There is no conspiracy to shoot people

Bush has called, several times now, for the confirmation process for John Roberts to be “dignified.” First, let’s all take a moment out of our busy day to contemplate Flight Suit Boy lecturing other people about dignity. I can’t even imagine how he defines dignity in this context (but then, I can’t imagine him spelling dignity). Possibly for him, nothing says dignity and gravitas like abject capitulation and subservience, like that butler he always calls Jeeves, whose name is not actually Jeeves, who always says Yes sir, at once sir, in that fruity accent.

Met Chief Sir Ian Blair says the “shoot-to-kill-in-order-to-protect” policy will remain, acknowledging that a few more innocent civilians may well get wacked, but what the hey. He suggests Londoners cheerfully accept the risk they now face because the intentions of the police who may soon be shooting them in the head are just so darned good: “there is no conspiracy to shoot people.” No indeed, my computer’s dictionary defines a conspiracy as “a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful,” and there’s nothing secret about this, Sir Ian just announced the plan before God and everyone.

And in fact Londoners have pretty much done what he suggests. Bionic Octopus points to a comments page on the BBC website which is just full of outpourings of sympathy for the true victims of this whole affair: the poor, poor peelers who shot Jean Charles de Menezes repeatedly in the head.

Fortunately, Pope Benny has prayed for God to stop terrorism, so that should take care of that problem.