Tuesday, October 22, 2002

More pathetic sniper coverage The Washington Post recently ran an article with tips for avoiding sniper fire that included the suggestion to walk in a zig zag pattern. Never mind that you'll look like a complete nut job. Now comes some tips from CBSnews.com that seem to mitigate your chances of being gunned down by the sniper (never mind that the chances are probably a trillion to one) but seem to open you up to virtually any other type of crime. Example: Shop and buy gas in dark, out-of-the-way places I'm not kidding. It actually says that. The media just keep stoking this irrational fear in people and driving us to new levels of anxiety. 3:48:58 PM

"I helped blow up a Bali nightclub -- by driving my SUV to work every day!" Fascinating article by Arianna Huffington in today's Salon. In it, she takes the current anti-drug campaign -- you know the one that features teens uttering shocking pronouncements on how their drug use helps fund terrorists -- and turns it on its ear. Insert "dependence on foreign oil" instead of drugs and the ad campaign would be rendered more truthful. Now I'm not going to sit here with some knee-jerk opinion that SUV's are inherently evil or that consumers shouldn't be able to purchase them. But when I see an SUV with just one passenger -- which is often the case -- tooling by gulping gasoline it does make me wince. Huffington is spot one when she writes: "In Saudi Arabia, our second largest foreign supplier of oil, the money you spend at the pump over here pays for a feudal monarchy that gorges itself on excess while bankrolling terrorist mischief abroad with its support of suicide bombers." When we lighten the coffers of the Saudi's through our oil consumption, we help undercut the funding behind terrorism. 2:43:49 PM