Exploding Gatorade?
Noooo! Not a bike!Is it just me or do you find this latest Al Qaeda . . . excuse me, suspected Al Qaeda . . . plot, kind of reassuring?
I mean, it's been five years. And for five years we've all speculated about natural gas tankers in Boston and anthrax in Las Vegas and dirty bombs in D.C. and weaponized smallpox everywhere. And what they've got is, "Duh . . . let's blow up some more airplanes, Osama."
Let's say they had succeeded. Let's say they got all nine or ten planes. Call it another 3,000 people. Pretty fucking awful. But at another level, that's it? That's what they've got? They kill 3,000 people every five years? For that we should cower in a corner? Jesus, in five years' time we lose 200,000 people in traffic accidents. And yet we get right back out there on the highway and not only do we drive, a lot of the time we damn well enjoy it.
We have 600 or so bicycle fatalities a year. In five years the number of people who die from riding bicycles equals the number of people who died on 9-11. Now Al Qaeda has tried and failed to pull off a terrorist attack that, if successful, would have made them every bit as dangerous as the nation's Schwinns.
Don't get me wrong. We still need to hunt these sons of bitches down and place a genuine, Made in the USA bullet in each of their brains. But after five years they're still on the whole airliner thing? Exploding Gatorade? That's what they've got?
This entry was posted by Michael Reynolds, on
Saturday, August 12, 2006.
You can leave your response.
12:22 AM
Refreshing to see a little perspective on this. As Superman would say, "Flying is still the statistically the safest form of transportation."
2:28 PM
In a similar vein, check out Don't Be Terrorized.
5:39 PM
But even if we don't mind a few fatalities in the name of global foot-stamping, we should still pretend that it's causing us great fear and trepidation. The terrorist agenda is to achieve that fear-inducing mindstate... if it were possible for us to convince terrosists that killing six people would get our collective American panties in a bunch, then that's all they'd do, and we'd save a lot of lives.
But the fact that America's people as a whole are so hard to affect is what causes terrorist acts like 9/11. If you don't acknowledge your 3-year-old son when he whines, he starts to cry. If you don't acknowledge that, he starts to jump up and down. If you don't acknowledge that, he starts punching you in the neck. Wouldn't you rather just deal with him in the first place, and avoid the sore neck?
6:39 PM
Perhaps it's a function of where you're sitting. If your ass is in, say, Tel Aviv, you might not have the same statistical sense of security, especially with Ahmadinejad, et al, cobbling away at a nuclear device. Whew, not our problem though....
8:38 PM
kreiz - great counterpoint. Life and opinions take a decided turn when live rounds enter the picture.
It has been one of the interesting things about the last few years ... almost a sports spectator type of view ... watching from the stands while someone else dons the helmet? Of course, for those living in the areas where the ball lands in the stands have a different level of adrenilin pulsing ... but we keep voting the players into office in the same fashion that we pay the owners to sit in the stadium.