Speaking of Seattle, and the parade of incompetance, there are many accounts of the wacky violence there, most of which can be summed up by a simple phrase - "When you put a whole lot of surly people in one place, then have an ad hoc agglomeration of riot cops hurl tear gas at them, what the hell do you THINK is going to happen?" It's also the eternal question of the right of the people to peaceably assemble - namely, does the right of people who don't represent megacorps which can provide them with media coverage aplenty to assemble supersede the right of those who do? And, also, cheese.
Amusing riot journals are available all over, most notably at MonkeyBagel.Com, because if you can't at least snicker at Starbucks(tm) getting looted, than you've got no soul at all, man. No soul at all. Additionally, it includes excerpts from the police band scanner, which is the stuff you never see on Cops(tm).
So, where do I stand on the whole rioting, World Trade Organization, police brutality thing? Somewhere where I won't get shot with rubber bullets, er, I mean pellets. I mean, duh. Having played paintball, I'm well aware that getting shot by semi-hard objects moving at comparatively high velocities is not at all a pleasant thing. There's a REASON they make you wear full face masks, and insist on no head-shots (of course, when you're actually playing, you'll inevitably end up pissing off the commando-wannabe, who will spend the rest of the game calmly and repeatedly sniping you in the face from long range. Or the groin. One of the two. And what do you mean? Of COURSE there will be a commando-wannabe. There always is. Where else do you get a chance to shoot people?)
Uh, anyway, I'm of the opinion that the World Trade Organization is not merely bad, but is, in fact, mind-bogglingly bad. Free trade, in principle, is a good thing, but it's predicated on a notion that hearkens back to the Objectivists, namely, that people will play nice. Of course they won't play nice! And if you can't play hardball by stomping on their exports, they have even less reason to consider playing nice. Not to mention the WTO will, if fully implemented, result in the export of America's wacky patent restrictions to the rest of the world. Now we can patent the natural products of small, third world countries, and, even more entertainingly, we can then sue them for producing the things they grow! (You laugh, but...) Also, opening up current trade restrictions merely serves the needs of multi-national corporations, who, let's face it, have enough money already, the greedy fucks. We don't need them to make more by exporting jobs to $0.75 workers in Whereveristan, which is what they do already, and will cheerfully do more of once they make it so we can't stop them. I mean, call me greedy, but there are a limited number of jobs in the world. I would rather them be here, thank you very much.
But that's just my traditional leanings talking. After all, I've got little dribbles of good ol' Norman blood running through my veins somewhere. Or was it arteries. Um, anyway, what with all the talk about people going back to their roots, taking up the ancient traditions of their people, et cetera, I insist that I be allowed to take up my ancient traditions as well, namely, invading the south of England, looting, pillaging, putting people to the sword and, most importantly, oppressing the peasantry. Alternately, I could invade Sicily instead (yes, there was a Norman kingdom in Sicily for a while, as a result of a batch of really, really good beer and a really, really bad map - "What you MEAN, we not in northern europe any more?!"). I'm not too keen about those weird tapestries or lozenge shaped shields, but I could get the hang of being Norman, I think. Surly like a barbarian, and snooty like a Frenchman. Alternately, we could all give up that rubbish and go back to being Americans, but hey, how likely is that, eh?
Just one more thing that you must learn, first you pillage, THEN you burn.
Speaking of burning, rubber that is, I must make a note not to be so eager to flee work in the afternoon. Namely, because if I had been a little bit more eager, I would have ended up being run over by a few lads on a bit of a high speed chase. Which you've got to be out of your mind to do in the afternoon in Tallahassee, as every stop light is clogged with traffic, and the only way to get anywhere is to go barrelling down the wrong side of the (two-lane) roads, forcing people onto the shoulder, which is of course what the fleeing bozo in question was doing. The only reason he got as far as he did was the fact that the cops, too, were stuck in the morass (as traffic froze up at the stoplight and we all listened to the wail of sirens, a cop tried to zip past on the shoulder to get into the intersection and block the perp, only to discover that some damn fool had stuck a bunch of little steel markers in the ground as a reminder to people that yes, the grass is not a place to be driving on. He remained stuck there for quite a while, as the chase zoomed on by, before finally extricating himself. If he'd been smart, he'd have just cut through the McDonald's parking lot like everyone else who wants to dodge the stoplight.) The fleeing fellow failed his Area Knowledge skill roll, tried to take a left he shouldn't have, and ended up being introduced to the sheer joy that is skidding into the trees at high velocities. Oh well, at least he wasn't driving a very nice car.
At least we know we're getting our tax dollars' worth from the TPD.
Next episode: Muffin Man Forever.`
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