Hating in the Sunshine, Part 2
Man, there was something else I hate about the summer that was gonna rant about, but it’s slipped my mind now. It was right there on the tip of my tongue a second ago, but now it’s gone. I hate when that happens.
Oh yeah, now I remember. Suicide bombers. Suicide bombers going off all over the gaff, that’s what it was. That’s fucking not cool at all. The London Underground is already a heaving hotbed of appalling manners and selfish behaviour, but detonating yourself in the middle of it really has to be the ultimate discourtesy.
The possibility of having your cosmic chips cashed in by a guy with a bad backback is fairly universally disliked, but it doesn’t travel alone, so I thought I’d mention a couple of the other not cool consequences.
1. Cops shooting people dead, five times (UPDATE: "yeah, well give or take few") point blank, in the middle of the fucking train. The full facts aren’t in on this one yet, and may never be, but unless you are one of those gung-ho blogger blowhards who sprouts a patriotic boner-salute every time they read about state powers exercising lethal force, I think it’s safe to say that this sort of thing is no good at all, and would certainly be an inconvenience on the morning commute.
2. The aforementioned gung-ho blogger blowhards. As you might expect, the tie-as-Rambo-bandanna nerds over at Little Green Fuckballs were a fucking treat on “7/7” – declaring war on Islam, and generally abandoning all pretense of not being softheaded fascist cumsocks talking tough and giggling at their own bravery from behind mom’s keyboard – but my prize for the most egregious fuck-knuckle of that day went to the NRO’s Jonah Goldberg. I was sitting at my desk that morning, not more than 500 yards from where they were still pulling limbless bodies from the tunnels, when I read this typically sensitive nugget from the ‘Berg:
"I wonder if this was timed to happen after the Olympic decision. If so, it would also be interesting to know if this sort of thing would have happened in Paris if they'd won -- or New York if we'd won. I kind of doubt it, but if these weren't suicide bombings, it would be nice if the culprits were subject to vigorous questioning to find out. Because if we could convince France that Paris narrowly dodged a bullet, that would be useful."
Oh wow. "Useful". This reminded me of that Seinfeld episode with the boyfriend in the coma, although clearly J-Go had no similar dilemma regarding how long after a terrorist atrocity you should wait before you wonder out loud how best you can spin it to advance your own personal political worldview and get one over on the objects of your petty grievances. Pretty much all the usual suspects of fist-pumping punditry have gone hog-crazy, using the attacks as an excuse to wheel out once more their own pet issues (most frequently the eviiiiil of multiculturalism), but this one made me pretty much shit my whips in rage.
There’s a whole truckload of other pretty hateworthy shit that we can probably expect in the coming months: racist attacks, ID cards, sniffer dogs, and oh, more innocent deaths, I guess. The Harry Potter epidemic among adult humans on public transport irritates me as much as the next guy, but even I wouldn’t advocate blowing up the readers of the new one on the way into work in the morning. At least not until they find out that Dumbledore dies.
THIS JUST IN: Oooops.
posted by Snotty McShot @ 10:21 pm
4 Awful Cunts
4 Mewling Pricks
I completely agree with me too.
The math on this terrorism thing is always perplexing. I mean it's almost biblical
"The terrorists have killed their thousands, but George W. Bush has killed his tens of thousands."
It would seem to me that people of good will can encourage each other not to blow themselves up in the underground in exchange for the government not shooting people dead on site. Maybe this social contract would work in other places, too?
That the plain clothes police were involved and already tracking this guy's movement says something of the possible threat. I'm a total peacenik when it comes to wars and accepting different religions and races. But I think that this case was simple risk management that anybody who's watched a Star Trek episode could follow - allow a suicide bomber to take out half the platform, or take him down ASAP. Give the guy who made the decision and pulled the trigger a medal for making a very difficult and no doubt disturbing judgement call that potentially saved hundreds of lives (including his own).
(Found your blog via Technorati, BTW).
Anonymous, all of that may well be true (and I sincerely hope it is), but all I'm saying it that it isn't a particularly welcome development, whatever way you slice it. It's irritating enough when you see somebody refuse to give up their seat for a pregnant woman - I imagine it'd be pretty damn unsettling to see a bunch of cops empty their pieces into a dude before you've had your breakfast too, no matter what the national security implications. And then you've got the business about living in a city where the cops have a shoot to kill policy, which is definitely a pisser, even if you think it is necessary. The whole situation is a giant unfolding mess of uncoolness.
MJL. Yeah, that contract sounds pretty reasonable to me, alright. But then I give a fuck about not being dead.
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