In the news and ELF

For people who are so ready to attack everyone and everything "for our brothers in Iraq" islamic terrorists sure don't seem to value Iraqi lives much, what with all the bombings. Unless, of course "our brothers in Iraq" means "other terrorist assholes in Iraq" as opposed to the rest of the Iraqi population.

In Kosovo several Serbs decided to show the world once again that Moslems do not have a monopoly on violence and chased three Albanian kids with dogs, causing them to drown in a river. Widespread fighting ensued. 10 dead.

Death toll in the apartment building that exploded in Arkhangelsk has reached 52, and police are looking for two guys who had stolen the gas pipe lids and in the process opened the gas valve, causing the leak and the explosion. Why would anyone steal a gas pipe lid? Can anyone explain it to me? Why? What possible use do they have? Unless, of course those were some guys from the neighboring building who noticed that their own lids were stolen and decided to replace them.

This reminds me: many years ago a friend of mine tried to start his car and noticed that somebody had stolen the battery. Not being a very good citizen he decided to replace it by stealing the upstairs' neigbor's battery and was very surprised to find his own battery in the neighbor's car. The neighbor did not steal the battery back after that.

A graduate student of physics has been accused of firebombing and vandalizing 125 SUVs. He allegedly claimed these actions in the name of Earth Liberation Front. ELF is an organization, or rather a movement arranged in anonymous cells, that sets fire to cars and houses and commits other acts of vandalism in the name of environment. Despite burning houses in areas with housing shortages they claim to support every individual's right to shelter, and their claim that "civilization as a whole has proved to be detrimental to humans and non human animals. we won't settle for anything less then complete collapse" is quite amazing in light of them having a web page. Well, their FAQ is written in a way that puts pages in a wrong order when read online, which I suppose is their tribute to non-civilization.

ELF is not a hierarchical organization. It works on the following principle: they publish guidelines for ELF-approved vandalism, some members of enthusiastic public commit the vandalism and ELF claims it. ELF avoids human and animal casualties by failing to claim similar vandalism if it has resulted in human/animal victims. In light of this the wording on their FAQ's page 27 (pdf document's page 6) "Yes, the use of fire as a tool is dangerous but when used properly it can tremendously aid in the destruction of property associated with killing life" is somewhat unfortunate.

I think that people who claim ELF vandalism should, if caught, be sentenced to a term of living without any benefits of civilization instead of a regular prison term. If would be good to reserve a reasonably large all-natural area for them and unleash them there without clothing or any other unnatural items. The area should of course be fertile and not Sahara desert or anything like that. (You see? Good liberal me!) Naturally every one of us carries some of the benefits of civilization in our head and that cannot be taken away, but that's OK, in the case of most ELF vandals it's not going to be much anyway.