The Sky Has Not Fallen 830

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The shocking death of Lee Rigby quite naturally appals us all. The intention of the crazed little group who conceived this killing was to make it as horrible as possible in order to scare people.

Horrible, sociopathic violence happens to people from time to time. They have done since Cain killed Abel, metaphorically or literally as you choose. Here is another headline today, just as horrific:

A British soldier has been jailed for stabbing a 10-year-old boy after getting drunk on vodka while serving in Afghanistan.

Both that obscene attack and Michael Adebolajo’s appalling actions are borne out of the same conflict. But it is reasonable to suppose that both these incidents involved people with, for whatever reason, a pre-disposition to murderous violence.

Such people have always been with us and will always be with us, but fortunately they are very, very few. In a nation of 60 million, involvement in violent crime is very low. If you are the victim of criminal violence, the odds over the last decade are about one in twenty thousand that the violence inflicted on you will have any linkage to political or terrorist causation. And the odds that you will suffer any kind of violent attack are thankfully pretty remote.

We should not panic from theatrical violence, just deplore and take sober stock. Sadly if a lunatic on the bus decides to strangle you tomorrow, there are no pre-emptive laws that can stop that. We should stop pretending that the state can always prevent.

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830 thoughts on “The Sky Has Not Fallen”

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  • Jemand

    In and out like a teenager at dinner time, Habbabkuk.

    I find it odd that the reports of an horrific killing, in which a soldier’s heart is cut out and eaten, is supposed to be representative of the militants waging civil war in Syria, while the horrific killing of a soldier in London is a one-off attack that is representative of nothing.

    Does anyone want to tackle the paradox of this logic?

  • Dreoilin

    Where is Habbabkuk? In California? Or in a retirement complex in Florida? (I’m sure Jon could tell us, but as a mod he wouldn’t consider it ethical)

    I hope it’s not a mobile home. One of these wood and plasterboard structures that gets flattened by a bit of bad weather. I’ve never understood why the USA has so many wooden houses. You’d travel the length and breadth of Ireland without finding one. All bricks and mortar here.

    Kibo,
    You’re in great form this morning. Keep it up.

  • Jemand

    Dreoilin, wooden houses can be knocked up very quickly and cheaply. There was probably a housing boom after the war that supplied ex-servicemen with affordable homes. And they can look nice too. But they go up like tinderboxes and get eaten out with whiteants and need painting every ten years. Give me asbestos any day. *cough*

  • Dreoilin

    Yes Jemand. The fire hazard would bother me too.
    I’m probably one of the very few people in Ireland who has had a custom-made fire escape fitted on a two-storey house. I might have survived a jump in my 20s but … not now. My bouncability is long gone.

  • Jesuit Atheist

    “I am not promoting any theory,”

    Not yet perhaps – but your first post at the top of this page gives a pretty strong hint as to what it will be when it eventually arrives!

    Well, it seems to be writing itself quite successfully without my prompting.

    Official denials from both governments followed by a video release totally contradicting official statements within hours.

    “Confirmation that Adebolajo was arrested in Kenya could increase pressure on Britain’s security services to set out what they knew about him and whether they could have done more to prevent last Wednesday’s killing.”
    http://www.irishtimes.com/news/world/woolwich-suspect-was-arrested-in-kenya-1.1406704

    Looks bad eh? Have you read the book ‘Treachery’ by Chapman Pincher?

  • Kibo Noh

    Dreoilin.

    Thanks.

    But I have taken a vow to let sleeping Habbas fabricate, dissemble, tell untruths, or maybe simply just lie, in the sun, so would seem. But how are we to really believe it?

    So alas my keyboard must remain silent and the world bereft of great poetry, for another while yet.

    But here’s a link I found clicking the Medialens trail of the Tireless Magpie. I thought it a good synopsis of current hypocracy re Syria. Thanks April.

    http://edition.presstv.ir/iphone/detail.aspx?id=305478

    Supply weapons to save lives – my arse! For once I can say “Vive l’Europe”! Thanks for reining-in a mad dog.

  • April Showers

    Jesus Atheist Any thoughts on that abandoned white lorry? Nothing about it or from the driver who was first in line.

    Anyway Deckchair Dave is out of it for his hols. ‘Doesn’t he deserve it’ his admirers sigh. So many foreign trips and meetings in Blair style lately. I liked the comparison of B.Liar to a jackdaw but I think he has the wrong bird. It’s magpies who thieve.

    The latest news from Israel is the Kerry initiative in which B.Liar has participated. There is a proposal to pump $4bn in to boost the Palestinian economy. It completely ignores the increased settlement building, stealing E Jerusalem and the ongoing daily oppression.

    B.Liar has form in getting his fingers in the pie anyway.
    http://www.channel4.com/info/press/news/blair-role-in-palestine-contracts-gives-rise-to-conflicts-of-interest

  • Kibo Noh

    April.

    The Tireless Magpie is you , you old goose.

    Vive la Pie Infatigable!

  • Kibo Noh

    April.

    The quality I respect is the tireless finding of treasures.

    No thieving implied.

    I learn much from you.

    Thanks again.

  • Jesuit Atheist

    “Jesus Atheist Any thoughts on that abandoned white lorry? ”

    Yup. Also, the bus from which the fearless Ingrid Loyau-Kennett and at least on of the people who went on to film the interview emerged – blocking the other side of the road.

    Setting the scene you could say, allied this with the apparently staged interview (could not have framed it better myself) where suspect is seen checking his mark, either that or he is the most easily distracted terrorist in the world – look at him repeatedly, he even falters in step at the point he looks down, he’s looking to accurately place his feet. The only point in the entire video where the suspect seems more interested in an apparent piece of litter or bubble gum on the floor than what is happening around him.

  • Jesuit Atheist

    Interesting lack of two wheeled vehicles arriving on the scene as well, which would not have been blocked by lorry or bus, which makes me suspicious that both the roads had already been closed – and no police for 20 minutes?

  • BrianFujisan

    blair and Bushe’s Genocide Gathers Pace

    Stop the War coalition are also running that Story April

    Very upsetting What they have Done, and the current evil gangsters are still at it

    it makes me want to SCREEEEEEEEM

  • Jesuit Atheist

    A picture says a thousand words – “great shot man, in fact thank goodness we had a semi-professional cameraman on the scene who knows how to pan properly.”
    http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/23/article-2329458-19F0F613000005DC-783_634x338.jpg

    The only released image showing the front of car which has fuelled ‘no blood’ conspiracy – poisoning the well? The blood is there btw.
    http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2013/05/23/article-0-19F14C94000005DC-558_634x375.jpg

  • Jesuit Atheist

    The images above are taken from a video that was supplied to ITN by Pixel8000, which appears to be the name of a one man company owned by a professional photographer named Gavin Rodgers.

    So that would in fact be professional photographer and not a ‘semi-professional’ as I said, my error.

  • Cryptonym

    Found this: http://ceasefiremagazine.co.uk/journalists-guide-reporting-violent-death/

    While the article itself is no great shakes, the comment down the page by ‘Alternative Analysis’ is a very nice take on the Woolwich matter.

    In other news, it’s not what you know but who you know.

    http://7493021a.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/who-is-chris-tugendhat/

    http://theneedleblog.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/who-is-chris-tugendhat/

    I think it curious that the brother and family of the judge in the McTweet case is intimately connected with most of the good Lord’s chums in the Conservative Party.

  • Jesuit Atheist

    Pixel8000 has a registered address in N2 so he’s not a local then. I guess he must have been out shopping for a birthday present as well, in Woolwich, that easy to get to shopping Mecca (you’ve got to have a chuckle sometimes).

  • Dreoilin

    “Setting the scene you could say, allied this with the apparently staged interview”

    Jesuit Atheist,
    How about the woman in blue, with the shopping trolley, who walks up the footpath behind him as he’s talking to the camera (while his hands are drenched in blood and he’s holding a knife and a meat cleaver) and carries on walking right past him, as if he was chatting about the weather?

    (And ITV have a warning on the video: “this video contains graphic images of a man with bloodied hands and holding a meat cleaver”)

    Extraordinary

    http://www.itv.com/news/update/2013-05-22/exclusive-video-man-with-bloodied-hands-speaks-at-woolwich-scene/

  • Jesuit Atheist

    I’m gong to hazard a wild guess and suggest the Ingrid and Gavin were both on the bus and operated as a team, which is why she features in nearly all of his footage.

    Also, the photo taken from a high vantage point in this article below is attributed to “Gavin Rodgers”, did he know someone in the building or did he just go and ring doorbells asking total strangers if he could come in and take photos? Seems like he was on a real mission if that is the case.

    http://www.capitalbay.com/uk/344070-woolwich-beheading-analysis-mi5-s-worst-nightmare-has-come-true.html

    ‘knock knock knock’ LOL

  • MJ

    Jesus Atheist: the photo accredited to Gavin Rodgers was taken from a helicopter according to your link.

  • BrianFujisan

    It certainly Looks like Wee Sleekit MI5 Have been up to their trick in all this
    What Has been Going on There

    One thing that we learned over the years here at 21st Century Wire is that if an event seems strange, then there is an almost certain probability that the back story is equally as strange and twisted – just like with dead Boston Bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s rather diverse FBI and CIA connections, it often features the covert secret security services in some way. In the case of Tamerlan, the FBI were forced by the media to admit their relationship with him. Has the same thing has happened again with this latest ‘terror attack’ in East London? You decide…
    21st Century Wire

    http://21stcenturywire.com/2013/05/25/britains-mi5-connection-to-woolwich-slasher-michael-adebolajo/

  • Jesuit Atheist

    All the images that started the ‘no blood at the scene’ conspiracy theory were taken by the same professional photographer who later provided the overhead image that showed lots of blood around the car.

    This may mean it is more likely that the video interview and images of the front of the car where no blood is seen due to lighting effects has been done deliberately to create a conspiracy – because that’s exactly what happened, within hours people were using those same images to claim it was allfaked.

  • Kibo Noh

    A Node. 1 07 pm

    I would have missed that. Thanks for the link.

    Chuzpah on steroids!

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