The endorsement nobody wants

According to the SITE Intelligence group (a private investigative service that monitors websites), McCain/Palin is the ticket of choice among web-surfing al qaeda supporters:

"Al-Qaida supporters suggested in a Web site message this week they would welcome a pre-election terror attack on the U.S. as a way to usher in a McCain presidency.

The message was posted Monday on the password-protected al-Hesbah Web site. It says if al-Qaida wants to exhaust the United States militarily and economically, "impetuous" Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain is the better choice."

It's almost time for another bin Laden videotape to surface... I give it a week.

Terrorism in advertising

Check this out -- looks like Rudy Giuliani's gone into the ad biz:

If you don't quit smoking, the terrorists have won? Yeowch. I still find the use of the iconic "burning twin towers" image in any context other than the original to be pretty gross. Smoking might kill far more every year than 9/11 did, but smokers have a choice -- they aren't set upon by fundamentalist cigarettes and forced to smoke until they die. Tsk-tsk and two thumbs down for ASH and their enablers, DDB (NZ).

Then there's this anti-obesity ad, run by a bariatric surgery clinic:

"Obesity is suicide, but it doesn't have to end this way" pleads the copy. This one is kind of clever, since all those pounds of butter we scarf back are, in a very real way, little ticking time bombs of death. But I still find the suicide bomber image disturbing, and really, unless it's a Monty Python movie, innocent bystanders are unlikely to be harmed when this fatty finally blows. Another one from the same outfit:

Not terrorism-related, but still a bit of a macabre take on a taboo subject. Again, although it's in questionable taste, it's sort of clever (in my opinion). So one hesitant, shaky thumb up to Blattner Brunner advertising.

Looking at these, I can't help but be reminded of this "offensive-on-too-many-levels-to-list" viral VW ad that made the internet rounds a couple of years ago. Although that was a spoof, the more recent entries above make me wonder if the symbolic images of terrorism are becoming acceptable creative department fodder in the ad agencies of the world.

(h/t: wonkette)

Saudi spin

Hoho! Someone's been watching Fox News. Just before a visit to the UK, Saudi King Abdullah deftly deflected the world's attention from planned demonstrations against the kingdom's abysmal human rights record by accusing the Brits of not doing enough about terrorism. Huh?! What?!

"Before Abdullah arrived on Monday, he accused Britain of failing to act on intelligence that might have prevented the 2005 London transit bombings, touching off debate about the kingdom's response to terror at the start of the first state visit by a Saudi king in two decades." [...]

"I believe that most countries are not taking this issue too seriously, including, unfortunately, Great Britain," he said through a translator. "We have sent information to Great Britain before the terrorist attacks in Britain, but unfortunately no action was taken and it may have been able to avert the tragedy."

Well allrighty, then! Clearly irony is alive and well in the House of Saud. Nobody's taking terrorism seriously except the Saudis -- I suppose King Abdullah could be right, just not for the reason he thinks he is.

In other news -- oh look! Over there! Shiny jingly jangly car keys!

Update: Fisk's take.

New weapon in the War on Terra

Stock up on RAID™!!!

"One of the cheapest and most destructive weapons available to terrorists today is also one of the most widely ignored: insects. These biological warfare agents are easy to sneak across borders, reproduce quickly, spread disease, and devastate crops in an indefatigable march. Our stores of grain could be ravaged by the khapra beetle, cotton and soybean fields decimated by the Egyptian cottonworm, citrus and cotton crops stripped by the false codling moth, and vegetable fields pummeled by the cabbage moth. The costs could easily escalate into the billions of dollars, and the resulting disruption of our food supply - and our sense of well-being - could be devastating. Yet the government focuses on shoe bombs and anthrax while virtually ignoring insect insurgents."

Actually, when you consider the damage done out here in BC by those bastardous little mountain pine beetles, there might be something to this. Although I tend to think most terrorists aspire to create the sudden "shock and awe" devastation of a 9/11, destructive insects are potentially disastrous to forestry-based economies, so this could be a strategy that long-term-thinking terrorists might consider. And never mind the forests -- then there's the bugs that bite us! However, the problem with bugs is the same as with biological agents like smallpox -- the logistics of getting the stuff to go just where you want it to are pretty untenable.

Oh noez!

Quick! Deploy the Depends, I'm shitting myself! Afghan suicide squadz: they're in ur country, attacking ur doodz.

ABC News is reporting that a fresh batch of suicide squads has just graduated (graduated?) from Terrorist Training Camps Inc. in Afghanistan, and they've got a date with destiny:

"WASHINGTON (CP) - There's a report that large teams of newly-trained suicide bombers are being sent from Afghanistan to Canada, the United States and other countries.

ABC News is reporting the recruits were introduced at an al-QaidaTaliban training camp graduation ceremony in Afghanistan earlier this month. According to the network, a Pakistani journalist was invited to attend and take pictures as some 300 recruits, including boys as young as 12, were supposedly sent off on their suicide missions."

Oh, great snappin' assholes, I can just imagine the response to this from our favourite reactionary, racist right-wing blogs -- the propellers on their beanies must be spinning at redline. As for me, they lost me at "Washington"; call me cynical, but I tend to look askance at any news story about terrorists-coming-to-fight-us-here that originates in Washington DC. Especially when its timing dovetails so nicely with a failed military strategy elsewhere in the world that the powers-that-be would just as soon draw attention away from (78 killed today in a single attack in Iraq -- how's that surge working out again?). So they give the shiny car keys another shake and say "Taliban? Wanna go Taliban?" hoping we'll roll over.

I guess our own Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day didn't get the memo that said this was supposed to be Diversion of the Month -- Stockie says it's just a "PR move" by the Taliban. Riiiight, because when dressing for public relations success, one should always remember to wear an explosives vest. Bad Stockie, back to your crate.