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Well, and this is one of the things that consistently bothers me about your posts: Are you taking your experience to be a representative sample, or basing what you say on other sources of information too? If the former, what makes you think it's truly representative?

I'm happy to believe whatever you say about all the farms you knew, but generalizing beyond that -- how do you know?

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Um, "thanks"?

Sure. I'm one of them, and I admit it. If you are ever in charge, I'll be one of the first to be sent off for -- what did the Chinese call their program of sending intellectual types out to the farms for some physical labor?

It's interesting to speculate, but I'd probably be wrong. Consider the record. :-)?

Is *that* what you've been doing .... Actually I think you've said this before.

Mostly these shock tactics provoke defensive behavior. I've observed other people in other newsgroups behaving similarly (reacting badly to perceived insults), so it's not just me. I'm trying to train myself to set the "shock value" messages (not just yours) aside, wait for the defense-mechanism reaction to subside, and then try to filter out the shock-value parts and consider what's left on its merits. Sometimes it works.

Seems to me that it would be more effective to just skip the

-- B. L. Mbuttingill ObDisclaimer: I don't speak for my employers; they return the favor.