The London attack

I guess I can't let it pass without saying something, so here we go:

*  as you would expect, the reactionary Right is bouncing off the walls:  I do believe I saw someone at Catallaxy suggesting internment for Muslims already here yesterday. (!)   Andrew Bolt is of course doing his best Pauline Hanson impersonation,  and I guess she will get some polling boost from this, especially from the backwoods of Queensland, where they've almost certainly never been within a 1,000 km of a Muslim, but they know they wouldn't like any of them if they did meet them.

*  The level of fearful reaction is, of course, aided entirely by modern media's saturation coverage.  I'm not saying that the media is wrong to provide long coverage - I watch it myself for longer than it warrants - but of course it can inadvertently encourage wannabe terrorists that if they do something similar, they can create a lot of consternation and fear throughout the entire West.  (And the worst at confirming that to them are the likes of Andrew Bolt and the reactionary Right.)

*  What's the bet that this will again turn out to be "home grown" terrorists?   Which would make the proposed Muslim immigration ban rather irrelevant (possibly harmful) in the short term, and as for the long term - well, I think it fair to say that the geo-political circumstances that lead to terrorist movements targetting the West generally don't last more than about 30 years, do they?  (People really need to remember the 1970's more often.)   Particularly with the defeat of IS, one would hope (and one could be completely wrong) that the radicalised arm of Islam will be beaten back into its shell for a while; hopefully permanently.

*  That all said, of course such low tech attacks are shocking and evil.   I thought that Theresa May's response sounded pretty good, really.  

*  We don't really hear much lately about the success of the West's efforts to target IS and radical Islam on the internet.   You certainly don't see much in the way of IS PR videos repeated in the media any more, but have they made the more secretive communications more difficult as well?

*  I would have thought that Trump's tweets would actually hinder him further in his proposed Muslim immigration ban.   But we all know he's so dumb that he won't give up his phone to advisers who know he is hurting his cause on twitter.  

*  I like in particular how the US Ambassador has contradicted Trump on the matter of the London mayor, who is a favourite target of the American Right for daring to be Muslim.  

* Speaking of Trump and his rushes to judgement - I could almost forgive him for assuming that the deadly Manila casino resort attack last week was Muslim inspired, given the trouble with Muslims in parts of that country, but he really shouldn't have said it out loud.   Here it is, fully confirmed - the attacker was in fact a guy, a former public servant, with a big gambling debt. (!)