User talk:Ed Poor

Fun with anagrams

From the internet anagram server:

• --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour)

• global warming - a lamb growling, a grim ballgown
• Kyoto Protocol - coy pork to loot
• Antarctic Survey - try Satanic curve

• George Bush (senior) and his wife: ego bugs her
• George W. Bush and Boston winning the World Series: Hub egos grew
• George W. Bush and the Internet: hugs Gore web, or begs we hug

• Dick Cheney and his daughter: needy chick

• Mary Cheney: Yeah, men cry

• John Ashcroft: chant for Josh

• John Kerry: horny jerk
• Teresa Heinz: erase zenith (is teen hazer)

• John Edwards: red dawn, Josh (Jews nod hard)

Surfer dude

Ya need to wake up and smell the fresh salt air
 and hear the seagulls calling and the surf rushing to the shore; 
Feel the sand beneath your toes and more;

Ever questing for that perfect balance between wave and board;

Swimming out eager for a thrill and riding happy homeward.

Current Wikistress

Pre-election stress

Come back soon, Ed. While obviously you've got hot-button issues like the rest of us, your normally even-tempered mediative (or should I say meditative?) personality is extremely valuable and encouraging to many of us. Good luck destressing....I imagine you'll feel a lot better on Wednesday morning, even if some other Americans wake up a little crestfallen (I admit, I don't share your political viewpoint, but I respect our mutual right to disagree amicably). And if you should wake up to bad news, well, come back here and edit away your blues. :-) See you soon, I hope. Jwrosenzweig 21:44, 27 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Good work

Hehe, October surprise - I just sat down to write it myself, when I saw you had beaten me to it by a few hours :) →Raul654 23:53, Oct 27, 2004 (UTC)

Keep up the good work

Don't let the mailing list tempest get you down, you're doing great work on Wikipedia. Jayjg 16:06, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Support

Thanks for the support, you all. I'm not a saint, and I get discouraged just like anyone else. I've been having a lot of mood swings since mid-October, and I predict there's an even bumpier road ahead. -Ed

Eternal Wisdom

Larry Sanger's definition of neutrality

Neutrality is all about presenting competing versions of what the facts are. It doesn't matter at all how convinced you are that your facts are the facts. If a significant number of other interested parties disagrees with you, the neutrality policy dictates that the discussion be recast as a fair presentation of the dispute between the parties. --Larry Sanger

Another editing tip

"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty, lies opportunity." (Albert Einstein)

Current talk

Your comments on my talk page

Thanks for your comments. What is the name of your church?

And just incidentally, can I try this (original) thesis on you:

The conflict between the Isrealis and the Palestinians is purely about land. Religion is not the issue, it is a mere slogan and pure propaganda. The Israelis show none of the hospitality that is central to Judaism, and the Palestinians none of the care for innocent life that is central to Islam. The tragedy is that members of neither of these religions seem able to criticise those who are bringing the names of their respective Gods to shame, and so the propaganda stands largely unchallenged. The covert secularism of both sides, and its wide implicit acceptance by those both inside and outside these and other religions, is key evidence of the crisis of 20th century spirituality which continues into the present.

Tom Lehrer put it very well in his song on nuclear proliferation: Israel's getting tense, wants one in self defense, the Lord's our shepherd says the psalm, but just in case we better get a bomb.

Food for thought? Don't get too stressed about it. God's in control. Andrewa 19:47, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I agree with your thesis. My church is Unification Church. Thanks for the anti-stress pep talk! (Anything's better than poisoning pigeons in the park) --Ed

And maybe we'll do in a squirrel or two... Andrewa 21:08, 28 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Missing explosives in Iraq

Re your mailing list message, there appears to be a past version of the article written by you here. I don't know if it's the last version you wrote, but at least it might be something. Proteus (Talk) 16:13, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Feedback

I would appreciate your feedback on my comments I left at Talk:Current_events. Thanks! - Dejitarob 19:43, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Winter Soldier

Thanks. I would like to mention that I belive that this user is a VVAW member, and had been battling SEWilco for quite some time on this. The POV nature of his version is without question, and no ammount of evidence can change his mind. Perhaps I can, and I am willing to go through a long and lengthy debate, but I feel he will only come to the table if forced to do so. TDC 20:52, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Well, now you can discuss it on the talk page. Maybe Cecropia will unfreeze the page in a day or two. Good luck, and stay cool! --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 20:53, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I've been trying to get user TDC to the discussion page for a day and a half now. Please see his comments and his threats of never ending revert wars on the discussion pages. And no, I'm not a member of the VVAW. Sheesh. -Rob

Well, he's got no choice now. And don't think I'm siding with him, I flipped a coin before protecting the page. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 20:57, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, you have locked in a POV article. This is all I got from him in response to my requests for discussion:

TDC - can you please explain why you have removed the formatting of sponsored events from the article? -Rob

You never explained your sweeping changes originally. The last stable version was by SEWilco [5] (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=Vietnam_Veterans_Against_the_War&oldid=6080456), and your following edits were never explained. Do so now, or this edit war will never end. That I can promise you. TDC 19:41, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC)

Please try to maintain a productive attitude here. Your threats and ultimatums are unwarranted. The version you cite by SEWilco is very old by several edits. What changes, besides formatting, do you take issue with? -Rob

Gee, I dont know, everything. TDC 20:02, Oct 29, 2004 (UTC) Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Vietnam_Veterans_Against_the_War"

Exactly how is a person supposed to deal with an attitude like that? -Rob

Long term, or short term? I've given him some rope, and if he hangs himself with it, we'll see about that on Monday. Meantime, if you two can work it out, Cecropia or any of the other dozens of admins can unlock the page. Think "cool", and have a nice weekend! :-) --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 21:04, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, Uncle... I'd gladly take that advice, if it weren't for one particular problem: The 2 articles in question are being referenced frequently over the next 4 days due to their relevance to political campaigns this year. Letting the POV mess stand for the next 3 of those 4 days while TDC hangs himself doesn't seem to be an acceptable solution. I hope you can understand my position on this. -Rob

Election

Ed, is it your understanding that "October surprise" means something that has been media-managed and deliberately sprung by partisan journalists at the appropriate moment, or can an October surprise be any unexpected news event? Would the bin Laden tape count? Evercat 18:46, 30 Oct 2004 (UTC)

I think it is indeed 'deliberately sprung', but not necessarily by journalists themselves. That is, the journalists don't have to be the ones behind the manipulation of the electorate. Influencing an election is a sport with many players.

Does the article give the impression that only the media are behind October surprises? If so, then the wording is a bit off and should be tweaked. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 16:24, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hi Ed, request

Hi Ed, I would like to respectfully request that the RfC at Wikipedia:Requests for comment/IZAK be closed finally as many "48 Hour" deadlines have passed since its inception almost one month ago. I will also ask User:Cecropia. Thanks again for all your help. IZAK 02:21, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Fine with me. --Uncle Ed (El Dunce) 14:54, 1 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Update

Ed: Thanks for your interest, please see the update at Wikipedia talk:Requests for comment/IZAK#Seems basically resolved between Sam Spade and IZAK. On the basis of that alone the RfC should be closed by now (another reason is that the original "48Hours" deadline has expired many times over, during the past month.) Thanks again. IZAK 08:37, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Factoids looking for a home

Global warming theories

• climate models generally predict an increased warming rate with height (outside of local polar regions). Neither the satellite nor the balloon records can find it. [1]
• the National Research Council of the National Academies said on Jan. 12, 2000 that "The Earth's surface temperature has risen about 0.4 to 0.8 degrees Celsius – or 0.7 to 1.4 degrees Fahrenheit -- in the last century... But data collected by satellites and balloon-borne instruments since 1979 indicate little if any warming of the low- to mid- troposphere – the atmospheric layer extending up to about 5 miles from the Earth's surface. Climate models generally predict that temperatures should increase in the upper air as well as at the surface if increased concentrations of greenhouse gases are causing the warming." [2]

Misleading hockey stick graph

• This improper normalization procedure tends to emphasize any data that do have the hockey stick shape, and to suppress all data that do not. To demonstrate this effect, McIntyre and McKitrick created some meaningless test data that had, on average, no trends. This method of generating random data is called "Monte Carlo" analysis, after the famous casino, and it is widely used in statistical analysis to test procedures. When McIntyre and McKitrick fed these random data into the Mann procedure, out popped a hockey stick shape! [3]
  • Please don't create M&M. Ross McKitrick and McI already exist.
    • No worries, mate - me turned it into page o' links

Iraq War

• The US invasion of Iraq and the swiftness of the American victory has taken the Arab and Muslim worlds by surprise, despite the well known superiority of Western arms. The effects of this upheaval have not been completely assimilated in the Middle East, and probably will not be totally evident until the success or failure of the Americans in their war aims becomes apparent. There are signs that it has produced both stirrings of democratization and a desire to appease the USA, and a counter-reaction of resentment and growing discontent. [4]

• The US effort to gather support for an attack on Iraq faced opposition on the following grounds:

• Arab countries and supporters who claimed that any action against Iraq is an action aimed at all Arabs, and serves Israeli interests.

• Those who believed that the inspections should be renewed and continued.

• Those who believed that the US should not act without UN backing. Many people of this opinion also opposed a UN resolution. [5]

Reverting 67.175.84.210

It was my pleasure. --David Iberri | Talk 19:19, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

Boston meetups

Hello Ed, will you be in Beantown the weekend of the 20th? See Wikipedia:Meetup/Boston. It would be great to see you again. +sj+ 21:19, 3 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ko

That would be great. Ko could really do with some more Korean-speaking admins. Angela (a non-Korean-speaking admin) 22:28, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

LOL, I'm an English-speaking admin who can (barely) touch-type in Korean, with my 850-word vocabulary! My only hope is in recruiting. --user:Ed Poor (pre-US rodeo) 22:32, Nov 3, 2004 (UTC)

AMA

Do you know what's up with the AMA? I was an election official with Jwrosenweig, and there was originally supposed to be an election every 6 months. My election results message is still on the main page, and I was wondering if the AMAs were still even truely around. I would have sent this to Alex, but he's apparently rather infrequent these days. Anyway, my vote tallying services are open for business if needed. -- user:zanimum

See these six categories up for "votes of deletion":

See these six categories up for "votes of deletion":

Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Palestinian_terrorists and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Palestinian_terrorist_organizations and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Middle_East_terrorists and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Terrorist_organizations and Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Islamic_terrorist_organizations and this one too: Wikipedia:Categories_for_deletion#Category:Jewish_terrorist_organizations

IZAK 10:10, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I don't know where to make the following suggestion, but: Let's just have a terrorism category. That's enough. The sub-categories smack of partisanship.

While I personally side with Israel and tend to agree with the idea that all terrorists are Islamic I try hard NOT to imbue my edits with this perspective. My goal here is not to present an objective view of reality -- since the consensus required for this on political and historical matters is patently unobtainable. I'll settle for NPOV: an accurate, unbiased recounting of the major points of view. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 12:58, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

Dubious page?

I'm considering putting Muslims for Israel up for VfD on grounds of unverifiability and non-notability. Any thoughts? - Mustafaa 19:28, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Ed, I really think VfD is the way to go here. Jayjg 19:41, 5 Nov 2004 (UTC)

If any other sysop wants to restore it, they can. I think it's a fake. Did you visit the website? Did you Google for references? Did you note the orthodox Jewish spelling of Allah as "G-d"? It fails to meet Wikipedia standards for inclusion.

This is not a the world's blog, it's an encyclopedia. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 19:46, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

P.S. "Please do not create an article to promote yourself, a website, a product, or a business." (that's policy)

I'll concede that someone has started a website called Muslims for Israel -- like the website Arabs for Israel - but that doesn't mean there's a real organization behind it. A guy in my church likes to hand out business cards saying "New Revolution Productions" - but there's no company behind it, except in his mind. Should I make a Wikipedia article about the company he dreams of founding? --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 19:55, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC)

You might also be interested in Arabs for Israel, since you mention it above; I'm sceptical, though not as sceptical as the other one, since it at least mentions one person... - Mustafaa 02:28, 6 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See Nonie Darwish and its talk page. --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 15:26, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

Regarding IZAK

Hi Ed, please see Wikipedia:Requests for arbitration/IZAK. Thank you. IZAK 10:00, 7 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Look, IZAK, I've advised you repeatedly to avoid personal remarks on talk pages. When are you going to wise up? --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 15:59, Nov 8, 2004 (UTC)

As for the "port of call" - it was more wishful thinking than anything else to recommend yourself as a dedicated arbitrator. I'm still interested in someone who can rapidly intervene in non-stop reverting and bickering over those miserable IPC (Israeli-Palestinian conflict) pages. Sometimes I actually participate, but generally I avoid that very dark zone of Wikipedia... JFW | T@lk 17:06, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Krill factoids

How much krill have been lost? Was it 80% worldwide, or just 80% of one small area near Antarctica?

• But the British Antarctic Survey has found a dramatic drop in krill populations in the waters off the Antarctic Peninsula, a region with half of all the Southern Ocean's krill stocks. The agency compared krill records gathered by nine countries since 1926. "We found in that sector, there was a large scale decline. It was about, very roughly, an 80 percent decrease in krill abundance in the last 30 years," said British Antarctic Survey marine biologist Angus Atkinson. He is the leader of the krill study that appears in the journal Nature. (emphasis added for Wikipedia talk) [6]

• • (William M. Connolley 20:59, 8 Nov 2004 (UTC)) If you're interested in this I very strongly recommend you actually read the original Nature paper rather than any dubious PR-type summaries. And we're not an agency, we're a Survey.

• If you'll e-mail a copy of the article, I'll take a stab at reading it. Barring that, I trust you to summarize it in layman's terms for us lesser minds here at Wikipedia. And thanks for the quick answer. Do you have my talk page on your watchlist, or what? ;-)

• • Sorry I don't have a copy. I do't see any obvious reason for it to get into wiki though. Yes this is on my watchlist - I think it happened automatically when I edited it...

Dore Gold

You wrote: I'm not sure why so many contributors want to censor Jato Sam & his "illegal acts of war... atrocities" criticism. Putting it in the article does NOT endorse the JATO view.
The Talk:Dore Gold page makes it quite clear why "so many" (4) want to remove an off-topic quote about Israel on a page about Dore Gold. The criticism is not related to Dore Gold but to Israel. The Dore Gold page is about Dore Gold -- it is not a soapbox for criticizing Israel. Should we include criticism of America by Osama bin Laden on the George W. Bush page? Please respond on my talk page or on Talk:Dore Gold. Thank you. --Viriditas 00:24, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Michael Fumento, Fred Singer

I just took a look at some of your watchlists. The Michael Fumento and Fred Singer pages need some serious work, as they are currently biased and far from neutral. --Viriditas 02:50, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. Despite my admiration for figures like Fumento and Singer, I will never be satisfied with any article which is biased -- for or against. (Your name reminds me of veritas, Latin for "truth" ;-) --user:Ed Poor (deep or sour) 12:47, Nov 9, 2004 (UTC)

("Viriditas" actually means "Green-ness" -- but you already knew that.) -- Derek Ross | Talk

(William M. Connolley 13:48, 9 Nov 2004 (UTC)) I've responded on t:FS. For Fumento, I've added a nice link to Tim Lambert's work. The Fumento article is clearly far from neutral: it doesn't really have any meaningful criticism of his junk :-)

Middle East factoids

Could this possibly be true?

Islam allows no rights whatever to born Muslims who leave the faith—formally, murtadd fitri—including the right to life. [7]

Wikipedia:cooperation

Aloha. This page looks interesting. Do you think it has potential? --Viriditas 06:53, 10 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Singer

(William M. Connolley 22:05, 12 Nov 2004 (UTC)) We had Singer give a talk today. Pretty much what you would expect. But: at the end, he was asked, how come you are associated with a web site (http://www.sepp.org) that is naked propaganda? His reply: its not a science web site. But (he was pressed) what about the lack of balance. Well, its not a science site, sez S.

Just thought you'd like to know.

All terrorists are Islamic? What's that supposed to mean?

--user:Ed Poor wrote at 12:58, Nov 5, 2004 (UTC): " While I personally side with Israel and tend to agree with the idea that all terrorists are Islamic I try hard NOT to imbue my edits with this perspective."

Okay, you seem to be confused. Here is the definition of the word terrorist:

"One that engages in the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons."

That definition (from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000) does not require a person to practice Islam to be a terrorist. Many people who are do not follow Islam are terrorists. Are you saying that Timothy McVeigh was not a terrorist? Is the United Liberation Front of Asom, the group responsible for the recent bombings in India, not a terrorist organization? That's like saying that all pedophiles are Catholic, or that all stockbrokers are Jewish. This idea you have that "all terrorists are Islamic" is chauvinistic, and it is perfectly reasonable for someone to interpret that statement as a direct attack against the religion of Islam. It is never a good idea to blame problems on a general group of people.

Please, see Islamophobia.

I do not see how a person who holds the belief that "all terrorists are Islamic" would be able to edit an article about Yassir Arafat or Ariel Sharon with an acceptable level of neutrality.

--NoPetrol 00:10, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I suggest that openly bigoted Wikipedians like Ed "all terrorists are Islamic" Poor just need to be kept a close watch on. I defend him in the sense that I don't think he should stop editing articles about Israel/Palestine, just that people should be aware of his troubling views - Xed 01:01, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

That's three personal attacks in less than 30 minutes on two different pages, directed at two different users, Xed. --Viriditas 01:09, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Personal attack? It's an accurate assessment of Ed Poor. Are you the other person I made a 'personal attack' on - because I exposed you as a liar? Aren't you the (person) who said that I "claimed (Vanunu) was a scientist to bolster his credibility" and then you denied an interview with him took place? It's difficult to take seriously comments from liars - Xed 01:18, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)