I awoke this morning to a tremendous backlog of tweets and wondered what I had missed. Last night, President Obama made the announcement that Osama Bin Laden had been killed. While I have yet to watch the speech, it doesn't take much to grasp this is a huge event that will surely have the media and blogosphere buzzing for weeks. That's years in CNN time.
I'm not usually for the execution of any human being and, like I said, I haven't heard the President's speech on this topic. I would have preferred for Bin Laden to face court and a life sentence, if it was safe to leave him alive. In my first thoughts, I wondered if killing him would be viewed as a punishment by his followers - they all believe that they are going to heaven for killing themselves and others as it is.
I won't get too serious until I've had the ability to really understand what this all means. Until that point, I will include my favorite Twitter announcements of the night, some serious, but mostly humorous:
Prior to the speech:
@DarrenCriss: Man I hope it's aliens. Come onnnnn, Aliens. A-LI-ENS! A-LI-ENS! A-LI-ENS!
During and After:
@andrewslack: thank you to @Dunklekuh81 for letting me know that world's most evil terrorist and most famous vlogger, Osama bin Laden is dead
@jackiemorgan: Topics trending worldwide right now: Osama Bin Laden and Hermione Granger. Please tell me Hermione is the one who took him out.
@BonesMcCoy: He's dead Jim. #BinLaden
@emilyglangston: Here's to hoping he didn't make any horcruxes... #BinLaden
@orangejuicejen: The world is tweeting up a storm, but I wonder, will this really change anything? #osamabinladen
@karenkavett: It's amazing how connected you can feel to the human population through twitter when news breaks, even if you're sitting alone in your room.
@jimmyfallon: Got Bin Laden AND interrupted Celebrity Apprentice? Win for Obama all around.
@RealMegGriffin: Osama Bin Laden is dead. Now lets find Waldo and Carmen Sandiego.
@TruebieDoobyDoo: CONFIRMED, Bin Laden's last word: "Polo."
@laurenmyrtle: I feel pretty weird about celebrating a death, but it's crazy to think about kids in school reading about this in history books someday.
@realjohngreen: Like many people, I feel like celebrating. Remember this feeling. It is human, and can help us understand when others express bloodlust.
@maureenjohnson: The BBC coverage of what's going on at home right now kind of makes me want to crawl under a desk. But that's just me. Though I am liking all the jokes about how Osama bin Laden shouldn't have put his contact info on his Playstation.
I think these basically sums up my feelings at this point:
@uncultured: "I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure." - Mark Twain
@SimonJCLeBON: The death of #obl does not inspire me to celebrate, rather to mourn the many who've died in this pointless conflict of ideals.
