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It's funny. Laugh. Entertainment Games

Rockstar Strikes Back 81

Posted by Zonk from the he-can-dish-it-out-but-he-can't-take-it dept.
Eurogamer is reporting on a little humor that Rockstar is having at Jack Thompson's expense. From the article: "Rockstar has just launched a new website for forthcoming PSP game GTA: Liberty City Stories, which features a spoof email from 'JT@CitizensUnitedNegatingTechnology'. 'The Internet is an unambiguous evil,' the email reads. 'The only things worse than the Internet are computer games and liberals ... Only last week, I was using the Internet to look up some information for my 15 year old niece, who is a keen water skier and state wide sailor ... Trust me when I say this - searching under the subject matter "Teenage girls water sports" is not for the faint hearted.'" The article goes on to describe some frantic arm waving from the parody's target.
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Rockstar Strikes Back More

Rockstar Strikes Back

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  • I bet... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    he'll be flailing his arms for sure after seeing all the SPAM he's gonna get now.

    • I believe... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by overpayd ( 855430 ) *
      That's a fake email address.

      But I'm not sure about this: "Jack Thompson can assure the world that the only thing to which he is "addicted" is eating entertainment industry scofflaws for breakfast - and golf."

      Is that a real quote?! First of all, why is Jack Thompson referring to himself in the third person? And secondly, what the hell is he talking about anyway?

  • Hehe.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by ben0207 ( 845105 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (notrub.neb)> on Friday September 16, 2005 @03:31PM (#13579710)
    CITIZENS
    UNITED
    NEGATING
    TECHNOLOGY
    FOR
    LIFE
    AND
    PEOPLE'S
    SAFETY

    Cuntflaps, for the very slow. R* show us again where their true talent lies!
    • It's kind of sad, really.. it would be more fun if the opposition was even a little bit competent.

      I mean, I actually agree with them on some points - GTA has a few things in it that I'd rather it didn't. But, guess what? I also know that they are being extremely satirical in that game. And of course, the box already had an M on it anyway.. so who realy cares if it jumps from 17+ to 18+?

      So anyway, like I said, it would be more fun if the opponents actualy made any sense when they talked :)

      • Re:Hehe.... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by PakProtector ( 115173 ) <cevkiv@@@gmail...com> on Saturday September 17, 2005 @06:47AM (#13583799) Journal

        The problem is best summed up by C. S. Lewis:

        Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

        To sum it up: People who want to forbid you from doing something for your own good who do it because their own concience tells them to do so will never stop doing it, and will keep stopping you from doing things, not because that thing hurts them, but because it hurts you or someone else.

        I tend to live by the idea that no one has any right to tell anyone not to do anything else as long as it's not hurting someone -- and something hurting someone is defined by the person who is supposed to be being hurt.

        In other words, I cannot beat the crap out of people in broad daylight on city streets -- unless that person happens to not mind my doing it.

        However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.

        People always want rules, they always want laws -- always for other people. When is the last time you ever say some elected official trying to get something banned, "Because I need it to be banned to make me stop?" Never. First of all, if you know it's wrong, why do you need a law to make you stop doing it? And second of all, if you know it's wrong in the first place, why are you doing it? You must not think it's really that wrong, or you have no self-control. And if you have no self control, why are you in office?

        I don't think we're going to get anywhere in this world until we find some way to rid humanity of the busy-body trait that makes others try to stop letting their fellow humans go to hell in their own way. Of course, the problem is, people like me, who feel in this way, are generally too pacifist to take any drastic action to stop it.

        However, even though I am a pacifist, I am still rational, and I never let my pacifism get in the way of what I feel needs must be done.

        To these people who want to take away our rights to listen to and read and watch what we will, I say this: If it offends you, don't watch it. Turn off the TV, or the Radio, or skip that story in the Magazine. But don't you dare stop me from being able to turn of the TV to that Program, or the Radio to that Song, or to that Page in the Magazine or Newspaper. Restricting the Rights of the People 'a little bit' falls into the same classic silliness as 'a little bit pregnant.' You are either pregnant or not. You are either taking my Rights away or not. There is a reason they are called Rights, and not Privellages.

        I would, to paraphrase the words of Thomas Jefferson, suffer from having too much Freedom than too Little. To badly quote Benjamin Franklin, "Those who would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither." Has no one ever noticed that the Product of Freedom and Security is a constant? To have freedom, you must give up your security!

        The freedom to drive an automobile is the freedom to be involved in a 37 car pile-up on the interstate. The freedom to have hardware stores is the freedom to possibly be killed with a hammer by an assailant, or to nail your hand to a board with a nailgun.

        Are so many of my countrymen in these, the failing days of our once great Republic, become so stupid? Are the words of our Founding Fathers no longer required learning, even for those who would run this, the country they designed?

        Very soon in this country, one of two things will happen. Either we will become the Evangelical Christian States of A

        • However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.

          That's a fine sentiment. But how do you determine whether that person doesn't mind it? You can't necessarily believe them if they say so. They might be afraid that you'll do something worse to them if they say they don't like it.

          This is not a hyp

          • However, if that person doesn't mind it, no one, whether it be a fellow no-one like me, or someone like the Pope or the Dalai Lama, has any right to stop me from doing it , or to stop the person who is enjoying having the crap beaten out of them from enjoying it.

            That's a fine sentiment. But how do you determine whether that person doesn't mind it? You can't necessarily believe them if they say so. They might be afraid that you'll do something worse to them if they say they don't like it.

            This is not a h

            • >That's not rational.

              Ah, if only everybody was always rational.
              Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

              • That's not rational.

                Ah, if only everybody was always rational. Unfortunately, I don't think that's going to happen any time soon.

                I don't think it is, either. But I'm a rational anarchist. I have a perfect ideal towards which I strive, knowing that I am an imperfect being and thus my attempts will never be anything more than imperfect, yet I keep on trying.

                Anyway, I could stand America staying as irrational as it is if everyone wasn't so damn stupid.

        • Re:Hehe.... (Score:3, Insightful)

          by CFTM ( 513264 )
          Although I agree with the general sentiment of your statement, I think you're coping out by saying that you're a pacifist. If this is important to you, do something about it. You needn't be violent to be a part of the solution and that implication is short-sighted on your part; had you said I'm lazy that would be fine.

          That being said, the Evangelical Christians are a real threat to this country; I would argue it is every bit as dangerous as Islamic Fundamentalists although some may call that statement fla
          • The fuckers are setting up schools to teach young politicians how to use the bible to make lawmaker-type decisions. If that isn't the most absurd, dangerous and stupidest thing

            whether you want to admit it or not, everyone has some sort of ethical strategy for making choices in their lives. why is the evangelical's strategy less valid than yours? why are their ideas so dangerous? your ideas are not? just because you disagree with them doesnt make their ideas dangerous. 'tolerance' in the u.s. appears to las

          • That being said, the Evangelical Christians are a real threat to this country; I would argue it is every bit as dangerous as Islamic Fundamentalists although some may call that statement flamebait. The fuckers are setting up schools to teach young politicians how to use the bible to make lawmaker-type decisions. If that isn't the most absurd, dangerous and stupidest thing I've ever heard than I'll run around naked for a week. And yes, I think I'm employing the user of hyperbole here ;)

            I have two comment

  • Jack Thompson (Score:4, Funny)

    by Digital_Quartz ( 75366 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @03:37PM (#13579794) Homepage
    I find it interesting that Jack Thompson refers to himself exclusively in the third person everywhere he is quoted...

  • Please tell me this is fake... (Score:3, Funny)

    by thebdj ( 768618 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @03:51PM (#13579953) Journal
    http://www.stopkill.com/ [stopkill.com]
    I hope the upper 90% of it was parodied by someone and the bottom like 10% with addresses and all is real. Or hell that the whole is real just proving the man has no sense of how to prevent being harassed by gamers, liberals, e-mail scanning bots (which subsequently leads to porn, home loans and medications), and who knows maybe just the total nut job who would go as far as stalking him.
    One can only dream...I now have motivation for getting my law degree, to laugh my ass off across the court room when the judge tells him to go read the damn constitution...*snaps up from dreaming*...oh sorry...
    • I actually used that site to write Jack Thompson a short e-mail asking about his reasons for this "crusade" he's got going on. It was polite and inoffensive, suffice to say he didn't reply probably because it didn't give him any ammunition against gamers.

  • Okay, Okay (Score:5, Funny)

    by radicalskeptic ( 644346 ) <x AT gmail DOT com> on Friday September 16, 2005 @03:52PM (#13579960)
    Well, someone had to do it.

    The first GIS response for "teenage girls water sports"... [sarodibartolo.it]

    Not exactly what I was expecting o_O
    • About the only offensive link google turned up in its first 10 results was "PenisBot's Porn "Links

      And you obviously have your safe search turned off. With it on, this is the first and only GIS result [ymca.net]

      And btw- Its readily apparent that JT didn't actually try searching for teenage girls water sports or he would have discovered that gURL.com [gurl.com] is Google's #1 result.

      Then again... They've got a a nice picture of a pair of underwear saying "THE PENIS?" as part of their "Sex Quiz Series" "how much do you know about [gurl.com]

  • radio pornographers? (Score:3, Funny)

    by kaptron ( 850747 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @03:56PM (#13580007)
    ...the oldest dodge used by the porn industry, first used on Jack Thompson by radio pornographers whom Thompson got fined by the FCC in 1989.

    Even without numbers I can assure you that the multi-billion dollar porn industry is not making its money off of radio porn.

    • You're Listening to KXXX FM... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Thedalek ( 473015 ) on Saturday September 17, 2005 @10:25AM (#13584753)
      Even without numbers I can assure you that the multi-billion dollar porn industry is not making its money off of radio porn.

      Without hesitation, I'll go ahead and hazard a guess that Madman Jack is talking about Howard Stern. No, I know what you're thinking, Howard Stern isn't porn. You don't get it. To Jack, anything exceeding his personal obscenity barometer is pornographic filth, including but not limited to swimsuit and underwear ads, soap and shampoo commercials, commercials for "femenine hygene" products (probably also wicked tools of the Evil Femenist Regime (TM)), and pretty much anything that in any way expresses that there is some physiological difference between boys and girls.

      It's an old tactic used by those who wish to manipulate the public by slapping spurious labels on what they don't like. Saying "We want filth and pornography off our airwaves," is likely to get more support than "Thinking about sex is wrong and evil."

      Really, the question shouldn't be "What are Jack Thompson's views on the matter?" (Which no one really asked, but Jack supplied anyway), but "What are Jack Thompson's wife's views? Is his zealotry detracting from their marriage?

  • Liberals? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @03:58PM (#13580035)
    The only things worse than the Internet are computer games and liberals ...

    Yeah, because liberals [wikipedia.org] are completely [wikipedia.org] rational [wikipedia.org] about the effects of entertainment media [wikipedia.org].

    (Not a liberal or conservative - just sayin').

    • Re:Liberals? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by FidelCatsro ( 861135 )
      The US political definition of liberal is " mild authoritarian ". Half the insults directed at liberals are against these people who are no more liberal than your average authoritarian conservative .
      I think Rockstar are using liberal in the classical sense of the word
      • No, the implication I got from it is that Jack Thompson is a conservative of the variety that says that liberals are bad, or whatever. The implication is also that conservatives are the ones trying to outlaw these games.

        This is pretty funny, as the vast majority of the people who have been passing and pushing for these "violent game" laws are liberal democrats. But its blamed on conservative republicans, because, you know, its cool to blame everything on conservative republicans nowadays.

        Rockstar can kind
        • Just wait. When the Democrats come back in power, it'll be the thing to bitch about them instead. {grins} I complained about Democrats back in the early '90s and about the Republicans today.

        • Re:Liberals? (Score:5, Funny)

          by FidelCatsro ( 861135 ) <fidelcatsro@gmaDALIil.com minus painter> on Friday September 16, 2005 @11:20PM (#13582624) Journal
          The Democrats are a conservative party , just slightly less so than the Republicans .

          • True, but that's not how we use the terms these days in the good ole USA =]

            Our liberals are quite conservative compared to the liberals of europe. Well, most of them anyway.
            • Not all of them are that far off. If I was in the USA i would choose between the Greens or one of these guys
              (Of course the Greens have same crazy policies that I disagree with as well)

              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_Choice_Party [wikipedia.org]
              Except I am a strong supporter of some socialist ideals (as well as a strong free market) .. So their opposition to social security is rather contrary to my ethics
              http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Libertarian_Party_(Un ited_States) [wikipedia.org]
              or these guys (with the same problem , oh and I th
              • I'm not sure about the personal choice party, but I would consider the libertarian party to be conservative, not liberal.

                Greens are definitely liberal though.

                Just perused the wikipedia entry for the personal choice party. I think they're conservative too.
                • Fiscal conservatives defiantly , but liberal on social values .

                  Key tenets of the Libertarian Party platform include the following:
                  a mostly unregulated free market economy, including support of the right to keep and bear arms, opposition to drug prohibition (see also: drug legalization), and elimination of the state-supported social welfare system.

                  strong civil liberties including free speech, freedom of association, sexual freedom, and a foreign policy of free trade, absolute non-intervention, and o

                  • I don't think they necessarily are. I think they are just trying to poke fun at Jack Thompson. They have heard US Conservatives (of the Pat Robertson kind *shudder*) say that liberals are bad, and they think Jack Thompson is a conservative, so they put words in his mouth.

                    I think the meaning of conservatism has kind of been muddled by republicans in the last 10 years. Conservativism wants to keep the government out of everything, as much as possible. But conservatism recognizes the need for police, a str
                    • In many ways there is little difference between a true liberal and a true(political ) conservative.. well bar perhaps the embracing of the new .
                      Liberal is the antitheses of Authoritarian not conservative (as traditional values could be at one stage liberal and conservatism is seeking to preserve these things).I honestly don't mind paying fair taxes so long as the money is spent well and I have my fair say as to how it is spent.

                      Conservative and liberal have both had their meaning skewered over time . Mainly
                    • Yeah. Very true. The whole liberal/conservative thing is an attempt to understand political beliefs along a single line, from far left to far right. In reality, it's just not that cut and dried.
              • In the 2004 election, Ralph Nader split from the Greens and ran on his own. I think this is because he disagreed with part of the platform of the Green Party. There isn't a party that can be all things to all people, and (due to media / electoral control and corruption), the US is stuck in a rut of Reps/Dems. I think they are both equally contemptible, in that they all go to the same rich people and corporations for their money. There are a few rare exceptions, but I don't live in their districts.

                I would li

    • What part of this site is a joke don't you understand?
      • Let's see if we can explain this so your wittle pee brain can understand:

        It's a parody. Satire.

        The person or persons at Rockstar who created the parody made the "liberals" comment part of their gag, in such a way as to insinuate that liberals are wrongly accused of supporting violent games while conservatives bash them. This is clearly wrong since the ignorance and political-whoring of the subject is exceedingly bi-partisan.

        In other words, the implication of the tone of the parody deserved comment.

  • Hot Tea (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    And in the "Hot Tea" add-on, you get to run over him with a steam roller, right?

  • Teenage girl watersports (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Seumas ( 6865 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @04:05PM (#13580122)
    Only last week, I was using the Internet to look up some information for my 15 year old niece, who is a keen water skier and state wide sailor ... Trust me when I say this - searching under the subject matter "Teenage girls water sports" is not for the faint hearted.'"

    I know it's a parody, but I'm tired of hearing idiots talk about "when you search for stuff on the internet, all you get back is pornography!". That's complete bullshit.

    Go into "preferences" on google and select "safe search". Now, search for teenage girls water sports [google.com].

    I only looked at the first 15 pages worth of results, but NONE are inappropriate or pornographic or sexual whatsoever. Even with "safe search" turned off, six of the first ten results are about the intended, non sexual, subject.
    • Hmmm.. http://www.google.no/search?hs=E91&hl=no&client=f i refox&rls=org.mozilla%3Anb-NO%3Aunofficial&q=teena ge+girls+water+sports&btnG=S%C3%B8k&meta= [google.no] First results:

      Water Sports & Pissing Porn Links PenisBot's Porn Links Smothering Spanking Uniforms Voyeur & Upskirts Water Sports Zoo Fetish ... Teen girls revealing all secrets and realizing hidden desires. ... www.penisbot.com/ - 43k - 14 sep 2005 - I hurtigbuffer - Lignende sider

      gURL.com - an interactiv

      • What part of &safe=active didn't you understand?

        ==========
        gURL.com - an interactive web thing for teen girls.
        gURL.com takes a different approach to the experience of being a teen girl with ... --court & field sports, --water sports, --winter sports, OTHER BOARDS: ...
        www.gurl.com/ - 89k - Cached - Similarpages

        gURL.com - an interactive web thing for teen girls. ... experience of being a teen girl with interactive message boards, games, ...
        water sports athletics shout out about travel and your part of
        • The original rant didn't mention anything about safe searching. Thompson would still have a fit about having to turn on safe searching to avoid pornographic material (or as he would have thought of it, hax0ring Google).
          • The original rant didn't mention anything about safe searching.

            Are you blind?

            Go into "preferences" on google and select "safe search". Now, search for teenage girls water sports.
    • Try this: go to SafeSearch and search for naked chicks [google.com].

      Google gives you two barely noticeable error messages:

      The word "naked" has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active.

      The word "chicks" has been filtered from the search because Google SafeSearch is active.

      And then it goes on to perform the search and find stuff like Britannica, Web Standards Project, Sun emplyoment, and the Yahoo team. WTF does it get these from? It's searching for nothing at all and it found this!

      You get exact
    • The character writing the email about watersports is a fictional character in a computer game that is set in the year 1999.

      Google did not have a safesearch feature in 1999.

      The point is not that I'm trying to nitpick, the point is that it's a period piece. The internet and people's attitudes towards it were very diferent just six years ago.
    • actually all I found was this post.

  • Heh... (Score:4, Informative)

    by Dehumanizer ( 31435 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @04:25PM (#13580313) Homepage
    ... reminds me of the "Conservatives Against Nearly Everything", in Leisure Suit Larry 5.

  • Uh Oh (Score:4, Insightful)

    by idonthack ( 883680 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @04:33PM (#13580398)
    They're doing this? To the guy who was going to take legal action [vgcats.com] on the author of VGCats because he sent the guy an email?
     
    Can you say "lawsuit"?
    ---
    It's not a lie. It's the truth with lossy compression.
    Generated by SlashdotRndSig [snop.com] via GreaseMonkey [mozdev.org]
    • Can you say "lawsuit"?
      Like Hustler Magazine making a fake advertisement about a drunken Jerry Falwell making it sweet in an outhouse with his mother? The US Supreme Court ruled unanimously [bc.edu] in favor of Hustler. I don't think that Rockstar is worried in the least.

  • turn of the evil internet (Score:3, Informative)

    by El_Muerte_TDS ( 592157 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @04:41PM (#13580482) Homepage
    I wonder how many times Jack Thompson visited this site [turnofftheinternet.com].

  • The full email text (Score:5, Informative)

    by 88NoSoup4U88 ( 721233 ) on Friday September 16, 2005 @05:37PM (#13580960)
    Since the full email text is all embedded within the flashfile, finally an occasion to karma-whore with a reasonable reason ;)

    Dear Liberty Tree,

    The internet is unambiguous evil. The only things worse than the internet are computer games and liberals. The fact of the matter is our Constitution clearly protects us against the internet. They had foresight, to go along with their wooden teeth, and the Constitution clearly alludes to "unwanted connectivity".

    We want to turn the internet off before this parasite swallows all of us. The fact is, this may be an e-mail, but I am revolted with myself, and will punish myself, vigorously. We need to be free from the internet. It's getting mankind in a hideous and vice-like grip and before you know it, our lives, which were once perfect, will be reduced to nothing but cyber sex and learning things we have no business knowing, like the fact the government lies, or you can safely go on vacation outside the old 48 contiguous. It's revolting, and we're all suffering.

    Only last week, I was using the internet to look up some information for my 15 year old niece, who is a keen water skier and state wide sailor. Trust me when I say this - searching under the subject matter "Teenage girls water sports" is not for the faint hearted. The fact is people who care about our society really should join our society. CLICK WWW.CITIZENSUNITEDNEGATINGTECHNOLOGY.ORG FOR MORE DETAILS.

  • The site is real. (Score:2, Informative)

    by chanda3199 ( 786804 )
    I'm kind of surprised that I didn't see someone post a link to the site from the email address [citizensun...nology.com].
  • But then it turned into something like "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HA HA! BUUUUUURRRRRN! HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa"

    Then I couldn't breathe anymore and had to take a break.
  • It seems that R* has taken a major blow by JT himself. Rather than trying to prevent scientific evidence to refute the ideas Jack Thompson is presenting, they make a parody site. I can imagion how a court case in the future will look. Jack: "Interactive media simulate the brain more than passive media and thus influences a child's behavior more." R*: "You're a @%$# #*@^er! *snicker*" Give me a break. If R* wants to legitimize their games, they should fight smarter, not prove that the corporation is ru
    • I agree - on the surface, this is a righteous "fuck you" to Mr. J.T., however when you think about it, it's only helping his cause.

      In the latest issue of PC gamer there is an article that compares statistics from the FBI on youth crime rates to GTA releases. Turns out, it's been on the decline for a while and is currently at all time lows. GTA et al. has had no effect on youth crime. My only problem with this comparison is that the stats from the FBI are a few years out of date...so maybe there has been

      • "Although, on the flip-side, I can see people dismissing it since the info isn't from an unbiased source."

        Or because it's completely meaningless. Video games aren't the only factor on youth crime. Maybe something about the education system improved over the last five years. Maybe parents are doing a better job of teaching their kids to respect the law. Maybe law enforcement is doing a better job of deterring youth from illegal activites. Or maybe kids are too busy playing GTA to steal stuff in real life.

    • Naww, they're right on the same maturity level [vgcats.com] as he is. If anything, any laysuits between the two can be filmed as a documentary and then marketed as a comedy.
    • The problem is that Jack Thompson is not trying to have a reasonable or logical debate. His tactics are all about sound bites and media exposure. He makes a big noise in the media when he files his ridiculous lawsuits and gets all the sheep in the country to go "Oh my gosh, videogames are teh evil!" If you look at his track record, he hasn't won very many cases like this. Even in the Hot Coffee thing, he didn't win a legal victory, the ESRB just bumped the "appropriate age" for the game from 17 to 18.

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