Doggedly searching for the crux of the biscuit.
I'm not dead. Honest. Just very, very busy and a little burned out. I'll be back in full blogging form shortly, I assure you.
In the post below, I quoted a wackjob's call for a policy of nuking 100 Islamic cities (and North Korea, just for good measure) in response to a WMD attack on the US. You can read other wackjobs praising his call for genocide and rendering wide swaths of the planet unliveable here and here, if you were under the misconception that such insanity doesn't enjoy some popular support. Inspired by Pharyngula, I thought I'd just list the Top Ten Targets:
1. Jakarta, Indonesia
2. Cairo, Egypt
3. Karachi, Pakistan
4. Dhaka, Bangladesh
5. Tehran, Iran
6. Istanbul, Turkey
7. Lahore, Pakistan
8. Khartoum, Sudan
9. Baghdad, Iraq
10. Alexandria, Egypt
Okay, so just those 10 cities - we haven't even gotten around to nuking North Korea, Mecca, or Medina yet, as Mr. Atkins would have us do - already equates to 100,000,000 people killed. Only 90 cities left to go! Oops, seven of the ten are in states that are allies with the US, and that doesn't count Baghdad, which currently hosts many tens of thousands of US citizens, but fuck it. Bombs away! That'll show 'em.
Idiot.
TrackBackWow. That Freeper thread has it all: a few voices of reason saying the guy is nuts, and then the alternative plans: deport every Muslim in America right now (yeah, evict 6 or 7 million people just like that), or one-upping the initial moron and calling for a first strike now.
Posted by: PZ Myers at December 8, 2004 01:12 PMIs Detroit, Michigan on the list, I wonder? That might be a little awkward.
Posted by: fiend at December 8, 2004 01:32 PMAnd it wouldn't be surprising to find New York or Los Angeles in the top 100...
Posted by: lenhart at December 8, 2004 03:20 PMA friend's stepfather announced earlier in the year that he hoped Kerry won because, through some twisted substitute for logic, he had "reasoned" that this would lead to terrorists burning New York City to the ground and he wouldn't mind watching that.
People? People are scary.
Posted by: Robust McManlyPants at December 8, 2004 03:23 PMWhy stop at Muslims? Why don't we go after Buddhists, atheists, agnostics (including the militant variety), Roman Catholics, Sikhs, Hindus, Jews, Confucianists, Taoists, tribalists, voodooists, Rastafarians, ...
Oh, wait. That doesn't leave a lot of people.
Gotta serious question. How many people *really* subscribe to this philosophy. I mean this is so far out there, I'd really think that only people in a couple of nutjob compounds would ever think this would really work. I mean, is this the hot topic among all the freepers with mostly cheerleading, or is someone from the right really stepping in and saying "Wait a minute."
I haven't been watching political discussion much (note earlier comment in one of these posts about blood pressure), so I don't know.
Posted by: John Johnson at December 8, 2004 06:14 PMOn second thought, please please PLEASE tell me how you came up with those top ten targets. I want so badly now to find out if NYC would be on the list... I doubt it will be, but it never hurts to check. :)
Posted by: Aaron at December 8, 2004 06:30 PMOh, I just went down a list of the world's largest metro areas and picked the ones that were in Muslim-majority countries.
Posted by: apostropher at December 8, 2004 09:31 PMI wonder how Israel would feel about all that
lovely fallout coming down on them. Or perhaps
the feelings of Russia? Or China? People like
this have shit for brains and we should just
ignore them, but there are more people who agree
with the idea than you can imagine.
I kinda like the idea. But gas would get WAY too expensive; do you realize what that would do to our economy?
Posted by: froz gobo at December 9, 2004 07:18 AM