From: Jenito Juarez
Date: 6/19/2004
Subj: I hope you’ve seen the light since

I am a former atheist turned christian/creationist. If you take the hypothesis of evolution for a fact , I suggest you look up scientific method, how something becomes a theory, and then look up religion. I am also working on my undergraduate degree in psych, switched from anthro when I saw that the fossil record I took on faith as legit was fantasy. Fossil record= apes on one side, man on the other. None in between. Have you heard, Lucy is a chimp? She was, look it up. Nebraska man, a pigs tooth.

You know, it’s really very sad, but I don’t believe you for a moment. That is, I don’t believe that are a former atheist turned Christian/creationist. What you say about yourself could be true, and, if it is, you have my apologies. However I seen it all often that when someone announces that they once were an atheist and an evolutionist, but have now seen the light, that it turns out that they were creationists all along, and that they are fiddling with the truth to make their case sound stronger.

It is somewhat of a mystery that creationists so often feel the need to pad their discourses with these little prevarications, but there it is.

I said that I don’t believe you; let me continue on that line for a bit. You say that you switched from anthro when you saw that the fossil record (of human ancestors) was fantasy. Your “apes on one side, man on the other. None in between” is, to put it politely, rubbish. There are numerous fossils in between the australopithecine apes and modern Homo sapiens sapiens. I am quite confident that you didn’t see that the fossil record was fantasy. Quite the contrary, you switched out of anthro (if you aren’t making all of this up) because you were encountering facts that you didn’t want to deal with.

“Lucy is a chimp” – look it up yourself. It’s a claim in a Jack Chick creationism comic book. Chick’s source for this is “Dr.” Kent Hovind (the Dr. is in quotes because it is a diploma mill degree) who is a well known crackpot working the creationism circuit when he isn’t dodging problems with the IRS.

Then there is this matter of your making things up. You are right that I didn’t state any evidence for the oort cloud. You are in error when you claim that I asserted I believed it was there; I didn’t. That’s something you made up, as was your “b/c you were told it is.”

Yes.

There you go again making things up.

Yes, silly you, making things up.

Oh, yes, I hope I’ve developed some reasoning skills since then. I hope that you develop some soon. Any at all would be an improvement.

Be all of that as it may, I do thank you for your letter.

From: Peter Neilson
Date: 6/15/2004
Subj: Soem’s opinions

Dear Mr. Harter:

On your website you recently posted an essay on optimizing computer program code. You began it with the phrase,

‘Soem say that the golden rule about optimizing is “don’t”.’

It’s clear to me that Soem is singular, and that you intended to say, “Soem says.” Why can’t you get your verb to agree with their subject? And who is Soem, anyway?

Yr obt, etc., etc.

Shouldn’t you say, “Who are the Soem?”

From the construction it is clear that the Soem are a class of sentient beings, possibly human, who have opinions on software optimization. Moreover there is no definite assertion that all Soem have the quoted opinion, since the sentence begins with “Soem say” rather than “The Soem say”. We may infer that some Soem, possibly all, hold to that view, and that few, if any, strongly disagree.

Since we have no definite information about the Soem, I have taken the liberty of expunging them from existence, leaving only this letter as a trace of a people (using the term in its broadest sense) that once existed but have now been ruthlessly edited out of reality.

From: admin
Date: 6/8/2004
Subj: i need more information

Call me, please.

Dear Please,

The information you need is the correct email address of the person you are attempting to contact. Unfortunately I do not have it.

From: Vicky Turner
Date: 6/4/2004
Subj: Science Fair Useful Links – Site Suggestion

I was browsing through your website at http://richardhartersworld.com/cri/2004/let04mar.html and realize that my site may contain useful/relevant information to your viewers. I would be very grateful if you’d consider listing my site on your website, perhaps under a “Science Fair Help Links” or similar section. I’d be happy to link to your site in return.

My site has over 500 fully searchable and well categorized science fair project ideas, with full instructions and explanations. Currently, over 150,000 students across the USA and Canada are using this free educational resource to search for science fair project ideas. You can see my site at “http://www.all-science-fair-projects.com”. You can link to my site using the text found at www.all-science-fair-projects.com/linkwords.htm

It may interest you to know that my site is listed by the California Science Fair website as a useful resource. See http://www.usc.edu/CSSF/Resources/GettingStarted.html

Do let me know if you have any questions or suggestions. Hoping to hear from you soon.

Seems like a useful sort of site. I’m not sure where I will put the link but it will go somewhere.

From: Experience Request Support
Date: 5/31/2004
Subj: A user is searching for opinions about: [email protected]

######POSTING ADVISORY######

Advisory – A user is attempting to share experiences and opinions about you in our online community.

The purpose of this email is to inform you that a posting has been made about you at our website. This is email is not commercial in nature.

If this email message was delivered to your spam or bulk email folder please notify your ISP or spam filtering company regarding this mistake on their part.

You may view the postings about you here: vhttp://7.shyx.us/lx.php?a=search&b;=5&c;[email protected]

This website also includes a highly valuable Daily Searching System. This is a simple system in which you can set-up searches that this website will perform for you each and every day. After performing the searches that you have specified, our Daily Searching System will send your search results to you via email.

Just what I need, a way to know who’s talking behind my back electronically. Thanks folks, but no thanks. I have enough trouble with the people that cuss me out to my face.

From: Lynn Dewees
Date: 5/31/2004
Subj: Your essay on bringing in the hay

I am working with the Boyertown, PA museum of historical vehicles on a display of farm equipment made in the area. One of our pieces is a hay rack and while searching the net for information, I came across your essay. I’m wondering if you would consider letting us use some of it as part of the display, something to give visitors an idea of what the equipment did and how it was used?

Sure, go ahead. I would take it kindly if your display would mention where you got the material. Best of luck on your display.

From: Abhi
Date: 6/1/2004
Subj: Answer to question 4 in “Everything Quiz”

Yes Cricket too. The defense is in possession of the ball and you can score on a bye. A bye is when you miss the ball and a fielder misses it too, giving the batters a chance to get a run.

Thanks. We bloody yanks got out of the British Empire (except that I don’t think it was an Empire in those days) before the colonies picked up Cricket and kept beating the English at their national game, so we don’t know Cricket all that well.

From: Vern Beltran
Date: 5/26/2004
Subj: Phone scammers

We need to enlighten your viewers about scammers posing as phone techs over the phone that are asking customers to “help” test their lines by pressing 9button and # button and then hang up the phone. By doing this, the victim has just dialed 90 and given the scammer a free line to use for free long distance calls.
Sincereley Vern Beltran

Thank you for the heads up. I hope none of my readers is taken in by a scam. By the way, how is it that you happened to write to me?