Worst. Terrorist. Ever.

Let me tell you, it is only through a little bit of luck and a whole lot of incompetence that an awful lot of innocent people were not blown into bits by the "car bomb" left in Times Square. And while the bad news is that this poorly thought through plan got a lot farther than I would have preferred, the good news is that if this guy really was trained in bomb making in Pakistan and/or has ties to the Taliban and that particular "car bomb" was the best he could do then we don't have a whole lot to worry about in that aspect. Other aspects are rather troubling, but the actual constructing of an actual bomb that could do actual damage is a lot less worrisome to me at the moment.

Meet Faisal Shahzad. He is now going to be known far and wide and until the end of time as the "Times Square Bomber". Never mind that he didn't ever blow anything up. Never mind that his "bomb" had about zero chance of actually working. He's the Times Square Bomber. It's just like the Christmas Day Bomber. That guy gets that name, but all he did was light his grundle on fire and singe his panties a bit. No bombing. No bomber. But that's his name. Same with Richard Reid, the infamous Shoe Bomber. He has bombs in his shoes, that part is accurate. But he didn't bomb anything. No bomb went off. If I mail a letter, am I considered a postal carrier? I don't think I am. I've never felt like I was. Even if I was mailing something and I was wearing one of those safari hard hats at the time, I still knew I was just the mailer.

This guy is like the worst terrorist ever. Thanks to the folks over there at The Telegraph for providing us with this beautiful diagram of how this moron constructed his "car bomb". Why I can't find a lovely diagram like this in a US publication is beyond me. Oh, wait. That's right. The media sucks. I forgot. Behold! The "car bomb".

Oh, what the hell is that? You know what that is? That's a Nissan Pathfinder filled with a bunch of stuff, that's what we've got here. Let's go through the incompetence a piece at a time, shall we? First of all, he has these two alarm clocks for some reason. They don't appear to have much to do with the contraption as a whole, as there needed to be a fuse ignited first (which Shahzad did before he got out of the vehicle and left). Here is one of those clocks:

Where did he get that? Did he get a discount on it at an 80s store or something? It strikes me as an odd choice for some reason. It sure as hell doesn't look reliable. Then again, from what I can tell, it didn't really play a part in the "bomb" at all, so I guess who cares what it looks like? I wonder what he had to say about that? "What's the clock for?" "What is the clock for? Have you never seen Batman? All of the bombs always have a clock!"

Next on the list is the M88 firecrackers that he purchased and set up at three separate locations in the vehicle. All in all there were 152 of these things. Each one has its own fuse. According to something called Mid Day, a one Bruce Zoldan, who owns the chain of fireworks stores which included the one where Shahzad bought the M88s, in order for the fireworks to go off, each one of them has to have their own fuse individually lit. He said, "The M88 he used wouldn't damage a watermelon." Hmmm. And a Nissan Pathfinder is definitely a lot more sturdy than a watermelon, so there was really not a lot of thought put into this now, was there?

Mr. Zoldan also said that he would have been better off buying his fireworks on the black market. According to him, one M88 "...has an amount of pyrotechnic powder that is less than 1/6 the size of an aspirin." So, he had about 25 aspirins worth of powder? Was he too lazy to go to the black market to get his fireworks? Was he suddenly worried about doing something illegal by purchasing underground fireworks? Considering his goal was supposed to have been to blown people up, I'm finding it hard to believe he would have drawn the line at purchasing illegal fireworks.

Now, as you can see in the above diagram, there were three propane tanks in there as well. Propane is highly flammable. And that's the reason that we keep valves on those propane tanks. Those allow us to regulate the flow of the gas out of the tank. However (and this is important, kids!), in order for the gas to get OUT of the tank, the freaking valve has to be OPEN! That's right. He didn't even open the valves of the tanks! That according to Jonathan Alter over there at Newsweek. Could this guy have been more of a moron?

The answer to that is yes. Please note the type of fertilizer that he used for his "bomb". It is something called urea fertilizer. Over there at the University of Minnesota's website, they have a splendid data sheet on urea fertilizer. (It doesn't explain exactly what "urea" is though. It sounds like a female body part. Female body parts rarely explode, even when you guys are doing it right.) If you look down on the fourth section, it clearly states "Urea usage involves little or no fire or explosion hazard." This stuff wasn't going to explode no matter what. He might just as well have gone out and bought a bunch of bags of horse manure and threw those in there as well. The result would have been the same. No bomb.

And finally, in the last act of incompetence in this scheme that sounds like it was designed by all three Stooges AND Shemp, according to the huffy folks over at The Huffington Post, Shahzad "...left his keys in the ignition of an SUV" and his "...landlord....got a call from him that night saying he had lost his apartment key and needed to be let into the building." So he just put the key to the Pathfinder (that he bought specifically for the purpose of constructing this odd, odd paperweight) on his keyring with all of his other keys?! Was it too difficult for him to keep track of a separate loose key? And if it was, shouldn't he have maybe set things up so that he didn't have to return to his home after setting this thing off? Locked himself out of his house. What a maroon.

I'm just so confused by the ineptness of the whole ordeal. And he has allegedly had training in Pakistan? Screw Pakistan next time and spend fifteen minutes on the Internet. Hell, I spent five minutes on the Internet before I learned that urea fertilizer isn't very explode-y. And the amount of non-explode-y fertilizer that he used? That's right. About 250 pounds. Soooo, what? FIVE bags? Um, not to get all nit-picky or anything here, but the bomb that Timothy McVeigh used in Oklahoma City was about 7,000 pounds. What in the world did this dumbass think that 250 pounds was going to do? Was he just not that angry? I don't get it.

The only thing that would makes sense to me and that would adequately explain how someone who "trained in Pakistan" could have committed all of this bungling is very simple: It wasn't Shahzad at all. It was Wile E. Coyote.

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Charlie Sheen Needs a Tin Foil Hat

Huh. Well. Didn't see this one coming. Nah, I take that back. I totally coulda predicted that Charlie Sheen would turn out to be a nutjob. That might be a bit too strong. I don't really have any hard evidence of him actually being mentally ill (though Major League 2 might qualify). OK, so maybe he isn't a nutjob, but I do have a fair amount of evidence, all provided by Charles Sheen himself, that he might be a moron. Let's find out, shall we?

I think that sometimes celebrities get a bit tired of a world which they believe revolves around them and their every waking breath. And if you think about it, that would get exhausting. And boring, I would imagine. I mean, you're you. You already know what you're going to do, what you're going to eat, what you're going to wear, who you're going to sleep with (everyone), who you're not going to sleep with (no one), and what you're going to say (everything, after all, you ARE fascinating!). There's no surprise. There's no uncertainty. You need something that will really shake things up for you. How about a meeting with the President of the United States so that you can discuss your viewpoints on the whole 09/11 incident. You know, the one with the planes and the towers and all of the death and destruction. Yes. THAT 09/11.

I don't think that Charlie Sheen is ever going to be bestowed with the label as one of this nation's greatest thinkers, all right? I just don't see that happening. Ever. He's a thinker all right, just not one of the greatest thinkers. He's definitely a misguided thinker (and one with an inflated ego at that). In an interview he gave (for reasons that might be inexplicable other than they were the only ones willing to listen to him and his nonsensical outrage) to something called PrisonPlanet.com. Now, Sheen thinks of himself as "a Truther". Please make note that when a group of people gives itself a name that is grammatically incorrect and grates on the ears every time you hear it, you know that the group is not exactly the pillar of stability. "Truthers", "Birthers", "Oakland Raiders", all of those follow the same principle.

Sheen pretends to have an imaginary conversation with the President and reveals what it is that he would be saying to him during this time. It's a lot different than what I would have envisioned him saying because I pictured him being led away by security. But his version goes like this: "9/11 has been the pretext for the systematic dismantling of our Constitution and Bill of Rights. Your administration is reading from the same playbook that the Bush administration foisted on America through documented secrecy and deception."

Wow. Foisted. Nice. But the last time I checked, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights were still in effect. NO dismantling. Still can speak freely, carry weapons, assemble and shout, all very much in play. And really, Charlie, isn't "documented secrecy" kind of an oxymoron? No, not YOU. I mean, you ARE a moron, but not an oxymoron. Documented secrecy. See, if it were so secretive, would it have been documented?

He also envisions himself telling President Barry about the "bottomless warren of unanswered questions surrounding that day and its aftermath." Again, I hate to get all nit picky here, but if you've got some nits, you should really pick them. Thus, my point is this: See, a "warren" is defined as either an area where rabbits breed or are bred; as a maze of underground passageways or small rooms; or a place where one is legally authorized to keep small game animals for the purpose of them being hunted. Therefore, you really can't have a "bottomless warren". How are you going to have a bottomless maze of underground passageways? A bottomless place to breed rabbits? (What? Are they just going to constantly connoiter whilst floating around? Is this bottomless warren in outer space? Does it involve a degree of weightlessness?) It just doesn't work. Nice job trying to squeeze 'warren' into a conversation, but no. Try again.

Oh, and part of the "unanswered questions" that are floating around in this gravitationally challenged warren without a bottom includes "the John F. Kennedy assassination and the Gulf of Tonkin incident." The Gulf of Tonkin? Is that where all the toy trucks are? Oh, wait. That's TONKA. Never mind. My mistake. So, um, what now? The thing with the two US destroyers and some Vietnamese patrol boats back in 1964 that sort of propelled the United States into the Vietnam War? THAT Gulf of Tonkin incident? 45 years ago?! Boy, this Sheen guy just doesn't let things go now, does he?

Charles Sheen has written this fictional script which is how he envisions that the twenty minutes that he would be granted (in this incredibly fictitious world that he lives in) to sit down with the President (on the merits of simply nothing more than he's Charlie Sheen) and present him with "facts" which he believes indicate some sort of a conspiracy involving 09/11. I will give him this much: As ludicrous as the whole idea is (mostly the part about competent and secretive government officials, which I see as much less plausible than an actual conspiracy), the script that he writes is pretty funny in places. He might not be one of our nation's most treasured speakers, but he does deserve a place in the "I'm a Witty American" club. That I will give him. Anything else? He's a moron.


The script goes on and pretends to have him say "Mr. President, I implore you based on the evidence you now possess, to use your Executive Power. Prove to us all Sir, that you do, in fact, care. Create a truly comprehensive and open Congressional investigation of 9/11 and its aftermath." He explains to a one Alex Jones of PrisonPlanet.com how he would further implore President Barry by stating, " I requested 30 minutes given the scope and detail of my inquiry; they said I could have 20. Twenty minutes, 1200 seconds, not a lot of time to question the President about one of the most important events in our nation’s history." 20 minutes isn't enough for all of the questions about "...one of the most important events in our nation’s history", but THIRTY minutes is PLENTY? Wow, you must really make those extra ten minutes count!

Now look, I'm not saying that there isn't a chance for some sort of a conspiracy to be conjured up and carried out at some point. Theoretically, it's possible. But honest to God, the kind of conspiracy that Charlie Sheen is talking about in regard to 09/11 would not only involve, but would absolutely REQUIRE the kind of efficiency, and secrecy and solidarity and competence that JUST ISN'T POSSIBLE WITHIN OUR GOVERNMENT. Do you hear what I'm saying? Look at the folks who are running this country. They're idiots. Complete morons. How many things has the public learned about simply because some politician was too stupid to realize that his microphone was on before he started various unethical doings to other politicians? TOO MANY. Do you think that there are actually THAT many people that could keep THAT big of a secret? There just isn't.

According to Charlie Sheen's version of how this would all go, he envisions a scenario in which he, Charlie Sheen, a man once married to Denise Richards, has information about the most spectacular terrorist attack to ever take place on this planet, and the PRESIDENT of the United States has to get this information from him because he is not privy to it, apparently. If that was actually the state of our government and of our world as we know it, I'd hang myself right now. If the day ever comes when Charlie Sheen is giving the President of the United States new and classified information involving an inter-governmental conspiracy, I will hang myself within an hour of receiving confirmation of that atrocity. (I would commit to within the first 30 minutes after learning that, but I'll probably want to leave a note and I'll need a little bit of time to scrawl something out. Then there's the time it's going to take to knot the noose....I really should have thought this through before making a commitment like that. OK, 90 minutes. Give me 90 minutes after confirmation and I'll be dead, I swear.)

Mr. Sheen's fictional account of how events on 09/11 were orchestrated and allowed to take place gives at least 20 specific items which he believes point to a conspiracy. Again, if you're a fan of the fiction genre you can read his entire tome over there at PrisonPlanet.com. I have absolutely no intention of going over all twenty ridiculous items. But to demonstrate the sort of flawed logic that Charles Sheen is putting forth in this endeavor, allow me to point out item number 18 which states: "The technology to enable cell phone calls from high-altitude airline flights was not created until 2004, and even by that point it was only in the trial phase. Calls from cell phones which formed an integral part of the official government version of events were technologically impossible at the time." Um, what now?

I have a bit of news for you, Chuck. Folks on those planes DID make calls and they DID use their cell phones and that IS a fact. To say that they did NOT is to say that all of those people who TOOK those calls from those people who had called to say goodbye are all lying and are all in on this scheme you've bought into? I can emphatically state without any doubt at all that calls were made. They were made from cell phones. End of story. Now knock it off.

Oh, one more! He also cannot fathom how things like a hijacker's passport could have survived that whole ordeal when human bodies were simply vaporized and steel columns melted like butter. How could a paper passport in a suitcase survive? Perhaps our treasured misguided thinker could use a physics class or a chemistry class. Or maybe if he just told the hookers to wait for five minutes and sat down and thought about it he'd realize that the force of the impact and subsequent explosion would create a force which would blow things outward. A book, Charlie. Go read a BOOK.

Yes, plenty of things went wrong in response to events as they unfolded on that day. But it wasn't due to a conspiracy. It was due to incompetence. And in a way, I'm sorry that our government is too stupid and incompetent to carry out the sort of 009/11 conspiracy that Charlie Sheen so desperately wants to be true. I really am. I WISH they could do it! I swear I do! I want them to be conspiracy material. But they just aren't. They aren't. They're just too dumb.

And the other thing you have to remember, Chuck, is that you don't get to know every single detail of all of the inner workings of the US Government. Not the State Department. Not the Department of Defense. Not the CIA. None of them. You don't get to know everything that went on. No one does. But if you'd like to just look around you, you'll get the one detail that makes all of the pieces of the puzzle fit into place. That the government is huge. Something that large will not function in detail the way that it is theoretically supposed to. It just can't. You want to go on some big ol' campaign for something there, Chuck? You want to make sure that this doesn't happen again? What say you go make a point for smaller government and cite 09/11 as how big government failed people? That seems like a worthy cause. Or at least one that won't make you look like a complete nutjob tool.

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