What's a "hero"?

Maybe it's just me, but...that guy who got beheaded on the bus in Canada? People are calling him a "hero":

McLean called hero

Beheading victim Tim McLean's final actions helped save the lives of fellow passengers aboard a Greyhound bus last month, says one witness to the tragedy.

[...]

"If it wasn't for what he did, there would have been more that didn't get off that bus," said the 19-year-old Northwest Territories native.

Oh, bullshit. He wasn't a hero. He was, quite naturally and ultimately unsuccessfully, fighting for his life.

You know what would have been heroic? For the rest of the passengers to pig-pile on the guy with the knife and STOP HIM!

What if a guy starts killing another guy on a moving plane or train? Are you all going to throw the doors open and jump out, or are you going to STOP THE MAN?

Yes, the first couple of people to jum on him would have been at risk of coming into contact with the knife blade and being injured as well. That risk is what makes things heroic.

White Queen Takes Black Knight

This is Clyde's latest essay:



Please note:

I am not Clyde Lewis. This essay is posted here with his permission for wider availability. If you post a comment here, he will not receive it. Comments can be sent to him at clyde@groundzeromedia.org.

WORDSPEAKER

Tonight is the premiere of WORDSPEAKER, an independent short film starring Clyde Lewis.

If you don't live in the Portland area, you can see a live stream of the event at

http://www.stickam.com/wordspeaker

New Olympic Event: The Plague Pass

Uh-oh...

Which country is prominent among the first to report human-to-human transmission of H5N1?

Human to Human Transmission of H5N1 Confirmed in China

Chinese health officials have confirmed that a father caught H5N1 bird flu from his son last December, according to a report released Tuesday. This marks at least the fourth instance in which many authorities now believe there was limited inter-family H5N1 transmission.

Which country, conveniently enough, just happens to have developed a vaccine for H5N1?

China approves its first human H5N1 vaccine

China's State Food and Drug Administration approved production of the country's first human vaccine for the H5N1 virus last week (2 April).

Which country is hosting the next Olympics, an event expected to draw an audience from all over the world, who will gather in public places, jam up against each other, and then go home?

China, Air Travel and the 2008 Olympics

One of the biggest questions surrounding the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games is whether China’s fast-growing but seriously stretched commercial aviation system will be up to the task of handling the 2 million visitors expected to pack the Chinese capital for the Games this summer.

Er...spread, did you say?

Olympic spirit to be spread through North America via San Francisco


Probably a good idea:

Chicken off menu at Beijing Olympics


Ground Zero articles of interest:



Human to Human Transmisson of H5N1 in China is now fulfilling all prophecies of Zombie War (Clyde's MySpace blog)

New Article by Clyde Lewis

Clyde's back to writing again! Here's his latest:

The Great Obamanation

Comments may be sent to clyde@groundzeromedia.org

Watch list not so exclusive a club any more

Terror watch list swells to more than 755,000 names

The government's terrorist watch list has swelled to more than 755,000 names, according to a new government report that has raised worries about the list's effectiveness.
The size of the list, typically used to check people entering the country through land border crossings, airports and sea ports, has been growing by 200,000 names a year since 2004. Some lawmakers, security experts and civil rights advocates warn that it will become useless if it includes too many people.

Know what we should do? We should all do something to get on the list. If no one can fly, the airlines take the hit. They might as well watch everyone and keep a list of people not to watch. People would have to pay a huge application fee to get on it, and they could use that money to bail out the airlines. An innovative way to tax the rich.

But they would probably just make a sublist of people to really really watch, and let the others fly. But it'd make a great paperwork bomb, nonetheless. You like the idea of peaceful revolution? Well, there you go.

Be careful not to actually break the law to get on the list. Just start all your phone conversations with the words "Bomb, bomb, bomb" so the line tap switches on.

Who's being sneaky?

Online Videos May Be Conduits for Viruses

One worm discovered in November 2006 launches a corrupt Web site without prompting after a user opens a media file in a player. Another program silently installs spyware when a video file is opened. Attackers have also tried to spread fake video links via postings on YouTube.

Or, the entertainment corporations are claiming this -- or who knows, actually putting them there -- to scare people away from using YouTube and the other deeeemon spawn of "Web 2.0".

Another soft spot involves social networking sites, blogs and wikis. These community-focused sites, which are driving the next generation of Web applications, are also becoming one of the juiciest targets for malicious hackers.

Computers surfing the sites silently communicate with a Web application in the background, but hackers sometimes secretly embed malicious code when they edit the open sites, and a Web browser will unknowingly execute the code. These chinks in the armor could let hackers steal private data, hijack Web transactions or spy on users.

See what I mean?

Paging Andrew Keen...Andrew Keen to the front desk, the amateur cult would like to have a word with you...

Plus, I'm kind of interested in that last bit, "spy on users". Hackers have better things to do. The government and the corporations, on the other hand...