A Lileks Mini-Rant

James Lileks used to have a feature at his site called "the Rant" in which he would cut loose with some of the sharpest and funniest diatribes on the net. He's discontinued it and I miss it, but every once in a while he interrupts his whimsical maunderings to cut loose with a nice dash of venom. Today is a good example. Asked about whether he was worried about a terrorist attack near his home he replied in part:

Somehow I’ve avoided the FEAR and PARANOIA and PERMANENT WAR HYSTERIA that we’re supposedly fed 24/7. You know how it goes; if you believe there’s actually a credible threat from Islamofascists – well, no, that’s not the right word, because it’s inflammatory, inaccurate, racist, and is used as a code-word for an exterminationist agenda founded in a desire to control all the oil in the Middle East and convert it to Christianity. So call it the Small but Legally Containable Conservative Religion threat, since that reminds us that all religions are equally dangerous when taken to extremes. I mean, Fred Phelps, Catholic priests, Timothy McVeigh, and that little thing called the Crusades. Also the Inquisition and the persecution of Galileo. No one has clean hands here, except for me, because I washed them before I put that clever COEXIST bumpersticker on my car.

Read it here.