Terrorist attempt

The events of the past couple of days have depressed me. A westernized looking Muslim planted a (lame) bomb and two days later was able to board Emirates airlines.

Ugh. Not helpful in, oh, so many ways.

Here are some random thoughts:

1. Most of the press stories are not covering the fact that it was a Muslim immigrant who notified the police about the smoking SUV.

2. The "Muslim terrorist" angle does not seem not to fit. Why? There's no sign he was/is religious. As much as we like to have convenient stories that match our preconceived notions this guy's story is not a match: He was a mediocre business student who switched to computer science. After graduating he went on for his MBA, gained American citizenship, married a natural born American and had two kids. He had a decent job and lost it (no story yet on how that happened). His house went into foreclosure. He took his family to Pakistan before returning to the US.

At this point it is just as likely that the job loss and foreclosure had as much to do with the terrorist attack as his religion. Of course, it's too early to tell, but that hasn't stopped politicians from going off the deep end.