Yule Heibel’s Post Studio © 2003-2009

Oil as investment

And another thing…

Is it a symptom of things to come that Bloomberg.com can report that crude oil prices fell after today’s terrorist attacks in London because oil is no longer just a commodity, but also an investment?

“The plunge shows that energy has become an investment and not just a commodity,” said John Kilduff, vice president of risk management at Fimat USA in New York. “Investors panicked on word of the attack and fled to quality, to gold, bonds and other safer harbors. Prices are rebounding because there is a potential Category 3 storm in the Gulf.” [More...]

Sad, not shocking

Der Spiegel (also available in an English-language international online edition) has extensive coverage of Thursday morning’s terrorist attacks in London. The magazine also excerpts from a Purported Al-Qaida Letter [that] Claims Responsibility for Bombing, and there’s another page with constantly updated ticker tape reports.

The purported claim of responsibility for the bombing is a despicable rant that asks the “community of Muslims” to “rejoice” because “heroic mujahedeens” managed to attack London. For a start, that’s wrong; they did not attack “London,” they killed and maimed innocent civilians. Nor are the people who did this “heroic,” they are cowardly terrorists. Yet they think they are people who are larger than life, as they boast that Great Britain is now shocked “in the north, the south, west and east.”

It’s saddening, but not shocking.

I know this is irreverent of me, but after reading the gloating rant purportedly written by the terrorists, I flashed on an old Avengers episode, Epic, set in swinging 60s London. In this episode, Emma Peel is victimised by a couple of old film stars who, in a bid to create a comeback film called The Destruction of Emma Peel, play a pair of gruesome villains about to kill Mrs. Peel. As he cranks the camera, their equally demented director, Z.Z. von Schnerk, admonishes them to “gloat! gloat, my pretties, gloat over your victim!” They do indeed gloat furiously, but, sotto voce, the ever-cool Mrs. Peel tells them, “Gloat all you want, but just remember, I’m the star of this picture.”

Terror just doesn’t draw the right kind of attention to its cause. The victims will initially be the more compelling stars, wherever they are (in the West, in the Middle East, wherever).

The victims will be more compelling and credible, until, that is, the terrorists manage to become the status quo or get into power. And: if that has already happened, then we have terrorists fighting terrorists, which makes all the rest of us victims, unconscious stars of our own destruction.