Unless if you've been living under some kind of rock, you know what the big story is. There's really not much I can say about that in and of itself since it's all pretty self-evident, but I can nitpick at irrelevant minutiae. For instance, Tony Blair:

"We know these people act in the name of Islam but we also know the vast and overwhelming majority of Muslims here and abroad are decent and law-abiding people who abhor this act of terrorism."

Tony, we know this. You know that we know this. Granted, there are a lot of idiots out there who don't know this, but they're not gonna have their minds changed by you, Tony. I just hate these useless statements that are made just because they feel that they have to make them. It's like whenever I put someone in charge of something, and just out of stupid obligation to myself, I tell them something like "Be careful," even though I know that A) they were gonna be anyway and B) my saying it changes nothing. It's just that there's this stupid part of me that tells myself that if I don't say it, A and B won't hold. It's retarded, and I should stop it. World leaders should especially stop it. The same goes for condemnation of attacks like this. We know that you guys (allegedly) don't approve of what's happened, so quit wasting all our time telling us about that. Maybe you guys could look into doing some actual work someday instead of just standing around reading useless prepared statements.

Speaking of meaningless statements, Jack Straw:

"There's an assumption that this is an al-Qaida-based organisation. It has the hallmarks of an al-Qaida-based organisation and also its ruthlessness."

I'm still very uncomfortable with this assumption business. Shit blows up, and it's automatically Osama. Yes, I know, a group calling itself Al Qaeda Fuckheads in Europe or whatever claimed responsibility, but it still seems dangerous to just be putting all these labels on immediately just so we have someone we can picture in our simple minds when something happens. I mean, al Qaeda affiliates seem to be so loosely tied together that I'm pretty sure all you need to do to get into the club is to say that you're in the club. Do we know that all these groups are really working together in terms of manpower, financing, equipment, etc.? Or is it just common goals and ideology that bind them together? If it's merely the latter in some cases, then we oughta be cautious of oversimplifying. Seems as if that's gotten us into trouble in the past.

It's just like the shit we keep hearing in Iraq. "Al Qaeda-type" fighters, or "Al Qaeda-based" organizations or blah blah blah. Basically, it's "we don't really know what the fuck's going on, but we're going to play fast and loose with the rhetoric so your simple minds have something you can latch onto so that you can get behind us without too much critical thought." For fuck's sake, people. This may have been al Qaeda to the core, and it may have just been some loosely affiliated group, but either way I'm pretty sure that people were blowing shit up and killing civilians long before al Qaeda ever existed. Wait six seconds until you have some facts, then you can start jumping to conclusions.

He said there was no intelligence about other devices but he warned people to be vigilant.

Why is this relevant? We see how good the intelligence was on the bombs that did go off, so...

Meanwhile, Stateside, the usual stupid bullshit is to be expected, and we're delivering. For instance, I was reading bits and pieces of this article, and contained within it was the dumbest fucking thing I've ever heard:

Authorities have increased police presence at "United Kingdom-related locations," according to NYPD spokesman Jason Post, who did not elaborate on the locations.

A five-year-old must have thought this one up. Wow, since they bombed stuff in the UK, maybe someone will wanna make a statement and bomb something that's related to the UK that's not even in the UK! You know, I have this miniature of St. Stephen's Tower (the home of Big Ben and the Great Clock of Westminster) in the cabinet where the Girls reside -- maybe I should move it down to the lowest shelf right next to Jetfire just in case someone tries to blow it up.

I mean, really, if this is the kind of mentality that we have going with our security people, then we're fucked. Gas up the airliners, open the boarders and our airspace, and do whatever else needs to be done to give al Qaeda carte blanche to kill us all, because that's where we're headed if this is what's being done to protect us.