Video Games Made Me Do It

School Shooting Averted, Story Plays Up Link to Games

November 18, 2009

Authorities in Beauvais, France believe they have prevented a possible school shooting by a 13-year old “computer games enthusiast."

A TimesOnline story details the unfolding events under the unfortunate headline “Computer Games Fan ‘Planned School Massacre.’” Suspicion was initially raised when the boy, named Bastien, left extra early for school, eventually leading his parents to a blog post of his that read: “This is my last message because Tuesday November 17, 2009 will be the last day of my life. Sorry to leave you..."  Police were alerted and sealed off the boy’s school, Saint-Esprit. The teen apparently saw police at the school and avoided it, ditched a shotgun and 25 cartridges in a field along the way. He was found later at a cyber-café.

A friend of Bastien said that, “He always wanted to go into the Army. He loved battles. He was passionate about history, warriors. He played video games up to one or two in the morning...” Other buddies told reporters that Bastien was a World of Warcraft player.

Even the Mayor of Allone, Christian Sadowski, painted Bastien as a gamer, saying that he knew the boy was a fan of computer games, adding, “Many young people end up finding it difficult to tell the difference between dream and reality. He played his little fantasy on the net and then carried it out.”

The boy was anxious about an upcoming parent-teacher conference as a result of receiving less-than-stellar grades.

GP: Glad they caught him obviously, but the secondary focus on games in this article is gratuitous as is usually the case.  But as we, and Lorne Lanning, know, this is how the mainstream media rolls. At least they didn’t call WOW a “murder simulator.”

Update: GP reader Soldat_Louis rounded up and translated a handful of other stories and media outlets that played up the videogame link:

• "Considered as a good student coming from a normal family, the middle school boy, a video game adept, (...)" (Le Point)

• "According to a police source, 'bad grades could be the cause of the murderous intentions' of the student, a video game adept."  (France-Soir)

• "It's on his blog that the student, a video game fan, has published his intention to make a name of himself (...)" (Le Télégramme)

• "The kid is considered as a good student. He comes from a normal family. He is a video game adept and maintains his own blog. (...) [The attempted shooting] revives the memory of [the Winnenden shooting]. Perpetrated by  Tim Kretschmer, 17-years-old, also a video game adept, (...)" (La Dépêche)


Soldat_Louis also pointed us towards (and again translated the relevant part) a debate over “How to protect your children against the dangers of the Internet” that took place on French radio station RTL this morning.

Véronique Fima of the Action Innocence nonprofit group apparently came to the defense of games and gamers in the debate, while noting that in the case of the Beauvais story, the Internet played a positive role and assisted in stopping any violence.

On the point of videogames, she stated, “First of all, I wouldn't want them to be incriminated in the first place (...) rather than knowing that he was a video game aficionado, I would like us to ask the question : what was the deep discomfort that made this child act that way (...) All children and teenagers all play video games, yet they're not all mass murderers."

Games + Sex + Drugs = Fail For College Kids

October 26, 2009

A post on the ChristWire website argues that videogames, along with “nonstop dorm masturbation” and drugs, are among the reasons why our college kids are failing at life.

Author Stephenson Billings previously explored the topic “Is Video Gaming a Threat to America’s High School Jock Culture?,” but believes that the problem is even more widespread in college. Why? “Dorm rooms are like bacteria dishes where crueler and more virulent microorganisms are constantly introduced to breed in a frothy frenzy of poor judgment.”

He continued, “When video gaming is added to a culture of persistent sexual experimentation in a peer group of sex radicals fueled by vast amounts of mind-altering narcotics, reality is the big loser.”

Even more:

Sharp colors and quick movement like you find in Grand Theft Auto make these couch potatoes feel as if they’re really moving through life at a brisk pace while in reality growing obese. It makes them feel important, as if they’re achieving something, while their textbooks sit unopened on nearby desks. It sucks up hours upon hours when these children could be learning business or engineering. Instead of American history, they memorize the satanic rites of Resident Evil, thrill in emotional suffering with Silent Hill or train to be Columbine-style murderers with Dead Space Extraction.

Billings, who bills himself as “an Investigative Journalist, Motivational Children's Party Entertainer and Antique Soda Bottle Collector all in one special, blessed package!,” also tells parents that if their child really loves them, they will submit to regular drug testing.

He concludes his article with a special note to his “young readers”:

The foundation of modern morality so necessary for the next generation to lead is not something you children will get sucking on the end of a filthy bong while yanking a joystick around the streets of San Andreas, gunning down minorities and looking for “Hot Coffee” as some mysterious classmate from Art History oils your tensed-up pecs.* This might seem fun now, but it’s truly destroying your soul.

The site bills itself as offering “Conservative Values for an Unsaved World.”  Other articles include Parent Alert – World of Warcraft and Cosplay Will Destroy Your Child, Teens Use Facebook To Support World of Warcraft (WoW) and Denounce American Values and The Golden Girls: How One TV Show Turned A Generation Of American Boys Into Homosexuals.

GP: It’s like The Onion, except it’s not. Wow.

Germans Say Nein to Killer Game Drive

October 19, 2009

The “Killer Game Drive” put on by Aktionsbündnis Amoklauf Winnenden over this past weekend appears to have been a relative failure.

The group was attempting to get people to come and toss “killer games” into a dumpster, and, well, while the Action Alliance did have a huge, graffiti-laden repository, let’s just say that it probably didn’t take them hours to empty it.

From pictures posted online of the event, it appears that just three games made it into the dumpster: a copy of Grand Theft Auto, Small Soldiers for the Game Boy Advance and one other unknown title.

A handful of pictures from the event can be found here.

Thanks again to Stephan for the head’s up!

German Group Plans Killer Game Drive

October 14, 2009

A German advocacy group has organized an event designed to get participants to bring their “killer games” to in order to dispose of them in a trash can.

Aktionsbündnis Amoklauf Winnenden, or Action Alliance (loosely translated), has setup the event for this Saturday, October 17 in front of the Stuttgart State Opera. One game tosser will win a signed jersey from the German national soccer team. No word on what will be done with the “donated” games, but presumably they will be smashed or discarded in some way.

GP reader Matthias noted that one image used in the group’s promotion for the event appears to use a modified copy of an image designed to aid Germany in ridding use of the swastika, substituting a CD or DVD for the Nazi symbol.

The Action Alliance is made up, at least partially, of the parents of children slain earlier this year at the awful school shooting incident in Winnenden, Germany, which claimed 16 lives.

Thanks to GP reader Stephan as well.

German Principal Reacts to School Attack, Coins Vernacular

September 21, 2009

In response to a violent in-school incident that took place in Germany last week, a school principal has created the term “killergame,” and is attempting to implement a plan that would try and keep students from playing such games altogether.

A school in Ansbach, Germany was the location of the attack, in which an 18-year old male student reportedly injured nine classmates with a variety of weapons, including an axe, knives and Molotov cocktails. While games were not mentioned in the original news coverage of the rampage, Negative Gamer found and translated an article in which Brad Denning, Principal of the Schramberg Second School, touched on plans for making the educational facility “killergame free.”

Denning, courtesy of Negative Gamer's translation, stated:

Even if there isn’t a monocausally relation between excessive playing of games, leading to acts of violence, it still provides a twisted frame of reference of solutions for their problems and hardships, that they learn – and may transfer to the real world under certain circumstances.

7 Years in Jail for Teen; Prosecutors Say "Door Checking" Assault Inspired by GTA

July 24, 2009

An 18-year-old Maryland man is heading to jail for seven years for a crime which prosecutors allege was inspired by Grand Theft Auto.

Hometown Annapolis reports that Nathan Wade Hartley, Jr. "door checked" two young brothers last August. Hartley, who had three friends in his car at the time, drove at the boys (ages 11 and 15), striking one by opening the driver's door of his Honda Civic and hitting the other with the front end of his car. The boys were critically injured in the assault.

Deputy State's Attorney John Mark McDonald commented on the case:

This was particularly disturbing... It just makes me worry about what he will do in the future... The only reason these kids are alive is luck or grace or whatever you want to call it.

Maryland radio station WTOP-FM has more:

A teenager is headed to prison for what prosecutors say was a senseless crime inspired by a video game.

 

In the popular game "Grand Theft Auto," players drive virtual cars and intentionally hit pedestrians by smacking them with open car doors. It's called "door checking," and prosecutors say 18-year-old Nathan Hartley decided to try it with a real car last summer.

GP: Is "door checking" possible in GTA? I'm having trouble locating any videos depicting it...

UPDATE: PS3 Attitude spoke to prosecutor McDonald, who denied linking the crime to GTA:

The suggestion came through the Defendant. I have never seen Grand Theft Auto, and had never heard of ‘door-checking’ until this case. It was a defense he set forth in attempting to waive his case back to the juvenile court. The State did not introduce the game into the prosecution of this case. It added nothing. My comments on the game were to rebut his reasoning for doing what he did.

I did not suggest that the game was to blame for his conduct, and would not. The blame lies entirely with Nathan Hartley. I stated as much in court. As I indicated, I have never even seen the game and I was not passing any judgment on the game. I was simply arguing why I felt his justification was not valid.

GamePolitics was in touch with Hometown Annapolis reporter Scott Daugherty, whose original article seemed to suggest that prosecutor McDonald make the GTA link to the crime. Here's what Daugherty told us:

It's been awhile since I've played GTA and the prosecutor has never seen the game. According to the prosecutor, Hartley's defense attorney referenced GTA in court as a defense... I guess the old, "it's not my fault, the video games made me do it," defense.

 

While I don't recall being able to specifically door check someone in GTA Vice City (the last one played), I do remember clipping pedestrians as I drove down the sidewalk. If you hit one they would fly off to the side.
 
That is the best I can offer.

Defendant Links Kiddie Porn Collection to Use of Video Games, Comic Books & PC

July 12, 2009

Michael Cherry, a 38-year-old Ontario man in court to plead guilty to possessing child pornography, offered a unique explanation for his crime.

The London Free Press reports:

Admitting he possessed child pornography, a London man said yesterday he lived "in a closed box" of friendless fantasy fuelled by video games, his computer and comic books.

 

"I'd work, come home . . . lock myself in my apartment..."

 

After a difficult childhood in foster care, separated from his siblings, his client became a truck driver who lived by himself in squalor and clinical depression, Squire said. "He was in a black hole . . . a strange sort of world his computer created."

Via: Graphic Policy

Last Night's Mental Episode & Its Troubled, 8-year-old Gamer

June 17, 2009

We've been mentioning (warning?) GamePolitics readers that last night's episode of Mental included a plot element about a violent, 8-year-old gamer.

Fidgit's Tom Chick caught the show and serves up a detailed report [SPOILER ALERT]:

If you're watching [Mental], you probably caught last night's episode in which a kid is deprived of videogames, and therefore invents one in his head.

But the problem is that the videogame he invents in his head sucks... the kid ends up freaking out, hurting his mother with a knife, and then going catatonic. I know how he feels. I've played some bad videogames in my time, too. The kid's hands keep twitching as if he were playing a videogame. With a console controller, of course...

 

The situation is resolved when the sensitive physician with a lot of time on his hands guides his misunderstood patient through how to play the imaginary videogame...

Once he's beat the game in his head, he reconciles with his neglectful father and starts on his medication.

You can catch the full episode yourself at the Mental website. But you'll have to install Fox's video player; I'm not crazy about that...

GP: So, I watched the episode this morning and didn't find that it especially sensationalized games. Don't want to spoil it for anyone who may decide to check it out, so I won't say more about that for now. Overall, the show offers a sensitive treatment of mental health issues.

TV News Has Video Report on Sentencing of Teen Halo 3 Killer

June 17, 2009

Cleveland's Fox 8 has a video report (not embeddable, unfortunately) - including courtroom footage - on yesterday's sentencing of Daniel Petric.

The 17-year-old was sentenced by Judge James Burge from 23 years to life in prison for the 2007 murder of his mother and wounding of his father. The incident was apparently sparked over the parents refusal to permit their son to play Halo 3.

Teen Halo 3 Gamer to be Sentenced For Murder of Mom

June 16, 2009

Daniel Petric, the Ohio teen convicted of killing his mother and severly wounding his father after his parents banned him from playing Halo 3 in 2007, will be sentenced later today, reports local news station Fox 28.

The case bears watching because Judge James Burge, who presided over Petric's trial and will hand down the sentence, was quite critical of video games in comments delivered from the bench at the time of the verdict. As GamePolitics reported in January, Judge Burge said: 

This Court's opinion is that we don't know enough about these video games. In this particular case, not so much the violence of the game because I believe in the Halo 3, what it amounts to is a contest to see who can shoot the most aliens who attack.

 

It's my firm belief that after a while the same physiological responses occur that occur in the ingestion of some drugs. And I believe that an addiction to these games can do the same thing...

 

The other dangerous thing about these games, in my opinion, is that when these changes occur, they occur in an environment that is delusional. Because you can shoot these aliens, and they're there again the next day. You have to shoot them again. And I firmly believe that Daniel Petric had no idea, at the time he hatched this plot, that if he killed his parents, they would be dead forever.

During the trial, Petric's attorney argued that the teen should be found not guilty by reason of insanity due to what was termed a claimed obsession with Halo 3.

Insurer Not Liable For Damages in Sniper Case Said To Be Inspired by GTA III

May 4, 2009

An appeals court has ruled that the parents of Tennessee brothers who went on a 2003 sniper spree which they claimed was inspired by Grand Theft Auto III are personally liable for damages caused in the incident.

One driver was killed and another seriously wounded when the brothers, then 15 and 13, opened fire on vehicles traveling along I-40.

The Knoxville News reports that parents Wayne and Donna Buckner, facing lawsuits in the case, hoped to have their homeowners' insurance settle the claims against them. A county judge agreed, but the Buckners' insurance company, Metropolitan Property and Casualty Insurance, appealed the ruling. A state Court of Appeals judge reversed the decision, leaving the parents liable in the case.

From the newspaper account:

According to lawsuits filed in the case, the boys claimed they never intended to hurt anyone when they began firing .22-caliber rifles at the trailers of rigs traveling on I-40... They insisted their sniper fire was inspired by the video game Grand Theft Auto...

The boys spent a few months in a juvenile detention facility for their crimes.

The Buckners' insurance company balked when brought into the lawsuits that followed the shootings, arguing the policy specifically excluded damages resulting from injury or damage "reasonably expected or intended by you."

A 2003 lawsuit filed on behalf of victims by Jack Thompson against Rockstar, Take-Two Interactive, Sony and Wal-Mart was later withdrawn. For additional details on the original case, check out David Kushner's 2005 article for Salon.

Accused Fraternity Embezzler Blames Video Game Addiction

April 30, 2009

A 21-year-old Wisconsin man who stands accused of stealing more than $12,000 from his fraternity has blamed his crime on video game addiction.

As reported by the Wisconsin State Journal, Jose Tavarez confessed to authorities that he used a fraternity debit card to buy games and computer gear. At the time, Tavarez was the treasurer of his frat at the University of Wisconsin-Madison:

Tavarez... told police he used a fraternity debit card to buy video games because his bank account is linked to his parents’ and he did not want them seeing that he spent his money on the games...

A list of suspicious purchases on the card... included about 70 purchases at game-oriented businesses, along with many others from online stores selling computer goods...

Researchers: Video Games May Condition Players' Real-World Responses

January 28, 2009

There are game violence critics who claim that titles like Grand Theft Auto "train" players to commit criminal acts in the real world.

A new research study from England's Cambridge University will no doubt be cited by those who hold that view.

The New Scientist reports that neuroscientist Paul Fletcher and his team had volunteers play a cycling game in which they were to told they were testing a sports drink delivery system. If a cyclist from their team passed by they received a swig of juice. If a cyclist from the opposing team passed, they received a shot of salty tea.

In a real-world test days afterward, most of the subjects who played the cycling game subconsciously avoided sitting in chairs draped with towels of the opposing team's color.

Said Fletcher:

I don't think this is evidence that video games are bad. We just need to be aware that associations formed within the game transfer to the real world – for good or bad.

 

Our research suggests whatever you've learned in the computer game does have an effect on how you behave toward the stimulus in the real world.

The goal of games manufacturers is to immerse their customers as deeply as possible within the game. Of course, that can be for good or bad.

Fletcher's study will be published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
 

BREAKING: Judge Rejects Video Game Murder Defense for Halo 3 Teen

January 12, 2009

Despite his lawyer's claim that a supposed addiction to Halo 3 turned Daniel Petric into a killer, an Ohio judge has found the 17-year-old guilty in the 2007 slaying of his mother and wounding of his father.

As GamePolitics reported during Petric's December trial, the young man ambushed his parents after they confiscated his copy of Halo 3. After shooting both, the troubled boy tried to frame his father by placing the gun in his hand.

The Associated Press is reporting this morning that Lorain County Common Pleas Judge James Burge said that video game addiction was not a defense. The judge also noted that there was evidence of premeditation on Petric's part.

Petric could be sentenced to life without parole.

Defense Blames Game Addiction in Shooting of Parents by Teen

December 17, 2008

On Monday GamePolitics noted that a 17-year-old boy was on trial in an Ohio courtroom for shooting his parents after they banned him from playing Halo 3.

A local Ohio newspaper is now reporting that defense attorneys are basing Daniel Petric's defense on video game addiction. According to the Chronicle-Telegram:

“Danny was very mild and meek,” said his paternal grandfather, Michael Broeckel, who [testified] that Daniel was a normal teenager, albeit one addicted to video games.

Holly Petric, Daniel’s other sister, said her brother became obsessed with video games because of a back injury which... limited his physical activity... the infection was so severe that any extreme physical activity could have caused his spine to snap, leaving him paralyzed.

“He’d just play (video games) nonstop whenever he could,” Holly Petric said.

[Daniel's friend] Jon Johnson... said he and Daniel would play video games, particularly “Halo 3,” up to 18 hours a day.

Jon said that while he liked video games, Daniel was addicted, even going so far as to push his friends to play the games when they wanted to do something else.

The case is expected to wrap up today. The Cleveland Plain Dealer has additional coverage.

UPDATE: The Chronicle-Telegram reports that Petric's attorney argued this morning that the teen's supposed obsession with Halo 3 contributed to rendering him insane at the time of the shootings:

Daniel Petric’s attorney argued this morning that his client should be found not guilty by reason of insanity for the shooting death of his mother and wounding of his father last year in part because the 17-year-old was obsessed with the video game “Halo 3.”

 

James Kersey said Daniel, who is being tried as an adult, went looking for the sci-fi video game, not his father’s 9 mm handgun on Oct. 20, 2007. The boy’s parents, Sue and Mark Petric, had taken the game away from the boy less than a month before the shootings.

Man Pleads Guilty in So-Called Mortal Kombat Killing

December 16, 2008

A man whom prosecutors allege killed his girlfriend's stepsister in a re-enactment of the Mortal Kombat video game series pleaded guilty in a Colorado courtroom yesterday.

The Associated Press reports that 18-year-old Lamar Roberts (left) admitted to charges of child abuse and knowingly/recklessly causing death in the case.

Seven-year-old Zoe Garcia died in December after a night of babysitting at the hands of Roberts and Zoe's stepsister, 16-year-old Heather Trujillo (also at left). Trujillo received a suspended sentence earlier this year and was placed into a program for youthful offenders.

While prosecutors focused on the Mortal Kombat angle, some relatives of the victim questioned that theory. Child welfare reports indicate that Zoe lived in a highly dysfunctional household and that there was at least one prior incident in which Roberts was reportedly abusive toward the child when drinking.

Roberts will be sentenced in January.

Trial of Teen Who Shot Parents Thrusts Halo 3 into Media Spotlight

December 15, 2008

The sorry tale of a 16-year-old who shot his parents and then tried to frame his dad for the crime is currently playing out in an Ohio court room.

Rather undeservedly, Halo 3 seems to be playing a central role in the case. Ironically, the youthful accused killer never got  a chance to actually play the game.

As the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports, testimony at the trial of Daniel Petric indicates that the boy shot his parents and tried to make it look like a murder-suicide after he was blocked from playing Halo 3 by his father. The elder Petric had confiscated the game from his son as the teen brought it into the house. Mr. Petric then locked it in a box - right next to his 9mm pistol. His son somehow got into the box and recoved the game - and the gun.

From the newspaper's coverage of testimony:

Mark Petric... testified that before the shooting... [Daniel] came into the room with a question:

"Would you guys close your eyes... I have a surprise for you."

Mark Petric said he expected a pleasant surprise. The next thing he knew... He had been shot in the head...

He said the next thing he remembers is his son shoving the gun in his hand and saying, "Hey Dad, here's your gun. Take it."

In his defense Daniel's lawyers argued that the boy was under an emotional strain at the time of the shootings because an illness had kept him housebound for a year. During that time, his lawyers argued, he had little to do but watch TV and play video games.

Could there be additional video game testimony coming up?

Chinese Killer: My Game Addiction Made Me Poison My Parents

November 11, 2008

This week China's Health Ministry recognized Internet addiction as an official disorder. 

It didn't take long for a convicted murder to take notice and attempt to exploit the new policy.

As reported by the Shanghai Daily, 22-year-old Hu Ange, on Death Row for poisoning his parents, is claiming that his online gaming addiction made him criminally insane:

The [appeals] court heard [that] Hu was addicted to the online game Legend. His parents gave him 50,000 yuan (US$7,353) to support his seafood business in March 2007, but he spent it all on the online game. Legend is an online game where players can buy virtual weapons and equipment with real money.

The report said Hu bought 20 packs of tetramine on July 14, 2007, and poisoned his father Hu Ming the next morning. His father was saved after emergency treatment. Hu Ange then bought 45 more packs of tetramine on July 20 and mixed them with beef on July 24. Both his parents were poisoned after eating the beef at lunch. Hu Ange's mother asked him to call for help but he stayed in his room to play Legend, the report said.

The Times Online explains the Chinese government's assessment of those who suffer from Internet addiction:

According to Chinese estimates, about 10 per cent of young users suffer from addiction and of those about 70 per cent are male. Dr Tao says that the condition is often merely a symptom of deeper psychological problems. Almost all child addicts have behavioural problems, which are then aggravated by their addiction. Before they came to the internet, they may have turned to crime or drugs to cope with their feelings of alienation, he said. Some were suicidal.

French Lad Torches Cars, GTA IV Blamed, But...

September 22, 2008

The Daily Mail reports that a 13-year-old French boy is under arrest in Lyon, charged with committing arson against several cars.

A Lyon police spokesman told the newspaper:

He said he played the game for a few hours, then wanted to go out and what it felt like to burn out some cars. This kind of entertainment is clearly having a negative effect on some young people.

There's an obvious accuracy problem in the story, however. See if you can spot it:

The 13-year-old schoolboy used petrol to set light to three vehicles after playing on the violent GTA 4: Liberty City game on his home PC.
 

If you said, "Wait, the PC version of GTA IV doesn't even ship until November 21st in Europe," go to the head of the class.

GP: Thanks to reader NovaBlack for tipping us to this story in Shoutbox.

Report: Serial Sex Offender Inspired by Grand Theft Auto

September 9, 2008

British tabloid The Sun has laid the blame for a string of sexual assaults at the feet of Grand Theft Auto.

Under the headline Sex Beast copied Grand Theft Auto, the newspaper spins the tale of 19-year-old Ryan Chinnery (displaying his bling at left). In true tablod style, The Sun's prose is lurid:

A TEEN sex beast attacked four women in an imitation of violent computer game Grand Theft Auto, a court heard yesterday.  Ryan Chinnery, 19, prowled streets in his car targeting females he thought were prostitutes after becoming obsessed with the video nasty...

 

And the court was told he may have been influenced by the virtual reality game, in which a character drives around on “missions” — including approaching prostitutes who can be beaten up. A copy of Grand Theft Auto was found at his home by police...

 

Prosecutor Eleanor Laws said Chinnery’s love of Grand Theft Auto “may go some way to explaining his attitude towards women”. She said: “Prostitutes in it can be subjected to violence. “There may be some connection with the defendant admitting spending a lot of time playing that game.”

GamePolitics ShoutBox

Posted 11/21/09 at 09:44pm
Flamespeak: I still think military personell, killing other military personell, on a military complex should be handled by military courts.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:43pm
Flamespeak: I could see this a mixture of the two charges rather than just one or the other.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:43pm
Flamespeak: I think this was mainly a person who snapped, but evidence is showing he definitely had strong inlinations to islamic-extremism.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:41pm
Flamespeak: People are trying to claim that Hasan's actions were not terrorism. I don't jump on the 'terror train' like others, however
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:38pm
mentor07825: Britain certainly does deserve it! And the French! God damn it, it was a hand ball!!!
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:34pm
ZippyDSMlee: mentor07825:Well Brittan dose deserve it....
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:33pm
ZippyDSMlee: Alyric:I don;t hasliburton having to pay back billoins... don;t you love it when the rich roll over the goverment without a care?
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:32pm
mentor07825: I say we nuke the whales, for the benefit of both mankind and the environment.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:28pm
Austin_Lewis: I say we try Al Gore too. I always said he was in on the racket.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:16pm
Alyric: The leaked information proves these organizations knowingly defrauded governments (i.e., taxpayers) out of billions of dollars. Yet there will probably never be a trial.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:15pm
Flamespeak: working on other things makes me angry. I might have had a jet pack by now. :p
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:14pm
Flamespeak: Just thinking of all the time and manpower wasted to try and make things emit less CO2 emmision that could have been spent
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:07pm
Alyric: @Zip: FYI, the construction of solar panels puts out more pollution than any form of energy production. To say nothing of the toxic components of the panels that cannot be recycled.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:04pm
ZippyDSMlee: I know I know not the point.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:01pm
ZippyDSMlee: Mmmmmm box the panels in so you can see them from the side or below?
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:01pm
Flamespeak: and ways that aren't really hurting anything, then let them instead of forcing change on them.
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:00pm
ZippyDSMlee: Ya make it a optional program, you get the 10% and no recoup on engery gained from the panels :P
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:00pm
Flamespeak: I am not saying that using solar panels is a bad idea, but if a town's populace wanted to keep their old look
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:00pm
Flamespeak: might as well outlaw all muscle cars and make it so no parts could be made for them
Posted 11/21/09 at 09:00pm
ZippyDSMlee: Meh balance it out raise the rates by 10% t so they can put panels out.
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