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The Dangers Of Gatorade

By Justin Gardner | Related entries in The War On Terrorism

A new blog, Sideways Mencken, lends some perspective to the latest terror threat:

Let’s say they had succeeded. Let’s say they got all nine or ten planes. Call it another 3,000 people. Pretty fucking awful. But at another level, that’s it? That’s what they’ve got? They kill 3,000 people every five years? For that we should cower in a corner? Jesus, in five years’ time we lose 200,000 people in traffic accidents. And yet we get right back out there on the highway and not only do we drive, a lot of the time we damn well enjoy it.

We have 600 or so bicycle fatalities a year. In five years the number of people who die from riding bicycles equals the number of people who died on 9-11. Now Al Qaeda has tried and failed to pull off a terrorist attack that, if successful, would have made them every bit as dangerous as the nation’s Schwinns.

I will say that if there’s any silver lining in this latest threat it’s that we would have been talking about the loss of very few people in the grand scheme of things. It doesn’t mean it wouldn’t be horrible, but The Cold War presented us with an impending worldwide holocaust.

This doesn’t mean we don’t have to be any less vigilant in this “war.” Actually, we have to be even more so. But knowing that humanity can’t be taken out in one fell swoop is at least something.

By the way, Sideways Mencken is going in the blogroll. Visit it when you can.

This entry was posted on Sunday, August 13th, 2006 and is filed under The War On Terrorism. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

3 Responses to “The Dangers Of Gatorade”

Paul Brinkley Says:
August 14th, 2006 at 11:34 am
The article illustrates the distinction between the damage and the intent. Slap me because I said something bad, and I become repentant. Slap me because I’m of some ethnicity, and I become belligerent.

Not only that, but everyone knows terrorists wouldn’t stop at 3000/5 years.
Meredith Says:
August 14th, 2006 at 1:26 pm
Maybe I’m just low today, but how is that related to Gatorade?
Justin Gardner Says:
August 16th, 2006 at 12:37 pm
Gatorade could be a potential liquid brought on a plane.

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