To be honest I can't make any judgements about Vile Rat as a person, having never met him, going by his name and affiliations... well, I'd imagine "nice guy" probably isn't a good description unless you were on his side... but heck, that's gaming. It's sad to know such a dedicated gamer and part of the US diplomatic corps has passed on though, especially under these circumstances.
That said, if Vile Rat was a diplomat, I doubt he'd agree with what I'm about to say but... I think this pretty much demonstrates that the Muslim cultures simply cannot exist on the same planet with everyone else, something that goes beyond any one nation in the region, and also needs to be seperated from Islam itself which can be practiced peacefully even if the vast number of adherants that dominate The Middle East choose not to, and maintain a xenophobic way of life that might be thousands of years old, but has become a cancer to progress.
When a trailer for a movie that happens to be offensive to your point of view incites riots against international targets of this sort, I think we've gone beyond any arguements that problems in the region are simply the result of a tiny, radical minority. This is like right wingers rallying en-masse and going on killing rampages over a Michael Moore documentary, or people shooting up The House Of Representitives over "Passion Of The Christ". If this was an isolated incident it would be one thing, but the simple fact that we're in a very similar place periodically it seems shows that measured response and peaceful attempts at negotiation have failed. Heck, they attacked our diplomats who are the peaceful talkative guys, yet again, and this was over a bloody movie trailer.
I've said all of this before, but honestly, how many times do we need to visit incidents like this? From where I'm sitting out leaders are talking a good game, but when it comes to action they are simply reaching for ever larger tubes of lube, and as they do, we seem to be encouraging things to just get worse.
I felt the need to say my piece here, I had been avoiding the topic, but for some reason learning that a big time EVE player and Goon died kind of bugs me. I played EVE at a very casual high-sec level for a while, and call Something Awful once in a while to read the main page for a laugh. I guess it just hit closer to home, and has really gotten my usual sentiments roiling. In the end I pretty much think it's just time to unleash all the nasty weapons we keep around but won't use for moral reasons (which doesn't even need to include nukes) and bring Armageddon to the region. Heck if people are concerned about Genocide, just put some egg cells and sperm into a bank to be thawed out later. Besides I'd kind of get a kick out of telling the descendants of a formerly theocratic culture that freaks out over movie trailers and wants me dead that their creator is an American in a lab coat that combined them, and that if they need a god his name is Doctor Pointdexter (or whatever).
Yes, I'm angry again, so take that for what it's worth.
