What's new
By:

The calm before the storm.

Beantown

Beantown

Well-Known Member
Jason Whitlock basically saying a terrorist attack will hit London. Interesting.

UPDATED*JUL 27, 2012 11:16 AM ET* * *
*
LONDON
Thursday, strolling through the Olympic Park, may have been the most beautiful day of my life. The temperature hovered in the high 80s. Gorgeous women of every stripe and shape sauntered about soaking in the heat, dining, drinking and shopping throughout the elevated, outdoor strip mall.



This city, arguably the most ethnically diverse in the world, was filled with the sounds of people communicating in every conceivable language and the sight of people fashioning every possible style of dress.

This is what heaven must look and sound like.

We think of New York or Miami as melting pots. No. Come here. London is where the world meets, and it is where the constituents of the world co-exist on unassimilated terms. The reality is people fear us, Americans. They visit our cities and try to fit in. They conceal their true feelings. We’re isolated and brutish, the sole powerful inhabitants of the Western Hemisphere.

There is less fear in England, and perhaps that is why I’m scared.

The threat of terrorism never leaves my mind.

The locals promise rain is inevitable here. The idyllic setting we’ve enjoyed in the days leading up to Friday night’s opening ceremony will be disturbed by the reality of London’s relentless summer drizzle, the locals swear.

The world’s tumult is relentless here, too. It is, perhaps, just as inevitable that these Olympic Games will be touched by terrorism. London is not isolated. You can fly from the Middle East to Heathrow Airport in less than five hours. London’s great strength, its diversity, makes it easy for extremists to hide in the open.

The Olympic Games are arguably the world’s largest platform. The attempts to avoid the politicization of the Olympics are laughable at this point. IOC president Jacques Rogge’s decision to avoid recognizing at Friday’s opening ceremony the Israeli athletes taken hostage and murdered during the 1972 Olympics in Munich seems bizarre and childish. I do not believe his decision is based in cowardice. It’s rooted in denial. Rogge is addressing a problem by pretending the problem isn’t there. He would like to believe that 1972 was an aberration, a tragedy of unpreparedness rather than geography.


There is some truth to that contention. The eight Palestinian terrorists simply climbed a chain-link fence to get to the Israeli athletes. Plus, in the 40 years since the attack, there have been plenty of questions raised about the way the German government handled security in general and the security of the Israeli team in particular. As a way to distance itself from Hitler and the 1936 Berlin Olympics, Germany chose to have lax security in 1972.

But no way should the IOC do anything to distance itself from the 1972 Israeli victims. Their families and their memories should be front and center at every Olympics. They should serve as a reminder of why we play these games. They’re an attempt to promote tolerance and understanding across racial, ethnic and religious lines.

Europe, given its central location to global power, is ground zero for this grand experiment. It’s not a coincidence that Europe — Munich — is where the worst incident of Olympic terrorism occurred.


Jacques Rogge doesn’t grasp that learning from and recognizing the same history over and over again is the best way to stop history from repeating itself.

That is not to suggest England is unprepared. The military and police presence in London is unprecedented. There are more than 17,000 troops deployed throughout the city and plans call for another 7,000 private security guards during the games. I visited London three weeks ago and delighted in the fact that the police did not carry guns. Now, this week upon my return, many police officers are carrying machine guns. The city feels occupied. It does not feel safe.

Fear grips me every time I descend down into the Tube, London’s subway system. The Tube is hot and cramped and extremely busy. It doesn’t appear to be very secure. A suicide bomber killed six people in Bulgaria nearly two weeks ago. There are reports the attack was a trial run for more attacks in London during the Olympics. The Tube seems the most vulnerable.

The idyllic Olympic Park would be another target.

These are the third Olympic Games I’ve covered, the first since 9/11. I never experienced much fear in Atlanta or Japan, even after the bombing that took place in Atlanta. Despite the beautiful scene I enjoyed Thursday, the world seems much more hostile and tense now. Thursday felt like the quiet before the rain.
Click to expand...
 
I truly believe there will be an attempt. Major multinational target in a country that the normal terrorist groups hate. I sincerely hope that if there is that the Brits capture them before nay harm is done and use him as an informant and take out some more cells/terrorists.
 
We've essentially entered the Men in Black world where we are always just moments away from the next attack. The world is always near destruction. The next attack will be tragic but not surprising.
 
Using some Americans' logic...

Then every Brit needs to be packing. Assault rifles, grenades, bazookas, body armor, etc.

That is the only way to prevent crime. Fight violence with even more violence.
 
The Thriller said:
Using some Americans' logic...

Then every Brit needs to be packing. Assault rifles, grenades, bazookas, body armor, etc.

That is the only way to prevent crime. Fight violence with even more violence.
Click to expand...

You are such an unbelievable, blinded by ideology, moronic idiot. Welcome to ignore idiota.
 
"This message is hidden because The Thriller is on your ignore list. " Sweet, sweet message.
 
Stoked said:
"This message is hidden because The Thriller is on your ignore list. " Sweet, sweet message.
Click to expand...

Ah yes. Of course. How convenient.

Of course, since I'm blind and the one that ignores data, ignore this post.

https://news.change.org/stories/do-guns-reduce-crime

The United States has more guns than any other country on the planet. We also have the highest murder rate, the most gun deaths per capita and the biggest prison population. Are guns the cause of America’s violence or just an effect? And since there are so many legal and illegal guns out there, are we too late to step in and ban them?

with 40 percent of the world’s guns are in the hands of American civilians, our rate of violent crime, and gun crime, is still near the top of the world list. One in four adults owns a gun, and 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds every year. Helmke, who frequently blogs for the Huffington Post, said at the debate: “If the proposition were true, that guns reduce crime, we should be the safest country in the world, but we’re not. And it’s because we have so many guns and those guns too easily get into the wrong hands.”

If we aren’t safe with 240 million guns – how many more do we need in order to be safe?
Click to expand...

How does my *** smell?

You've been humilated (once again). My only hope is that I'm truly on your ignore list so then we don't have to speak anymore. And by speak, it means reading your idiotic posts and humiliating you as I did Gameface.

You've been Thrilled.
 
with 40 percent of the world’s guns are in the hands of American civilians, our rate of violent crime, and gun crime, is still near the top of the world list. One in four adults owns a gun, and 30,000 people die from gunshot wounds every year. Helmke, who frequently blogs for the Huffington Post, said at the debate: “If the proposition were true, that guns reduce crime, we should be the safest country in the world, but we’re not. And it’s because we have so many guns and those guns too easily get into the wrong hands.”
Click to expand...

The quote that you use to make your case is pretty lame. It does not prove anything because it is far too general in it's attempt to vilify guns.

30,000 gun related deaths per year... how many are accidental shootings? Suicides? Is Jr. Seau's death counted among the 30,000? How about the young man that was accidentally shot at Yuba lake earlier this summer?

How many of the deaths are gang on gang violence? Do you really think that if you took all the guns away today that these knuckleheads would stop killing each other? I'm fairly certain that stabbings, bombings and beatings would skyrocket. Gotta protect your turf in any manner possible.

Violence in America is not because of guns, it is because of the culture. Sadly, it is who we are. Taking away guns won't change a thing. Gun laws in Chicago and D.C. are some of the most restrictive in the country but they also have the highest gun related deaths of anywhere in the nation. How is that working out?

EDIT: Did you know that adult men in Switzerland are required to have an army issued gun in their homes? What's gun violence like in Switzerland? That's right. Very, very little. The lesson we learn here is that 1 in 4 Americans owning a gun is far too few. We need to up that ratio significantly.

You've been Scat on, which by the way, is much worse than being Thrilled.
 
Last edited:
Scat said:
The quote that you use to make your case is pretty lame. It does not prove anything because it is far too general in it's attempt to vilify guns.

30,000 gun related deaths per year... how many are accidental shootings? Suicides? Is Jr. Seau's death counted among the 30,000? How about the young man that was accidentally shot at Yuba lake earlier this summer?

How many of the deaths are gang on gang violence? Do you really think that if you took all the guns away today that these knuckleheads would stop killing each other? I'm fairly certain that stabbings, bombings and beatings would skyrocket. Gotta protect your turf in any manner possible.

Violence in America is not because of guns, it is because of the culture. Sadly, it is who we are. Taking away guns won't change a thing. Gun laws in Chicago and D.C. are some of the most restrictive in the country but they also have the highest gun related deaths of anywhere in the nation. How is that working out?

You've been Scat on, which by the way, is much worse than being Thrilled.
Click to expand...

Boom Bitches
 
by the way, mine would be moevillized

eg., Jazzfanz is a highly moevillized community.

Not sure what it means but it sounds reasonably logical.
 
Yeah, London is just a bastion of freedom and fearless expression. Except for that whole part where you're constantly being filmed on CCTV, cops everywhere, you can't say anything mildly offensive or else you'll be arrested for a hate crime, you aren't allowed in nearly every building in the City of London, and where 80% of their laws are made by an unelected bureaucracy in Brussels. Other than that, they are just so much freer than the average America - it's unbelievable. London is where every police state measure is tested before they bring it to other Western nations.

I would hate to see what that city, and in turn, the rest of the world eventually would become in regards to police force/security stratagem were a terrorist attack to happen.
 
Last edited:
moevillini said:
arguably...





(the use of that word has always been puzzling to me)
Click to expand...

My friends and I used to insult each other using scientific language (Greek and Latin). That way we could call each other pretty bad names but nobody else would realize it. My name was Scatcephalus ("poo" head), which was better than Scatophagus I suppose. In any case, whenever registering a user name on line I got tired of having to use something different everywhere I went so I started using Scatcephalus, which as you can imagine, is always available. In this particular case, I simply shortened it to Scat. Amazingly, I have tried to use Scat elsewhere and it is almost always taken.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page
Back
Top