Get Cynical

1: POSTAL 2: APOCALYPSE WEEKEND
(PC)
The most violent game ever made. In this game you can brutally murder innocent people in a variety of ways. The graphics are outstanding, the people look and behave very realistically, thus only adding to the disturbing morality of this Serial Killer game. You can shoot people, causing lots of blood to squirt out, and the rag doll physics send them flying, breaking every bone in their body as they get twisted up and mangled in a bloody mess. You can kick someone to death over and over, against the wall and smashing against the floor, or throw them into cactus. You can chop their heads off with a shovel and play soccer with the head, swinging the shovel, sending the head and the body bouncing all over the place. The bodies don’t fade away either, so you can stack corpses into a huge pile of up to 200. A sledge hammer will smash their head into a bloody explosion of fleshy chunks and brains…

Immediately after the quake, thousands of San Franciscans left town. Almost 200,000 of them took advantage of the free transportation furnished by the Southern Pacific Railroad. An additional 100,000 camped in the parks and graveyards in the less-damaged western portion of the city.

In a stroke, the city’s population was reduced by half. And with no tax base to pay them, 20 percent of the city’s police officers were forced to take leaves of absence.

By summer, the military was withdrawn, and the saloons reopened. With the infusion of ready money in the form of insurance payments, an attitude of “Eat, drink and make merry” seized the town. The ferries that had transported San Francisco families to Oakland a few months earlier returned with a less savory passenger list.

Rumors “of a thieves’ paradise,” says chronicler Walton Bean, “had increased the number of criminals, by attracting newcomers from all over the country.” Human scavengers prowled the unlighted downtown ruins, looking for targets of opportunity. The St. Francis Hotel warned its guests not to venture more than a block from the building after dark, for fear they would be robbed.

“That this city has become a refuge for desperate criminals is evident,” bristled a contemporary editorial. “The city is infested with people who do not work and are well supplied with money. Brutal robberies occur in broad daylight and in crowded streets.”

“Hardware dealers sold an estimated 20,000 pistols in one month,” says writer Lately Thomas, “and women walked the streets clutching long hatpins.” Their fears were not unfounded.

On more than one occasion President Truman referred to the desk sign in public statements. For example, in an address at the National War College on December 19, 1952 Mr. Truman said, “You know, it’s easy for the Monday morning quarterback to say what the coach should have done, after the game is over. But when the decision is up before you — and on my desk I have a motto which says The Buck Stops Here’ — the decision has to be made.” In his farewell address to the American people given in January 1953, President Truman referred to this concept very specifically in asserting that, “The President–whoever he is–has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.