Tech Week in Review

Rants about juvenile and self-serving responses to the terrorist attack.

I wasn't going to write anything at all this week. Normal TWiR will resume next week. Some events that occurred in response to the terrorist attacks inspired me, however. Actually, "inspired" doesn't really seem like the word for it. "Shocked with an electric cattle prod until my eyeballs fall on the floor and explode" is more like it. Figuratively, I mean.

There are some incredibly insensitive/immature/stupid people on the Internet, people who have no sense of humor whatsoever. I refer specifically to the tools who inserted the following names into the World Trade Center Survivor List:

For obvious reasons, these are not people who were in the WTC on Tuesday. Listen here, kiddies: stop posting this crap on the survivor list. There are thousands of us (yes, I said "us" — one of my high school classmates is missing, and his family has heard nothing despite the fact that someone appears to have tried posting his name to the survivor list) looking for information on friends and loved ones, and goddammit, the Virgin Cunt and "asdf asdf" are not loved ones! Yeah, I'm mad. Really mad. If I found out my kid were doing this (and I really hope that adults aren't doing this for kicks), he'd be off the Internet for a year. It's entirely unacceptable, and it has to stop now. OK? Thank you.

Now on to my next rant about the scum of the earth. You know them very well. You probably drive by them every day on your way to work. Yes, I'm talking about gas stations. Not their employees, by and large, who are generally just doing what the boss says, but the soulless owners/operators/oil companies who think that, in this time of great need, it would be a great idea to pad their pockets with the fear of the populace. What in the world made someone decide it would be a good idea to raise gas prices to $4/gallon? It sure as hell wasn't "to keep customers away so we don't run out of gas," as one station employee here in Kalamazoo (MI) claimed. It sure as hell wasn't due to "increased demand;" the oil companies and gas stations themselves created any increased demand by spreading rumors that prices were going to skyrocket very soon! Oil company executives and gas station owners, you listen up and you listen now: may the wrath of whatever deity you believe in be brought down in full upon anything you gain by the price increase.

While I wouldn't have minded a 20 cent increase at all if the extra 20 cents were promised to disaster relief, I think it's absolutely despicable that a company or individual would raise prices for selfish gain.

copyright ©2000-2004 by Chris Lawson