Terror Strikes America's Beloved Times Square!

POW! A lone bicyclist woke up a lot of tourists with his improvised explosive device in Times Square early this morning. But he doesn't seem to have destroyed anything. Not the Quiksilver Board Riders Shop? Not Sephora? Not Planet Hollywood or the freaking headquarters of Vogue? Oh, well. Is this a big deal in the era of the weekly horrific school shooting? Is it a big enough deal even warrant a call on Hillary's famous red phone? Is it a big enough deal to spend the entirety of Crappy Hour discussing? Glamocracy's Megan Carpentier and I will discuss that! And Patrick Swayze, whether Pennsylvania is racist and how Raytheon finally figured out how to help the government spy effectively on us. 3/6/08 NEVER AGAIN KTHANXBAI! After the jump.

MEGAN: Ok, can we start with a moment of silent reflection over the most important news of the last 2 days?
And, by that, I mean the news that Patrick Swayze has cancer.
MOE: Ugh, PANCREATIC cancer. I've never heard of that happening to any celebrity before. Pancreatic cancer is a death sentence. I don't know much about the pancreas but the cancer seems crazily effective at destroying it instantly.
MEGAN: And then, presumably, metastasizing wildly. I know he's doing well, yadda yadda yadda, but I have a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach and not just because someone threw a bomb in Times Square this morning.

MOE: Ack! An IED. Oh for Chrissakes. Funny in the article they call it an "improved explosive device" but I don't think that's right! So they threw the thing in front of the Armed Forces Career Center...a puzzling target if there ever was one. I suppose I should turn on the TV and keep up to the minute on this one. Don't they have like nine thousand security cameras up in that shit? Glad I don't have to sit and pore over all that footage.
MEGAN: There's about to be a press conference! And everyone seems to think it's some sort of liberal protest! It's like our own small-scale, military-recruiting-focused Timothy McVeigh. Way to go, war-protesting, hippie bike-riding dude! Now we're like them!
MOE: Do you think it's an "ecoterrorist"?
MEGAN: Oh, God, right, ELF's back, I forgot about that shit.
MOE: They also got the Mexican Consulate and the British Consulate ...so...they don't like margaritas, and they don't like Chris Hitchens?
Or maybe it's that guy from American Idol.
MEGAN: I do have to say, though, Hitchens' much-trumpeted veneers are really spectacular in person. The rest of him, not so much.
MOE: So anyway, NAFTA. I guess if the Prime Minister really wanted to find the source of that nasty leak that sunk Barack Obama he should have asked his own top aide!
MEGAN: Aw, the dude has that weird baldness tuft that should immediately be buzzed the hell down. And, um, is he a Clinton fan? Or just likes screwing with stuff?
Also, how excited must the Canadians be that we're actually sort of, you know, influenced by them?
The left wants to call in the Mounties! I've been to their training academy. They look sort of doofie on TV but are generally kind of cute and not in a bad-boy Marine kind of way.
MOE: Hahaha that guy they just interviewed looks like my bartender
MEGAN: Ooh, the one downstairs? He's nice.
MOE: So people felt it all the way up on the 44th floor, but it didn't really do anything. I guess we should talk about the implications of this...so what are the implications of this? That knowing some amateurs made a bomb that interrupted the sleep of a bunch of tourists in Time Square who don't have to be at work in the morning anyway ...will be the electoral nail in the coffin of Barack (I never wanted to kill my good friend Saddam) Hussein Obama?
MEGAN: I would think that this sort of crap would piss off the independent voters that either Hillary or Barack need in order to win. It would be like if some crazy right wing guy shot up a gay rights march or something — reasonable people quite reasonably shy away from that kind of shit and the people/candidates/causes it's meant to support or bring attention to.
MOE: Yeah, ugh, whatever, okay; oh god, Charlie Crist, I am getting melanoma just looking at you.
MEGAN: Yeah, he spends a little too much time getting fake baked and then wonders why everyone seems to think he's gay.
MOE: So wait a second, the Republican governor of Florida is coming out in support of counting the delegates Hillary won in the primary in the state where Obama wasn't allowed to campaign? What? Seriously guys, anyone who doesn't think the Republicans are DYING for Hillary to get the nom...does not know enough Republicans. And hey, I can't fault you guys for that. Speaking of, commenter from Pennsylvania who got all snippy at me yesterday for saying they're all racists, 1. I am registered to vote in Pennsylvania so I have the right to say these things and 2. I was referencing the great Ed Rendell himself. Who is also very tanorexic these days. Though definitely not anorexic. Is it a sign of progress that our white politicians are now darker-skinned than our black politicians? Maybe that's why Hillary photoshopped Obama, so he wouldn't look too pale.
MEGAN: Oh, Ed. Here's hoping that shitty comment about your constituents being racist follows you into your own primary race a couple of years from now. If there's anything I can do to help with that, someone please let me know
MOE: How has that recruitment center been doing anyway? Is there any place we can get their numbers? Or is all that some top secret Pentagon shit? Personally I think it's probably a genius idea to be, like, here you are in the worst neighborhood in New York, how bad can Iraq really be? But you have to weigh that against, "ummmm this is what I'm protecting???" P.S. out of town Jezebels and potential terrorists: New York is not all that bad.
MEGAN: I seriously doubt the Pentagon releases center-by-center recruitment stats, but I'll bet the NYC one is more for PR and show than actual recruitment. It's got pretty prominent placement, weirdly, and I feel like it's maybe a historic site or something.
IT was historic, and then they rebuilt it. In 1998, it was the busiest recruiting center in the country, but I'm gonna guess sales have dropped off a bit in 2008.

MOE: Okay so that press conference seemed unremarkable. Oh look, and not another building in New Jersey is collapsing. What an attractive building! Ah, Newark. Can you think of a state with more charming little cities? Elizabeth, Newark, Paterson, Trenton, Camden, ATLANTIC CITY... I love Jersey. I don't know where I was going with that.
MEGAN: I'm meh on Jersey. It's my version of a flyover state.

MOE: Ach, you know, scratch that. Look why the nation doesn't need to be worried about more harmless homegrown terror attacks carried out by lone actors on bicycles? Because the nation's intelligence agencies finally got their shit together to start really spying on us MEGAN: Oh, yay! That probably explains why my computer has been so damn slow today. Hello government moles! Enjoy my utter lack of porn or organization and my many, many Desktop icons.