Phyrfight Intel

Jack Thompson Blames Bill Gates for VT Shooting

“…the worst school massacre in world history was at the hands of Robert Steinhaeuser, who literally trained on the Microsoft on-line, hyper-violent shooter game, Counterstrike… As you know, I similalry [sic] went on NBC’s Today Show with the DC Beltway Sniper still unidentified and at-large a few years ago and told Matt Lauer and the nation that the triggerman would most likely be a teen video gamer trained on a sniper video game. The tarot card was a clue, but there were other clues. I was right, as Malvo trained on your Microsoft game, Halo.”

Just for reference, according to Bungie.net, in the last 24 hours over 500,000 unique players played Halo 2 online. According to Wikipedia, 9.2 million copies of the game have been sold worldwide. Also, according to Valve, at any one time there are approximately 150,000 people playing some form of Counterstrike. How can one honestly believe that these games lead individuals to violent behavior when it is so obviously a horrible fringe minority? On top of that, if you can show me an average young male in the United States who has never played any sort of violent video game, I’d be absolutely dumbstruck.

[Update] It has come to my attention that the version of Counterstrike that Cho was playing was not even published by Microsoft. Counterstrike for the PC was published by Sierra Studios. Though, Sierra doesn’t have enough money to be the victim of Thompson’s lunatic lawsuit frenzy.

From Daily News:

“Then the gunfire started coming closer. Librescu, 77, fearlessly braced himself against the door, holding it shut against the gunman in the hall, while students darted to the windows of the second-floor classroom to escape the slaughter, survivors said.”

At this tragic time we should focus on the heroism of Professor Liviu Librescu, who saved the lives of his students, instead of starting an emotional argument about guns. We should focus on the effect his heroism will have on the students he saved, and what they think about his selfless and courageous act. There is not enough positive news these days and we all need some example that there are good forces out there, working.

From: TJ McIntyre

On the wall outside his former residence – flat number 27B – where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

There is an interesting article on Wired.com which discusses the new faux pas of labeling a work of art “science fiction”. I understand that a good amount of science fiction is poorly done and gives the genre a bad name, but science fiction done well can introduce us to new and thought provoking ideas. I can’t understand why a director/writer/author would shy away from the label “science fiction”. Battlestar Galactica producer Ron Moore himself doesn’t like to use that label. I have news for him, whether or not he likes the label BSG is science fiction as well as drama. What BSG does that not many shows can do is use science fiction as a pre-text to get viewers to watch an extremely well done TV drama. As many critics have said before it is the best show on television.

Now a word about bad scifi. Those who continue to watch bad science fiction are part of the problem. Fans should demand science fiction that is well done and not watch science fiction just for the sake of watching science fiction. Science fiction fans as a community should expect the same level of quality in a show or movie that every other genre has.

There is a great post on the Technology Liberation Front blog about when to let kids start playing video games. The poster, Mr. Thierer, is himself a gamer and discusses his thought process on when and how he will let his kids enter the gaming arena. Personally, I think a gamer knows when it is the right time to introduce their kid to gaming.

Documentary

Martyn Burke says that the Public Broadcasting Service and project managers at station WETA in Washington, D.C., excluded his documentary, Islam vs. Islamists, from the series America at a Crossroads after he refused to fire two co-producers affiliated with a conservative think tank. “I was ordered to fire my two partners (who brought me into this project) on political grounds,” Burke said in a complaint letter to PBS and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which supplied funds for the films.

There is a new Battlestar Galactica game demo that runs on Macs, Windows and Linux.
Demo

CAPRICA CITY, Caprica, 31 Ares — The skies were cloudy, the radiation levels moderate, and the cream of Cylon civilization was present in droves for the opening of the first Caprica City Starbucks.

“I always used to joke: How many planets do we have to destroy to get a decent cup of coffee around here?” said a Brother Cavil model while waiting. “Turns out it’s twelve. Who knew?”

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From: Lt. Col. Oliver North/Fox News

Three weeks after Pearl Harbor, nearly 100 American civilian construction contractors were killed and wounded standing shoulder-to-shoulder with U.S. Marines and sailors defending Wake Island. When the tiny garrison was overwhelmed on 23 December 1941, more than 1,000 contractors became prisoners of the Rising Sun and scores were subsequently worked to death and massacred by their captors. None of those who died received so much as a Purple Heart.

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From: Wired

FAIRFAX, Virginia — Early one Sunday morning in 2002, a phone rings in Yu Ling’s Beijing duplex. She’s cleaning upstairs; her son is asleep, while downstairs, her husband, Wang Xiaoning, is on the computer. Wang writes about politics, anonymously e-mailing his online e-journals to a group of Yahoo users. He’s been having problems with his Yahoo service recently. He thinks it’s a technical issue. This is the day he learns he’s wrong.

Wang picks up the phone: “Yes?”

“Are you home?” asks the unfamiliar voice on the other end.

“Yes.”

The line goes dead.

Moments later, government agents swarm through the front door — 10 of them, some in uniform, some not. They take Wang away. They take his computers and disks. They shove an official notice into Yu’s hands, tell her to keep quiet, and leave. This is how it’s done in China. This is how the internet police grab you.

From: Neal Boortz

… A task force appointed by the Mayor has determined that Atlanta needs a cultural investment fund in the amount of at least $10 million that will provide money to artists, arts organizations and what it refers to as “cultural organizations.” The suggestion is that there should be a tax on businesses operating in Atlanta to provide the funds. The story in this morning’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution says that “Many of those who work in the arts in Atlanta said they hope to see some progress on arts funding soon.”

At this point you shouldn’t need a translation of that quote from the AJC. But then again, many of you went to government schools, so I’ll provide that translation for you. Many of the people in the arts community in Atlanta remain frustrated by the fact that Atlanta residents will not voluntarily pay for their art. So, of the Atlanta residents won’t voluntarily buy their art, the government should step in and make them buy the art by seizing their money and transferring that money to artists and arts organizations.

And what about this idea of placing a special tax on Atlanta businesses? What we have here is the arts community taking advantage of the ignorance of our government-educated residents. They know that many people think that if the tax is placed on the businesses this means that the rank and file Atlantans won’t be paying for the art. Sadly, they’re possibly right. Our education is so pathetic that most people can’t noodle out the fact that all taxes paid by businesses are passed on to the consumers of whatever service or goods they sell.

With the new Orb MyCasting software, media geeks can stream music, video, pictures or even youtube.com from their computer to their TV using any network-connected next-gen console.

Every political leader on every issue.

http://www.ontheissues.org

Soldiers that can stay alive with over half of their blood gone? The future of small unit soldiers is being developed by Darpa today.

Wired 15.03: Be More Than You Can Be

From UPI

“Environmentalism should belong in the social sciences,” much like the idea of communism or other “-isms” such as feminism, Klaus said, adding that “environmentalism is a religion” that seeks to reorganize the world order as well as social behavior and value systems worldwide.

I told you so. What a surprise.

From: Wired

“The report indicates abuse of the authority” Congress gave the FBI, said Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt. “You cannot have people act as free agents on something where they’re going to be delving into your privacy.”

The committee’s top Republican, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter, said the FBI appears to have “badly misused national security letters.” The senator said, “This is, regrettably, part of an ongoing process where the federal authorities are not really sensitive to privacy and go far beyond what we have authorized.”

BSG spoilers, as in Battlestar Galactica. Some nugget on another blog whined that he didnt know that BSG meant Battlestar Galactica. What a frak’n dweeb.

I feel the same way Crystal does about this “Dead? Or Alive?” question and I think TomCat agrees.

From:Crystal

What do you hear TomCat?

According to TorrentFreak, many Britons will be without TV service that they have already paid for because of ongoing disputes between the two major networks. This means they will not be able to watch shows that are currently in the middle of their runs in the UK. Enter the P2P protocol BitTorrent. With BitTorrent and websites that host trackers for American TV shows, savvy Britons have access to episodes that will not air for some time on UK TV. Why pay for two services when you can get all the shows you want plus more via the Internet?

From the Technology Liberation Front:

An Egyptian blogger has been sent to jail for four years for criticizing Islam!

Video of him being taken away.

It must be very “inconvenient” for Al Gore that people insist on debating the merits of his claims. Isn’t this the guy that also claimed to have invented the Internet?

From Best of the Web

Here we have a major American politician who is calling for policies that would impose huge costs on society but appears to be profiting handsomely himself; who is leading an extravagant lifestyle while demanding sacrifices from ordinary people; and who is calling on the media to suppress the views of those with whom he disagrees, while at the same time urging more government regulation in the name of “fairness” to his partisan and ideological allies.

Why is it left to think tanks and bloggers to investigate and expose all this? Why aren’t the mainstream media all over the story? Could it be . . . bias?

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