By David Rutter
1. al-Qaeda Accounting Department, WTF?
Al-Qaeda might be well-organized, but it wants to blow up people as cheaply as possible. You can admire thriftiness, even when it comes to murderous plots. That might seem a small matter but they appear to manage money better than Lehman Brothers and AIG did.
But sometimes you get what you pay for. A maroon who puts a bomb in his underwear has some cognitive dissonance issues.
His handlers decided a ticket to Chicago was too expensive; so they settled for Detroit apparently not aware that any havoc created by blowing up Detroit might not have been noticed.
But what, we ask, is the matter with blowing up Pittsburgh?
The flight to Pittsburgh could have worked out much better. And cheaper, too. A British Airways flight from Amsterdam is only $1,658. Sure it’s economy class, and a bomb in your shorts will make it a tad uncomfortable.
But this “however” note in the Associated Press story caught WTF’s eye: “Abdulmutallab left Yemen in December 2009 and made his way to Ghana, where he paid $2,831 in cash for a round-trip ticket from Nigeria to Amsterdam to Detroit and back.”
Buying one-way tickets is a profile tipoff for terrorists, though a bomb in your shorts apparently isn’t.
Nonetheless, Islamokamikazes who carry round-trip tickets don’t seem as committed to jihad as you’d expect.
2. Gurnee Bombers, WTF?
If the Fourth of July (and Iraq and Afghanistan) doesn’t prove we are a nation that loves to blow up things, this should. These junior jihadists didn’t hide trampoline-destroying bombs in their knickers, (a wise choice) but they were demonstrating our national devotion to explosives. What’s more American?
It might have seemed utilitarian had they just stolen the trampoline instead of doing a Hurt Locker. That would have shown a lack of vision and patriotic spirit. For that, they deserve a WTF attaboys salute.
3. Lottery Numbskull, WTF?
Aren’t some people just too stupid to deserve good luck? That’s a rhetorical question. But the answer is Yes.
WTF is particularly aggrieved with this aspect of the addled lottery winner from the Trib’s account: “The 61-year-old retired truck driver said that he hasn’t decided what he’s going to do with the money. (Ed’s note – 9 million freakin’ dollars!) Though he said he definitely would have been upset had he missed the deadline, he was doing okay before and the prize is hardly life-changing.”
A retired trucker whose life is unchallenged by 9 very large should be put in a WTF home.
4. Ald. Bernard Stone, WTF?
And speaking of being put in a home, consider Berny’s recent aldermanic misfeasance.
Some crimes are evil. Others are merely pathetic. Maybe we need a new word for violations like this.
Evithetic?
Peevil?
Felonious Monk?
Alderman Stone has never looked so old, pitiable and fossilized. Baffled by the concepts of good sportsmanship and ethics, he appears to be running as the standard bearer in the “Elect Me Or I’ll Have To Go Into Assisted Living Party.”
Okay, so Berny is clearly running scared (or maybe it’s ossified?) because his explanation of this event could only be true if . . . well, actually there is no way his explanation could be true.
5. Michael Jordan, WTF?
Aren’t we tired of him yet? Maybe Michael Jordan is a swell guy and we just don’t know the full breadth and depth of his devotion to human causes, but what he seems most intent on contributing to Chicago these days is lousy, overpriced food which he does routinely when the aftertaste of his previous restaurant venture subsides.
True, he is only selling his name to cover someone else’s grubby grub, but as moral high grounds goes, that’s a very short porch.
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Comments welcome.
Posted on March 25, 2011