Terrorism, FPS and Disrespect

Somebody at the university I work at moved pretty quickly to shut down what was a pretty surreal contrast of images during last week’s terrorist attack.

The building I work in is about 20 yards from the student union and I venture over there five or six times on an average day. About a year ago somebody thought it would be a good idea to block off part of the common eating area and stick in 10 computers. Link them together with a cheapo server and throw Half-Life and Quake III on each computer, and you had a 24-hour LAN party.

So last week, while the 6 or 7 video monitors are all showing CNN’s latest reports on the terrorist attack, people were still over there playing one of those Half-Life mods that involves one side portraying terrorists and the other side being the antiterrorists (a typical mission, for example, might be one group guarding a non-combatant while the other group is trying to kill him).

That went on pretty much all week, but today someone was in early in the morning yanking out all of the computers. Signs were put up a little later saying the systems had been removed due to “Vandalism and disrespect.”

The vandalism was an ongoing problem, mostly the electronic variety with people figuring out how to get around the security measures on the systems and then wiping the OS, etc. But I suspect the disrespect part was complaints from people about people playing terrorist-inspired videogames even while the World Trade Center/Pentagon tragedy was unfolding

Further Proof that Palm Doesn’t Get It

CNET reports that Palm unleashed its lawyers on Palm-related fan web sites. A letter sent to the operator of one such site, for example, said,

Palm Inc. is proud to have a positive and productive relationship with Web sites promoting the Palm OS. We do not in any way want this relationship to deteriorate. However, we must insist that you work with us to re-brand your Web site in a manner that does not infringe Palm’s trademark rights.

Rebranding? They want such sites to stop using the term “Palm”, especially in domain names, in favor of “Palm OS.”

This is beyond bizarre. Apparently it is part of some broader marketing strategy by Palm to include Palm OS devices such as the Sony Clie and the Handspring Visor (which sounds about right — that’s the sort of idiotic result that comes about whenever you get an internal focus group together within a sizable corporation).

This is especially stupid for Palm because it means all new domain names for the best known Palm-related web sites, which means that for many users finding Palm related web sites will become somewhat more difficult in the short term.

At least two of the sites hit by the letters asking for a name change went out and registered domain names with “Pocket” in them, alluding to Microsoft’s handheld OS.

Just another small indication that Palm no longer has a clue.

Animal Rights Activists vs. Victims of Terrorism

Some animal rights activists have long been proponents of using the methods of terror — destroying buildings and other property to push their political agenda. But in the wake of the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, some animal rights activists chose to show just how callous they were toward human life.

People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals had to weigh in, of course, although the organization seemed to have a quick change of heart. The day after the attacks, PETA issued a press release on its web site which was yanked off the site almost as soon as it had been put up.

Although national news media were reporting that phone service in New York City was suffering under the weight of people concerned about relatives not to mention the ongoing rescue work which had various local, state, and federal authorities staggering to keep up, PETA actually urged people to call Mayor Rudolph Giuliani to express their concerns about abandoned pets. In the press release, PETA said,

Mayor Giuliani has a poor record when it comes to animals. In 1998 he refused to allow desperate New Yorkers whose apartment building’s scaffolding collapsed, the opportunity to tend to or rescue their beloved animals for more than five days, leaving animals to become dehydrated and starving.

Please urge Mayor Giuliani to set up a task force to locate and rescue animals in need. To many of this disaster’s victims and their families, these beloved animals are members of the family and would be a great source of comfort.

It then gave both the phone and fax numbers to Giuliani’s office adding, “If you have a difficult time getting through to Mayor Giuliani due to phone line trouble, please don’t give up; keep trying.” Yeah, they might actually be on the phone trying to arrange to find survivors — clearly PETA’s priorities were far more important than that.

Given the situation on the ground in New York City, such a telephone campaign had the real possibility of endangering human life and has to be one of the more sickening efforts to ever emerge from that sick organization.

Meanwhile, Gary Yourofsky actually tried to top PETA in the level of absurdity. Many Americans have opened their hearts and wallets during this crisis and donated in excess of $100 million to the Red Cross (Amazon.Com alone collected $6.4 million in donations for the Red Cross within a week). Many people also sought to donate blood, in many places quickly overwhelming the ability of volunteers to keep up.

Is this an example of the best of America? According to Yourofsky, people who donate to the Red Cross are simply perpetuating terrorism. In a press release Yourofsky wrote,

Sorry I didn’t post this last week, but The American Red Cross engages in the terroristic, murderous and unscientific practice of vivisection.

It is my personal belief, too, that the Red Cross is making out like bandits over the recent tragedy. You can bet the upper management Red Cross people will be receiving HUGE bonuses after the public sends in tens of millions if not hundreds of millions of dollars because of the WTC/Pentagon attacks.

DO NOT SUPPORT the RED CROSS in any way until it refuses to torture, terrorize and murder animals in unscientific and unethical experiments.

There are other ways to donate blood besides via the Red Cross. Local hospitals or county clinics can take blood donations, too. Be careful about hospitals, though. Many of those institutions engage in vivisection, too. County clinics are your safest bet.

Yourofsky is right about one thing. The Red Cross does participate in some medical research involving animals, and thanks to animal research many of those who likely would have died of their injuries were saved thanks to the incredible advances in drugs, surgical practices, medical devices and other innovations.

Just one more thing to thank them for.

Sources:

Red Cross experiments on animals – DO NOT DONATE. Gary Yourofsky, ADAPTT Press Release, September 19, 2001.

New York City’s Animals Desperately Need Your Voice. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Press Release, September 12, 2001.

They Should Have Bombed the World Trade Center on a Sunday!

The things that Lexis-Nexis searches turn up often boggle even my cynical mind. The Rocky Mountain News, for example, ran a very brief editorial item on September 16 about the philosophical connections between animal rights and anti-globalization activists and the terrorists who caused so much grief on September 11.

The Rocky Mountain News was outraged by a comment that appeared in a Wall Street Journal story which interviewed anti-globalization activists for their reaction to the bombing. One San Francisco-area activist actually told the Journal,

We’re supercritical of the terrorists’ scorn for human life. Why couldn’t they done what they did on a Sunday? There are always ways to make allowances for people’s lives.

The Rocky Mountain News comments that, “Anyone who suggests that shattering the World Trade Center with a hijacked jet on a Sunday night might be considered a concession to civilized norms needs to be under the care of a psychiatrist.”

Indeed, one would suspect the validity and accuracy of the Wall Street Journal quote were it not so completely consistent with the direct action philosophy — as long as it only hurts property, the activists claim, it is not really violence. If the terrorists had managed to take out the World Trade Center without taking any lives but their own, this would have been just as valid a political statement as fire bombing laboratories or smashing in the windows of a local McDonald’s.

One of the upshots of the World Trade Center attack is likely to be an increased media emphasis on all acts of terrorism. Animal rights and environmental terrorists have largely been able to fly under the radar of national attention. The destruction of buildings at the Vail Ski resort received national attention for a few days, but for the most part terrorist acts by groups such as the Animal Liberation Front or Earth Liberation Front have been largely ignored by national media, having been relegated to being local affairs.

Hopefully, this will begin to change as the media and public realizes that the fear and trepidation many of us now feel is something that many medical researchers, animal agriculturalists and others have been living with for years.

Source:

Bankrupt explanation. The Rocky Mountain News, September 18, 2001.

Where Did Osama bin Laden Get the Idea that Murdering Civilians was Acceptable?

The horror of it all is still difficult to comprehend. Thousands of civilians murdered in cold blood as part of a campaign of terror. These people were killed simply to make a point and to attempt to weaken the resolve of a nation. No, I’m not talking about the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, but rather a war crime perpetrated by Allied nations during the end of World War II.

Just a couple weeks before the bombing of the World Trade Center, the BBC aired a look at the bombing of German cities in the last months of World War II. Dresden, of course, has always stood out as a target that was mercilessly bombed apparently not out of any strategic military concerns but rather to terrorize its civilian population and thereby bring a quicker end to the war. And, it turns out, Dresden wasn’t the only city victimized this way.

The BBC program, Bombing Germany, looked at the Allied bombing of Wuerzburg, Germany — a small town of about 8,000 people. On March 16, 1945, Allied forces dropped almost 1,000 tons of bombs on the city, killing almost 5,000 people and destroying more than 80 percent of the town.

Documents turned up by the BBC confirm what was long suspected — Dresden, Wuerzburg, and other German towns were chosen not because of any military value but rather because for a number of reasons it would be easy to destroy these largely residential errors and terrorize the civilian population.

The BBC quotes from a memo by US Air Force general Frederick Anderson that maintained the goal of the operations was “not expected in itself to shorten the war … However, it is expected that the fact that Germany was struck all over will be passed on, from father to son, thence to grandson; that a deterrent for the initiation of future wars will definitely result.”

In other words, they were pure and simple acts of terrorism — a fact explicitly conceded by Winston Churchill who drafted a memorandum suggesting that it was time to curtail such raids since the war was quickly drawing to a close,

The moment has come when the question of bombing of German cities simply for the sake of increasing the terror, though under other pretexts, should be reviewed. Otherwise we shall come into control of an utterly ruined land.

The Allied campaign of terrorism had to be stopped not because it was in violation of international law as well as an affront to morality, but rather it had to be stopped so that Allied forces would have something left to occupy when they inevitably defeated Nazi Germany. As long as it did not interfere with other objectives, terrorizing a civilian population was perfectly acceptable to Allied commanders and their political leaders.

Unlike Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, nobody even tried to bring those responsible for these despicable acts of terrorism to justice. But contemporary terrorists have done well by adopting that callous view of human life.

Source:

War papers reveal bombers’ terror tactics. Richard Norton-Taylor, SMH.Com.Au, August 24, 2001.