When inanimate objects attack

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Last updated on July 21st, 2017 at 02:57 pm

The Age, running an AAP item, blames public transport:

On July 7 three trains and a bus in London killed 56 people – including the four suspected suicide bombers – and wounded 700.

In related news, the World Trade Center killed nearly 3000 people on September 11.

(Via reader OneManGang)

Posted by Tim B. on 07/25/2005 at 09:10 AM
    1. What are the chances the suspected suicide bombers would be on those three killer trains and that killer bus? It’s almost as if it were planned. I blame Karl Rove.

      Posted by bobpence on 2005 07 25 at 10:29 AM • permalink

 

    1. You’re on to something. Hotels and thatched-roof huts killed thousands at the same time a tsunami hit southeast Asia awhile back.

      Posted by paco on 2005 07 25 at 10:31 AM • permalink

 

    1. Only the Age can get away with printing such tosh day after day. What next? a rather naughty plane caused the Lockerbie crash?

      Posted by Nic on 2005 07 25 at 10:35 AM • permalink

 

    1. those pesky inanimate objects – i blame all those wire coat hangers proliferating in our wardrobes

      Posted by KK on 2005 07 25 at 10:36 AM • permalink

 

    1. or in Rove’s closet

      Posted by KK on 2005 07 25 at 10:37 AM • permalink

 

    1. o/t – did u see sheik omran on lateline trying to weasel out of saying bin liner is a good guy? and tony jones letting him get away with it?

      Posted by KK on 2005 07 25 at 10:40 AM • permalink

 

    1. A little bit off-message, but did you see Ramsay in the SMH:

      Meanwhile, know that our Prime Minister has another birthday on Tuesday – his 66th. Expect he and Janette will likely spend it, in front of the television cameras, with Australian forces from Iraq flown to Oman for the occasion. You can bet they won’t go to Iraq itself.

      Much too dangerous.

      Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 07 25 at 10:48 AM • permalink

 

    1. News item in the SMH the days after the above:

      Prime Minister John Howard has made a top-secret visit to Iraq to meet with Australian troops and hold talks with Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari

      Ramsay, to state the obvious, in an idiot and a disgrace.

      Posted by Susan Norton on 2005 07 25 at 11:03 AM • permalink

 

    1. Sweet Jaysus.  I’m always prepared to see the worst from lefties, but you really gotta hope that was just Grauniad-level proofreading…

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 25 at 11:05 AM • permalink

 

    1. Eureka!  It’s the Root Cause!

      Posted by Patricia on 2005 07 25 at 11:12 AM • permalink

 

    1. US newspapers structure their copy in the same manner regarding SUV’s.

      “X people were hurt when a_____SUV crashed into a ___”

      “X people died today when a ____SUV went out of control or lost control and ____”

      Posted by yojimbo on 2005 07 25 at 11:20 AM • permalink

 

    1. So lefties support mass transit to provide better targets?

      Posted by richard mcenroe on 2005 07 25 at 11:25 AM • permalink

 

    1. They should stick to passive voice—at least they can’t screw up a subject that way.

      Posted by Tommy Shanks on 2005 07 25 at 11:33 AM • permalink

 

    1. yojimbo,

      It’s the same with all vehicle accidents: they studiously avoid anything remotely appearing to assign blame to any actual person involved. Even seemingly innocuous statements like “lost control of the vehicle” are rare.

      Very politically correct, wouldn’t you say?

      Posted by Spiny Norman on 2005 07 25 at 11:42 AM • permalink

 

    1. One man’s terrorist is another man’s train or bus.

      Posted by DwayneMH on 2005 07 25 at 12:15 PM • permalink

 

    1. Oh, come on now.  Trains and buses are vehicles of peace, after all.

      Posted by RebeccaH on 2005 07 25 at 12:59 PM • permalink

 

    1. It’s because they live in Oz, where deadly domiciles are a danger.

      I love the smell of alliteration in the morning.

      Posted by Achillea on 2005 07 25 at 01:39 PM • permalink

 

    1. They’ve written of people ‘killed by guns’ for decades.  It’s a logical extension.

      Posted by jic on 2005 07 25 at 02:06 PM • permalink

 

    1. Even if The Age is trying to avoid blaming anyone, why not say that bombs killed 56 people?  At least in shooting cases, the gun is the material cause of the shooting.  Here, however, the vehicles were in no way a contributing cause to the deaths.  Hence the sentence isn’t just a standard newspaper attempt to avoid blame—it implies that no one is to blame.

      Posted by Bill Ramey on 2005 07 25 at 05:29 PM • permalink

 

    1. Andrew Jaspan probably didn’t want to be insensitve to the arseholes….murderouse child killing scum….cowards….terrorists….defenders of Islam by openly connecting them with that icky killing thingy that starts with “T”

      Posted by Michael42 on 2005 07 25 at 05:39 PM • permalink

 

    1. They’ve written of people ‘killed by guns’ for decades.  It’s a logical extension

      And yet there is this:

      The warning comes after police…shot dead a Brazilian man on Friday….

      It seems sometimes it is okay to designate blame.

      Posted by debo.v2 on 2005 07 25 at 06:04 PM • permalink

 

    1. The press provides no details of HOW the Brazilian ran away from the (plainclothes?) police and jumped a turnstile and ran on to a train. I assume the cops shouted “Police here, stop and put your hands up” or similar formula. Running away from armed police is poor tactics, better to stop and put your hands up, surely? I believe that in New York City, running away from a cop when challenged is a form of suicide.Until we get more detail about this aspect of the London affair, better not to join the hue and cry against the cops?

      Posted by percypup on 2005 07 25 at 07:33 PM • permalink

 

    1. So OBL is now using the public transport version of Carrie? That explains alot!

      Posted by Andrew Ian Dodge on 2005 07 25 at 07:42 PM • permalink

 

    1. tthomas2: To be fair to the Brazilian, the cops were plainclothes.  Last Saturday’s edition of the London Daily Telegraph showed a picture of one of the cops at the scene after the shooting (the picture is not on their online edition, or I’d link to it.  They do not claim that the man shown actually shot the Brazilian).  He is wearing jeans, a t-shirt and sneakers, and carrying a folding-stock carbine of a type I’m not familiar with (it appears to be rifle caliber, and it has a carrying handle/sight rail that stretches from the receiver to near the end of the barrel.  It’s not a bullpup).  If I saw that man running towards me yelling and brandishing his weapon, and I didn’t know it was a cop, I would probably try to get away. 

      The question here is if the cops identified themselves properly or not.  If they didn’t, I hope they are thrown off the force, and that the family sues the crap out of them.  If they did, then this is just one of those things.

      Posted by jic on 2005 07 25 at 08:11 PM • permalink

 

    1. It’s easy to understand how an article like this could happen:

      This is what happens when five editors are totally committed to the same goal, avoiding making terrorists look bad, but can’t quite figure out how to do it.

      Posted by Aaron – Freewill on 2005 07 25 at 08:35 PM • permalink

 

    1. Public transportation? That’s for losers and lesbians.

      Homer Simpson

      Posted by Art Vandelay on 2005 07 25 at 08:45 PM • permalink

 

    1. Andrew Ian Dodge,

      sonr you mean Christine?

      Posted by jpaulg on 2005 07 25 at 08:48 PM • permalink

 

    1. OT, but now even BBC reporters think that The Power of Nightmares was bullshit.

      [Copy the shortcut to the address bar, and remove: ]/ee/index.php?URL=]

      Posted by jic on 2005 07 25 at 09:17 PM • permalink

 

    1. That’s nothing. Every year coconuts stealthily wait up those trees to kill 150 people.  There should be an investigation!

      Posted by allan on 2005 07 25 at 10:20 PM • permalink

 

    1. I think so too, allan.  The most frightening thing is the way the coconuts make people stand under the trees!

      Posted by jic on 2005 07 25 at 10:41 PM • permalink

 

    1. Tim, you really should be more careful with your headlines. I thought for a moment Margot Kingston had got vaguely near one of her targets…

      Posted by kywong73 on 2005 07 25 at 10:49 PM • permalink

 

    1. Hm. You could argue that most of the people who died at the World Trade Center were killed by the building collapsing, though you would be dishonest if you omitted exactly what caused the building to collapse.

      Unfortunately, attributing the deaths in London on 7/7 to the vehicles won’t work. It was definitely the bombs going off inside that killed those people. AFAIK no one was run over by the bus or any of the trains.

      I guess they could claim heat, fragments and expanding gasses killed them. No human intervention involved… except for activating the detonator, of course. 😛

      Posted by Patrick Chester on 2005 07 25 at 11:49 PM • permalink

 

    1. What the hell? How exactly does the AAP screw up so badly?

      Posted by Nic White on 2005 07 26 at 02:33 AM • permalink

 

    1. #27 jpaulg… Actually Christine AND Carrie both work… one being a violent vehicle and the other being a volatile virgin :).  Carrie DID manage to blow up a few things.

      Posted by mamapajamas on 2005 07 26 at 02:43 AM • permalink

 

    1. Patrick,
        There is no way you can blame humans for activating the detonator.  Blame:  Force = Mass*Acceleration

      Detonators require force.  Now that I think about it, “Force” is a common cause of every terrorist attack in the history of mankind.

      Posted by DwayneMH on 2005 07 26 at 11:19 AM • permalink

 

    1. Dwayne: Now that I think about it, “Force” is a common cause of every terrorist attack in the history of mankind.

      Are you sure?  I’m told it was the US.

      Posted by Achillea on 2005 07 26 at 11:45 AM • permalink

 

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