Bonsaikitten Eaten By Carnivore 309
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."
Spider kitten (Score:3)
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.
Re:The Right Wing America has won people. (Score:1)
101 uses for a dead cat (Score:1)
"101 uses for a dead cat"? It was a book
of cartoons, all centered around imaginative
uses for deceased felines. I am a cat lover,
but found the book a hoot (as I do bonsaikitten)
I want my Kitten (Score:2)
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
Re:Bonsai cats? Yurgh! (Score:1)
To continue, your point is basically 'I don't think it should be illegal, and I don't think they should be arrested, but the FBI should be able to invade their privacy, attack them, and probably take all of their computer equipment... just to give 'em a bit of a scare, so they'll think twice.'
Do you want a shitty police state to live in, where the government can harrass you just because you have controversial views? I'm sure there are plenty of Middle Eastern nations where you can get that wish fulfilled.
The USA is supposed to be about freedom. Thanks to whiners like you, it's turning into Politically Correct world. I don't have a problem with being kind to others, and I certainly believe in equality for all. But I have the right to say whatever the fuck I want, and that covers pictures and writing, and paintings, and all other sorts of shit. If you don't agree, don't go to the site.
Clean up your fucking grammar, learn how to make multiple sentances out of that fucked-up run on shit you just posted, further learn how to make paragraphs out of those sentances, and eventually, you might be easy to read. Until you've done most of that, don't talk about other people's writing skills. Fucking dolt.
Re:1000? (Score:2)
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"?
Re:Joke? Yeah© Is it obvious to everyone? No© (Score:1)
--Amendment 42 of The New and Improved Constitution o' the United States of America©
Re:My Cats will bloody well climb into anything... (Score:1)
Shhh! (Score:1)
Re:read this first (Score:1)
The rule of jokes (Score:1)
Re:Sigh... (Score:1)
Alas, our universe has only 3 spatial dimensions, so even Acme's dedicated engineers can't make a true Klein Bottle.
A Klein Bottle cannot be embedded in 3 dimensions, but you can immerse it in 3-D. (An immersion may have self-intersections; Embeddings have no self-intersections. Neither an embedding nor an immersion has folds or cusps.)
We represent a Klein Bottle in glass by stretching the neck of a bottle through its side and joining its end to a hole in the base. Except at the side-connection (the nexus), this properly shows the shape of a 4-D Klein Bottle.
taken from
http://www.kleinbottle.com/whats_a_klein_bottle.ht m
Damn straight he's on the level. I just bought one for a friend. It's also Cliff Stoll, of The Cuckoo's Egg
has anyone called the number? (Score:1)
Re:Bullshit... (Score:1)
Nothing on bonsaikitten goes against the first amendment--end of story. There is nothing that should be (and, if you believe in just laws, could be) done against the owners of the site.
Genie in a bottle? (Score:1)
Genie in the bottle? More like cat in the bottle! [bonsaikitten.com]
Animal Rights Wacko at it again!!! (Score:1)
Re:Have you seen what cat breeders do? (Score:1)
Usually mongrels (dog or cat) are a better choice, if for no other reason that the odds may be in the pet's favor to have a long and healthy life. You might not end up with an award winning pet, but you should have a friend and companion that you can share many, many years with.
Hyperactive cat people... (Score:1)
Re:Censorship has bipartisan support (Score:2)
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.
OK, this will get modded down but... (Score:2)
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
Re:Bullshit... (Score:2)
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
The real problem (Score:2)
Cruelty to Humans (Score:2)
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.
Re:Sigh... (Score:3)
Yes, nothing says to your girlfriend "your sexy" like giving her a Klein bottle for Valentine's Day.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Quantum Mechanic relation? (Score:2)
Re:Bonsai cats? Yurgh! (Score:2)
Re:Sigh... (Score:2)
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.).
I, too, am a cat person (Score:2)
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.
Re:Offensive, but protected (Score:2)
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.
Re:That was one strange site. (Score:2)
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.
you gotta remember (Score:2)
no disclaimer? (Score:2)
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 (Score:2)
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.
Bah! (Score:3)
Squirrel Fishing [harvard.edu].
Fist Prost
"We're talking about a planet of helpdesks."
Re:Bullshit... (Score:3)
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.
Re:Sigh... (Score:2)
Klien bottle? (Score:2)
You think anyone at the FBI knows what a Klien bottle is?
Re:DCS1000 is already a trademark! (Score:2)
Why animal activists and others fear this site. (Score:2)
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
Re:Bullshit... (Score:2)
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
1000? (Score:2)
then this is prehistory :) (Score:2)
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).
Virtual Animal Cruelty (Score:2)
My Cats will bloody well climb into anything... (Score:4)
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.
Re:Bullshit... (Score:2)
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.
Re:Offensive, but protected (Score:2)
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.
My take on the bonsaikitten issue (Score:2)
DCS1000 (Score:2)
Mark Duell
Re:A joke? (Score:2)
Yes it would. It would have detracted from the fun. And why should they detract from the fun to pander to the less intelligent?
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.
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.
Re: The Klein bottle site is a joke?!? (Score:2)
*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 really remarkable thing about this (Score:2)
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?
The Right Wing America has won people. (Score:3)
(and eating meat is bad if I understand well)
That was one strange site. (Score:2)
As far as I'm concerned, if no cats were actually harmed during the making of the site, I don't care at all. If the cats were dead before inserting them, I don't care. If they were alive but not in pain, I don't care.
My point is this. This is the first time I ever heard anything about this. Even if this was some underground activity, I probably would have heard SOMETHING about it before. This improves the likelyhood that its only a parody and I intend to treat it as such. If there are those in the world that would be inclined to stuff their cats into a jar after reading that site, we probably have much worse things we need to worry about from those people than bonsai cats.
In other news, I find people who are extreme animal rights supporters, or at least supporters of all the animals that are fuzzy and cute, to overreact in a big way to anything that even remotely threatens something thats cute and fuzzy.
I remember the website about cat scanning that had them in an uproar because it was in some way scaring the cats or something. Everytime I take my cat to the vet, it gets all worked up. But that doesnt' mean I don't take it in every year to get its shots. At least I love my cat.
Did you know, animal rights supporters out there, that there are orginizations that you actually support that are KILLING those cute fuzzy little kitties?? YES! Its happening every day all across the USA. The SPCA will KILL those cute fuzzy kitties. Of course, the more PC term is euthinization (sp??) but the end result is the same. Yet nobody seems to complain. I can't imagine why. See that cute cow out there in the field, eating grass. It goes "MOO" you know. It shits on the ground and smells bad. Well, somebody someday is going to kill that cow and carve it up and stick it between two pieces of bread and you're going to eat it. YES. Just think MOO whenever you eat that tasty hamburger.
Cute little chicken. Adorable. Mmmm.. Nuggets.
Where are the protesters???
Froglegs Yummy. Disecting frogs in class. Where are the protestors? Didn't you know that frogs are cute, although they're not paticularly fuzzy. Come on people. PROTEST!
I had pet rats once. Of course, I didn't buy them as pets.. I had purchased them as snakefood, but the snake must not have been hungry for rat, so I ended up with two pet rats. That evil snake was going to eat those cute little rats. Pet stores all over the place will sell cute little rats and cute little mice just so they can be fed to evil snakes. But nobody seems to be protesting.
Yet if I even considered the possibility of feeding a kitty to a snake, letting that snake wrap around it, and suffucate it to death, and announcing that fact to the world, there would be mobs of angry protestors beating down my doors. I can't imagine the big deal, but there you go.
Of course, I would never feed a kitty to a snake. But I have no doubt that a snake that was big enough would try to eat it, and I certainly couldn't fault the snake for trying, as its only doing what nature has instructed it to do.
Of course, just wait. I was joking about there being no protesters against eating cows. There are. Plenty. They're just not quite as vocal yet. Soon enough though we're going to see that songs like "Carrotjuice is murder" won't be so funny anymore. They'll be candidates for National Anthem replacements.
This rant has been brought to you by Restil.
restil@alignment.net
it's a joke (Score:2)
Re:My take on the bonsaikitten issue (Score:2)
So there _is_ an argument against running the bonsaikitten site in its current form, with no disclaimer- the argument that people are _such_ idiots that, guaranteed, some idiot is gonna try to bounce a kitten, and kill or maim it.
And yeah, there are worse things that happen in the world, but why _bait_ idiots to be idiots? Most idiots don't come up with ideas _that_ bad on their own: they're baited into it as a joke. It's not good judgement to joke that way. All the talk about Klein bottles is one thing, as it's too difficult for an idiot to prepare the glassware and the obvious result is the idiot writes to BonsaiKitten and wants to buy a finished one. But the bouncing thing? Idiots are going to _do_ that, and that's a shame, and it's not necessary. I think there's even going to be a few idiots who keep trying harder and harder when it doesn't work. Idiots suck...
Bullshit... (Score:5)
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.
Re:DCS1000 (Score:2)
Re:then this is prehistory :) (Score:2)
I doubt that anyone could read the entire days newsfeed in 24 hours these days . . .
There were sequences of tests that they wanted run, reformatting disks
in a variety of capacities. I explained to them why they would never
find the actual comaptibility probles which *could* come up this way, and
got the response that "XXX has put a lot of time into this, and we're
going to keep the test the way she set it up." Yes, someone with an
english degree decided upon a procedure to test drive formatting,
and her electrical engineer manager who actually knew about the
magnetic problems involved (the erase head on the 720kb floppies was
narrower than the write head on the 360kb floppies) wouldn't look
at the problems.
*shrug* It was their money, and i liked netnews . . .
hawk
Limerick time! (Score:2)
Said "The Moebius strip is divine!
And if you glue
The edges of two
You'll get a weird bottle like mine."
--
Knowledge is power
Power corrupts
Study hard
Re:Censorship has bipartisan support (Score:2)
Yes, all leftists are stupid and lazy. Way to make an argument. Just because we don't fall for the bull that money is the only thing that matters in life.
I don't have anything against profits and neither do most leftists, what we object to is profits before anything else. Such as Nike transferring it's manufacturing to Far-Eastern sweatshops, or McDonnell-Douglas selling arms to the Chinese that are then used in the oppression of it's people.
Anyway leftists are much more respectful of people's rights to behave. You don't hear left-wing politicians denouncing homosexuals for example. I, for one, couldn't care less what anyone else does, so long as they don't hurt or otherwise abuse someone else.
I wish Americans would stop associating the left wing with totalitarian communism. It's just as ludicrous as comparing George W Bush with Hitler.
Re:My Cats will bloody well climb into anything... (Score:2)
In related news the US Government outlaws humour as being 'inappropriate to the dignity of the last superpower'.
Protected, yes, tasteful, eh, probably not, BUT... (Score:2)
Jered Floyd, a recent MIT graduate, says animal rights activists -- who have successfully pressured hosting services to ban bonsaikitten.com until rotten.com offered it server space -- don't have a sense of humor.
"The First Amendment protects all speech, no matter how offensive some people may find it," Floyd says. "The site is clearly a humorous endeavor. The fact that a number of people seem to have very little sense of humor isn't relevant."
This is of course not true. Certain forms of speech (or expression) are NOT protected, such as incitement to riot, slander, libel, yelling "FIRE!!" in a crowded theater (I'm not even sure if that's okay if there really *is* a fire, you're still supposed to try to get everyone out calmly, I think), and death threats via the mail. All of these (and a few more) have been determined by the various courts over the years to not be protected speech.
That said, bonsaikitten.com is clearly satire, and is (and should remain) protected speech.
Re:Evidence of animal abuse (Score:2)
-
Re:Censorship has bipartisan support (Score:2)
Better Proof for "People are Stupid in Masses"? (Score:3)
...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.
Re:Censorship has bipartisan support (Score:2)
Deconstructionism and Political Correctness are both leftist inventions. There are legions of tales of students in universities who are afraid to contradict the PC party line in their classes because of the harassment they'd experience. That's oppression.
Did I mention the number of apparently-serious leftist rants which display complete ignorance of little matters like the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The number of English and Poli Sci majors out there who think that you can get something for nothing by agitating the legislature or running a plebiscite is amazing.
(Add grammar to that list of deficiencies... the possessive pronoun "its" has no apostrophe.) What's wrong with moving work to plants in El Salvador or Vietnam? Don't people with brown skins and slanted eyes have a right to take a job making stuff for North American consumers? If they had anything better, you'd expect they'd take it; saying that Nike or whoever is doing them wrong when there are so many eager takers is equivalent to telling those people that they should starve while someone in the USA (who has much better prospects and almost certainly will not go hungry regardless) should do unskilled work.Ditto this thing about MacDac etc. If the French are willing to sell oppressive crap to the Chinese, we might as well undercut them. Why let them profit from undermining the pressure that trade sanctions can put on human-rights violators?
Are they now? Isn't it lefist students on various campuses who persistently violate the free-speech rights of people with whom they disagree, by heckling their speakers out of auditoria and destroying print runs of their newspapers? I'm not talking about protests against people's actions, I'm talking about trying to keep them from having their views heard. That's respect? Or is it some PC re-definition, where it's contempt if it's done to you, but respect if you do it to others?That's what I keep hearing about the political left. I have no sympathy for it or any of its adherents until they give their views and actions the same level of criticism they aim at others.
--
Knowledge is power
Power corrupts
Study hard
Re:Censorship has bipartisan support (Score:2)
As for arms sales to China, 'someone else will do it if we don't' is the usual justification for something unjustifiable. The Chinese is one of the most repressive around and yet instead of trying to change this through subtle application of economic pressure, it's a free-for-all and to hell with the Tibetans and those who were massacred in Tiananamen Square (and if that's spelled wrong so what). To paraphrase your earlier argument, don't people with brown skins and slanty eyes have a right not to be brutally murdered with western-made weapons.
Finally, I've seen many more leftists harassed for expressing their views than rightists. I've seen racist thugs attack a peaceful demonstration against racism which is a bit nastier than mere heckling.
I have total contempt for the political right who think that if you're poor, sick, disabled or otherwise disadvantaged then tough luck.
PC has not gone too far. When I was at school 15 years ago racist abuse was the norm. Now anyone who makes a racist comment is immediately slapped down because it's totally unacceptable and quite right too. This isn't extremism, it's common decency. I don't see what the second law of thermodynamics has to do with politics at all, it's merely physics and would exist whether the human race did or not.
BonsaiSpook.com (Score:2)
Oh, it's your reading problems! (Score:2)
What I see is you and thousands of others crying that what those poor folks in Vietnam and El Salvador have isn't good enough for you, even though it's better than anything they had before. There's no recognition of the fact that you have to start somewhere, and that perfection is impossible but progress is always achievable. The insistence on perfection is indistinguishable in practice from demanding that nothing be done.
I own and wear a "Democracy for China" T-shirt, that I bought with my own money. So there. (I also own and wear a button which says "The Second Amendment isn't about hunting. It's about Tienanmen Square." Chew on that for a while.) But I don't see the point in letting a French or Belgian company profit from their governments' refusal to join a sanctions regime against human-rights abusers. If they are going to undercut the viability of sanctions as a tool to advance human rights, they shouldn't have the field to themselves. That's just rewarding them for their lack of morals. I'm all for sanctions, and everyone in the Western democracies joining them. I'm also for cutting the legs out from under those who prevent this from happening. And have you ever seen them given official immunity for blatant acts of vandalism? I refer you to this page [collegeguide.org] about the University of Pennsylvania, which includes this thumbnail sketch of the incident in question: Right-wing demagogues and vandals get prosecuted, left-wing demagogues and vandals get plaudits. Where's the balance? From the same page on U-Penn: If that isn't too far for you, you've got a serious problem with your eyesight, and I'm not the only one who thinks so. Take a look at this commentary [nyu.edu] for the POV of an avowed leftist who taught in Nicaragua under the Sandidistas; he happens to agree with me on the pernicious nature of Political Correctness, deconstructionism and the notion of social construction.--
Knowledge is power
Power corrupts
Study hard
Re:Oh, it's your reading problems! (Score:2)
I can't refer you to a page that shows women being attacked on an anti-racist march by right-wing thugs, although I was there and also had to fend them off as well, with a greater degree of success since I'm a 15 stone martial artist.
The article you refer to is very interesting and the actions of the students in vandalising the newspaper is nothing short of disgraceful, and the water buffalo incident is obviously ludicrous. These are not true leftists but people who are acutely sensitive to racism, real or imagined.
My definition of workers' rights are simple:
not being forced to work over 45 hours a week unless you want to;
being able to work in a safe environment without fear of injury where the onus is on the staff and the managers to co-operate on keeping the plant safe;
management should not have the right to arbitrarily dismiss 'troublesome' employees;
No-one under the age of 16 should be employed in dangerous conditions;
workers should have the right to join a union.
Why shouldn't they have these rights? Why should they have to fight for rights that Nike et al would have no problem providing? There is no reason whatsoever, apart from that it would impact the bottom line. Just because the governments of Thailand or China are corrupt doesn't mean a thing - workers' rights can and should be provided. Saying that they'd be worse off without a job is no excuse for virtual slave labour - in fact that's the same specious argument used by the mill owners against providing rights to British workers in the past.
Finally whether some leftists are stupid and lazy is irrelevant. I doubt the morons that attacked the march I was on had first-class honours degrees either, or anything but the most basic education.
Moral issue (Score:2)
In this case, the Federal Government(FBI) is attempting to push the morales of the "Common man"(tm). By making a satire site a federal crime, they're attempting to successfully criminalize freedom of speech on the 'Net.
In my not-so-humble opinion, this results directly from the always-present push by the majority to make everyone conform to various community morales, be they religious, spiritual or just plain "We hate people who would even think of hurting kittens!".
I sincerely hope that the FBI does not prosecute, and if so, I sincerely hope that the court finds the owners of bonsaikittens.com wholly innocent. To do anything but is to set a dangerous precedent -- that our rights are rights only as long as they don't offend anyone and aren't strange.
Well this is interesting....... (Score:2)
Coincidence? I think NOT!
Re:Motivation? (Score:2)
Or perhaps the site is just a cheap shot at cat lovers for being so silly. Sort of like reading James Joyce - you can interpret it on so many levels. Whether you agree or not, though, doesn't give you the right to censor it.
They wouldn't even need to be edited (Score:2)
Offensive, but protected (Score:5)
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.
Yes I make Klein Bottles. (Score:2)
For the past 4 or 5 years, I've been making (and selling) 3-dimensional immersions of Klein Bottles. Many mathematicians own them; they assure me that a Klein Bottle can indeed be immersed (but not embedded) in 3-D.
I thank slashdot readers for their support of my micro-business. I won't get rich as a zero-volume bottle maker, but I'm having plenty of fun.
Carnivore (Score:2)
"With the existing plain old telephone system, the FBI can only tap a few lines at a time. With Carnivore, they can tap everybody's emails all the time, which is unconstitutional/generally bad."
One of the arguments I see on slashdot for napster runs along the lines:
"Bloody RIAA. They can't keep the genie in the bottle. New technology allows people to get there hands on loadsa music."
Now come on people, you can't have it both ways... Is it ok for everybody to exploit new technology as they see fit? FBI included. Or perhaps at least one of these knee-jerk reactions isn't sensible?
not_cub
Re:Bullshit... (Score:2)
A number of years ago, Toronto really became a laughingstock when baseball player Dave Winfield [geocities.com], after accidentally killing a (which, by the way, is vermin - it's basically a rat with wings), was instantly arrested by the police and busted for cruelty to animals. [google.com]
Excerpt from this website http://www.stanford.edu/~greggjp/EEEEEE/Notes00/Ma y00Notes1.html [stanford.edu]
(More links about this: Twisted history [twistedhistory.com] - Sports Watch [starbulletin.com] - CBS sportsline [sportsline.com] - And, here, on TAHOE.COM [tahoe.com], a disgustingly sick column [tahoe.com] that hints that deliberately injuring severely someone is okay while playing any sport - Yankeehater [yankeehater.com])Those people really have their priorities totally screwed-up as a society.
--
Re:then this is prehistory :) (Score:2)
Would you say that, since this time,
--
Re:read this first (Score:2)
I think that trolling often plays a critical role in discussion boards. It can force us to reexamine our opinions, remeber why we originally formed our opinions, and consider the merits of alternative opinions. Without trolls discussion would stagnate and ideas would never be fully explored. People that get really worked up over trolls that simply put forth non-party-line ideas are the ones that really need trolling.
All the natalieportmanbeowulfgoatse.cxhotgrits crap is just noise not real trolls.
Re:Carnivore (Score:2)
It's the FBI that wants it both ways; they want to use the latest and greatest spying technologies, but want to deny ordinary citizens the ability to protect their privacy. Carnivore would not be an issue if the FBI and other government agencies had not deliberately crippled the widespread use of encryption.
This beats any /. troll (Score:3)
DCS1000? (Score:2)
This way to the egress > The Linux Pimp [thelinuxpimp.com]
I heard DCS1000 stands for... (Score:3)
Disguised Carnivore System
Ie, I'm not going to let them get away with that name change.
W
-------------------
Re:Guestbook fun (Score:2)
Sorry. Names in scientific fields, where the stakes for fame are so high, don't readily come to mind.
--------
Carmack is an elitist, pseudonerd bastard.
Try this pic (Score:2)
Disclaimer: that poor sap is not an FBI agent (that I know of). I found him on that "Am I a total raving dork, or not? Why don't I put my ugly mug in front of thousands of people!" site, glass bottle courtesy essentialsupplies.com. There, now I can't be sued.
Shaun
Sigh... (Score:4)
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.
Sentiment in literature (Score:3)
(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.
Re:Guestbook fun (Score:3)
Re:Sigh... (Score:3)
Err, are you sure. His website makes it fairly clear that he really is selling 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.
it's funny. period. (Score:3)
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.
Once Again (Score:2)
But, to them, this may look a lot like that old 'Date Rape' site that gave tips and helpful hints on how to get your girl down (should be illiegal? ask your judge). Or perhaps they could put it in the same category as virtual kiddie porn (I think this should be illegal, but thats my opinion).
You know, 'we're not judges, we can't tell if its illegal or not, let's just appease the meowies of the world by doing what we do best: harrassing the crap out of people we don't like.'
People need to lighten up, and the FBI needs to stop supporting such tight-sphincter behavior. If I was the site owner, I wouldn't worry, but if this man is prosecuted for Anything, we all should protest.
On a side note, troll technology was developed right here in
"The Cost of Doing Business in a Free America"
but Carnivore and Echelon shouldn't be.
Hypocrites, all... (Score:2)
"It's totally promoting animal cruelty," Allanach said. "They consider it a sick joke. People will take it seriously. Animal cruelty is not funny."
And how many of the same people watch TV shows where cops shoot at bad guys or people drive recklessly? It's not entertainment, people will take it seriously! Entertainment is wrong because someone, somewhere will take it seriously. Fun is a sickness, I say!
---
Re:My Cats will bloody well climb into anything... (Score:3)
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!
PETA will be next (Score:2)
--
Re:Offensive, but protected (Score:2)
And, of course, the tigers are entitled to make a web site with pictures of the hilarity that ensues.
---
Re:Sigh... (Score:3)
See this page [rochester.edu].
Re:I do hope that was a parody (Score:5)
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!!
The article is part of the prank, right? (Score:2)
I'm gonna have to take this one with a huge friggen grain of salt.
DCS1000 (Score:2)