For Breaking News, Turn to the Encyclopedia

Jesse Walker | July 7, 2005

The most thorough coverage I've seen of the London attacks is in Wikipedia, of all places. The site also has an excellent image gallery, including a screenshot of the communique claiming responsibility for the murders.

I could say more, but I'm trying to respect Kevin Drum's call for "the blogosphere on both left and right to refrain from political point scoring over the London attacks. Just for a day." Tomorrow I'll find a way to pin the blame on Kelo, the FCC, and the obnoxious blogger of my choice. Today I'll just mourn.

Comments

|7.7.05 @ 5:58PM|#

Well...he only said "left and right", so maybe if the libertarians just blame the statists we'll be OK.

No, seriously, the headline is pretty amazing. Maybe Chris Rock can work "we get our news from an encyclopedia" into his bit. A volunteer encyclopedia, no less.

|7.7.05 @ 5:59PM|#

Wow, that's amazing. Thank God for the internet. And thanks for the measured tone Jesse. I'm so fucking glad that the blogosphere in its current hyper-politicized incarnation didn't exist on 9-11. I think it would have made me want to vomit.

Jeff|7.7.05 @ 6:12PM|#

In the future AI Trolls will spider the blogosphere (as well as cameraphone pix and footage posted on Flickr and other sites) and craft ongoing composite/consensus news stories in exactly this fashion. Journalism will condemn it, while secretly using it to fact-check.

|7.7.05 @ 6:47PM|#

I could say more, but I'm trying to respect Kevin Drum's call for "the blogosphere on both left and right to refrain from political point scoring over the London attacks. Just for a day."

You might want to pass that message on to Michael Young

|7.7.05 @ 7:25PM|#

jesse,
smart comments, good link, but mourn today....fuck off tomorrow.

|7.7.05 @ 7:34PM|#

(Not sure where to put this comment, but this is the latest topic.)

I think it's interesting that the bombs went off in Edgware Road and near Liverpool Street. Edgware is the heart of Muslim London, if I remember correctly, and there is a big Pakistani and Bangladeshi community in the Liverpool Street area.

If, as it seems, the perpetrators of this act justify it under the banner of Islam, then...well, then it's really fucked up, just like it is anyway. But it's still interesting.

|7.7.05 @ 7:54PM|#

Most commentators and posters are simply re-hashing the post 9/11 War Against Terror arguments. I'm waiting to find out more information first. Who attacked London and what were their motivations? I don't know, and I'm not going to second-guess on it.
Once I've got some data to work on, then I'll try to score political points. ;-)

|7.7.05 @ 8:25PM|#

I'm going to go even further than Kevin Drum and suggest a longer moratorium (i.e. more than one day) on scoring the same old political points.

If you have a new point to score, go ahead and score it tomorrow. But if your point is "See, I was right and you were wrong on Iraq!" then maybe you should just shut up.

|7.7.05 @ 8:27PM|#

Notice that in my previous post I didn't say which side I was referring to on the matter of Iraq.

|7.7.05 @ 8:43PM|#

With all due respect to Kevin, we don't take that sort of rhetorical break the three times a week when car bombs kill 37 or more people in Iraq, so why should we when London gets hit?

|7.7.05 @ 8:44PM|#

thoreau,

The London attacks don't say much either way about the efficacy or wisdom of attacking Iraq. They do further reinforce the notion that the main battle lines for the war on terrorism are where they have been for a couple of years - in Europe.

|7.7.05 @ 8:46PM|#

Jon H,

Yeah, I'll admit that priviliging London or Baghdad is pretty lame and bigoted.

|7.7.05 @ 8:55PM|#

With all due respect to Kevin, we don't take that sort of rhetorical break the three times a week when car bombs kill 37 or more people in Iraq, so why should we when London gets hit?

Damn good point!

|7.7.05 @ 8:57PM|#

But spur, Mr. Young cleverly concealed his point scoring in a post ostensibly about criticizing people for trying to score points. Therefore it doesn't count.

You know, like a "serious" news source running a serious media analysis story about those tawdry rags, and their stories about Senator Truckbutt having an affair with his receptionist.

|7.7.05 @ 9:28PM|#

Perhaps the blogosphereoverse should institute a London Threshold, and any time 37 people or greater die, anywhere, Kevin's moratorium on vitriol would go into effect for a day.

Franklin Harris|7.7.05 @ 9:58PM|#

Can I pre-register my intent to score a political point by blaming the International Olympic Committee for no particular reason other than my disgust at the committee's insistence on always picking a city that must launch a major public-building operation (Codename: Soak the Taxpayers) to get ready for the games (e.g., London) rather than a city that already has most of the necessary facilities (e.g., Paris, whatever one might thing of the French).

|7.7.05 @ 10:06PM|#

Franklin Harris,

If you saw much of London's presentation on Monday you probably noticed the strong "its for the children" theme.

|7.7.05 @ 10:06PM|#

Correction: I meant Wendesday

Franklin Harris|7.7.05 @ 11:46PM|#

Ugh. Now it's even more sickening.

|7.7.05 @ 11:49PM|#

With all due respect to Kevin, we don't take that sort of rhetorical break the three times a week when car bombs kill 37 or more people in Iraq, so why should we when London gets hit?

Wow... i was fully prepared not to say anything about Iraq for awhile. But in light of this, and thoreau's comment about scoring any new points about Iraq, i offer only this:

I use my ISP's homepage as my default, and there's a breaking news feature on it. The last 3 weeks or so, whenever I've logged in, the front story is "bombs go off in Baghdad, killing XX# people". No lie -- I have at least 4-5 times gone and hit refresh during that time, thinking it was the previous days' news stuck in my browser. Nope. It's happening every single day there. And while I had (thoughtlessly) chalked it up as a by-product of the invasion and gone about my day, I'm looking at it differtnly in light of JonH's comment, and the events of this morning.

When our administration says its made Iraq the "front line" in the so-called "war on terror"(ism), I have to wonder: how do the multitude of innocent citizens of Iraq feel about that? Did they ask for this? Did they participate in any of this, to such an extent that making THEM the occupants of the "front line" justified?

Are we really engaging in nothing more than a "better them than us" campaign? My apologies to anyone who's already said this or has been "scoring points" with it already, but its a brand new thought floating across this tired old mind, and you will find no record of me "scoring points" with it before.

Maybe i'm off-base and not thinking clearly, but such is my feeling at the moment.

|7.8.05 @ 8:19AM|#

Joe don't be mad just because you've already tried for the points.

Jesse Walker|7.8.05 @ 9:50AM|#

Are we really engaging in nothing more than a "better them than us" campaign?

Well, that's the upshot of the "flypaper" theory, beloved by the less thoughtful hawks. Interestingly, some of the people who argue the Iraq war is good because it concentrates the world's terrorists in Iraq are the same people who argue the Iraq war is good because it's finally bringing freedom and security to Iraq. Go figure.

I took a break from political point-scoring when the Iraq invasion began, too. If bombs in London become as novel as bombs in Baghdad, I don't think any of us will be taking breaks. That might be unfair to the later victims, but it's the way it works.

|7.8.05 @ 10:45AM|#

24 hours after the event, and they still don't know much. What the heck are those 1800 cameras for, anyway?

|7.8.05 @ 10:49AM|#

It's July 8, let the point scoring begin!

From www.salon.com

Friday, July 8, 2005
"The time of revenge has come"
Blowback from Bush and Blair's incompetently pursued war on terror has hit London. When will the U.S. figure out how to fight smart?
By Juan Cole