Man from Leeds has selfie taken with Terrorist plane hijacker

[Faust]

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/mar/30/briton-ben-innes-posed-selfie-egyptair-hijacker-praised-by-relatives

At first this had me rolling my eyes but the more I think about it, the more this makes me laugh.

Its a small stupid little action but it has done more to undermine the fear narrative of the media of the last year. If anything its a huge knock to Isis who want to push themselves as a serious and credible threat, effectively deflating their currency of fear bought with the Paris and Brussels attacks.

I nominate this lunkhead for Discordian sainthood, for unintentionally or intentionally clawing back some of the sanity in this shitty world.



This whole story made my day better, the Terrorist is someone who hijacked the plane to go see his Ex-Wife who had just left him. His bomb belt turned out to be pencil cases, ethernet cable, an toothbrush charger etc. Hopefully he's not being water-boarded too much wherever he is.

[Bruno]

The image has been widely described as a "selfie", but Innes' mother Pauline Innes argued that it was clear her son did not take the image himself.

"All we can say is that the picture is clearly not a selfie as everyone has been describing it," she said. "You can clearly see that it is not Ben who is taking the picture. He's in it but he's not taking it."

This. I mean, why misuse the word "selfie" when you have a perfectly good aptromisnomer like "photobomb" to misuse instead?

Also, apparently I just invented the word "aptromisnomer".

Yay me.

[Faust]

I forgot to mention that, arguments are breaking out pretty much everywhere this article was posted of people arguing that this isn't a selfie which makes the whole thing even better in my mind.

[Junkenstein]

The unusual thing for me is that the guy isn't wearing a uniform. There's plenty of pictures leaked where police/others pose with suspects/offenders. That's done for various reason from PR to intimidation so it's odd that this can't really be used for either.

It could be the start of an interesting trend at least. Until it goes a little wrong.


As a total aside, his apparent career is H+S. Because of course it is.

[Faust]

After a bit of cyberstalking and the interview he gave I don't think he was security services. However it is possible I am drastically underestimating how dopey they could be.

[hirley0]

11rabbit 10UO