Give me a break

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Some kids got themselves firearms and shot people in the street killing one person and seriously injuring another. You can find the details about it if you follow the links on diabloii.net.

The fact that they had been playing Grand Theft Auto before the incident has drawn the attention of Jack Thompson, who is already on the case and even has a website that says something like "Parents, are your children violent because of video games? Then we can sue the hell out of game companies"

It is interesting that Mr Thompson thinks that the other links in the chain of causes that led to this incident are not to be sued but only the game company: not the people that sold the kids the game, not the people that gave them firearms, not the companies that produce the firearms, but just the game companies are to blame (not even the parents, because they are apparently the victims).

I know this is off topic, but sometimes I just feel good that I live in my country and not "somewhere" else.

[rodrigj]

Yep, very dangerous limited minds live in this country : but what can we hope from a country that has ex-alcoholic biggot as president...



Don't take it bad, and fortunately, next year, we probably (hope?) see some change in the biggest nation of the world...



regards,

jp

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

www.markfiore.com

This guy has a lot of good stuff about the current US President (nothing too political, just making remarks about many things in general). I just think US may be at the start of a downfall (hopefully not, but there is a possibility).

[Khan]

yep I second that and if you want to know more I seriously suggest you read some of the books of Michael Moore. They are both funny and shocking but as said before, the era of mr 49% Bush and his conservative friends might end as soon as 2004.

[rtcm]

Yea, thumbs down for Dubya! i think everyone should be able to vote for the american government: it has become a too much serious job for the americans to handle alone

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Was it much better when there were two super powers in the world? At least incidents like "current Mr. President" would not affect the world down to every corner of every country?

[Khan]

well for us europeans it doesn't change anything. But with the non-UN sanctioned example war in iraq the fragile situation in the middle east further deteriorated and Terrorism surely got fueled by it.
So if you want excuses to spend even more dollars on counterterrorism... the war in iraq is your perfect means to get more terrorists having to deal with

[Myhrginoc]

Before this thread gets too much more involved (and possibly heated), may I remind everybody here this is a Diablo II mod board. We have the Off Topics Forums for the political discussions.

[rtcm]

Calm down Myhrginoc I think the majority of people that visit the V&K's forum are quite polite, and then I (like many here i believe) dont even look at other forums: I just dont have the time. Is it so bad that we sometimes discuss things here that aren't ME related?

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Speaking of middle east, and trying to steer the discussion back to "game zone"

If any of you have played Lionheart (a little at least), you know that when you try to join the knights of the East (named after the Eastern hero), they tell you that you can never become a full member but may be "favoured one".

That is historically and culturally very false, because by nature, eastern cultures do not have "eastern western" discrimination. The common religion Islam forbids it, and the eastern religions are accepting (unlike Jews which I believe keep their religion to themselves) and cultures are not race oriented.

[Éowyn]

Oh boys...

Near my town someone ran around with a katana and injured 2 women. There are some people with problems, and maybe they can't live with it, but why must the kill other people before killing themselves ?

I don't understand these people and I think they are behaving stupid and there are more and more who are doing the same thing... Has the world gotten so bad ?

[Myhrginoc]

I think the majority of people that visit the V&K's forum are quite polite, and then I (like many here i believe) dont even look at other forums: I just dont have the time. Is it so bad that we sometimes discuss things here that aren't ME related?

The majority of posters in any of the forums on the Keep are generally polite. It takes only one or two to get a thread out of whack. The reason all the threads are moderated here is so they don't stay out of whack when it happens. If it doesn't happen here, so much the better, but...

Some threads that discuss other than D2 and modding do slip in now and then. There are already several here which veer well off the modding path. It isn't bad that an occasional drift happens, but there is a line out there beyond which a forum begins to lose focus. That is why the Off Topics Forums (and before that, the Off Topic Forum in this board) were created in the first place. It is a personal choice for anybody to use them or not use them, but the latter is not a reason for opening the mod-oriented forums to off-topic subjects.

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

So has this discussion veered off enough to be moved to general discussion forums?

The thing I wonder about the katana incident is: Where did s/he find the katana to go around injure people? Do you actually have shops that sell katanas? We have weapon shops here, some even selling ornamental weapons like rapiers and stuff, but a katana is a hard catch (and to waste its beauty in a massacre...)


I think the world has gone bad, we're surely not better off than the "cave man" stage of our history, but there are good things happening around too. I just read somewhere a Turkish doctor, funded by an organisation from USA, succesfully transplanted a dead mouse's face to a living mouse (ok that may be gross, but it is still good news).

Maybe we should just enjoy the small good and try to cope with the greater evil (like be happy when 1.10 comes out but not be so concerned with the fact that some people died playing this game).

Overall, the world is probably more crazy than bad.

[Éowyn]

Well it was a man who did this, hmm most of these crazy going people are male...

But I think you can even buy a Katana in the internet or am I wrong in this ?

[IronDeath]

Eowyn the katana guy took the katana from the decoration of the building but you are right, you can buy swords, axes and such stuff via internet for a good price by the way .

Hm Jon here in germany you can buy such weapons in shops ( mostly in fantasy shops but they are normally not sharpened, in real weapon shops you can buy sharp swords and stuff) but you need a weapons licence.

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

I think in Turkey it's very hard to find swords and axes in weapons shops because the law doesn't state anything clear about it (I once knew a guy that ran a weapons shop and he stopped selling crossbows because there was no licence for them and the police were bothering him about selling unlicenced weapons).

Hmmm. It is true mostly men do this, but I remember a terrorist leader saying that "women make better terrorists because if they are told to shoot somebody they don't have second thoughts about it but most men hesitate when they look into the eye of their target".

Probably men are more inclined to go "snap" compared to women. There is also the scientific fact that women have hormones that actually tell them to be compassionate (I think there even is a hormone that stimulates the action of pressing your child against your chest).

[Éowyn]

lol hehe would be a good doctor

[Krancher]

Also, on the topic of terrorism, women and children often make effective terrorists because people tend to be less suspicious of them than of men. As to X vs Y chromosome tendency towards violent behavior, I think it's hard to say what is genetic and what is hardwired by the roles given to us by society. There are certain behaviors triggered by seeing another person in pain or need, just there are for seeing someone laughing or yawning. However, I'm not sure that the instinctual compassion trigger is enough to stop someone from acting violently, since the trigger (seeing a person in pain) would not exist until *after* the act had been committed. Hence feelings of remorse and regret (at least sometimes!).

I also heartily recommend Michael Moore's books and movies. On the issue of violence, his most recent film, "Bowling For Columbine," is very striking. For one, it seems to suggest that the ready availability of firearms does not contribute to firearm deaths! And if you're into Bush bashing, his recent book, Stupid White Men, is a fun read (although Mr. Moore lays just as much blame at the feet of the Democrats, the media, and the general populace for allowing the Return of the King to happen as on Bush himself, so don't expect to come out of this book feeling totally righteous!).

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Eowyn:
Would you be surprised if I told you I am moving out of my hometown to go to university to become a doctor?


Krancher:
Hmmm, should check those when I have the time, currently all the banking issues and moving stuff is taking much of my time (I have to make do with flash cartoons for now )

[Éowyn]

really ?

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

If my destiny doesn't have something really surprising in store, in six years, I'll become a practitioner, and after 11 years, I hope to become a surgeon.

(keeping my fingers crossed all the way)

[Éowyn]

If this is you destiny I hope you gonna make it, but I couldn't do this hehe I even had to look away in those school videos where they are examinating human bodys because I'm getting sick of this very soon

[Jonaleth Irenicus]

Well I'll see how it feels when I actually open up a cadaver (watching people do it has not upset my insides yet) and decide if I really want to be surgeon or not.

Sometimes I look back and this looks like the stupidest choice in my life (because people tell me so). Well, I really want to be a doctor.