If you attempt to sign up for the free Nasty list, and you have
an AOL account, you'll get a nice little letter back saying,
"Sorry, but you are not allowed to subscribe to 'nasty-list'."
If you go to the "Members Only" and see all of the publications
that I have to join, under the Nasty Joke A Day you'll see this in
bold print:
THIS LIST IS NOT AVAILABLE FOR AOL USERS!!!
But, remember, these are AOL people we're dealing with,
and their inability to read and follow directions is legendary.
(This is WHY AOLiens are banned from the Nasty List!!! I got fed
up with their ignorance and banned them from it!)
LH with AOL
Hi, I keep getting messages like the one attached saying I am not allowed to
subscribe to the join-nasty-list - and I keep asking why I am not allowed -
can you please find this out for me? I am 51 years old so there's no reason
why I can't get this subscription.
You have to be 55 to be on the Nasty List.
I don't understand what I'm going to see or read that I don't know about yet
- that is the most ridiculous thing I have ever heard of!!!! How did you get
the 'grown-up' age of 55 to begin with? How did you ever pick the age limit
of 55 for the nasty jokes? I'd like to know what it is that I'd read there
that I don't know now. I think that this is ridiculous.
I didn't pick the 55 age limit.
The US Government did.
Let me explain.
In 1997 President Clinton signed the "Annualized Notice To
Insure Availability OnLine." Congress passed the bill without
even reading it (to tell you the truth) and astute and intelligent
voters throughout the country lauded its acronym and
applauded its sentiment -- no matter how much they may
have disagreed with Clinton's other policies.
Within the law was a passage called the Notation Of
Agreeement ; Omnibus Legislation Act To Allow Limited
Lists. Again, unbeknownst to Congress and the general
public, Clinton had secretly targeted acronym aficionados
in signing this legislation.
What it all boils down to, in layman's terms, (since I wouldn't
expect the average "non-moderator" to understand the laws
we list moderators must live by), the US Government said
we humor list owners had to submit membership criteria
for our lists. A three page form!
With that criteria, the government did a random sampling of
demographic information, and assigned QUOTAS, (if you can
believe that!) to any "free" Internet mailing list! My free nasty
list got the "Over 55" demographic niche, and I'm pretty pissed
about, to tell you the truth.
You see, the list was started back in 1863, right after the start
of the Civil War. That's right. We've been telling jokes for
139 years. Of course, there were no computers, no email at
the time. The pony express was around, though, as was the
telegraph.
You wouldn't believe the way some of those early "nasty" jokes
were encoded to get past the censors of the day.
I know for a fact Abraham Lincoln AND John Wilkes Booth were
early subscribers. I have a secret theory that Wilkes was more
upset by a joke Lincoln submitted to the "Ye Old Nasty" (as it
was known back then). The punchline to Lincoln's joke was,
"Sic Semper Tyrannis", which, as history students know, was
what Wilkes said when he shot Lincoln. It was a taunt, nothing
more, as Wilkes didn't care for the frequent Latin based jokes
Lincoln loved to tell.
Well, long story short, the list was passed down from generation
to generation (almost went out of business during Ike's term),
and, finally, in 1994, I bought the rights to the thing.
And now, the government mandates who I can have on the list.
Amazing.
Funny thing about that three page criteria form. We were not
allowed to submit the form by electronic means (fax or email),
nor were we allowed to send it by the US Mail. Because of
the government's "equal access" laws for private businesses,
I had to send ONE PAGE EACH (of the three page form) via
UPS, FedEx, AND a Killian, Alabama courier service called
Federated United Courier, (Killian, Alabama Operated Licensee).
The goddamned government and their acronyms are going to
be the death of this country.
Check back with me in three years. We'll see what's up then.
Well, if you sign me up, I wouldn't tell anyone.
LH
P.S. If I had known, I would have lied about my age.
Yes, but now I have to report you to the government, I'm
afraid.
It's part of the Criminal Liability Under Enforcement Laws
(Enacted September Session).
The government keeps us ALL under constant surveillance.
First Amendment be damned. But, I could lose my license
to broadcast jokes on the Internet over a violation of that
law.
Anyway, I wouldn't sweat the whole thing about getting
reported to the Feds. I've only had to do it a couple of times.
The folks who said they'd have lied about their age to get on
a federally protected list got a call from the local FBI office.
No big deal. One guy said he was fined, but I don't think
the fine was more than a few hundred dollars. But he was
really under the 55 age limit. I think he was in his 40s or
something.
Let me pass on some friendly advice, for what it's worth.
AOL, in particular, is always under scrutiny. Part of the
deal with the new AOL Time Warner merger with the FCC
was that the government is allowed to put the "clipper chip"
technology in every software package AOL distributes.
This allows the government at any time to read and copy
any and all communication distributed from AOL accounts.
The software code is actually copyrighted and called the
Distributed Uniform Matrix Bus-Activated Symbolic Syntax.
Yeah, it's another government mandated acronym that Clinton
signed into law.
Thanks for writing -- I've enjoyed talking to you!
You know, this is really such BS. I would like to suggest that next to your signon to subscribe to Nasty Jokes that in the future you add in parentheses (over 55) so that people like myself don't get upset.
I don't believe that FBI will be calling me - if they do, I'd like to talk to them anyway. No problem.
But I also have many friends who are over age 55 and they can forward jokes to me - again, I don't see what the big deal is.
How old are you, by the way??? And, does anyone else help you??? I just find it hard to believe that there are a whole lot of people OVER 55 who are subscribing to your nasty jokes.
I don't want anything to do with this site anymore. I am going to unsubscribe to everything to do with it and notify all of my friends - I've kept copies of all of our correspondence and I will talk to others about it.
Thanks for all the info, correct or not. Try to stop BS'ing everyone so much.
LH
BS? What was BS about it? There's laws in play here that
you know nothing about. You see, if you were using a
real Internet Service Provider, instead of AOL, then you
would have seen a rather lengthy disclaimer with your sign
up package. AOL doesn't include that because it scares
too many people. They figure the odds of one of their
members stumbling across a Federally Underwritten Class
Kiosk Archiving Organized Lists are pretty small.
Here, do this. Call AOL's customer support line, using the
email that we've sent back and forth. I flat guarantee you
that the support tech you reach won't have a clue about
these laws. That's because AOL has to keep quiet about
these things, unless they want their membership numbers
to fall. So they don't even tell their customer support
people about the Internet Directive Information (Outlined Text).
When you get them on the phone (good luck just doing
that!) ask them if they know about President Clinton's
acronym policy.
When you hear silence from the other end of the phone, you'll
know I'm right. But don't stop there. Ask to speak to a
customer service supervisor. You'll have to go up about three
levels before you find anyone who'll admit to this.
I'm 42. I'm exempted from the 55 age limit because I own
the list. C'mon, LH, think, man, think. How could they
exclude the guy who writes the thing?
Go ahead and unsubscribe. The rest of my lists don't
carry the exclusion that the Nasty List does. And next
time, DON'T say things like, "I'd have just lied". The
government has ears, and they LOVE to hear stuff like
that. After the FBI gets done, they're liable to also turn it
over to the IRS, too. Those folks LOVE to hear when
someone is prone to "fibbing just a little bit."
