Month: July 2001

A group of animal rights activists calling themselves Pirates for Animal Liberation claimed responsibility this week for sinking a yacht belonging to bank of new York executive Brian G. Rogan. Rogan is BNY’s President of Capital Markets.

The group targeted Rogan because BNY provides financial services to Huntingdon Life Sciences. In a communique claiming responsibility for the act, the activist said,

As the boat began to take on water it was cut loose and pushed out to sea, we left before confirming whether or not the boat sunk. Both the boat and his [Rogans’s] personal dock were left covered with painted slogans denouncing BNY’s involvement with Huntingdon Life Sciences…

Upon escape we cut through his estate to his personal Flag Pole, his Amerikkkan Flag was lowered and discarded like the trash it is, and replaced with the only flag that matters, a pirate flag!

Although it claims to only follow legal tactics, Stop Huntingdon Animal Cruelty welcomed the property destruction. In its press release on the matter, Frontline Information Service quoted an unnamed SHAC spokesperson as saying,

SHAC is a legal campaign and the P.A.L.’s action was unsolicited, but enthusiastically welcomed. HLS has been warned for the 500 animals they murder every day there is 500 different strategies the animal rights movement will use to shut them down. I would anticipate seeing more creative and hard-hitting tactics like this in the future.

Source;

“HLS: Thar She Blows” – Animal ‘Pirates’ Sink Bank Exec’s Yacht! Press Release, Frontline Information Service, July 25, 2001

A helicopter swooped over Glen Coberly’s tomato patch in Middlesex, Virginia, while 6-7 officers sprang upon him with guns drawn and ordered him to the ground. Convinced they had spotted Coberly harvesting marijuana plants, they were about to make a big bust. Unfortunately for them, their would-be score went bust itself when it turned out the plants were tomatoes.

The helicopter pilot thought Coberly’s tomato plants looked the same color as marijuana, but conceded he can make mistakes on overcast days like the one on which the raid occurred. Not that they didn’t have the best intentions. Middlesex Sheriff Guy Abbott said, “We’re just trying to do our best to protect our citizens. And we’re not perfect; we make mistakes.”

But who is going to protect the Glen Coberly’s of the world from overzealous drug warriors?

Source:

Drug agents ketchup to wrong suspects. Daily Press, Tina McCloud, July 20, 2001.

Bovine colostrom, which is produced during the first few days after a cow gives birth, could prove to be a life saving treatment for people with stomach disorders.

Researchers at Hammersmith Hospital and Leicester General hospital in the United Kingdom recently conducted a study using the milk product to treat problems caused by non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDS). NSAIDS provide amazing anti-inflammatory action, but can attack in the stomach lining and cause it to bleed.

According to The BBC, about 2,000 people in the UK die every year from NSAID-related side effects.

Research is also underway to test colostrom as a possible treatment for ulcerative colitis, an inflammatory disease of the large bowel.

Source:

milk eases stomach injuries. The BBC, July 22, 2001.

Once again the good folks at Blizzard released some changes to Diablo 2 that weren’t properly tested resulting in many people losing items that their characters had accumulated while playing the game. The game uses one data packet for character information and a second packet for items that a character owns, and the bug causes the server to lose the pointer that connects the two packets.

There’s a lot of moaning and whining on Blizzard’s forums up the problem (and rightfully so), but it was a story posted at Slashdot that really caught my eye. Michael posted a description of the problem and then added,

Is it just me, or is it a bit odd to be reporting on the disappearance of items that never existed in the first place?

I was a bit astounded that someone working for a techie site like Slashdot would actually assert that information isn’t a “real” commodity. After all, if my Two-Handed Sword of the Vampire doesn’t really exist, then neither does the story at Slashdot — both are nothing more than entries into a specialized database.

Quite a few people in the ensuing discussion couldn’t understand why anyone would pay real money (and in some cases, hundreds of dollars) for Diablo 2 items on E-Bay. But supply and demand functions just as well with information as it does with physical objects you can hold in your hand. Many items in Diablo 2 are extremely difficult to find since their appearance is controlled by setting the probability that they will appear as very low. If an object is only likely to appear once per 10,000 game hours, it’s going to be worth a lot of money.