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Bonsaikitten Eaten By Carnivore

Posted by michael on Fri Feb 09, 2001 08:39 PM
from the tasty dept.
Two nuggets from the FBI today - this: "Freedom of speech apparently doesn't apply to some topics. Take cute animals, for example. If it had been BonsaiSloth.com, we probably wouldn't seeing this." And this: "It seems that the FBI is changing Carnivore's name to "DCS1000" apparently because it 'made the system sound like a predatory device made to invade people's privacy'. I'm sure a snide remark about "truth in advertising" fits here."
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  • by BSOD Bitch (260492) on Friday February 09 2001, @07:51PM (#442458) Homepage
    I have recently learned the art of the Bonsai Kitten taught to me by my grandfather Tai Mai Choo. This method has allowed me to develop many of my own.

    My primary method is what I call the Spider Kitten. In this method, the kittens' feet are tied with four nylon strings. The end of each string is streched to a point in which 4 small 5 foot high posts reside. There are four posts total; for each leg. The kittens' paws are tied to each of these posts for a period of 3 weeks. However, you must tighten the strings a little each day to avoid the legs from growing above the kittens' heads'. Proper feeding is required. After the 3 week period is up, the kitten is set free.

    We have sucess fully grown kittens with legs up to 48 inches per leg. The cat can now almost stand face to face with it's master. It is a very painless process for the kitten. And I hope these cats will be adored and loved in your home.

    WARNING: These kittens are NOT recommended to people with large quantaties of furniture. This is due to the fact that these kittens have an unusual way of marking their territory with their claws.

    We also recommend that you keep these kittens on a leash, for the tend to run very fast, and are hard to catch.

  • sing it to dire straights money for nothing

    I want my Bonziakitten.....

    Now look at them yo-yo's
    that's the way you do it
    You stuff a kitten on your lab table

    That ain't workin'
    that's the way you do it
    kittens are for nothing
    and and the jars are free

    Now that ain't workin'
    that's the way you do it
    Lemme tell ya that guys not dumb
    Maybe get a cat bite on your little finger
    Maybe get a claw on your thumb

    we got to drill some breating holes
    Custom jars with garuanteed deliveries...

    We gotta move these big old cats
    We gotta move these breathing tubess....

    I shoulda learned to stuff the cat
    I shoulda learned to drill some holes

    Look at that peta person ,
    she got it stickin' her nose in my door
    Man we could have some fun
    And she's up there,
    what's that? Calaco perrs?
    Bangin' on the lid
    like a chimpanzee

    That ain't workin'
    that's the way you do it
    kittens are for nothing
    and and the jars are free

    We gotta move these big old cats
    We gotta move these breathing tubess....

    This is a workin'
    that's the way you do it
    you stuff your kinnen on the desk top
    That ain't workin'
    that's the way you do it
    kittens are for nothing
    and and the jars are free

    kittens are for nothing
    and and the jars are free
    kittens are for nothing
    and and the jars are free

    I want my Bonziakitten
    I want my Bonziakitten
    I want my Bonziakitten



    spambait e-mail
    my web site artistcorner.tv hip-hop music news
    please help me make it better
  • Alas, Scott Adams has already copyrighted the GruntMaster 6000 so this was obviously their fallback. Btw, doesn't "DCS" bear a scary aural resemblance to "DeCSS"?

  • Both sides have their censorship agendas. I'm a leftist, but I am not terribly happy with what the Dems are doing wrt censorship. However, the conservatives (for example, the Republicans) aren't any better. They've been trying to censor art, porn, and music for years.

    My feeling was that both the major parties ignored young people in their conventions, and exclusively targetted families and seniors, hence we saw some pro-censorship agendas from both sides.

    However, I don't really see what vegetarianism has to do with censorship though -- I'm afraid the relevance of that remark escapes me.

  • ... it's only karma :)

    As usual, the typical anti-law-enforcement knee-jerk reaction from /. people. FBI is OBLIGATED to investigate this site that apparently violates a federal law, whether this site seems to be a dumb satire or not based on common sense. FBI is not arresting anyone - they are investigating to SEE whether the site is for real violation of the law or not.

    If I posted pictures of dismembered people on my web site, would YOU know whether i'm being a sick moron or a psycho serial killer? And if you claim to know, i'd like to find out where did you get your Ph.D. in psychology from, as well as what criminal profiling jobs have you had, since Joe "this is obviusly not for real" Average Slashdotter simply doesn't have suficient background to be able to distinguish between the two - yes, most likely it's simply a sick prank but you never know 100% sure.

    Oh, and didn't Jeffrey Dalhmer start out with pets too? I shot off an e-mail to my psych-educated friend to clarify if this is a verifiable trend but I expect it to be so.

    Yes, if this was a prank and FBI actually harrasses the idjits after verifying this, this would become a First Amendement issue. Right now itr is not.

    -DVK

  • "Society got to the point where we couldn't offend anyone, the Irish, Jewish, Cat-lovers, Dog-lovers, etc, etc..."

    It's not about racial groups, it's about animal abuse...human cruelty.

    Time after time what was before seen as a form of entertainment is later identified as a form of brutality and abolished.

    Look at the Roman empire and the Coliseum, I am sure at that time there were people that thought that was a horrible show while most of the mob thought it was fun thing to watch.

    Look at slavery....
    Look at cannibalism...
    Look at human sacrifices...
    Look at genocide...
    Look at animal experiments (yes they are nastier than you might imagine)...

    Those were all acceptable in their time by people like you and rejected by people like me. I'm glad people that think cruelty is not human right are the ones shaping the world.

    BTW...I'm a vegan
  • Everyone who is against this site makes the same argument, "What if a child sees and does it?". This is just another case of America forgetting it's up to parents to raise their children. I just can't believe the FBI is acting this insane.
  • If they go after these guys for encouraging cruelty to animals, I won't have faith in our justice system until they go after the producers of Hannibal for encouraging cruelty to humans.

  • by Fervent (178271) on Friday February 09 2001, @08:36PM (#442500)
    Kleinbottle.com is real. The structures that they sell aren't true klein bottles, but they're as close as you can come in three dimensions. Great gifts.

    Yes, nothing says to your girlfriend "your sexy" like giving her a Klein bottle for Valentine's Day.

    --------
    Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.

  • This looks an awfully lot like all the sites that have tried Schrödinger's Cat Experiment. Explained here [home.net] and tested over there [ox.ac.uk].
  • I think you're missing the point here. I, like most of the people here find it on the offensive side, and if in the right mood, would fire off an email stating just that opinion. However, in the case of this website, we're talking about a federal investigation into a site that is obviously doctored photographs which anyone with a copy of Photoshop/Gimp/etc. could throw together in a short period of time. I've found images that are much closer to being illegal on rotten.com [rotten.com] than the site in question.
  • Er, since I'm addressing the humor-impaired, I should probably point out that http://www.kleinbottle.com is a joke as well.

    No it's not, A friend ordered one from them and he's drunk beer out of it! It comes with a couple of sides of A4 about what to do if you're exporting it into any universe which has more or less than three dimensions (consult a registered quantum mechanic etc.).
  • and I think this site is fucking hilarious. In the 19 years on this earth I have grown enough to know when someone is making a joke for the sake of how ridiculous it is, and I can laugh.
    Part of me hopes the site is a commentary on how pet lovers really do raise their pets. . . but the humor is a little to unsophisticated for that.
  • SURE! And tux being sodomized by the freeBSD
    daemon(demon?).

    Thats the point, right there, in a nutshell.

    In this country (and I speak of the us here.)
    Free speach is legal. Censor one thing, and you
    quickly open a flood gate of other possible
    things to censor. Including you.

    So before people start to get uptight about this
    realize, that your views my be eccentric and
    offensive to somebody else. Of course,
    unless your a tapocia head in 451F.

    If that ever happens to me, somebody, please,
    shoot me, for to be tamed, is to be dead.
  • www.cat-scan.com [cat-scan.com]

    It's hilarious. If you look at the scans, the majority of the cats just seem confused as to why they are sitting on a piece of glass. Most calm cats will stay wherever you put them for at least a few seconds, they they will leave if they wish. I don't think it's that cruel. I think some people go a little overboard, but people have been cruel to animals for ages, I don't think that websites like this are promoting anything new. At least they don't have pictures of two cats tied to eachother by the tail and thrown over a clothesline. That was the worst thing I saw as a kid.

  • The people who are calling for this site to be taken down are the same people who call for the Green Bay Packers to change their name because it is cruel to animals.
  • It sounds like the site owner could have put a "this is a joke" disclaimer at the bottom of the page, but didn't because he wanted to read enraged responses and laugh at the senders. That's not very ethical by my standards -- especially when the content of the site might lead someone to hurt cats, or even if a it would lead a cat-lover to *think* that someone might hurt cats after seeing the site. Plenty of web surfers wouldn't be tipped off by "rectilinear" or "klein bottle" and immediately figure out that the site is a joke.

    I haven't actually seen the website -- I'm just going by the linked articles, so I could be wrong about the facts. (Also, for now, I'll stay out of the debate over whether it was right for the FBI to shut down the site.)
  • Freedom of speech apparently doesn't apply to some topics.

    Right. And as soon as you forget your starry-eyed idealism, you'll probably accept it.

    I'm really getting sick of Slashdot for this very reason. This is absolutely correct - freedom of speech does not apply to all topics. You can't lawfully plot the assassination of the president, you can't lawfully say or write damaging things about people that you know are false, you can't lawfully sell a canned soda drink and call it Coca Cola, etc., etc.

    Some restriction is necessary to keep our economy running smoothly, to keep some semblance of order, and to keep things fair and just.

    I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death, blah, blah, blah... Don't make me ill. I'd never defend to the death the right of someone put up a web site about squishing kittens into Mason jars - my family is too important to me to do that.

    Don't get me wrong - freedom of speech is the best default for making a judgment on what is lawful to say. But you know what? I have a favorite limitation on free speech - an overriding principle. The Supreme Court of the United States said it in their judgment on Ginsberg v. New York, 390 U.S. 629: "the parents' claim to authority in their own household to direct the rearing of their children is basic in the structure of our society." They were saying that New York was not at fault for making criminal the selling of pornographic material to minors.

    Just some stuff for you starry-eyed idealists to think about.
  • by Fist Prost (198535) on Friday February 09 2001, @06:43PM (#442533) Homepage
    Here's one that's already ready already:
    Squirrel Fishing [harvard.edu].

    Fist Prost

    "We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
  • by MrGrendel (119863) on Friday February 09 2001, @09:19PM (#442543)
    These people certainly have the right to post whatever they want on the web, regardless of its poor taste, so long as there is no real animal cruelty going on (I suspect there isn't). This isn't really a matter of offending people, though, and they aren't being investigated for simply being offensive. I'm guessing that many of the people who think this site is funny think so because it is outrageous to the point of being unrealistic. Unfortunately, many of us have personal experience with people who have actually done outrageous things like this to animals. When you know people who would take this kind of site seriously, but think it's a clever idea for a new method of torture rather than offensive, then this isn't quite so funny. It also isn't obvious that this is a complete fabrication rather than sick people bragging and joking about their animal torture exploits.

    I grew up in a small town where people didn't just make off-color jokes about flaming cats being thrown off bridges, some of them had really done it. Two guys who had dowsed a cat in gasoline, lit it on fire, and threw it off a 300 foot bridge were caught (they bragged in public) and eventually sentenced to 6 months (the max). Two years later they were both convicted for murder after breaking into a farm house and raping, torturing (for over a day), and killing the occupants. I knew people who bragged about beating cats in burlap bags with baseball bats. A friend had a cat that returned home one night with a plastic bag over its head, tied at the neck. It was hacking up blood and died on the way to the vet. The people responsible for that also thought it was pretty funny and got quite a few laughs out of it. People like this really would try to grow a cat in a jar if they were a little more creative.

    Now, after that rant, let me say it again: if this is just a joke, they have every right to offend me with it. I don't have to look. But it is not at all obvious to me that this is entirely a joke, and for that reason it warrants investigation.

  • He sells items very close to klein bottles. [Note - To understand explaination, please take a look at http://www.geom.umn.edu/zoo/toptype/klein/standard /stills.html. It gives a good view of a klein bottle's general shape] The difference is that there is a hole in the glass klein bottles where the handle part reaches the body part of the bottle. In a true klein bottle, not such hole exists, and this is the reason a true klein bottle is impossible - The handle and the body of the bodle must intersect but not touch each other, meaning that a true klein bottle must enter a fourth dimension in order to correctly form this section of the bottle.
  • Count the FBI among the many visitors to bonsaikitten.com who are anything but amused at the descriptions of how to use muscle relaxant, feeding tubes and Klein bottles to shape a perfect Bonsai Cat.

    You think anyone at the FBI knows what a Klien bottle is?

  • INTEGRATED SYSTEMS DEVELOPMENT, INC. of Michigan ownes the trade mark. Can they sue the FBI?
  • I think that the reason people fear this site, isnt so much what it depicts towards animals, but rather what it says about human nature.

    The vast majority of people nowadays go about their daily routine ignoring and repressing most of their inner feelings and thoughts. Mostly due to societial/religious conditioning to keep those 'bad thoughts' out of their heads.

    Along comes this site and people freak out...how could a 'human' do such a thing?? Worse still, how could a human even have a 'thought' like this?? Having been so conditioned to not even question that they themselves might have a 'dark-side'. There is no way they could ever conceive such a notion in their mind let alone do it.

    Unfortunately the truth of the matter is (as most readers here know), we (humans) ARE capable of thinking and doing this sort of thing (...and worse). Of course thinking and acting on those thoughts are quite different. More people need to understand their own dark and violent nature to be able to control it and laugh at the cruel joke of it all.

    The scary people out there are the ones who deny acknowledging their dark nature and then one day have it creep up and overtake them. Those are the people that would actually go and glue their cats anus shut and stuff them into a bottle. And later, after they are being hauled off to jail (or whatever), they are going "I don't know why I did it...". Neighbors saying "He seemed like such a nice person...".

    More satire at our perverse nature wont desensitize us, it will allows us to better understand ourselves and lead more productive lives.

    And for any trolls here from the humane society, sheesh read the sentence about them having a US government approved license for this...that should tip you to the joke of it all.

    -not your normal AC

  • > Why should humor have to be clearly labeled as
    such?
    A few years ago (96?) I referred to my Cat's
    Death Stout on rec.crafts.brewing, not a place
    noted for the humor-impaird. Particularly, I
    mentioned that it had been a double-batch, but
    that my cat had knocked the airlock out of one of
    the bottles, leaving it open to infection.

    Sone responded with a rather rabid message,
    concluding that he hoped I choked to death on the
    fur.
    I started sending a caustic response, but thought
    better of it. Sure enough, many others did,
    pointing out that any idiot should have been able
    to recognize I wasn't serious. [after all, it
    wasn't like he ruined *both* carboys :) ]

    hawk
  • DCS1000? Why, did they have a Y2K naming failure and DCS2000 rolled over to DCS1000? What kind of customer marketing decided on a 000 prefix? We should get better products from our government money. (Of course, I also don't appreciate the expense of their having to change all those Carnivor business cards, letterhead, pamphlets, and billboards)
  • heck, in 1984, there were something like 30 universal newsgroups--seems to me that they wouldn't quite fit on one screen, but didn't need two.

    And you could read the days newsfeed in about two hours (yes, my consulting at the time had some *very* boring tasks that left me sitting in front of machines for a long time waiting to change disks).
  • I see a parallel to the ./ article earlier on virtual child pornography. People often claim that there is no slippery slope, but this is it in action. This is then next thing that they take our rights away from. And then it's another, and another, and another.
  • Jeez... anybody with cats know that they'll get into any container, no matter how big, just to see what's inside!

    Why do you think there's such a problem with people accidentally killing their pets by locking them in the fridge or the dryer?

    This is a funny site, that pokes much needed fun at breeders and collectors alike. If you *don't* get it and think this guy needs to be punished, then you have obviously never owned a cat.
  • This story really makes me worry that I'll get busted for freerifle.com [freerifle.com].

    FreeRifle.com is obviously a joke, right? A witty (sort of) send-up of the idiotic companies we saw during the height of the internet business craze... Right?

    Now I'm seriously considering putting a disclaimer on the page, which will ruin the parody.

  • Of course, this assumes that there is no actual cruelty occuring.

    Dude, have you seen the site? They put a kitten in a wide-mouth glass mason jar, and took a photo. In another photo, they've covered a full grown cat with a clear pyrex mixing bowl.

    Guess what? None of that is cruel. It's not even close. You can't hurt a kitten by putting it in a wide-mouth mason jar for the few seconds it takes to snap a photo. Hell, if you have a laid back kitten, or you've pumped it full of enough catnip before hand, the kitten probably won't even care.

    The cat under the pyrex bowl probably did care, of course -- after the photo was snapped, and the bowl taken off,the cat probably expressed its extreme displeasure by rolling over, or going to sleep on top of the refridgerator, or by sitting on the window sill for a while.

    Seriously, there's nothing on the site that indicates any kind of cruelty to anything. Putting a pyrex bowl over your cat for a few seconds is no more cruel to the cat than the cat is cruel to you by kneading your chest with its sharp pointy claws while you're trying to read the newspaper. The cat's certainly not hurt, and is at the worst slightly annoyed with you for a few minutes. Big deal. There's real stuff to be concerned about in the world.
  • Well... I'm a cat fanatic, and so logically I _ought_ to be offended. But on the other hand, I find 'Dysfunctional Family Circus' hysterically funny, and that is at least as sick if not more so. Therefore, I am forced to accept that bonsaikitten.com is funny too- if melonheaded mutant children are funny, then so are cube-shaped kittens. ;)
  • Great! Now they are using a CD coping service [google.com] for reading people's email?

    Mark Duell
  • Would it really have hurt them to put a "this is a parody" disclaimer at the bottom of the site?

    Yes it would. It would have detracted from the fun. And why should they detract from the fun to pander to the less intelligent?
    If I had a "how to kill your neighbours" site and posted (faked) pictures, do you think I should get investigated?

    No, I don't. I think a criminal investigation should only be launched when there's actual evidence that a crime has been committed. In this case, a corpse or missing person.
    Maybe a we should consider people reporting crimes to 911 as just 'pranks' to?

    It's hardly the same. 911 is for reporting emergencies. The web is for fetching information from remote servers. No guarantees are made that the information is serious or accurate.
    Instead of putting a disclaimer on the web site, let's put a disclaimer in the web browsers. Dialog box: "Danger! You are entering the World Wide Web! You may be trolled or offended. Click 'Accept' to continue." I'm assuming that idiots don't use lynx.
  • *sigh* I thought the Klein Stein would've been kind of a neat, geeky thing to own. Sure, since it's an object in three space it's not really a klein bottle, but who cares?

    After checking the site, and going to the order page, I don't think it's a joke. The ordering instructions are just the kind of cobbled together thing I'd expect out of a place like that. Thank goodness I'll be able to get my Klein Stein someday. :-)

  • The Larry Flynt - Jerry Falwell supreme court case preserved freedom of speech for the purposes of parody.

    bonsaikitten is too good of a parody, to the point where a person of average intelligence will not think it's a parody.

    Therefore, the protection of freedom of speech is limited in cases where the quality of the speech is too good.

    The conclusion that one must necessarily draw about this case, and many many others, is that the USA's focus is shifting: from one that necessarily protected certain freedoms, to one that only protects politically viable viewpoints.

    Can you think of anything more dangerous?

  • Now the government wants to prevent you from watching pussies.

    (and eating meat is bad if I understand well)

  • by Karma Sink (229208) <oakianus@fuckmicrosoft.com> on Friday February 09 2001, @03:53PM (#442611) Homepage
    Snopes [snopes2.com] had a page on this not too long ago, and I'be been watching it ever since... There are a goodly number of groups that are trying to fight this. All of them are fucking ridiculous, but what can you do.

    If you want a place to troll the fuck out of, I highly suggest This [ezboard.com] message board, a group devoted to the love of kitties, and how bonzaikitten.com is evil, how would they like to be stuffed in jars, etc...

    It's fucking ridiculous. It's exactly what was said in Farenheit 451... Society got to the point where we couldn't offend anyone, the Irish, Jewish, Cat-lovers, Dog-lovers, etc, etc... Until finally, we had to censor everything, and everything had to turn to tapioca bullshit just to make everyone happy.

    Fuck that. This site is fucking hilarious, and needs to stay.
  • ...I can't think of a better example myself. It's almost amusing and at the same time sad to see how people feel that jokes like this are somehow real and/or enourage others to commit acts of cruelty

    If you're sick enough to put cats in a bottle, then I seriously doubt you were of sound mind and judgement before you saw this web site. If you actually believed this was real, then you're gulliable. People, come on, lighten up.

    It's almost ironic how pictures of people being beaten, tortured, brutally killed, and dead on autopsy tables can be readily found on the Internet, but put a fake picture of a kitty on a bottle up and you've got hell. This is a very clear indication of the backward priorities and lack of critical thought our society possesses.

  • by bnenning (58349) on Friday February 09 2001, @04:10PM (#442686)
    I'm a big cat person. I like them, and they for the most part like me. I get along with them much better than, say, human beings. This site is not funny at all to me, and I can easily understand why people are upset about it. Having said that, I must defend their right to publish this material. There is no right not to be offended, and any law that prohibits mere depictions of animal cruelty is blatantly unconstitutional (much like the fake kiddie porn law).

    Of course, this assumes that there is no actual cruelty occuring. If that is not the case, then an appropriate punishment for those responsible would involve a locked room and several hungry tigers.

  • by sparcv9 (253182) on Friday February 09 2001, @04:22PM (#442699)
    These guys trolled the FBI! I came across the Bonsai Kitten site a while ago, and just by reading the text, I was able too see that this site was a joke. The massive amounts of hate mail this site gets (which was also funneled to a mailing for site fans to read) is just indicative of how many stupid and/or gullible people there are surfing the Web. But for the FBI to take this site seriously, that is just an embarrassment.
  • by VValdo (10446) on Friday February 09 2001, @04:32PM (#442706)

    Disguised Carnivore System

    Ie, I'm not going to let them get away with that name change.

    W
    -------------------

  • by kaphka (50736) <1nv7b001@sneakemail.com> on Friday February 09 2001, @04:47PM (#442728)
    Count the FBI among the many visitors to bonsaikitten.com who are anything but amused at the descriptions of how to use muscle relaxant, feeding tubes and Klein bottles to shape a perfect Bonsai Cat.
    For those of you who aren't clued in (i.e. the FBI and Wired, apparently,) Klein bottles [kleinbottle.com] cannot exist in our universe. That kinda makes it unlikely that they are being used to abuse kittens.

    Er, since I'm addressing the humor-impaired, I should probably point out that http://www.kleinbottle.com [kleinbottle.com] is a joke as well.
  • by blonde rser (253047) on Friday February 09 2001, @04:48PM (#442730) Homepage
    Salinger sights R. H. Blyth's definition of sentimentallity as "when we give to a thing more tenderness than God gives to it." Salinger's example is then given as "God undoubtedly loves kittens, but not, in all probability, with Technicolor booties on their paws."

    (try not to get too caught up in the word God... this does not have to be a religious statement) Basicly all I'm trying to say with Salinger's words (because he does have the ability to be a lot more straight forward than myself) is that when it comes to kittens many people lose the ability to observe things rationally. But before you judge these people too hard think if you do the same thing yourself. Did Pay it Forward "move" you? Or did you believe that Traffic was a "powerful" movie?

    If so then you have fallen for the same crime. Pay it Forward seemed to move you because it kills a child in the last 5 minutes which the audience responds to with sentiment. And Traffic associates itself with a very important argument but in itself does not have a strong plot, characters, or pasing but because we see strength in the argument we see strengths in the movie which simply aren't there. All I'm trying to point out is that we all show a lack of objectivity at times when it comes to sentiment but that doesn't mean we should be chastized for it. Ofcourse there are those who will over react to images of kittens so lets point out their error and move on. And maybe we can even learn from their mistakes.

    Ofcourse if they try to defend themselves then we can flame them.
  • by peccary (161168) on Friday February 09 2001, @04:49PM (#442733)
    Didn't you recognize the guestbook entry by the esteemed ex MIT professor, Dr. Lirpa? Dr. Lirpa has made a great number of breakthroughs, including in the field of hydrodynamics [samurai.com], audiodynamics, [angelfire.com] political theology, [encounter.org.nz] and aerodynamics, [cricket.org] among others. Dr. Lirpa is not a force to be trifled with.
  • by AaronStJ (182845) <`AaronStJ' `at' `gmail.com'> on Friday February 09 2001, @05:11PM (#442735) Homepage
    Er, since I'm addressing the humor-impaired, I should probably point out that http://www.kleinbottle.com is a joke as well.

    Err, are you sure. His website makes it fairly clear that he really is selling Klein bottles:

    Are you serious, or is this some kind of joke?


    I do sell glass Klein Bottles. I fill orders quickly and guarantee satisfaction. Over a hundred presumably happy mathematicians now own my Klein Bottles.

    He explains all about the topology of a klein bottle, admits that what he makes aren't klein bottles in the truest sense, but merely a 3d immersion of a klein bottle. I'd have to say that you're wrong, this guy really is seelinf klein bottles. And he even accepts paypal.
  • by thex23 (206256) on Friday February 09 2001, @04:53PM (#442740) Homepage
    This is from the bonsaikitty.com site:

    At only a few weeks of age, a kitten's bones have not yet hardened and become osseous. They are extremely soft and springy. In fact, if you take a week-old kitten and throw it to the floor, it will actually bounce! We do not recommend that you try this at home. The kitten may bounce under the furniture and be difficult to retrieve, as well as covered in unsightly household dust

    I actually laughed out loud when I read this. I mean, come ON! How stupid do you have to be not to see this is a joke? Could it be any more deadpan?

    And I don't for a second buy the argument that parody invites people to harm their pets. The REAL problem with pets these days are owners who don't take care of them properly, let them get hurt, breed indescriminately, and generally treat them as poorly as they treat their human pets, er.. children.

    I found cat-drowing scenes in the movie Gummo to be truly disturbing, but I didn't for a SECOND think that the film should be banned and the producers brought to trial. How ridiculous!

    The animal rights people can't develop a functioning sense of humour, they should at least be a little more tolerant.
    The FBI needs to get a fucking grip.

    We thieves, we liars, we vandals, and poets. Networked agents of Cthulhu Borealis.

  • I don't think the guy "needs to be punished" but I am sort of glad that the FBI would take this seriously as a interstate crime if real. I went to the site having seen a link to it through eightball (or something) I cringed, I felt nauseous and I realized- after a while of reading- that it had to be a joke. Hopefully. 99% positive. And though it continue(s,d) to disturb the hell out of me, I resolved not to lose any sleep over it. That's the end of it. For me.
    But that's not the way the FBI works. They made the usual inquiries about the website's operator just doing their job even though I am sure the investigators had already arrived at a conclusion that this was a hoax and that no real conspiracy to harm animals existed. But that isn't the end of their interest, because although the MIT student was not serious about this horrible "practice" some of the people coming to the site were. The FBI would be interested in people who seriously requested more information from Bonsaikitten, Inc. on the "product". Such people may be just following a joke out a little further than the average person, or they may themselves be engaged in real interstate traffic in controlled animals, illegal animal products, or mistreated animals.
    And if so I want them caught and punished.
    Of course there is always an On the Other Hand to that - the FBI may become suspicious of people who are not mistreating animals but who are merely weird, the kind of person who might leave a prospectus or brochure for BonsaiKitten on their coffee table, the way someone might have a collection of Angola State Prison Rodeo Programs in their office. Not sick but just possessed of a sick sense of humor. And whatever associated weirdnesses they engage in, may fall under inordinate suspicion from the Bureau next year.
    Moreover, someone who asked for Bonsai kitten literature may not prove to be hurting animals at all, but they could be the kind of person -so Bureau logic could go- more likely to be involved in drug trade of the herbacious and hallucinatory kind, or more likely to be involved in kitty pr0n. By their online behavior they are self-selecting themselves for Jedgar's disproportionate scrutiny - just by visiting a "suspect site" and not fleeing in horror like good citizens. As the inventor of profiling methodology at the Hoover Institute for Inspecting People's Underwear used to explain: to identify arsonists you have local law enforcement take pictures of the crowds that show up at good-sized fires. The arsonists are the ones urinating in their pants or beating off with their hands in their pockets. They didn't start this fire perhaps, and maybe they've never started any dangerous fire yet, but they'll be the guys responsible for the next ones. No doubt using this method they will catch some arsonists and some kitty mistreaters. But some of the people identified here and now as future suspects of future crime in this way may actually just have been fishing for their keys, or were sprayed by the firetruck. These people could possibly suffer real consequences for crimes only imagined to have happened by the secret police.

    And yeah back to one of your points, many cat breeders need to be forced into mason jars themselves. I'd request more info on that!

  • by Detritus (11846) on Friday February 09 2001, @07:51PM (#442762) Homepage
    Three dimensional version of a moebius strip.

    See this page [rochester.edu].

  • by Skyhawk_Dreamer (314720) on Friday February 09 2001, @05:31PM (#442763)
    No it is not a parody. It is called "satire". But regardless if you have never heard this term, I'm really trying to get a handle on the degree of stupidity necessary for one to truely believe the US Government issues Kitticulture Permits for the express purpose of "shaping" kittens by inserting them into Klein jars that have no opening using a shoehorn. Is the government secrety contaminating the water again?

    Remember back in your younger days when we all had to read A Modest Proposal by Jonathan Swift, http://art-bin.com/art/omodest.html where the author proposes the solution of cooking and eating Irish babies? There was no indication that this was a "satire" making fun of lessor proposals at that time to deal with the Irish "problem".

    I suggest learning what satire is, and how it has been used in literature, art, and media for ages. The Bonsai Kitten site makes fun of those who wish to twist, shape, and modify nature to suite our whims and convenience - even our vanity!!