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Wednesday, April 17, 2013

Boston Marathon Bombing


OK, don't jump to any conclusions, we don't know who did it. It probably isn't who you think it was. Where's the fun in that? If I didn't jump to conclusions I wouldn't get any exercise at all. (Aren't you ashamed of yourself making jokes in the face of such a tragedy? Well, yes, but some people react poorly under pressure.)
    Anyway, I blame Al Qaeda. Why? Because I really don't like them, they've pulled this kind of shit before and because on the same day they set off a whole batch of bombs in Iraq that killed 55 people. Coordinated bombings seem to be one of their trademarks.
    Also I just finished reading Neal Stephenson's REAMDE, which is all about terrorists and terrorism:

P. 744
Long ago Zula had got to a place where she could not be surprised, let alone outraged, by anything the jihadists did. This, she reckoned, must be the story of all radical groups, be they Taliban, Shining Path, or National Socialist. Once they had left common notions of decency in the dust - once they had abandoned all sense of proportionality - then it turned into a sort of competition to see who could out do all the rest in that. Beyond there it was all comedy, if only you could turn a blind eye to the consequences.

Not to mention reading John LeCarre's A Most Wanted Man last summer.
    At some point I was thinking that social and/or economic circumstances had made some people's situation so desperate that would resort to violence. But there is violence and then there is this shit. This is the product of minds that have been distorted. They are like a chronic disease. We may never get rid of them, but we need to keep trying.

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