Attack here!

Saturday, Nov. 13, 2004 @ 2:20 p.m.

I remember the days following the tragedy that was September 11th, I was constantly pissed off at the news broadcasts. Almost everyday, they would make a story about a security flaw and make a huge deal about it.

The way I see it, they might as well put a big huge "TERRORISTS ATTACK HERE" signs at those locations. I mean, seriously. I remember one report in particular of this reporter standing in the parking structure of Los Angeles International Airport, saying that there were many cars that have been left there, parked for weeks, and that they could contain bombs. Also, they mentioned many times that there were plenty of empty spaces in which potential terrorists could park their car bombs in. Now, is that mind-numbingly dumb or what? Is broadcasting to the entire world your country's weaknesses considered 'good journalism' these days??

There were a couple of such segments in the NBC news this past week. In one, they had an undercover reporter sneaking into supposedly "secure" zones within the airport and effectively claiming "Look! If I were a terrorist, I would've bombed the shit out of this place already!". The second one was a report about how unsafe the train system is, and that it really wouldn't be hard to pull off that bombing incident that happened in Madrid over here. Excellent. Just tell the whole world how to get us. We might as well build ourselves a nuclear bomb and wipe ourselves out, and claim "Look! The U.S. is so vulnerable after all!!"... All in the name of "good journalism".

Another thing that irks me to no end is how the local news networks around here seem to LOVE bringing the tragedy home. Everytime something bad happens, they just can't seem to resist finding "the Southern California connection". Do they really wish the "action" happened here??

In the promos, they would say something like, "A bomb exploded in Somewhere. The Southern California connection, 10pm tonight." Wooo, scary. I get freaked out, afraid that something similar is gonna happen here, and so I tune in to the news, only to hear something like this: "The terrorist responsible for the bombing had a brother, who lived in Afghanistan, who had a wife, who had an affair with her butcher, who was half-American, whose father lived in Timbuktu, and whose brother-in-law's aunt's mailman lives in Los Angeles." There you have it, the (shudder) SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA CONNECTION. (Insert scary sounds and ear-piercing screams here.)

There hasn't been a word invented yet to describe this degree of stupidity. And no, not even "George W. Bush" comes close. And besides, that's 3 words.

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Attack here!