changes have prompted me to print once again the official Purps mailing list at the end of this document. For the virgins, welcome, once again, to Purps. You have now left "normal" society and are in a place FAR FAR away. Escape can only be accomplished by clicking your ruby red slippers together and saying "There's no place like home" over and over again until you find yourself back in Kansas, or by sending a message to Purps at the address above saying "Let me OFF". Hopefully, 'though, escape won't be necessary, and you will enjoy the sick, strange, twisted version of reality presented in the attached for many, many issues to come. Finally, there have been some bizarre technical changes on this end. Specifically Vax004, where Purps once proudly resigned, has been made "transparent". This is not, hail OTIS, the same as "invisible" or "vaporized", so we still exist. Accessing the Archives and sending mail be intermittent for a while, though. We apologize for any inconvenience. _______ News ------- PURPS.STUFF-- This is getting to be a predictable plea, but the Purps.ARcHives are growing rapidly. I wish I could let you take them home with you. We have a whole new section, now, solely dedicated to conspiracy theory, and I've added over 50 (GASP!) files since last we talked. So, ONE MORE TIME, here's how you can get at the Net's strangest amalgamation of text files:! KENYON PEOPLE need only to Type @[STEVENSJ]Purps.arh at the $ prompt, and hit "5" for a new file list, after the program has run. You then know the names of LOTS of nifty text files to read, copy, print, etc. INTERNET PEOPLE are somewhat out of luck until I get an anonymous FTP site of my very own. This event will most likely be preceded by bizarre climatic changes, including Hell freezing over. UNTIL THEN: SEND A MAIL MESSAGE TO THE PURPS ACCOUNT (address at the top of this message) asking for a copy of "Purps.essential", the Archive's index file. Then, send another message asking for any particular files. That's the best we can do. Sorry. PURPS is now available via anonymous FTP. FTP on over to quartz.rutgers.edu and much around in the M00se directory. We're at the bottom (where, I have now been told, we BELONG). The bad news for you VAXen is that it's all Unix.Z compressed over there. If you want them as just plain text files, drop a note to the Purps address in the header of this magazine. OTISIAN NEWS [Reply-To: SKEPTIC Discussion Group <SKEPTIC%YORKVM1.BITNET@uga.cc.uga.edu>] [From: Gary Stone <74435.1756%COMPUSERVE.COM@uga.cc.uga.edu>] People For the American Way have just released their annual report on school censorship and creationist agitation: ATTACKS ON THE FREEDOM TO LEARN, 1989-1990 $10.95 ($8.95 members) may be ordered from People for the American Way 2000 M St, N.W. Suite 400 Washington, D.C. 20036 (202) 467-4999 In this year's report they pay particular attention to claims by Far Right Fundamentalist that the K-6 reading series, "IMPRESSIONS",(by Holt Rinehart and Winston, now owned by Harcourt, Brace Jovanovich) has"overtones of witchcraft, mysticism and fantasy" and "persistent themes of rebellion against parents and authority". The series is said to contain stories , poems, and literary excerpts, including pieces from Martin Luther King, Jr., C.S. Lewis, and Laura Ingalls Wilder. Well, once my Liberal knee stopped jerking to the words "Far Right Fundamentalists", and I read some of the fundamentalists charges about New Age and Satanic content in IMPRESSIONS cited in the People For Report, I began to wonder if I shouldn't check this out myself (which I'm going to do by checking with my local elementary school principal): (Quotes from literature distributed by Christian Educators Association International): "The Impressions Series appears to promote New Age and witchcraft religious philosophy. Teachers are instructed to divide the class into small groups and have the students write spells and cast them; read and write chants and chant them; light candles in the classroom.... ...The Impressions series is a breeding ground for the occult, involving ritual activity such as chants, spells, lighting candles in a circle and fortune telling...activity consistent with witchcraft or the Wicca religion. ...On Page 55 of 2d grade teacher anthology, it reads in part, "Where ever there is hunger and sickness it is because the spirits of the dead are unhappy" This thinking is common in the occult... END of QUOTES Unless these quotes are very out of context or just plain wrong (not totally improbable considering their intended purpose -- to arouse the masses to action), I began to wonder whether such California-Style New Age activities (if they are in fact part and parcel of the Impression series, which remains unconfirmed), whether such activities have a legitimate role in K-6 Education. Is K-6 the same "Open Forum of Ideas" that we demand in Universities or even progressive High Schools. Is there any material that even SKEPTICs would consider "inappropriate" for inclusion in K-6 educational programs? To read "Attacks on the Freedom to Learn", one might come away thinking that opposition by "Far Right Fundamentalists" to superstitious New Age influences in K-6, ipso facto, must be considered Censorship. I wonder. OTHER NEWS A couple from Berlin Heights, Ohio, filed a $125,000 lawsuit against a pizza company, claiming a "spoiled, rotten, rancid & moldy" pizza caused the death of their dog Fluffy. Their lawyer said the couple "became violently ill after eating a small quantity of the pizza. Then they became severely distressed in their search for medical assistance and ran over Fluffy in the driveway." ============================================================================ A Concord, California, woman sued the International House of Pancakes restaurant near her home for not participating in IHOP's natinal "Sweet 16" breakfast special. She alleged a "burning in the stomach from hunger" and severe emotional distress, humiliation, and disappointment-- to the tune of $2 billion. =========================================================================== In Pensacola, Florida, a veterinarian was sentenced to 2 years' probation after pleading no contest to charges of animal cruelty. He was accused of biting a dog on the nose. ============================================================================ A former bank manager admitted administering spankings to more than 50 customers of a Pittsburgh bank in the late 1970s as punishment for falling behind on their loan payments. "I never had any trouble with them afterwards," he said. He was later found guilty of misappropriating $88,268 in bank funds. He told the court he was forced to use the $ to make unrecorded loans when 6 of those who were spanked threatened to report his actions to his superiors. ============================================================================ A substitute teacher in Indianapolis rewarded the well-behaved pupils in her 5th grade class by having them line up & spit on the bad ones. [KWALITY Amarican education!] ============================================================================ Gordon Pickrell of Kingston, Tennessee, who was pinned under his wrecked sports car for 6 hours with a broken arm, said the worst part of his ordeal was having to listen to the British group Wham! playing on his tape recorder the whole time. "I never want to hear it again," the teenager told Roane County deputies who pulled him from the overturned car. "I swear I don't." ------------------------------- OTISIAN RANTS ------------------------------- (in which everything worth knowing about absolutely everything will be revealed!) THIS WEEK: THE LAST BNQUT OF THE GOD(ESSE)S BEFORE X-MAS! (More Rantings of Bill, the Guy with One Perfectly Good Arm) "I los it", said Bill as we sat in a corner surouned by empty plastic punch glasses watching Eris and Lotus continue their perpetual neck, "Right after we bombed. I had been kept under ground- prisoner, you see- but after it happened I found my way up. City was a mess. They didn't expect it, I guess. Free city, lot's of prisoners." I had the distinct but weak feeling through my drunken haze that, after several hours of mindless rambling made endurable only by the alcohol, Bill was starting to say something important. I was, however, distinctly enjoying the spectacle before me so I while I was able to focus my attention on Bill, I couldn't quite muster the energy to turn my head. "Ss Frees sity?" I said. "They did it anyway. I remember all these people on the street. Wandering you know. Lots of beggars. A lot were rather spiffy. Really well dressed, wandering in their best clothes in and out of the piles of rubble. "Disasters" he looked at me steadily "have really lousy timing. "I walked down this side alley. Everyone had begun to, you know, look at me a little harder. I think the shock was wearing off. Slowly the krauts were figuring that I was supposed to be a prisoner. The alley seems a good place to be. But there's this woman at the end. Old woman. "She was sorrta picking through the rubble. Looking for something, I guess. She had made this pile of rocks and was adding to it. There was all sorts of stuff in the pile, pieces of a piano, the remains of a couch, what looked like a broken picture frame. She was working real quick and quiet, you know? She looked sort of like a robot, moving through the bricks and the rubble. I turned around and started to walk away but then she stopped me. Caramel?" "You said you didn't sshave any." "Didn't say I had any, I was narrating." "Oh." "You interested?" "Sshure." "Good. 'Carmel?' she says again---" "OH!" I smiled brightly. "Mmmm. I had gotten my hands on some a few days before I was captured, and had used a lot of it to bribe the krauts who were guarding us. I got a lot out of them, that way. Little things, like cigarettes and quiet nights. I reached into the lining and pulled out another piece. It was a little cold, but I handed it to her anyway. And this was the strange thing, it was only then that she stopped working, to take it from me. She shoved it in her mouth, then, all mechanical again, she went back to the ro cks. I watched her for a while, not thinking very clearly, cause I should have been running, but it was fascinating, you know, watching this woman pick up what was left, putting all the scraps into a little neat pile. After a while I think she said thanks. I don't speak German well, but I think that's what she said. Hell she might not even have been asking for caramel." I laughed. "Mmmm." He said again "It was a few minutes after that the krauts came. I bolted for it, but one took out his luger and put a hole in this arm. The pain struck me so much I almost stopped moving. Then he grabbed me. Twisted the wounded arm around right back and up to the neck. His partner stared at me the whole time with his gun drawn. I swear if I had bolted he would have shot. As they dragged me away he paused and looked at the rubble. Then he kicked it and looked at me again, and kicked it again , and put his gun away. That was when she said it." "Said what?" I asked. "I'm not sure. As I said I don't speak German well." "Oh", I said after a long pause. "I think it was 'I found it', though, and I turned, and I looked, and she was holding this half-torn photograph of her and this well dressed man. And she turned around and sat down and started to cry. They didn't speak after that; they just dragged me away." He paused. "Later, when they weren't looking, I fed the caramels to a dog." AND THAT'S ALL FOR THIS WEEK. NEXT TIME WE PROMISE NOT TO BE SO PRETENTIOUS. SEE YOU AFTER X-MAS -------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: VAX001::KLEINSR "I spent 4 years prostrate to a higher mind, got my paper, and I was free-- Indigo Girls" 13-NOV-1990 19:06:36.63 I thought you might find this interesting... possible material for Purps. Could you add this friend o' mine to the magazine circulation? I think he'd be a great addition; I'm not sure how you go about choosing the honored recipients of the magazine. ============================================== From: VAX001::WINS%"<R3JMT%AKRONVM@vm1.cc.UAKRON.EDU>" 13-NOV-1990 FIVE PROOFS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF SANTA CLAUS [SUMMA CONTRA SCROOGICA] Question 2, Article 3: Whether Santa Claus exists? We proceed thus to the third article (of discussion): it seems that Santa Claus does not exist. Objection # 1: Presents may be given to us by the good elves, and so there is no need for Santa Claus. Objection # 2: If Santa Claus existed, there would be no chimneys too narrow for him. But there are chimneys too narrow for him, and sometimes none at all. So Santa Claus does not exist. ON THE CONTRARY: Kay Starr says 'I saw Mommy kissing Santa Claus'. I ANSWER THAT the existence of Santa Claus can be proved in five ways. The first and most manifest way is the argument from Christmas trees. It is certain and evident to our senses that some things in this world are Christmas trees. Now no fir becomes a Christmas tree unless it is trimmed. But to be trimmed means that one receives an ornament. And since one cannot go to infinity in the passing on of Christmas tree ornaments, there must be a first Untrimmed Trimmer, and this everyone understands to be Santa Claus. The second way is from the motion of Christmas presents. In this world we find the giving of Christmas presents. Now he who gives Christmas presents either got them from someone else or made them in his workshop. And since if no one makes Christmas presents in his workshop, there won't be any giving of Christmas presents, there must be a First Giver of Christmas presents, to which everyone gives the name Santa Claus. The third way is from the plastic images of Santa Claus. In all department stores we see plastic things which represent Santa Claus. Now these things are representative either because of Santa Claus himself or because of other images of Santa. But there can be no infinite regression in representation, so there must be something which is like Santa Claus because it is Santa Claus. The fourth way is taken from degrees of Christmas spirit. We see that people in this world have more or less Christmas spirit. But 'more' or 'less' can be said only in reference to a 'most'. So there must be someone who has the most Christmas spirit, and this person we call Santa Claus. The fifth way is from the conduct of children. As Christmas approaches, we see children, who lack intelligence, acting for an end, which is shown by their always being good, or almost always. But children would not be good for Christmas unless someone ensured that they be good. This someone is known by everyone to be Santa Claus. Reply Objection #1: Since the good elves got the presents they give from someone else, they must at most be Santa's helpers. Reply Objection #2: It is not impossible that Santa Claus use the door like everyone else. ---------------------------------------------------------- Well, it works. I'll be talking (typing) to you more often. =============================================================== OTHER RANTS =============================================================== (in which absolutely nothing will be revealed at all) From: VAX001::DAILINGE "IGNATZ PIGFATZ" Subj: The Saacred Blarg. Narfang. Pa-TING! Shargalumpichetsie. Shnibble-fritz. LIFFFF. Horchibald Q. etcetera, etcetera, and cowpits. These are the sacred words. Guard them well against the evil eggsalad-marauders and their on-slaught of Chick,chick GHAZALOPIE! This is your mission, should you choose to accept it. signed, seriously, Colonel Otis F. Pingle Marco Horowitz-Liefgowitz. ============================================================================ Return-Path: <U91_RBAIN@STCOSY.STEVENS-TECH.EDU> <<< DISK$APPL_CONF:[NOTES$LIBRARY]RELIGION.NOTE;1 >>> -< A place to discuss religion and religious philosophy >- ============================================================================ Note 8.33 Heavy Metal Exorcism 33 SITVXC::U91_RBAIN "Sir Realist" 32 lines 9-MAY-1990 -< Demons is bad thingses. >- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's times like this I thank Chance (thanx, Dayal!) that I'm a Discordian. We don't have to worry about "demonic possesion", (Incidentally, why would anyone WANT to possess a demon, anyway? They're smelly, ugly nasty stupid little creeps, and they're no fun at parties!) since our souls are coated with such a thick layer of SKEPTICISM that only the most BLATANTLY obvious meta-psychic entities can use us as power sources. Some Discordian schizms do believe in various demons, angels, saints, monsters, and other such beasties. This is a cheap way of sneaking polytheism into a formerly nice clean monotheistic faith, which is probably a good thing. It's harder to be an intolerant, fanatical polytheist than an intolerant, fanatical believer in the ONE TRUE GOD, who/whatever THAT is. ANYway...we've got demons and such, but they can't directly harm or control us. (So there! Nyah!) However, they DO try to cause us harm, either by killing us, driving us away, or "Normalizing" (AIIIEE!) us, so as to preserve the purity of their "Food Supply"--the Normals. In some sinister way, the Bad Guys, (consisting of the minions of ALL other cults, natch;) sap off those saps, draining their "souls" for some evil purpose--usually their own growth, like some gigantic spiritual tumor. (Nice analogy, huh?) If a soldier dies "for his country", could he have been said to have been possessed by a National Demon? He did something no "sane" human being would, after all... The same sort of argument can be applied to an company-man who poisons the world for Money Demons, a chain-smoker in the grip of the Tobacco Demons, a martyr dying under the sway of a Religion Demon, etc... (Note to skeptics--this ENTIRE bit of surrealigious raving could easily be retranslated into a simple treatise on warring meme cultures. Only the superstitous deny the supernatural. fnord.) ============================================================================ LAST WORD! From: VAX001::SIMPSONS "My life conflicts, please reschedule." Subj: Otisian Sayings "Late to bed and early to rise, Makes a man grumpy and gives him red eyes." From: VAX001::SIMPSONS "My life conflicts, please reschedule." Late to bed and late to rise, Makes a man lazy. ________________________________________________________________ THE PURPLE THUNDERBOLT OF SPODE ISSUE #9 ---------------------------------------------------------------- Neither censored nor edited. Deal.