April 15, 1996

To: TNS ExCom, Volunteers, and Interested Members

From: Kevin Langdon, Regent, P.O. Box 795, Berkeley, CA 94701
        (510) 524-0345; [old e-mail address omitted]

Distribution

Bob Kopp, Editor
John Cooper, Financial Officer
Jacquelinne White, Membership Officer
Kerry Williams, Ombudsman
Hal Darancette, Member-at-Large
Larry Jess, Member-at-Large

Ray Suttles, Elections Officer, Monitor, Greeter
Jim Grzegorowicz, Correspondence Group
Matt Urnezis, Archivist

Memos Included

Timing of This Memo

It's been two months since the last ExCom Memo. There are four reasons for the long interval:

1. We didn't have anything significant to vote on. (What could we have done other than assume the duties of my MAL position as a body? By the time we elected a replacement the election would have been over.)

2. I've received only a few memos for publication.

3. I had an inner-ear infection last month; I was too dizzy to stand up for two days and unable to follow a normal schedule for two weeks.

4. My computer was on the blink for about two weeks right after I was.

Distribution of This Memo

I have not dropped anyone but Kjeld Hvatum, who is no longer a member of TNS, from the distribution list for the ExCom Memo. Any member who wants to receive the Memo is welcome. On the other hand, if you don't care to receive the Memo, let me know and I'll drop your name from the distribution list.

Results of Voting on Motions

There was only one motion pending:

The Executive Committee shall assume as a body the duties of Kevin Langdon's position as Member-at-Large.

Five votes have been received on this motion, from Cooper, Jess, Kopp, Langdon, and White, all in the affirmative. The motion carries.

The Election

The first election issue is in your hands by now (if you haven't received Vidya #151/152, write or e-mail the Editor [Bob Kopp, {snail mail and e-mail addresses omitted}]). The next issue will contain commentary on candidates and issues and the ballot.

I encourage each of you to voice your opinions and to return the petition form indicating which amendments (if any) you would like to see put to a vote of the membership.

Psychometrics Committee

In the February ExCom Memo, I asked Henry Milligan about his familiarity with the statistical methodology involved in test norming. Henry responded by postcard, as follows:

In your latest TNS ExCom newsletter you asked me to submit statistical analysis credentials. I am a civil engineering graduate of Princeton University, having taken 5 semesters of multi-variable calculus, along with classes in statistical methods, deterministic and stochastic systems analysis, and Statistical Modeling, Design, and Decisions.

I think that Henry would be a valuable member of the Psychometrics Committee. We could still use additional qualified volunteers. I have sent copies of this memo to a few psychometrically-trained past members of TNS in the hope that they will rejoin and volunteer to serve on this committee.

Legal Officer

* Voting members of the Committee: please vote yes or no on the motion to appoint John Kormes as TNS Legal Officer (as this motion has already been held for comments, HOLD votes are not allowed). John's statement regarding the question raised by Loren Harris and Hal Darancette regarding a possible conflict of interest were addressed by John in his memo published in the February ExCom Memo.

Annual Meeting

I have not heard from the IQARUS Group regarding this year's annual meeting, but John Cooper has volunteered to coordinate a meeting in Baltimore. John did a good job of organizing the Washington, D.C. meeting in 1992.

Accordingly, I move that:

* (4) John Cooper is authorized to organize the TNS annual meeting in Baltimore in October 1996.

Proposal Contained in Paul Maxim's Candidacy Statement

Members residing inside the orbit of Mars know that I do not exactly see eye-to-eye with Paul Maxim. Nonetheless, I agree with his proposal, in his statement of candidacy for Member-at-Large, that it would accord with the democratic traditions of TNS for any member to be permitted to make motions to be voted on by the Exec-utive Committee. To avoid gridlock, there should be some restriction on the number of motions permitted from any one member.

Therefore, I move that:

* (5) Any member of Triple Nine may make a motion, once per calendar quarter, by submitting the motion to the Chairman of the Executive Committee, that will have the same status as a motion made by a voting member of the Executive Committee.

I would also support an amendment that would make this rule a part of the Constitution, but I would prefer to see such an amendment offered later, as I predict that TNS members will be tired of official business for quite a while after they vote on the long list of amendments I have proposed as part of the current election cycle.

Next ExCom Memo

I anticipate publishing the next ExCom Memo in mid-May if there's enough business; otherwise, I may wait a little longer. Submissions for that memo should be by e-mail (preferred; [old e-mail address omitted) or in hard copy form (with margins of at least one inch) to P.O. Box 795, Berkeley, CA 94701.

ExCom Memo from Patrick Thomas

Patrick A. Thomas
[address omitted]
7 Mar 96

To the ExCom:

Kevin Langdon's very strange statement in the February memo that vilification has to be personal is completely undermined by his placement, two sentences earlier, of the adverb ``personally'' before the verb ``vilified.'' Vilification need not at all be personal. (I'm reminded of an excellent poem, author unknown, beginning ``Into our town the hangman came/ Smelling of blood and gold and flame/ And he paced our bricks with a diffident air/ And built his frame on the courthouse square,'' which rather powerfully implores that one who waits for vilification to have his name on it, waits too long.) Methinks that Kevin protests too little. Nonetheless, I understand why he in particular is unconcerned with non-personal vilification: he has, over the years, been personally vilified within the HIQ groups enough not to have the time to be concerned with non-personal vilification.

No one yet knows why most inadequately nurtured people refrain from raping children, but merely attributing it to the ``grace of God'' is a titanic copout.

Whether John Kormes was expelled from Intertel or resigned under pressure is not relevant, and such debate shall gladly be leflt to those persons, if any, who care. Although I see no reason that a delay caused by a stroke would prevent his lawsuit against Mrs. Hansen.

Mr. Kormes has known former Ombudsman Larry Jess very well for several years. Neither of them since 1991 has ever produced a trace of an idea regarding any alleged additional material in Jess' Ombudsman files of that year. I ask Larry: what is Mr. Kormes babbling about?

When I stated that ``Hansen, Williams, even Shultz himself, left the fray long ago,'' the context of the word ``fray'' was ``within TNS.'' It is quite true that a list of spec-ulations regarding Shultz & Williams was mailed from Michigan, but it does not appear to have been taken seriously by anyone else. The past two years have made one thing clear: while debate of the philosophical ramifications of the Shultz case continues to be welcome in TNS (at least so it seems), debate of the legal ramifications does not. The reason is the ease with which TNS, dissolved by some obnoxious court somewhere, could be quickly resurrected, possibly with an improved constitution (and certainly an improved name).

In case no one has attempted to set our imaginationally-challenged attorney straight, the results ot the original ExCom vote to print an apology to Mr. Shultz in Vidya were listed in an ExCom memo in 1994. Without even bothering to look for it, I can inform him that nays were received from Cooper, Darancette, Harris, Kopp, C Williams, and K Williams; yeas from Jess and Langdon; abstain from Bergdorf. My figure of 28 percent was a roundoff to the nearest integer. Want tenths? 27.8 percent, then. The imagination of Mr. Kormes clearly cannot be stretched at all.

Among the attacks labelled by Mr. Kormes as ``ridiculous'' evidently was the claim that his lines regarding setting fire to the prisons were printed in Vidya 128/9. The real reason he will not ``stoop'' to defend himself is simple. There is absolutely no defense for his culpable prose. Many TNS members cannot be made to believe that his subsequent hypocritical demands for an apology by Clint Williams were anything more than a manifestation of a personal vendetta.

Finally, Mr. Kormes' lack of scruples aside, he tells us the ``legal rights to publish cetain materials'' is not his field of expertise. I suggest that the title of Legal Officer only be conferred upon someone with such expertise, as that is precisely what TNS needs most.

Patrick A. Thomas

Reply to the Above by Kevin Langdon

While I don't, personally, have any particular quarrel with Pat Thomas, I'm disturbed by the nasty tone of the above, and by some of the accusations contained in it, which is why I'm responding here instead of waiting until the next Memo.

I will admit that it's possible to vilify a class. Pat's observation of the logical implications of my phrase ``personal vilification'' is well taken. What I meant to say is that I don't give a rat's ass about negative characterizations of broad demographic categories, because what's important in a human being, in my opinion, is individual and personal. When it comes to characterization of the whole human race as possessing tendencies similar to those that cause child molesters to, as Pat so delicately put it, ``rape children,'' this seems to me both obvious and inoffensive.

Theistic metaphors aside, it also seems obvious to me that those lucky enough to have a conscience should realize that they could have been without one, just as they could have had the misfortune to be born with flippers instead of arms.

To make this a little more concrete, a notoriously villainous participant in TNS affairs a few years ago claimed to have the neurological defect of a missing or nonfunctional corpus callosum, which led some of us to conclude that the corpus callosum must play a crucial role in the conscience of man.

The evidence at hand does not support the claim that John Kormes resigned from Intertel under pressure, any more than it does the claim that he was expelled. And Pat's remarks suggest that he has not been close enough to stroke victims to know what a devastating effect a stroke can have on a person's energy and ability to perform basic functions.

Finally, Pat's willingness to attribute motives to others is deplorable and undercuts his claim to the moral high ground in the matters at issue.

[Paul Maxim's remarks in this space have not yet been prepared for Web publication.]

Reply to the Above by Kevin Langdon

I have responded to remarks similar to those in Paul Maxim's first memo in the journals of various high-I.Q. societies, but he keeps beating a dead horse.

It is not legitimate to compute the mean I.Q. of a sample based on the number among them earning extremely high scores, because it ignores the fact that the most intellectually able people are more likely to be interested in super-high-I.Q. societies, more likely to take very difficult tests, and more likely to do well on them and send them in for scoring than those of more modest gifts.

The mean I.Q. of Omni testees on the LAIT was 137 and on the Mega Test was 141. Seventeen percent of Omni LAIT testees earned scores of 150 or more; they were all provided with information about TNS. Not all of them joined. Imagine that!

The highest scores in the statistical breakdown of four-sigma scores I sent Paul Maxim were 175, not 174. The ceiling of the LAIT, according to the second norming, is 176. No one has scored 176; about six people have scored 175. By vote of the membership, and in view of the ceiling-bumping effect and the small number of very high scores, the Mega Society established 175 as its qualifying score on the LAIT. For a short time, scores of 173 (there have been no 174's) were also accepted.

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