I have been a member of this list for a long time, and during that time I
have been constantly on the look out for new recruits into Satan's forces.
 And I have been watching with great interest the exchange between Jim
Tantillo and John Foster.  Moreover, I have recently been in contact with
Lucifer and he has given me the "green light" to initiate John Foster into
the ranks of Satan's Minions.  I know many of you may be shocked at this,
and probably see John as more of an adversary to the Minions of Satan, but
recently I have noted that John has been agreeing with Jim alot (besides,
like God, Satan works in mysterious ways).  Culled from the Enviroethics
Archives is the documentation of John's turn to the Dark Side.



1)  In his one potato, two potato post, John wrote:

> >It makes a vast difference therefore if the objective value of forest
> >health, integrity and stability/resilence is perceived
> intersubjectively by
> >a community of persons with specialized knowledge (integration of data,
> >information, knowledge is three dimensional, a construct, but extremely
> >valid in most cases) versus the perception of the 'uninformed' passerby
> who
> >merely glances at the forest (much of this kind of rhetoric bases
> knowledge
> >derives from Jims primary quality and one example is Patrick Moores
> notional
> >forms of re-cognition, or what I would call seeing forests as immortal
> >simply because where ever you see green and tall trees which have a
> vision
> >of sustainability).
> >
> >Jim's argument, whilst written is concinving prose is yet another form
> of
> >the ad hominem type argument which has powerful implications for
> students,
> >and that is mind control, brainwashing, etc., a weapon of corporations,
> >bureaucracies of all types, etc., to maintain control and power, or to
> usurp
> >power by disabling rational choice politically in naive persons.

 To which Jim replied:

> Here, I can *only* say that you, John, apparently don't seem to sense
> the
> contradiction between the point you are making in the first paragaph,
> with
> which I agree (it is the point, after all, I was making all along about
> objectivity in *all* knowledge communities), and the criticism you level
> at
> my approach in the second paragraph (which of course, as a matter of
> consequence, you must also be leveling at yourself).

Note: It occurred to and "The Boss" that this contradiction of John's 
makes him a potential co-conspirator in the "mind control, brainwashing,
etc." conspiracy he is accusing Jim of.

2)  Jim wrote, then John wrote, then Jim responded:

> >> [Jim]: I may be wrong, but
> >>the thinking in the wine literature seems to be here that there is far
> too
> >>much emotional freight that can come with excessive "love" for wine;
> and
> >>that the objective, disinterested evaluatively-neutral judging of wine
> >>proceeds best from a fair and equal consideration of wine that is
> judged
> >>disinterestedly and objectively--i.e. without too much emotional
> >>involvement.
> >
> >[John]: This is really contradictory: there are scalable qualities that
>can be
> >'objective' in the sense of the palatability of wine such as 'aroma',
> >'texture', 'tannin content', 'sweetness' and so on. However in my
> experience
> >- a friend of mine who makes wine and wants to depopulate Africa so as
> to
> >save Gorillas - says that wine with much tannin is preferred over sweet
> >wines.
>
> [Jim]: Then I certainly don't understand why anything I said previously 
is
> "really
> contradictory."  I think you and I agree, John.  The objective
> "scalable"
> qualities in wine that you draw attention to are exactly analogous to
> the
> objective "scalable" qualities in chocolate to which I draw my students'
> attention.  In contrast, and just as you describe here, you and your
> misanthropic but Gorilla-loving friend disagree on a matter of *personal
> preference*:  i.e. he prefers wine with more tannin, you prefer a wine
> with
> less.  Now, unless you two happened to be comparing different samples of
> wine within the same class or category of wine (where presumably there
> might be a single, desireable point of perfect tannin content on the
> "ideal
> tannin content scale"), your respective individual personal preferences
> are
> *irrelevant* to the issue of the wine's quality.  You might think
> "Ripple"
> is the best wine ever produced . . .  but that wouldn't make it
> "necessarily so."

Given this evidence, both Lucifer and I agreed that John has turned to the
Dark Side and we would be remiss not to reward such good work.

For anyone remaining unconvinced of John's qualifications for admission to
satanic candidacy, there seems to be one further area of agreement between
John and Jim.

John wrote:
> >I might look that up or maybe something by Alexander. That would be
> good to
> >stick to the subject of valuation and not squander one's resources on
> topics
> >that challenge and divert the attention. I studied modern physics and I
> am
> >perplexed to see scholars of the humanities expostulate the
> implications of
> >modern physics by throwing a few names around and mentioning a few
> >theoretical findings such as the 'uncertainty principle'. They often
> jump
> >from domain to domain confusing the domains...like the Capra book
> called
> >"The Tao of Physics" exposes ...as if human consciousness and the
> >uncertainty principle are exactly analogous, Geez....

To which Jim replied:

> Yeah . . . I hate that too.  The mere mention of things like "quarks,
> leptons, anti-matter, an infinite number of parallel universes,
> etcetera"
> really bugs me sometimes.  Not to mention people who casually drop
> references to things like Michelson Morley, Einstein, EPR Paradox,
> Schroedinger's Cat, Bell's Theorem, etcetera, at parties and other
> outdoor
> gatherings . . .  yeah, I hate that too.  Geez....

Thus John lands himself in the unenviable position of being in agreement
with Jim on not one (1), not two (2), but on three, yes count 'em, three
(3) matters of considerable importance to the Prince of Darkness.

So John Foster, you are hereby designated a Minion of Satan.  In addition
to being able to use that title without retribution from Satan, your
secret decoder ring and cell phone with Satan's hotline number
pre-progremmed into memory slot 1 will arrive by night by a flying
abomination.

Congratulations.

Steve



=====
"In a nutshell, he [Steve] is 100% unadulterated evil. I do not believe in a 
'Satan', but this man is as close to 'the real McCoy' as they come." 
--Jamey Lee West

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