What else makes it a global war on terror (although most people don't believe in that right now), is that IRA techniques and strategies have been shared: with the PLO, with Al Q in Iraq, and now with the Taliban.

And they themselves took lessons from the Algerians and others. Information flows. That's how it works. Lessons are learned. Just as we learn from you and vice versa.

Good news. We are now safe from 8-year-olds.

From here

I like the way the TSA can lie while telling the truth. There is no 8-year-old on the watch list, but there is an 8-year-old being frisked because his name is on the selectee list.

I added this to an old thread, so I didn't start yet another one with my inability to get over the past.

Saw this today.
Photos from the Manchester bombing back in 1996. Nothing gory, safe for work.
Although there were injuries from the flying debris this is all about the central blast and shows only damage to streets and buildings.

It was not my town, ever.
But it was my country.
And they smashed it about by.
This isn't a country on the evening news prefaced by the words "Meanwhile, in warn-torn [insert as appropriate]"
Imagine this as your country's second city.
Your shopping district.
Names and shops and streets which are the same as where you live.

No, I will stop now I promise. No-one can change it now, and I do forget for long periods of time. Things like this just blindside me and I find I need to say the same thing all over again.
I'm not making any kind of political or religious point at all. Not this time and maybe it is something I am getting over.

It's a different time and almost a different world.
Except sadly it isn't in global terms.
You don't need desert sand and hot sun to cook your brains.
Or snow and vodka to freeze them.
Or a gun license or lack of.

Build things up, tear them dowm.
My name is Ozymandias etc etc.

Do look at the pics.
They're atmospheric and not at all biased (unlike me).

Yeah. We humans can be evil if we allow ourselves.

There should be a matchmaking website where people who say they wish they were dead and terrorists can register to find each other.


:bolt:

No good, people who say they wish they were dead only mean emotionally. They want to be numb while they smoke, drink, and dance the hoochie koo.

Whereas terrorists are serious about getting their virgins, and want to take along as many to witness their sexual prowess as possible.

I see. That's why terrorists like to travel to Britain, Virgin Atlantic.

Why do terrorists want 72 virgins anyway? I far prefer a mature woman who knows what she is doing.

I once read a compelling paper that argued "72 virgins" was a mistranslation from the most original ancient texts, and that it was actually supposed to be "72 varieties of fruit." There are apparently many other places in the Koran that reference food as sublime reward and note specific numbers of each type of food.

And who knows what that even meant thousands of years ago, in terms of cultural significance?

A very good point, one that applies to the poetic sections of any given religious text.

And the IRA didn't want virgins, or fruit or anything other than a rainy auld country where they could peddle drugs, ban abortions, break kneecaps and move to America when they realised their Mammy had them down to marry Mairie's daughter from next door and doesn't she have the moustache on her, but is so devout.

Although how the feck that translated into blowing up children and war veterans is as much a puzzle as anything.

Heh, I initially read "applies" as "apples".

Blessed are the cheesemakers!