I love it when some tragedy occurs and I run across a bumper sticker or license plate holder bearing a pithy political message; in this case, driving down the road, I see someone’s political statement as thus: Gun control means using both hands.

Just like the Virginia Tech killer, right?

I kept falling asleep during the talking head marathon held right after the killings: gun control nuts and gun ownership nuts couldn’t rush to an open mic fast enough to tell why we should/should not have gun control as the blood was still wet in Virginia Tech classrooms. I previously mentioned that it didn’t take long for the right-wing fucks of hate-radio to start pissing on the victims and take their own cowardly shots at liberals and the left. The media kept asking the same lame-ass questions they’ve had on file since Columbine and other school shootings and looked Very, Very Concerned as they sign off on their slick packages for broadcast to talk about something Very, Very Important to All Americans.

More media bullshit. How many school shootings do you need? Apparently, we need to just adopt the modus operandi of the Bush Administration and admit some mistakes were made (a mentally ill son-of-a-bitch manages to purchase a handgun, and the gun shop is exempt from being sued) but hey, we’ll do better the next time. Let’s quickly move on.

Just like Hurricane Katrine, or as I like to call it: The Destruction of an American City by a Natural Disaster. The Washington Post published a report today that the government has, well, pretty much fucked up the aftermatch. Fifty-five of 77 countries offering aid are turned down; a fraction of the almost $830 million used and nobody knows where the rest has gone. This is fucking brilliant; after losing hundreds of millions of dollars in the reconstruction effort for Iraq, why not repeat that pattern for a disaster here at home? As I mentioned above, how many times does shit like this have to happen before you realize that this is beyond inexcusable and possibly criminal? And why do I keep asking the same question over and over?

Well, off to watch George Tenet’s “not my fault” routine on “60 Minutes.”

Well, well, well, here it is, right on schedule: the right-wing fucks of this country are already starting to blame the victims of Monday’s shooting at Virginia Tech for not “fighting back” or being man enough to take down the shooter.

Led by James Derbyshire of the National Review, this sad douchebag has suddenly told us what he would do in these cases, because you know, Reublicans are real men and therefore, the Virginia Tech victims must have been latte-swilling, effete Democrats who accepted their deaths as their own fault.

This is why I loathe Republicans: they hate, hate, and hate some more and are very adept at questioning just about everything but their own lack of conscience and that moral gap they mistake for heartburn. I would love to know if Mr. Derbyshire (a faggy name if there ever was one) has any military credentials that we would be aware of: his service in Vietnam, any awards of bravery, or any police commendations for stopping a bank robbery bare-handed before delivering a baby and saving orphans from doom in a burning building. The very notion that asking such obscene questions is legitimate is something only chickenhawks could consider as a free exchange of ideas.

The comments alone are indicative of the soulless nature of these fucks, but proves one adverse effect of video games and violent movies: they make it look easy to vanquish someone with a weapon, by performing some little aerial stunt or defying the laws of physics. So, a douchebag like Mr. Derbyshire will mistake action movies for being applicable to real life; perhaps he thinks a fired bullet will travel in slow motion or have those cool little waves in its wake while the “real man” deftly avoids it by bending over, “Matrix-style” and then beating the shooter up with a book.

So, here is an excerpt from Salon’s Tim Grieve, copied here for your edification:

At a convocation on the campus of Virginia Tech University this afternoon, Gov. Tim Kaine praised students for asking "how we take care of each other" before demanding to know what went wrong and who’s to blame for Monday’s shootings.

President George W. Bush took a similar approach, saying that while it’s "impossible to make sense of such violence and suffering," it’s important to remember that "those whose lives were taken did nothing to deserve their fate. They were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now they’re gone, and they leave behind grieving families and grieving classmates and a grieving nation."

Bush, speaking with an eloquence that evoked his best days after 9/11, mixed talk of faith with fatherly emotion. He quoted a message from a student -- "We’re all Hokies" -- and he told the students gathered in the hall: "People who have never met you are prayin’ for you."

Over at the National Review, John Derbyshire is taking a different tack: "Where was the spirit of self-defense here?" he asks. "Setting aside the ludicrous campus ban on licensed conceals, why didn’t anyone rush the guy? It’s not like this was Rambo, hosing the place down with automatic weapons. He had two handguns for goodness’ sake -- one of them reportedly a .22."

Keep talking, John.

"At the very least," Derbyshire says, students could have counted the shots and jumped the shooter while he was reloading. "Better yet," he says, "just jump him. Handguns aren’t very accurate, even at close range. I shoot mine all the time at the range, and I still can’t hit squat. I doubt this guy was any better than I am. And even if hit, a .22 needs to find something important to do real damage -- your chances aren’t bad."

Is this for real?

"Yes, yes," Derbyshire says, "I know it’s easy to say these things: but didn’t the heroes of Flight 93 teach us anything? As the cliche goes -- and like most cliches, it’s true -- none of us knows what he’d do in a dire situation like that. I hope, however, that if I thought I was going to die anyway, I’d at least take a run at the guy."

Now, who out there wasn’t thinking that the shooting in Virginia wasn’t caused by a Muslim, or thought it was a terrorist attack?

A case of domestic terrorism, to be sure, or rather more explicitly, a case of mass murder, but these events always are quickly followed by scores of folks who want to capitalize on tragedy to make their cheap political points. In other words, it’s just another day in America.

Right on the heels of the shooting comes the predictable issue of gun control, trotted out by the media with the standard phrases over how a tragedy brings the “debate” back to the foreground. It’s typical of these short-sighted fucks to start acting all serious and do that little understanding nod as they track down survivors and NRA nuts and gun-control freaks who keep yelling, “See! See!” when some bastard decides to kill a lot of other folks.

Remember a time when people who were depressed just ended their own lives and it was at that? I wonder when the “trend” of mass murder preceding suicide actually started (and no, I’m not talking about the suicide bombers who aren’t depressed since they think they’re headed for a heavenly fuck-fest). From the sketchy details, it looks like this sack of shit just wanted to die and decided it would be best to kill a bunch of other people because he hated his own life so much. Rot in hell, you bastard. Rot in hell. I don’t need to see this fuck’s beany, pinched face splashed across newspapers and Web sites any more: keep it off.

But of course, you know the media: if it bleeds, it leads, which is why we have the immediate sentimentalizing of this violence. From the slick graphics to the tragedy music, the media quickly moves into the role of national counselor, telling how we’re all grieving. Hey, let me tell you something, I’m mad as hell this sack of shit killed other people, but stop telling me that I’m grieving. I’m not. Stop pretending this is a village of 300 people, not a country of 300 million who went on their daily business. Stop acting like you have something personal in this; you don’t. Media fucks are there to get a story, file it and look concerned: the grieving is left to the families, who have to live with this for the rest of their lives.

Bet you thought I’d sneak Iraq into all this, right?

It’s hard for me to stay neutral about the recent capture, parading around, and release of fifteen British sailors. For me, it’s a question of whom I dislike more, the British or the Iranian government.

Right now, I’m leaning towards chalking up the Iranians as the villains here, but in any analysis, they’ve managed to stage an impressive propaganda points against the West. What terrible timing this is for the West in general: just as the issue of sanctions over Teheran’s nuclear weapons development seems to have some teeth, this incident puts that on the back burner and makes Albion squirm and wriggle. It’s the perfect distraction for the Iranian masses who still unhappy with the direction Bush, I mean, Ahmadinejad is steering his country.

It just feeds my sense that the Iranians are getting away with just about everything here, and making the West looks either incompetent or weak. I almost certainly believe some negotiations were conducted to secure the sailor’s release, but no one will know for sure until either Blair is gone (when will this guy get out?) or that stiff upper lip quivers just a bit.

The Shatt al-Arab waterway has long been a point of contention between Iraq and Iran; I’m sure an incident like this would have happened to somebody even if our Iraqi Expedition had remained just a masturbatory fantasy in the neocons’ heads. During the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, a massive amount of energy, weaponry and lives were expended to capture, then recapture the Faw peninsula, a finger thin strip of land that abuts the waterway. Ahh, nothing like killing in the name of a few meters of territory.

I admit, however, that I was definitely annoyed by the preening of the Iranians over this incident, capped off by awarding medals to the soldiers who took the British mariners hostage. It’s theater straight out of an Soviet propaganda film, made doubly ridiculous over the fact that the British vessel was a small one, and it’s unlikely the Iranians would have pulled such a stunt had the H.M.S. Cornwall not been out of visual range. But I suppose that question is left for the British as they investigate how the hell this little capture even happened in the first place.

Last note: only a bunch of assholes would start to make an issue over the military service of women. At least there’s an equal number of such individuals in both Britain and Iran since that’s become a sub-topic over the whole mess.

Yeah, so like, it’s a real learning experience for everybody. Terrific.