pudge's Journal: If Only

I was watching a story about Timothy McVeigh on MSNBC last weekend.

I noticed something in the old pictures of him I'd never seen before. He was wearing a Buffalo Bills t-shirt. McVeigh was a native of the Buffalo area.

The Buffalo Bills hold the record for short-term futility in professional sports in the U.S. They lost four consecutive Super Bowls, from 1991-1994. McVeigh blew up Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building just over a year after their final loss, in April 1995.

The program noted, if only McVeigh had some entrance into mainstream society, his frustrations likely would not have pushed him to the fringes, and to the destruction of a federal office building. If only he had been accepted into special forces, or the U.S. Marshals, or if he had gotten a girlfriend, or something. If only ... 168 people might still be alive today.

I submit that if Scott Norwood's field goal attempt with 8 seconds left in Super Bowl XXV hadn't sailed wide right, that building might still be standing.

Or...

[RailGunner]

Or if Brett Hull hadn't been in the crease....

Don't forget the Sabres choking in the Stanley Cup, either.

/Go Red Wings.. er.. I mean... screw the NHL.

Similarly

[SimianOverlord]

If The Times newspaper should be believed, a young man of rich foreign family educated in Oxford several years ago was belittled for the lesser stature of his manhood, developing somewhat of a complex about it. The young man's name was Osama, and had nature been kinder to him the world could have been a very different place indeed.