This, from an ABC News piece on the Times Square bombing attempt, is just excellent writing:
Though a Taliban leader thought killed in a U.S. drone strike has now resurfaced in a video threatening attacks on U.S. cities, and the Taliban has claimed credit for the failed New York attack, U.S. authorities are skeptical.
Is the Taliban leader dead? Who knows!
Who did we kill in that drone attack then? Who cares, they hate us for our freedom!
Has he resurfaced in a video? Not sure!
Did they claim credit for the attack? Maybe!
Are they responsible for the the attack? Possibly!
“They’re” skeptical!
Mr Furious
All I know is, if that Taliban guy escaped / is alive—it’s “Obama’s Tora Bora.”
Just Some Fuckhead
We have no chance against the zombie Taliban.
Mike Kay
Brian Ross = The Notoriously W.R.O.N.G.
David
I’ve lost count — how many times have we killed the NumberTwoGuyInAlQaeda?
Mike Kay
Why is Brian Ross bashing the troops?
Bnut
@Just Some Fuckhead:
BS. I think a zombie apocalypse is just what the US needs to pull us back together. Zombies are like Nazi’s, everyone hates em.
jwb
@Mike Kay: Speaking of Mr. Notoriously Wrong, did you notice that Bill Kristol came out in favor of more drilling and closer to shore. That’s the best sign yet that “drill, baby, drill” has turned into a serious liability.
beltane
Did the Taliban have a Pakistan branch before 2001 or are they now opening up franchises McDonald’s style? Maybe our media has all the brains of a drone aircraft, and no one has any clue.
freelancer
@Bnut:
Oh Noes, NAZI Zombies!
Mike Kay
@Bnut: comparing the Nazis to Zombies violated Godwin’s law.
You’ll be hearing from Abe Foxman in the morning!
Mike Kay
@beltane: Pakistan worked with the Taliban like hand with glove before 2001. They were using the guerrillas to fight in Kashmir.
Mnemosyne
I had to read that three times before I could figure out what the hell that sentence meant, the grammar was so wretched.
The guy who wrote that works for ABC and I’m stuck commenting on this lousy blog.
Bnut
@freelancer:
I’m such a loser, I’ve played that mod before. Or maybe it was a bonus endgame. Whatever. I’m a nerd.
beltane
@David: The real number two guy is alive and well http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayman_al-Zawahiri He also looks a little bit like Allan Ginsburg, which is one of life’s many strange coincidences.
Omnes Omnibus
@Mnemosyne:
I wouldn’t say lousy…
The Moar You Know
Was listening to Couric and the usual gang of idiots screeching about the “Times Square Terror Bombing” all the way home from work today. It’s incredible; we have a true catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, that gets fifteen seconds of airtime, but the RAND corporation guy, who does his damnedest to tie the “Times Square Terror Bombing” to “foreign forces” (i.e. MuslimCommieFascisTaliban) gets two minutes, uninterrupted, unquestioned – and without a single piece of evidence to back up his assertion.
The media laps this shit up like a dog goes after its own vomit.
They then described the “bomb”. Holy hell, I made more dangerous items in my garage as a kid. Takes a REAL terrorist to use non-explosive fertilizer as an explosive.
The only guy they interviewed who was remotely sane was Michael Bloomberg. That might be the saddest development of the whole day.
Want to improve society? Forget killing all the lawyers. Start with the reporters.
Comrade Luke
The whole taking credit thing has always cracked me up. Can’t anyone send an email that says “Yea, that was us”?
beltane
@Mike Kay: But the groups operating in Kashmir for the past several decades went by other names and were not of the same ethnic group as the actual Taliban. One could argue that our actions in Afghanistan have strengthened the Taliban in terms of making it more of a regional power.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
All the terrorists have to do is set off a few fire crackers and park a bomb in Times Square, that couldn’t explode no matter what, make a scary video with scary middle eastern music with some guy looks like he fell off a Cheech and Chong script holding an AK 47, sit back and watch us melt down into a bunch of panty wetting Woody Allens. Therein lies your existential threat.
beltane
@Comrade Luke: Sometimes you’ll see all kinds of groups from all over the planet take credit for a terrorist act. Other than the violence, it would almost be rather Monty Pythonesque.
Corner Stone
@Omnes Omnibus: I wouldn’t say she’s stuck.
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Luke: I consistently take credit for winning the Cold War. I arrived in Germany as a new 2LT in January of 1989. It took a few months for word of my presence to make it to the Kremlin, and that was it.
Joe Lisboa
@Comrade Luke: Well, last I heard it was the People’s Front of Judea taking ’credit’ for the Times Square non-bombing but I just received a fax from the Judean People’s Front so who knows?
jwb
@The Moar You Know: The whole point was to deflect attention away from the Gulf. The corporate overlords know every second of Gulf coverage is bad news for them, and I won’t be surprised if coverage disappears completely by the end of the week, however bad the situation remains.
Mike Kay
Jay Leno is now talking credit for the bombing attempt, “saying I bombed all Saturday night”.
AhabTRuler
@Omnes Omnibus: That was you? I’ve been meaning to thank you for that!
Omnes Omnibus
@AhabTRuler: You are welcome.
Brian J
@jwb:
Can’t we figure out a way to trick him into writing a column where he describes how the U.S. economy will stop creating jobs, incomes will not only stagnant but actually go down, and how health care costs will continue to skyrocket? By the end of the year, unemployment would be at 2 percent, incomes would be shooting upward, and health care costs would be plummeting.
AhabTRuler
@jwb:
Unless they manage to significantly stem or stop the flow, I don’t think that would be possible.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brian J: If Dems hold the House and Senate, he will do just that.
General Egali Tarian Stuck
We are getting closer to the truth. Wingnut truth, but nevermind.
That’s right, straight from the Gov. Rick Perry pie hole. God is in the oil bidness now, and built that motherfucking oil rig, and then blew it up. Lest it was hordes of tree hugging hippies.
Brian J
@The Moar You Know:
I still maintain this was a very new, very innovative yet highly inappropriate preview of the Macy’s July 4 fireworks display.
From what you’ve described of the interview, it looks like we have as much compelling evidence to believe what I just proposed as we do to believe what the RAND guy suggested.
mclaren
@The Moar You Know:
And so do the taser-kissing thug-adoring bully worshipers on Balloon Juice. Every time some cop or DHS goon beats or tases or kills an innocent person for no reason, the bully worshipers on this forum rush out to defend that mugger with a badge. Every time some draconian new “show me your papers” ID scheme gets proposed, Balloon Juicers chirp “I don’t have a problem with that!”
If you want to know why the media cravenly kiss the boots of the internal security goons that stamp on the American neck in the phony name of “security,” look around you — the American media are merely a reflection of the American people. And since the American people have turned into authoritarian bully worshipers ever since 9/11, well…what can you expect?
General Egali Tarian Stuck
@mclaren: Yer Thorazine pump malfunctioning again?
ellaesther
Dude, I’ve been fielding tweets all day telling me VERY LOUDLY that the car bomb in Times Square WAS A HOAX, perpetrated BY THE ISRAEL SECURITY SERVICES!!1!
Not to mention that the guy who threatened the creators of South Park isn’t really a convert to Islam but A RADICAL ISRAELI SETTLER!!1! only posing as a convert in order to DISCREDIT ISLAM!!1!
So, you know, at this point, I’ll take the American government’s form of maybe-crazy over what’s out there running around in the cyber-streets.
When I questioned the latter contention, by the way, I was accused of not looking “@ the big picture!” Oy vey.
And just BY THE WAY, ALSO, TOO: How the jokers in my twitter feed are any different from Rush and his accusations of enviro-terrorists, or whatever the fuck he’s calling us today, is beyond me. Other than the power and money, of course. Other than that.
jwb
@mclaren: Careful or you’ll hurt yourself.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: You, sir, are an idiot.
MikeJ
@Bnut:
Gedankenexperiment: Obama comes out against zombies. Who is the first republican to talk about how much he hates your dead grandmother, and how soon does it happen?
Mike Kay
@mclaren: kid, you’ll shoot ya eye out
beltane
I’ve never seen any taser-kissing bully-worshipers here. They must come out after my bedtime.
jeff
Nothing matters (except humor) until that goddamn oil geyser is capped. I just wanted to type this. It helps me. Please continue.
Wile E. Quixote
Goddamn mclaren, your life sucks. The only way you can get anyone to pay attention to you is by coming to Balloon Juice and posting inane nonsense that’s as stupid as anything presented on an episode of the Glenn Beck show. Then everyone pigpiles on you, demolishes your lame arguments and proves that you’re a complete fucktard.
You’re either so goddamned pathetic that you should be hunted down and killed as an act of mercy or just DougJ trying to stir up shit. I’m leaning towards the latter because Jesus H. Fuck, no one outside of RedState could be as completely stupid as you are.
Omnes Omnibus
@beltane: Well, to be fair, there is B.O.B.
jwb
@General Egali Tarian Stuck: You are a very bad man putting an unmarked link to Politico like that. Now I’m going to have to wash my iPod Touch for days to get rid of the stench. Ick.
Wile E. Quixote
@MikeJ:
Oooooooohhhhh! Ooooooooohhh! I know the answer to this one: Bill Kristol! Followed by a long piece over at Slate that proves that having your brains eaten by zombies is actually a good thing and another piece at the liberal New Republic claiming that the invasion of the undead is good news for John McCain.
If they’re already dead, or undead anyways, how does the whole “death panel” thing work?
Brian J
@Omnes Omnibus:
In other words, if we keep the House and Senate, all will be well, however indirectly?
Comrade Luke
@Joe Lisboa: God, I’d love for someone calling them The People’s Front of Judea slip that past the media.
de stijl
I tased a man in Reno just to watch him twitch.
Omnes Omnibus
@Brian J: It will certainly be better than if we don’t.
Corner Stone
@de stijl: This really shouldn’t be funny, because it really isn’t.
But damn this is pretty funny.
RareSanity
@David:
I’m starting to think that random dudes with irritable bowel syndrome are being targeted so the claim can be “technically” accurate…
mclaren
Spoken like the groveling serfs you are.
The Bush-Cheney administration was the kind of government you deserve.
Omnes Omnibus
@mclaren: Isn’t that special.
Brian J
@Omnes Omnibus:
My biggest fear? That they win in some way and then get credit for the recovery, however slow, as if it somehow is due to their policies? That’ll be a big speed bump on the road to the Emerging Democratic Majority.
Joe Buck
The Taliban have been very successfully attacking American troops with IEDs. No Taliban member would try to build a truck bomb with firecrackers and the wrong kind of fertilizer.
asiangrrlMN
@Wile E. Quixote: You said it in one. Funny. When he’s on his meds, he’s quite coherent. But when he’s off the rails, he is way off the muthafuckin’ rails. ‘Coz this whole blog has been pro-police state. #Rolls eyes#
@Joe Buck: If you are THAT Joe Buck, I want to
rusty pitchfork youhave a word with you in private.P.S. That snippet is excrement, but Cole’s angry question/response is priceless.
Yutsano
@asiangrrlMN: Heh. We should be so lucky. The massive
chewing outquestions I’d have would take days upon days.Wile E. Quixote
@David:
I don’t know, but that has to be one of those jobs you would have to be truly desperate to take. Right up there with “red-shirted crewmember” on Star Trek or drummer for Spinal Tap.
Wile E. Quixote
@John Cole:
Is this like Schrödinger’s cat where we won’t know if he’s alive or dead until we open the box and look inside thus causing his superposed life/death wavestate to collapse?
bob h
Lloyd Blankfein must be breathing a sigh of relief now that Faisal Shadad and the CEO of British Pete have replaced him as public enemy #1.
priscianus jr
@Mnemosyne:
I don’t doubt you had to read it three times, but there is nothing wrong with the grammar of that sentence.
Nick
@Mnemosyne:
Hell, this guy works for ABC and they laid ME off.
Glen Tomkins
Misplaced skepticism
They should apply some of that admirable empiricism to the “intelligence” reports they get about the whereabouts of supposed al Qaeda “#3 men”. Who knows, that could set off such a chain reaction of well-directed skepticism, that we’ld soon be out of Iraq and Afghanistan.