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May. 2nd, 2010 12:41 pmSo I heard about the Pathfinder with the explosives and incendiaries in it that turned up in Times Square yesterday. Not my idea of fun, as I walk through that area every day that I go to work. Given that when the OKC bombing happened, my instinctive response of "That's white separatist territory, not foreign terrorist territory" turned out to be right, I'd like to volunteer the instinctive response I had to this one:
This was a lousy, lousy time for a terrorist attack. Tourists are heavier on Friday nights than Saturday, as far as I can tell. And 6:28 PM, when they first saw the thing drive in, was not a great time for a terrorist with anti-Semitic leanings; sundown wasn't until 7:51 PM yesterday, so if this was somebody trying to strike at New York's Jewish population, they really weren't paying attention to their work. The 'explosives' weren't very good, either- propane, gasoline, and fireworks. And the fireworks didn't go off right.
This feels like some kind of dumbass moron amateur, some twerp trying to prove he's dangerous and not getting it right. If it is a terrorist and not a common criminal who couldn't be bothered to get a gun and use that to spill blood instead, it's a terrorist who hasn't worked with his central organization in a while and probably will get disowned by his cause.
Many thanks to the T-shirt vendor who was first to see the smoking car and call for help. Could've been a lot worse. And I'm not really fussed about the call the cops got at 4 AM saying "Don't interrupt me! There's going to be a bigger explosion! The car was just a diversion!", either. New York is full of people who think it's funny to call into TV shows and pose as experts on plane crashes (I was watching a live report the day after TWA 800 and it happened while I was watching). Any number of crazy people in this city could be responsible for that call and believe, really and truly, that there was another explosion coming whether they had anything to do with it or not.
This was a lousy, lousy time for a terrorist attack. Tourists are heavier on Friday nights than Saturday, as far as I can tell. And 6:28 PM, when they first saw the thing drive in, was not a great time for a terrorist with anti-Semitic leanings; sundown wasn't until 7:51 PM yesterday, so if this was somebody trying to strike at New York's Jewish population, they really weren't paying attention to their work. The 'explosives' weren't very good, either- propane, gasoline, and fireworks. And the fireworks didn't go off right.
This feels like some kind of dumbass moron amateur, some twerp trying to prove he's dangerous and not getting it right. If it is a terrorist and not a common criminal who couldn't be bothered to get a gun and use that to spill blood instead, it's a terrorist who hasn't worked with his central organization in a while and probably will get disowned by his cause.
Many thanks to the T-shirt vendor who was first to see the smoking car and call for help. Could've been a lot worse. And I'm not really fussed about the call the cops got at 4 AM saying "Don't interrupt me! There's going to be a bigger explosion! The car was just a diversion!", either. New York is full of people who think it's funny to call into TV shows and pose as experts on plane crashes (I was watching a live report the day after TWA 800 and it happened while I was watching). Any number of crazy people in this city could be responsible for that call and believe, really and truly, that there was another explosion coming whether they had anything to do with it or not.
