UPDATED: There was this guy from Pasco, Wa. named Altravis Champagne Bethea, but the sub-ironic playa didn't even have a beer budget. Dog. The Tri-Cities Herald reports:

Altravis Champagne Bethea is scheduled for trial Nov. 15 on second-degree robbery. Pasco police responded Sept. 21 to a panic alarm at Atomic Foods after a clerk became concerned as owner Gurbans Singh Bains confronted Bethea. Bains told officers he'd heard Bethea had two quart-size beers in his pocket and asked if he had a receipt, according to court documents. Bethea reportedly said, "Dog, I have no beers," then pushed Bains hard on the chest. Bains then ordered an employee to call police. Bethea walked out of the store but was arrested a short time later on West Court Street and was identified by witnesses as the suspect, documents said.

Jorge Sanchez, who was delivering beer to the store, told police Bethea approached him in the parking lot before going into the store. Bethea reportedly said to him: "What's up dog? I want to get a job with you. It would be nice to have all this beer and get drunk all day. I got something for you." Sanchez said he thought Bethea was going to rob him, but Bethea went into the store.

Altravis Champagne versus Gurbahn Singh Bains in a convenience store called Atomic Foods. Straight Outta The Simpsons, dog. Altravis Champagne Anybody is almost certainly going to have been raised poorly, and to have thus missed a lot along the way. Better to give your kid a dippy name inspired by a state (i.e. Montana), or geographic feature (Sierra) than an alcoholic product, as also indicated by sad Seattle saga of the drug-addled bus hijacker Courvoisier Carpenter.

Meantimes, Ars Technica reports that in a new study conducted by the Pew Survey On The Internet And American Life:

...FirstGov developer Martin Kwapinski (predicted) that "random acts of senseless violence and destruction (ed.- against Internet infrastructure, perpetrated by lo-tech misfits) will continue and expand due to a feeling of 21st century anomie, and an increasing sense of of lack of individual control." Some of the respondents sympathized with the Luddites. Respondent Denzil Meyers said, "we need some strong dissenting voices about the impact of this technology in our lives. So far, it's been mostly the promise of a cure-all, just like the past 'Industrial Revolution.'"

This particular theme is examined at length in Star Trek Deep Space Nine season two, episode fifteen, "Paradise," in which Captain Sisko and Miles O'Brien become stranded on a planet populated by the followers of an extreme Luddite philosopher who believes technology is detrimental to human growth. One is also reminded of season five, episode two, "Let He Who is Without Sin...," in which a group of "Essentialists" sabotages the weather control system on the planet Risa in order to convince vacationers that dependence on technology has weakened them.

Here on earth, kids are increasingly telling their friends face-to-face conversations are too complicated; instant messaging is preferable. But as the report in the SF Chron notes, there's always e-therapy.

MySpace.com hopes to open a Chinese site. Sample entry (not): "Rural property rights advocate, against forced abortions and Internet monitoring, worried about government-sponsored thuggery targeting dissidents, but supporting full nationhood for Taiwan...invites like-minded compatriots to regular private gatherings in wiretap-proof room. Amenities to include North Carolina BBQ, Dixie Beer, Nashville jams, much political discussion, and especially, planning to fully dismantle Chinese Communist Party and organize people's revolution for free elections to the national assembly. E-mail yan@liberalizationmychineseass.org."

Vermont wants to secede from the United States. Or at least some people there want it to. Hey! Wouldn't that get Bernie Sanders out of the Senate? And what could be more fitting than officially acknowledging that Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean of Vermont really does come from a foreign country?

TECHNORATI TAGS: ALTRAVIS CHAMPAGNE BETHEA, PASCO, COURVOISIER CARPENTER, PEW SURVEY ON THE INTERNET AND AMERICAN LIFE, TECHNO-LUDDITES, SABOTAGE, MYSPACE.COM, CHINA, VERMONT, SECESSION, BERNIE SANDERS, HOWARD DEAN

Posted by Matt Rosenberg at October 2, 2006 10:22 AM

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