One Big Leap for a Gorilla, One Small Murder for Mankind

The article "Gorilla leapt over wall, officials say" tells a story of a "gorilla that was shot to death by police after breaking out of its enclosure at the Dallas Zoo in March escaped by leaping from a mound of dirt over a 12-foot wall."

Gorillas have no underground railroad, no Warshaw sewers, no ways to communicate their stories of slavery and genocide. Like the ancestors of today's African-Americans, they've been snached from their homes, taken across the sea never to return. Those who remain free face extinction more surely than the Jews in Nazi Germany, their population just a shadow of its former self.

Yet, their genetic material (as I recall) differs from hominids' for just a few percent. They are capable of using sign language, of caring and bragging, of love and hate. They are far less violent than "humans."

Unless they evolve and take over the world soon, there will be no "Roots." No "Night." When we kill them all, we will make computer simulatated interpretations of their lives, and sad movies similar to those about the Indians/Native Americans. If Nazis had won the World War II, would the "pure aryan" people in their distant future of such a society write sad stories and make tragic movies about the doomed yet romantic "subhuman" "races?"

"A Linux Poised to Remake Telco Markets"

But since the operating system is Linux and since Linksys has respected the Linux GPL by publishing all the source code for anyone to download for free, the WRT54G is a lot more than just a wireless router. It is a disruptive technology.

PBS | I, Cringely . Archived Column

Live Free, or Be Killed

David Gordon of the Ludwig fon Mises Institute explains:

I am no expert in Islamic theology and, in any case, have no wish to defend Wahhabi Islam. But before we take action against the religion of millions of people, ought we not to be cautious? Surely belief in fundamentalist Islam does not always lead to anti-American violence. It has after all not prevented Saudi Arabia from entering into an alliance with us. I suggest that watchful waiting is a wiser course of action than a quixotic attempt to cram neoconservatism down the throats of the world’s Muslims.

Along the same lines, Antiwar published a short history of recent U.S.-Iraq relations, from a perspective of a former Iraqi general Jaber who "was in charge of communication and radar for the Iraqi military," during the Iran-Iraq war, which coincided with the reign of Reagan.