Quick, someone report Juan Cole. His attempt to explain and make us understand what makes an Islamic fundamentalist suicide bomber do what they do is clearly an attempt to excuse their behaviour and he should be exposed.

Sure, there will be those who say targets of terrorism deserved it, be they innocent or not. Most people, I reckon, just want to understand why some people would do something so inhuman, so we can figure out how to treat the problem (violent fundamentalist extremism), not the symptoms (already indoctrinated violent fundamentalist extremists who want to blow people up).

Is that so fucking hard to comprehend?

Just found out my mum’s been temporarily transferred to help the new Board over at the NKF. I expect to hear about:

• secret sex tapes featuring TT Durai rolling around, naked, in coin
• TT Durai’s habituation of dialysis patients to champagne so they’ll never tell
• TT Durai swearing to do ‘whatever it takes’ to destroy the SPH for talking about their plumbing
• not-quite-generous-enough donors getting a visit from TT Durai in his Mercedes for a little ‘chat’
• what ‘perks’ really means in TT Durai’s office diary
• TT Durai’s gold-plated peanuts

(Joking, ah.)

Update: just to make things clear, in case anyone wants to sue me for defaming anyone else, this is a joke about how much people have overreacted with respect to TT Durai’s compensation and perks.

I apparently really know my tech terms. I’d be in trouble if they start asking about packet sniffing, though.

… he’s sitting right next to you and sends a Skype chat message to ask if you farted.

(No.)

A little debate has sprung up between Neil and I, its roots in the accidental execution shooting death of the Brazilian electrician in London. I read about the shoot to kill policy, and Neil says the number of armed policemen is so low that it makes little difference anyway. The UK is not like the US in that respect, people do not walk around carrying guns, even the police. The UK police wouldn’t shoot first and ask questions later. Even the revelation that 2,100 police officers in London are now licenced to use submachine guns and pistols, with training direct from Israel, and that the shoot to kill policy, in place since the 11 September 2001 attacks in the US, but curiously never used until after London was directly attacked, will budge his opinion.

I agree that Jean Charles de Menezes was under suspicion, maybe for good reason (perhaps he was kind of shifty in other ways), but we’ll never know the truth because of all the emotion that is now associated with him. The police have conceded that he ‘had nothing to do with terrorism’.

I reckon London is different now. The IRA bombings back then were different to what has been experienced in the past weeks, and people will be on edge, alert to any activity deemed outside their realms of normal behaviour. The Brazilian bloke was shot seven times because he was deemed suspicious enough, the Muslim man in Nottingham was beaten to death because he was brown, and therefore representative (to the assailants) of the bombers.

If I was one of the police officers chasing de Menezes, I know I would be thinking, He might not be a suicide bomber, but what if he is, and I fail to protect the people around him?

If I was being stared at because I was South Asian or Arabic, I know I would get nervous, and maybe start shifting in my seat, maybe start sweating (I won’t because I’m ethnic Chinese and I’m tattooed so I’m used to being stared at anyway). Maybe try to keep my mind from noticing the stares, by rooting through the bag I always carry.

I reckon London is very different now.

… he uses Skype’s instant messaging to talk to you while he’s in the living room and you’re in the study.

I presume the analysts have more experience than me on this:

More than one-third of the casino revenue is projected to come from Singaporean high rollers who now gamble abroad. But why would they stay home when Singapore bans credit for local players? Second, the privacy of players is not protected as it is in the United States. Furthermore, the government wants the resorts marketed only as destinations, not casinos, with less than half of their revenue coming from gambling. So Wall Street wants to know where the players will come from when “there’s no there there?”

Marketed as a ‘destination’. Heh. A destination for fun, $fun$, $$fun$$?