Events in Paris...

[Samurai]

Tend to put things in perspective a bit. At least there was a general desire from the wider population to help those unable to make it home.

[Emoore]

I was at work all afternoon/evening, so I'm only finding out about it in the last hour or so. Cripes.

[Despanan]

This hit me hard last night. What I can't get over is that this is going to be used as a pretext for more military action, which will get more innocent people killed, which will prompt more hate which will prompt more terror attacks...

I feel really bad for the victims and honestly, somewhat bad for the terrorists themselves. I think about the kind of mental state you'd have to be in to do something like this, and what lead you to it and it just sends a shiver up my spine.

[dexeron]

I don't feel bad for the terrorists. I feel bad for the minority populations who will be further marginalized (which is, almost always, one of the purposes of such attacks) which just furthers the cycle.

[Rip]

And yet, practically speaking, France can't NOT react violently to this. For all the hawks demanding that America put some boots on the ground, this year has had it made very clear that France is the cible du jour not us, and they need to show that there are very real consequences for the actions taken ('sides, all OUR terrorists are the crazy white honkies we're squeezing out of the power base anyway).

[Despanan]

Texas, Michigan, and Alabama just banned Syrian refugees, like the cowards they are.

[dexeron]

[Despanan]

[Rip]

[Agent]

Federate the EU. And Africa, while we're at it.