You Dumbass

There needs to be a criminal charge for dumbassery. Now, if you're unfamiliar, dumbassery is similar to asshattery, only instead of being an asshat, you're a dumbass. I suppose that there could be multiple criminal charges, one for asshattery and one for dumbassery. I'm not picky. I would just like there to be something available that accurately reflects what it is that someone has done in certain instances. You know. Like telling a flight attendant that you have a bomb in your carry-on luggage. You dumbass.
That's right. Some moron, one who goes by the semi-fabulous name of Draco Slaughter, piped up when, according to NBC New York, "...a flight attendant noticed a carry-on bag near the rear of the jetliner and asked those nearby if they knew its owner." It's hard to tell from the craptastic reporting if Mr. Slaughter (I can't decide whether or not I really want to call him Draco even though it's pretty cool sounding) did, in fact, actually own the bag. What is fairly clear from the craptastic reporting is that Draco (I'm sticking with Draco) "...said it was mine and kidding I also said that there could be a bomb in there." Brilliant. Simply brilliant. You dumbass. It probably really didn't help anything that his last name was Slaughter. Don't get me wrong. It wouldn't have been any better if his last name was "Cutelittlekittens". I'm just saying.

It's bad enough that he said what he said. We're not all that joke-y in this country about this kind of crap, you know? Call us silly. Call it 9/11. Call it whatever the heck you want to, but just don't say that you have a bomb in your luggage. And really don't say that you have a bomb in your luggage when you're at "...Long Island MacArthur Airport in Ronkonkoma, about 50 miles east of New York City". Yeah, New Yorkers especially are still not ready to joke about bombs and airliners. Too soon. Almost ten years, but still too soon.

Draco was arrested after he left the aircraft. Naturally, a couple of hours was spent searching the plane and, thankfully, no bomb was found. Unfortunately, that did sort of delay the plane from taking off to reach its final destination of West Palm Beach, FL by a couple of hours. Sure. Travelers don't mind wasting two hours at the airport because some dumbass said he had a bomb in his bag. Yeah, that's the kind of thing that everyone will just laugh and laugh about later on, right? Not so much.

When asked about the incident by reporters afterwards, a one MacArthur Airport Commissioner Teresa Rizzuto said, "We take this stuff very seriously." Yes, we know. You're supposed to. I don't know what sort of questions she was asked, but did the reporters really expect her to say anything other than what she said? Were they hoping for a "Yeah, whatever. We thought about just flying off, but figured maybe we should look around a little bit. So we had the guy that usually vacuums the planes take a stroll down the aisle and told him to let us know if anything blew up." Oh, but how I can only wish that one day someone will respond with, "What the hell did you expect us to do? Next question!"

He was "...held on bail Monday at his arraignment in Suffolk County District Court. His court-appointed attorney entered a not guilty plea on his behalf to a charge of reporting a false incident, a felony." Did I mention that Draco is 75? Yep. 75. 75 and dumber than a box of hair. Behold!

Huh. Seems to have an awfully vacant stare. Yeah, that seems about right. It says that Einstein is "...due back in court on Friday. If convicted, he could face up to seven years in prison." See, this is where I think that a charge of dumbassery is in order. I'm not sure what the penalty would be, but I'd have it be something more practical that seven years in prison. I'm thinking he has to reimburse everyone who was on that plane (and had to wait for over 2 hours because of his little stunt) the cost of their ticket. That seems reasonable. And no flying for a couple of years. No train either! Only buses. Public transit buses! That alone is punishment enough even if you haven't committed a crime.

My New Foreign Policy

Let me ask you something. What, exactly, is this country's stance on terrorism and/or terroristic acts that are taken against us? Because from what I can tell, it's an awfully pansy-assed stance at best.

Let's just take a look back at what Hillary Clinton said on 60 Minutes this past Sunday. According to Fox News (well, and 60 Minutes), Mrs. Clinton was asked questions about our stance on Pakistan. Now, look, we all know that Pakistan can't be trusted. But for some reason, we felt the need to help them with their nuclear reactor research program back in 1960. Hard to say exactly what the reasoning was behind that, but what's done is done (apparently). It's also hard to say what's behind her Florence Henderson hairdo there, but I guess what's done is done in that regard as well.

When asked about Pakistan's commitment, Mrs. Clinton came across as saying that "...she did not want to meddle and alienate the Pakistani government at a time when the country's military is complementing U.S. efforts across the border in Afghanistan." Hmm. I don't know. I'm thinking that when it comes to anything having to do with Pakistan, I think there's always room for meddling. It wouldn't have to be a big meddle. Perhaps just a teensy meddle. But whatever it is, for cryin' out loud, don't let those guys just figure out on their own what to do and what's going on. Remember? We don't trust them.

Actually, her quote was "I have to stand up for the efforts the Pakistani government is taking." Aren't we the most powerful country in the world? What say you tell them what stands to take else wise we blow them forward into the Stone Age? What? Too harsh? I'm sick of this stuff, can you tell? There are reasons why we have bombs. One of those reasons is compliance. The other reason is to keep me from getting a headache every time I have to keep reading about the same thing over and over and over. Enough already. Let's get a little bomb-y and speed things up, all right?

Yeah, I'm pretty much the only one who takes that stance these days. I'm over it. We're too soft as a country. Don't believe me? Let's look at what Fox News called Hillary Clinton's "...stern warning in reference to the Times Square case."

She said, "We've made it very clear that, if, heaven forbid, that an attack like this, if we can trace back to Pakistan, were to have been successful, there would be very severe consequences. " Uh, wait a minute. What now?

So let me get this straight. TRY and attack us all you want?! But it's only if it is SUCCESSFUL that we're going to do anything?! What in the hell kind of a position to take is THAT?! Why are there not consequences for TRYING to blow us up? Why are we telling the terrorists that "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again"? It's already sounding like this Times Square moron and his evil (not to mention extremely inept) plan can be traced back to Pakistan (where their bomb making instruction seems to have waned a bit). So, there aren't severe consequences for THAT?! Why in the world not?? Anyone? Anyone? Great.

We're doomed. We are a pansy assed country who thinks that sternly worded memos are going to get other countries of this world to keep themselves in line. We can't have a policy that only inflicts a consequence for an attack that is successful. We need to be bombing the bejeezus out of anywhere that terror plots are financed from. I know that sounds harsh, but I prefer to be able to go about my business in my own country without having to worry about being blown to bits by a weird beard from one of the sand lands. I have no beef with anyone...right up until they come over here and start trying to get all 'slpode-y with us. That's when I get angry. And if I'm in charge, that's when I start bombing. It's very simple. Leave us alone.

Worst. Terrorist. Ever.

Let me tell you, it is only through a little bit of luck and a whole lot of incompetence that an awful lot of innocent people were not blown into bits by the "car bomb" left in Times Square. And while the bad news is that this poorly thought through plan got a lot farther than I would have preferred, the good news is that if this guy really was trained in bomb making in Pakistan and/or has ties to the Taliban and that particular "car bomb" was the best he could do then we don't have a whole lot to worry about in that aspect. Other aspects are rather troubling, but the actual constructing of an actual bomb that could do actual damage is a lot less worrisome to me at the moment.

Meet Faisal Shahzad. He is now going to be known far and wide and until the end of time as the "Times Square Bomber". Never mind that he didn't ever blow anything up. Never mind that his "bomb" had about zero chance of actually working. He's the Times Square Bomber. It's just like the Christmas Day Bomber. That guy gets that name, but all he did was light his grundle on fire and singe his panties a bit. No bombing. No bomber. But that's his name. Same with Richard Reid, the infamous Shoe Bomber. He has bombs in his shoes, that part is accurate. But he didn't bomb anything. No bomb went off. If I mail a letter, am I considered a postal carrier? I don't think I am. I've never felt like I was. Even if I was mailing something and I was wearing one of those safari hard hats at the time, I still knew I was just the mailer.

This guy is like the worst terrorist ever. Thanks to the folks over there at The Telegraph for providing us with this beautiful diagram of how this moron constructed his "car bomb". Why I can't find a lovely diagram like this in a US publication is beyond me. Oh, wait. That's right. The media sucks. I forgot. Behold! The "car bomb".

Oh, what the hell is that? You know what that is? That's a Nissan Pathfinder filled with a bunch of stuff, that's what we've got here. Let's go through the incompetence a piece at a time, shall we? First of all, he has these two alarm clocks for some reason. They don't appear to have much to do with the contraption as a whole, as there needed to be a fuse ignited first (which Shahzad did before he got out of the vehicle and left). Here is one of those clocks:

Where did he get that? Did he get a discount on it at an 80s store or something? It strikes me as an odd choice for some reason. It sure as hell doesn't look reliable. Then again, from what I can tell, it didn't really play a part in the "bomb" at all, so I guess who cares what it looks like? I wonder what he had to say about that? "What's the clock for?" "What is the clock for? Have you never seen Batman? All of the bombs always have a clock!"

Next on the list is the M88 firecrackers that he purchased and set up at three separate locations in the vehicle. All in all there were 152 of these things. Each one has its own fuse. According to something called Mid Day, a one Bruce Zoldan, who owns the chain of fireworks stores which included the one where Shahzad bought the M88s, in order for the fireworks to go off, each one of them has to have their own fuse individually lit. He said, "The M88 he used wouldn't damage a watermelon." Hmmm. And a Nissan Pathfinder is definitely a lot more sturdy than a watermelon, so there was really not a lot of thought put into this now, was there?

Mr. Zoldan also said that he would have been better off buying his fireworks on the black market. According to him, one M88 "...has an amount of pyrotechnic powder that is less than 1/6 the size of an aspirin." So, he had about 25 aspirins worth of powder? Was he too lazy to go to the black market to get his fireworks? Was he suddenly worried about doing something illegal by purchasing underground fireworks? Considering his goal was supposed to have been to blown people up, I'm finding it hard to believe he would have drawn the line at purchasing illegal fireworks.

Now, as you can see in the above diagram, there were three propane tanks in there as well. Propane is highly flammable. And that's the reason that we keep valves on those propane tanks. Those allow us to regulate the flow of the gas out of the tank. However (and this is important, kids!), in order for the gas to get OUT of the tank, the freaking valve has to be OPEN! That's right. He didn't even open the valves of the tanks! That according to Jonathan Alter over there at Newsweek. Could this guy have been more of a moron?

The answer to that is yes. Please note the type of fertilizer that he used for his "bomb". It is something called urea fertilizer. Over there at the University of Minnesota's website, they have a splendid data sheet on urea fertilizer. (It doesn't explain exactly what "urea" is though. It sounds like a female body part. Female body parts rarely explode, even when you guys are doing it right.) If you look down on the fourth section, it clearly states "Urea usage involves little or no fire or explosion hazard." This stuff wasn't going to explode no matter what. He might just as well have gone out and bought a bunch of bags of horse manure and threw those in there as well. The result would have been the same. No bomb.

And finally, in the last act of incompetence in this scheme that sounds like it was designed by all three Stooges AND Shemp, according to the huffy folks over at The Huffington Post, Shahzad "...left his keys in the ignition of an SUV" and his "...landlord....got a call from him that night saying he had lost his apartment key and needed to be let into the building." So he just put the key to the Pathfinder (that he bought specifically for the purpose of constructing this odd, odd paperweight) on his keyring with all of his other keys?! Was it too difficult for him to keep track of a separate loose key? And if it was, shouldn't he have maybe set things up so that he didn't have to return to his home after setting this thing off? Locked himself out of his house. What a maroon.

I'm just so confused by the ineptness of the whole ordeal. And he has allegedly had training in Pakistan? Screw Pakistan next time and spend fifteen minutes on the Internet. Hell, I spent five minutes on the Internet before I learned that urea fertilizer isn't very explode-y. And the amount of non-explode-y fertilizer that he used? That's right. About 250 pounds. Soooo, what? FIVE bags? Um, not to get all nit-picky or anything here, but the bomb that Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City was about 7,000 pounds. What in the world did this dumbass think that 250 pounds was going to do? Was he just not that angry? I don't get it.

The only thing that would makes sense to me and that would adequately explain how someone who "trained in Pakistan" could have committed all of this bungling is very simple: It wasn't Shahzad at all. It was Wile E. Coyote.