Build Date: Tue Jul 14 22:40:07 2026 UTC
The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.
-- H.L. Mencken
Wish I Could Have Done This When I Was Seventeen
1999-12-16 14:12:18
I feel so damn old today after reading the news. Not because of any of the usual things that I hear out of my peer's mouths, but because of what happened at Columbine High School this week.
You see, when I was growing up, if we needed to get out of an important test that we knew we wouldn't pass even if Jesus came down and filled in the answers for us, the only thing that could be done was to fake being sick. If that wasn't possible, the only other alternative was to phone in a bomb threat.
To make it sound like it wasn't an obvious hoax, you had to be able to say what type of bomb it was, when it was set to go off, and disguise your voice.
And believe me, it sounds easier that it actually was.
These days, all a kid has to do is hop onto the Internet, fire up an IRC program, find the appropriate chat group, log on and type something to the likes of "Tomorrow, I think I'll pick up where Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold left off." Three minutes later, people are panicking, the school is closed, and chaos rules the area.
Lucky bastards! I envy you!

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