Stroke of the Week: Faisal Shahzad!

You can't spell Faisal without FAIL, and what a colossal fail it was. Faisal Shahzad was woken abruptly from his American dream so he decided to go to terrorist’s summer school for a crash course in boom boom and make a mess. He made himself a little car bomb, parked it in Times Square, scampered away and waited for the horror he had so fiendishly orchestrated. It appears my man was using a rain soaked, incomplete, and poorly edited version of The Anarchist's Cookbook because his attempt left little more than a big smoke bomb and a lay-up for my inaugural stroke of the week award. I was making more effective bombs when I was twelve with a 2 liter of pop and tinfoil. Let's look at where the train went off the tracks.

1. It was easy to track down the car because he neglected to file off both of the VIN #'s. I do more research on one of my blog posts.
2. He used the wrong type of fertilizer. The customer service guys at Home Depot are always screwing me too.
3. He didn't exactly use cutting edge technology. Evan Kohlmann, a terrorism expert at Flashpoint Partners, was most struck by the amateurishness of what he calls "this so-called bomb." The alarm clocks designed to trigger the blast were 1960s-era technology. "Every terror group, every homegrown extremist cell, knows how to use remote detonators," he says. "It doesn't take a Ph.D. in electrical engineering." Beyond that, Kohlmann adds, its overall design ¬ clocks setting off fireworks to ignite gas and gasoline ¬ "doesn't exist outside of Tom and Jerry cartoons."
4. The SUV found in Times Square had been crammed with dozens of M-88 firecrackers, three gas-grill-like propane tanks (their on-off valves twisted shut). I had no problem procuring more powerful firecrackers when I was 10. Yes I grew up in Indiana, a few short miles from Krazy Kaplan's, but come on dude, M-88s?

What he should have done.

Shave that monobrow before taking the Facebook picture. He may have gotten a few more friends requests if he didn't look so damn creepy. Who knows, maybe one of his new internet friends could have filled his little black heart with happiness and he would have decided to do something better with his life like, I don't know, maybe be a good father to his two children.

NYC and Times Square are such cliché spots for a bomb. Doesn't anyone have an imagination anymore? Here are a few other bomb locations that I would have found more entertaining or fruitful:

American Idol studio - Seriously, who would really lose here? He could take out Seacrest, Simon, and all the hopefuls poorly singing other people's songs. I know without Seacrest we wouldn't have "Kepping up with the Karashsians" but I think we would survive. Millions of Americans could utilize the hours they spend licking the orange Cheeto dust off their fingers while they watch Idol and do something more productive like reading, exercising or having intense, engaging debates about the societal impact of shit like Nazi-like immigration laws. Sanjaya!

Any theater room showing "Furry Vengeance" - Who would of thought the statement "Wow, Brendan Frasier really fell off after Encino Man" would actually become accurate? I know about 60,000 people just couldn't wait to waddle their way into see this gem last Saturday, but at the 3,000 screens showing it an average of 8 times, we are talking an average of about 20 people in the theatre.

I do more research on a blog post than this knucklehead did for a terrorist plot that is going to have him getting his ass beat for a long, long time. I propose some kind of prison buddy system so we can pair him up with the prisoner who killed Dahmer.

They should ring up his wife as an accessory too. She knew what he was up to and she didn’t say shit. I read a story where the author speculated that he did this because his ‘life unraveled’. He had enough money to buy the pathfinder and other supplies for his lil’ smoke bomb. Maybe he should have taken that money, bought himself a hot-dog cart and tried to make some money like that Vietnam vet that reported the smoking car to the authorities. Enjoy your stay in Rikers and try the fruitcake, fruitcake.