Day: December 13, 2000

PETA Sues Rosie O'Donnell

Last week People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals sued talk show host and actress Rosie O’Donnell for defamation after O’Donnell claimed PETA endorses the use of some leather products.

PETA and O’Donnell became entangled after O’Donnell decided to proclaim a “wear leather day” on her show. Many animal rights activists and groups, including PETA, decided to go after O’Donnell, declaring “wear leather day” as promoting cruelty to animals.

On a recent episode O’Donnell told her talks how audience that The Gap used leather approved by PETA. According to PETA spokeswoman Lisa Lange, “There’s no such thing as PETA-approved leather,” and PETA announced a lawsuit seeking an on-air retraction of O’Donnell’s statement as well as $350,000 in damages.

The only problem is that O’Donnell is absolutely right — The Gap does use PETA-approved leather and the lawsuit is completely frivolous.

Earlier in the year PETA launched a campaign to convince The Gap to stop using leather obtained from China and India. PETA argued quite vociferously that animals killed for leather in China and India are treated cruelly, and that it would be better for The Gap to buy leather from countries with higher animal welfare standards.

When The Gap caved in to PETA’s demands, the organization trumpeted its great victory. Now, however, PETA wants to run away from this victory when O’Donnell correct points out that The Gap uses PETA-approved leather.

The bottom line is that this lawsuit is simply just another publicity stunt from a group that excels at such stunts.

Source:

Animal rights group sues O’Donnell. The Associated Press, December 6, 2000.

Federal Appeals Court Rules Against Voucher Plan

The issue of school vouchers is likely headed for a Supreme Court showdown after the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Cleveland’s school voucher program as unconstitutional. The logic of the appeals court was so inconsistent with previous Supreme Court rulings that it could once and for all settle any lingering Constitutional questions.

The appeals court’s reasoning makes little sense except as an irrational judicial reaction to the idea of school choice. Cleveland’s voucher program grants up to $2,500 in tuition vouchers for poor families with children in kindergarten through sixth grades. The public schools in Cleveland all refused to participate in the voucher program, and so most — though not all — of the 56 schools that do participate are religious schools.

Since most of the schools are religious in nature, the appeals court said, it is clear that the voucher program is nothing but a veiled attempt to provide public funding to religious institutions even though, as Ryan pointed out, the program’s selection criteria for schools is based on neutral, secular standards.

Fortunately, the appeals court is likely on very weak ground. In 1999 the Supreme Court ruled that Milwaukee’s voucher program, which also involved public funds being spent at religious schools, was Constitutional. Hopefully it will follow through on that principle and allow parents to send their children to the best possible schools rather than forcing the atrocious state-run schools urban schools on them.

Source:

Ruling against vouchers could head to high court. The Associated Press, December 12, 2000.

Why Does Software Still Suck?

Slashdot has the latest in a long line of threads on the issue of why software still sucks, this time feeding of off comments made by Jaron Lanier.

To me the people who don’t understand why software will always be buggy are a lot like the people who can’t understand why a more “rational” universal language such as Esperanto has never caught on. In fact even single languages such as English are “buggy” since they are constantly (and spontaneously) revised with new, often extremely complex, rules being added ad hoc onto an already bloated grammatical structure.

To use another example, software will always be buggy for the same reason that people don’t live (yet) to be 300 years old. There doesn’t seem to be any reason at the moment that our species could not have evolved to allow for 300-year life spans, but natural selection, like software users, is more concerned with getting things to work long enough for the next version to come along rather than waiting for some mythical perfect species (okay, natural selection doesn’t really any goals or intent, but you get the idea).

While clearly some software is ridiculously bug-ridden, the more features and flexibility that users demand and the larger computer programs get, the more opportunities there are for error and the more futile efforts at non-sucking software becomes.

Personally, I think companies should focus more on error trapping and fixing bugs once the product is shipped rather than trying to ship a perfect product (Microsoft is a real villain here, in my opinion, in that it takes far too long for it to patch defective software).

Reviews are Coming in on Space Empires IV

Space Empires IV, the ultimate 4X space game, is out and getting very good reviews.

GamesDomain.Com’s reviewer notes that there is a pretty steep learning curve — this is definitely not a game for Civlization and Masters of Orion veterans, not 4X newbies.

For fans of the genre, however,

otherwise, there simply isn’t a deeper and more challenging space 4x game in existence. The grand epic feeling of the game is hard to miss and you really feel like you are running an empire.

FEED Daily on the XFL

In a few months the XFL — the WWF/NBC football league — will kick off what Vince McMahon calls a return to “smashmouth football.” If you believe McMahon, the National Football League is populated by whimps who are scared to death to get hit.

I don’t know which channel McMahon is watching, but I see NFL plays every weekend that I’m surprised somebody isn’t outright killed. Take a bunch of men that big and that fast and put them on opposite sides of a football field and it as Rich Gannon once put it, it’s like watching a car crash.

FeedMag.Com’s Ben Godar really hits the nail on the head on this point,

There’s a reason that pro football plays don’t look as aggressively confrontational as they used to, and it’s not because the game is going soft, but just the opposite: Players today are stronger, larger, and faster than ever before.

…Fifteen years ago there were only around twenty players over three hundred pounds. Today that number is well over a hundred.

Anybody else remember when the Chicago Bear’s Refrigerator Perry was considered a freak and somewhat of a sideshow because of his size?

On the other hand, I enjoy football for precisely the same reason that Godar does, which also happens to be why McMahon despises the modern game — there is as much thinking and creativity in today’s game as there is brute force.

Complex traps, counters, and screen passes have become the mainstay of an effective running game. Winning football has become as much cerebral as physical.

Anybody with the physical size can play “smashmouth” football, but to run the sort of stunts that a defense such as Tampa Bay runs requires a great deal of skill and intelligence that many players lack.

There are a lot of good athletes in the Arena Football League, and that league emphasizes high scoring, basic football. And for the most part it’s extremely boring — almost like a caricature of real football. I suspect that the XFL will find the same problem.

Personally, since they are going to spend a lot of money on it anyway, I’d prefer McMahon and NBC to take the XFL in the direction that sports writers seem to fear most — make it into a completely fake sports opera. Better yet, abandon the whole football schtick, invent a sport that involves a lot of violence, and build a fake league around that.

An enormous part of the appeal of sports are the goings on outside the lines, and a well-managed sports soap opera might actually succeed. If forced to compete on its merits as a legitimate sporting event, however, I doubt the XFL will have what it takes.

Source:

Feed daily. Ben Godar, FeedMag.Com, November 16, 2000.