Opinions Of The Month: May, 1998

If you read last months OOTM, you know I ran a piece about 3 American hostages, missionaries captured in Panama, being held in Colombia in lieu of $5 million. DO NOT FORGET THEM! Please read last month's OOTM on this subject. The men's names are:

These people need your help. Write your Congressman and tell him or her that the US government needs to come to the aid of it's citizens. NOW.

Latrell Sprewell, formerly of the California State Warriors, has decided that the NBA owes him a few million dollars for lost wages and damages. He is saying that the NBA is a monopolistic tyrant that used racial bias in making a completely arbitrary example of him.

I'm going to remember those arguments. See, I'm going to go up to my boss today and choke him. I'm going to strangle him to his knees. Then I'm going to go hang out in the men's room for a few minutes. Then I'm going to come back out and choke him again. I'm going to scream in his face that I'm going to kill him. I'll be sure to leave some nasty marks on his neck as proof that I choked him. My company will fire me. Very likely the police will put me in jail. And when I'm tried I'll plead not guilty. I'll charge that my boss is racist because, since I'm white, I'm somehow a victim of "reverse" prejudice. And then I'll sue the company I work for for lost wages and damages.

I'm going to be rich!

Seriously, the NBA should offer up an agreement to completely reverse all it's decisions regarding punishing Sprewell. It should sign an agreement giving up all rights to handle interleague disputes.

OR...

Carlesimo should sue Sprewell for damages, physical trauma, doctor's bills, attorney's fees, bad dreams, etc., etc.

I honestly consider Sprewell to be racist based on his charges of racism in a situation that so clearly has nothing to do with race. It has to do with the NBA handling the punishment of Sprewell and, in effect, shielding him from prosecution. Talking about biting the hand that feeds you.

A few thoughts:

1. India and Pakistan were once one nation. During the time of Ghandi, the nation was divided in two to allow the Muslims and Hindus to live in separate areas and resolve the brewing civil war and possible ethnic cleansing (read "genocide"). The result is two nations that occasionally war with each other (3 wars in the last 50 years?), but the alternative would have been the mass murder of millions of people. At the same time, the division caused the uprooting of millions of people and cemented a virile hatred among the two groups.
2. Lawrence Livermore Labs either has or is building (I forget) software and computer systems that are capable of simulating a nuclear reaction, thus eliminating the need for nuclear testing. It's my understanding that results of research at LLL are available to the global community in the hopes of making nuclear testing obsolete.
3. Pakistan now has missiles capable of carrying warheads to all points in India.
4. India's current government administration put forth as part of it's platform during the elections that they would resume building India's nuclear capabilities. Apparently no one was paying attention or they didn't take India seriously.
5. I don't have precise figures, but nuclear fuel costs millions of dollars a pound to produce and millions more to assemble into a warhead.
6. India has millions of people dying for want of food, medicine, clothing, housing, etc.

Ok, some conclusions:

1. This should be no surprise. It's scarey, but it's no surprise.
2. The tests were nothing more than muscle flexing. It's India's way of saying, "Hey, we've got muscle too."
3. The money spent on the tests (four, I believe) could have fed a million people for months of not a couple of years.

I love how the Microsoft lawyers represent their client. I love it so much because they do it so badly, and with postulates and analogies that defy reason and logic. Here are a few:

For more on this story, I recommend you stop by C|Net, a fanstastic resource for the latest in computer industry news:

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