Charlie Hebdo, un an après

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Charlie Hebdo cover, Jan. 4, 2016. The caption reads, “One year later, the assassin is still at large.” Image from l’Est Républicain

One year after the shootings at Charlie Hebdo that claimed the lives of its top staff, the magazine has released a double-length special edition issue with the cover above.

Hostages at Discovery Channel Building

If you’ve passed a TV set in the past few hours, you may have heard that some nutjob walked into the Discovery Channel building in Silver Spring, MD with a gun and possibly a bomb, and took hostages.

Apparently this is his plan to stop human overpopulation, war, pollution, and species extinction. He wants Discovery to air a game show. Oh, and CNN mentioned in passing that he’s an atheist.

So first of all, I hope the hostages are okay, that they get out safely, and that the hostage-taker gets the mental help he so obviously needs.

And secondly, a quick message to the gunman, James Lee:

Get off my team!

Basically, I want to condemn this act in no uncertain terms this. As, I would hope, any reasonable person would do.

I can only assume that the right-wingers and creationists are going to be making hay out of this for years to come, and I’m not looking forward to that.

Fuck.

Update, Wed Sep 1 17:53:44 2010: ABC news is reporting that Lee has been shot and killed by law enforcement, and that the hostages are safe.