So I was scanning HuffPo just now, as I usually do 33-50 times a day, and I came across an article with this ominous headline:

Explosion Rocks NYC Starbucks

Wow! I thought. That’s pretty explosive news! (Note: this isn’t even a pun. It’s just using the same word twice. And it’s totally intended.)

Then I read the article, and I was like, Wow! This is totally insane!

The time of day echoed that of a pattern of unsolved early morning blasts that have occurred outside the British Consulate, the Mexican Consulate and the Armed Forces recruiting booth in Times Square over the past two years.

My point is: what? There have been bombings happening all over New York City for the past 2 years and we don’t know about it? Aren’t we living in terror world? Oh, but this:

Several people claim to have seen teenagers in the area of the explosion, but nobody saw them actually place the device. One resident who lives above the Starbucks says he saw two boys he described as between 13 and 16 running from the scene just seconds before the explosion.

Oh, okay, well no big deal. Because terror bombs aren’t terror bombs if they’re planted by teenagers. Because they don’t work the same way. Except how they blow things up like other bombs.

And, of course, it’s not nearly as scary as this thing that happened last week and was splashed all over the news:

The FBI arrested four men Wednesday in what authorities called a plot to detonate a bomb outside a Jewish temple and to shoot military planes with guided missiles.

…

The men had planned to detonate a car with plastic explosives outside a temple in the Bronx neighborhood of Riverdale and to shoot military planes at the New York Air National Guard base at Stewart Airport in Newburgh with Stinger surface-to-air guided missiles, authorities said.

Except for how that terror plot was planned by FBI agents who infiltrated a mosque and convinced some ex-cons to kill some people with fake weapons that the FBI provided.

Which brings me to another point, which is this: how many terror plots have been busted since 9/11? Like, 5? And what happens to all these people? Well, according to the AP:

With considerable fanfare, a steady stream of terrorism busts has been announced by the FBI since Sept. 11, 2001. And in most cases, accusations soon followed that the stings were overblown operations that entrapped hapless ne’er-do-wells. Federal authorities say such arrests save lives.

But what happens to these cases after the media spotlight fades and the noise dies down? And are the snitches involved reliable?

“Most of these guys don’t get tried,” said security analyst Bruce Schneier. “These are not criminal masterminds, they’re idiots. There’s huge fanfares at the arrest, and then it dies off.”

So it’s pretty obvious these dudes in the Bronx were not well-trained al Qaida operatives, they were some easily-influenced nutters who got sucked into a fantasy world that was wholly fabricated by the FBI. But it was huge news, because they’re Muslim, even though they’re about as dangerous as six-year-old pirates wielding plastic swords.

And the fact that the Bronx plot was such huge news leads me to one conclusion: that the FBI hasn’t caught a single damn terrorist since 9/11. Because clearly when they do manage to bust up “terror plots,” they go straight to the media to trumpet their success. If they’re out on the street saving our asses every day, why would they choose to only brag about the cases that fall apart under scrutiny?

I have a hard time understanding why people are more afraid of monsters than real threats. Someone in New York city just blew up a Starbucks. If it’s a Muslim somebody, it’s chilling. If it’s a teenage non-Muslim somebody, it’s just an annoyance. Meanwhile, cars kill more people every day than the swine flu has killed ever.

In conclusion: hey, Dick Cheney! Fuck you.

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