So Much For The Holiday Spirit?

As many already know, Pakistan opposition leader Benazir Bhutto was assassinated today in a suicide attack. The moment I saw the headline on the internet I was all: "WHAT? You've got to be kidding me." This is SO not on. I was so alarmed and disappointed; she's always been someone I admired for being a strong female political figure in such a patriarchal part of the world. She was the first ever woman prime minister of a Muslim nation. Her policies and actions weren't perfect, but she was still someone I respected. One of my favourite quotes from her: "I haven’t given myself away. I belong to myself and I always shall." (Vowing in 1987 that her arranged Islamic marriage to Karachi businessman Asif Ali Zardari would not upstage her political career.)

But when I read the article above I did a facepalm when I read this:

Nawaz Sharif, another former premier and opposition leader, arrived at the hospital and sat silently next to Bhutto's body. "Benazir Bhutto was also my sister, and I will be with you to take the revenge for her death," he said. "Don't feel alone. I am with you. We will take the revenge on the rulers."

NO, BAD POLITICIAN, REVENGE IS NOT THE ANSWER. I... *sigh* When will people learn? It's so disturbing to hear that the reaction to her death was for her supporters to immediately inflict properly damage on whatever is closest to them. Whyyyyyy?

On to other things, here's a little tidbit I came across while reading the synopsis for the movie The Corporation on Wikipedia:

Jeremy Rifkin tells us how in the 1980s Professor Chakrabarty, a scientist for General Electric, "invented" microorganisms that ate hazardous waste. General Electric then went to the United States patent office claiming they had invented this bacteria and needed a patent. The Patent Office immediately turned down the request citing a living organism cannot be patented. To this the corporate lawyer went to the court system fighting for their patent rights.

By a 3-2 decision the court overruled the patent office. Rifkin then appealed this decision by going to the Supreme Court. His argument was that if the verdict was upheld the blueprints of life would be owned by corporations without congress or the public's consent. By a ruling of 5-4 chief justice Warren E. Burger upheld the decision and seven years later the Patent Office wrote into its laws one sentence that stated any life except a full birth human being can be patented.

Rifkin finally states the current race is on in the corporate biotech world to "cash in" on the Human Genome Project so they can patent the genetic code that causes all known diseases. Rifkin finishes by stating within ten years corporations will not only own all human life but that of every other species on Earth.

This? Scares the effing shit out of me. Not as much as Benazir Bhutto's assassination but still. Oh what a brave new world we live in...