Addendum

Anyone who's ever seen the movie by the creators of South Park, Team America, knows how utterly brilliant Trey Parker and Matt Stone are. I didn't always like South Park because I thought it was all fart jokes and other humor of a similar intellectual level. Then I actually started paying attention and realized how incredibly brilliant they are. Absolutely nothing is safe from their lampooning (which I applaud, even when they skewer issues/people that I believe in - that's the point of our system), and this was especially clear in Team America.

I mention this because tonight one of the Germans mentioned the movie (because of Matt Damon - hilarious) and it prompted me to look it up again and I found this article. The reason I loved the movie when I saw it originally is because, as the authors say, Parker and Stone take the pompous and the overdone and turn it into the ridiculous (Kim Jong Il singing, anyone?). I honestly can't think of Kim Jong Il any longer without having "I'm so ronery, oh so ronery..." play in my head. Kind of takes the wind out of a dictator's sails when he knows people are laughing at him.

Maybe we should all follow their example. A little more laughter, a little less terror tactics. I don't understand how many of the security measures implemented in recent years have actually helped prevent incidents of terror. Such as the security guard in New York who took my water bottle, or the security lady in Tokyo who jacked my Coke. Yes, indeed - I am planning on wreaking havoc on my next flight with this Coke can. I fail to see how such things make me any safer. But it does make me feel at least a little less unhappy about the threat posed by douchebag jihadists or my own government to think about them perhaps a little more the way Cartman would.