I was walking down Massachusetts Avenue in 2002 when Dick Cheney's motorcade of about 15 vehicles roared by, sirens wailing, toward the White House. I thought to myself, Wow, I don't know ... If I had to put the rest of the world to so much trouble every time I wanted to go to a Cabinet meeting to bully the President into invading Iraq, I'd probably just stay home and not bother.
But now I think: Cheney was a piker by Chechen standards ... Via Iron Rails Iron Weights, here's video of Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov going for a drive. I count at least 82 government vehicles (followed by a couple of dozen scragglier cars that perhaps were driven by in-laws of Presidential dogwalkers and other lesser members of the Kadyrov entourage).
I hear more than a dozen bursts from automatic weapons being fired into the air from the Presidential motorcade.
Admit it: What else are sunroofs good for? You let that car salesman talk you into spending an extra $3400 on the LX package with the sunroof, but you've barely opened it since.
If you were a Chechen, however, you could shoot your AK-47 off through the sunroof while steering with your left elbow and swigging vodka from the bottle (or, if it were Ramadan, chewing some primo khat).
Admit it: What else are sunroofs good for? You let that car salesman talk you into spending an extra $3400 on the LX package with the sunroof, but you've barely opened it since.
If you were a Chechen, however, you could shoot your AK-47 off through the sunroof while steering with your left elbow and swigging vodka from the bottle (or, if it were Ramadan, chewing some primo khat).
Also, in Chechnya an automatic weapon makes an excellent lane change signal in case the bulb in your tail light has burned out. Don't you hate it when that happens?A lot of things would be awesomer if you were a Chechen.
Have you ever noticed that chicks dig Chechens? I'm just sayin ...
P.S., In my Comments, some spoil-sport good government weenie adds:
Are you sure? It's hard to tell, but what's that stuttering sound at 3:39 to 3:41?
Yeah, but they are mostly obeying the speed limit, so what's the fun of that?
You got something against vibrancy?
As Ramzan Kadyrov would say, Average Is Over!
Have you ever noticed that chicks dig Chechens? I'm just sayin ...
P.S., In my Comments, some spoil-sport good government weenie adds:
Here's a higher quality video of a different Kadyrov motorcade.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rk1adOy6d1c
No automatic gunfire though.
Are you sure? It's hard to tell, but what's that stuttering sound at 3:39 to 3:41?
But this one has 6 minutes of cars going past.
Yeah, but they are mostly obeying the speed limit, so what's the fun of that?
I can confirm that just when you think it's over, those are the crappier cars and it's still the motorcade.
To Steve's point - can you imagine being so self-important that you have 100 cars escort you? Can you imagine debasing yourself by being the driver of some psychopath's 100th escort car?
Is this a good time to be a manufacturer of siren units for cars?
If we had Steve's immigration safety board, would they notice any problems with immigrants from countries where the police fire their weapons out the window?
You got something against vibrancy?
P.S. In Tyler Cowen's Beantopia, there will be a certain number of promising new jobs as the drivers of 200th-300th cars in motorcades.
As Ramzan Kadyrov would say, Average Is Over!