You guys watching this crazy shit today? Seems up to 10 planes were targeted to be hijacked and blown up midair between Britan and the U.S.
It also appears that the explosives were to be brought aboard in carry-on luggage, were liquid based and were in bottles of "British Gatoraide" and were to be detonated via cell phone or IPod.
This just proves my long-standing position that anyone with an IPod should be inprisoned without trial or specific charges.
Lots of changes to carry-on luggage in effect now (though likeky temporary).
Posted by B.J. (Member # 858) on :
I saw this on TV last night, and at the time they were saying 20 aircraft. Of course, I just found another source saying 6 planes. Whatever the details, this would have been a very bad day had they not been caught.
B.J.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
"Lots of changes to carry-on luggage in effect now (though likeky temporary)."
Likely not, because they're far too convenient for airlines ("Oh, you want something to drink? Well, you'll just have to buy it from us!") and will keep getting milked for all their worth. Besides, with everybody gasping over how naughty and innovative these fuckos were by planning to use liquid explosives, it would just be irresponsible not to enforce them permanently, wouldn't it?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Heh. Apparently they just found one of the guys in custody's pre-recorded martyrdom tape. He'll never live it down. . .
But, yeah. My sister-in-law was flying out of the country this evening too - luckily, she made it OK; something to be said for living outside London I guess.
It's not something the airlines are going to complain about, no. People have been taking the piss with carry-on luggage for years (you should have seen, hell, tried to lift the stuff we brought back from Italy in our carry-on luggage - four litres of wine, spirits, cheese. . .). I'm not looking forward to Lula's next flight if she doesn't have her duck along with her. . .
Posted by Jay the Obscure (Member # 19) on :
This is why the government should have hired a bunch of creative thinkers a long time ago. Someone would have come up with this scenario to bring down a plane.
Posted by Veers (Member # 661) on :
Actually, ten years ago, there was a plot almost exactly the same as this one.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
While bottles of stuff (water, soda, whatever) might remain banned, there's a lot of stuff that will have to (eventually) be allowed back on planes- medicinal supplies in cream form for starters (I cant travel anywhere without Zinc Oxide paste for example).
Airlines will have to alter their current lack of provisions now- many were in the process of eliminating beverages/foods completely to keep ticket costs down- and will have to at least provide water now. Expensive, screened, FAA-approved water, but still...
Also, the cost of luggage will skyrocket: at my work, many people already ship their stuff back rather than get charged by the airlines.
Still...GO BRITAN! Seriously, someone deserves a medal or promotion over this: it sounds like the plot was known about for a while before the go-ahead to arrest the suspects was given.
Now as long as there's not some fucking Hezbollah connection to the terrorists, it's a big win all around. Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
It's a police operation. I am going to conservatively estimate that police in the UK make a gajillion arrests a year. I mean, I'm awfully glad no planes blew up, but are we really at the point where a lack of fiery death means something fantastically unusual has happened, as opposed to cops doing their (admittedly difficult and praiseworthy) job?
Considering how much trouble airlines have staying in business when they aren't being blown up, and how expensive fuel is likely to get, and how incredibly inconvenient it is going to be to make a plane truly secure, I wonder if commercial air travel for the masses will just go away.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
No...it wont "go away", but it will likely change some. Elimination of seperate classes for starters as airlines maximize space for more passengers to offset costs.
As to police ops, it's a big win in that police are learning how to effectively deal with terror cells -british cops have (arguably) the most anti-terrorism experience in the world already and now seem to have adapted to the new threat. It's not "fantastically unusual", just the start of what is hopefully a big trend in stopping nut jobs from killing innocents.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Jason, I'd say the Brits are only topped by the Israelis.
Sol, I would say it varies on how difficult and praiseworthy a cops job is, depending on the area. The ones in a bigger town/city, yes, the ones in little burgs like mine, where the cops get board an usually pull people over for doing 47 or 48 in a 45 mph zone, no. It got so bad on tickets that the judge would say that anyone from my burg with a ticket for 4 or less dismissed, go see the clerk.
Of course, then they followed a burg councilman that had taken his sons car for a test drive after working on it and pissed him off, so they have calmed down a bit.
The airlines will downsize the aircraft they've got, fewer flights and/or smaller aircraft, as the common joe tourist won't be able to afford to fly any where.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
I didn't mean to imply, by the way, that every cop's job performance is praiseworthy, of course.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
They'll have to really make sure bag-handlers can do their jobs now - no taking everything on board... You could end up in another country with absolutely NOTHING.
Posted by AndrewR (Member # 44) on :
They also been saying you need to take your medication in the box with the sticker on it/take your prescription... what about over the counter medication that you need to take - are the airlines going to provide that!?! Airline-brand paracetamol??
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Well, first of all, have they? Britain has imposed one set of rules, the U.S. another, and I can't say that I've heard anything about the Australian reaction, if any.
Oh well I meant UK/US but presumably these things have global consequences. PLUS I think it indeed applies to all flights INTO the UK not just out.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Currently the pan is only on liquids and creams- pharmacy stuff is left alone and carry-on items have to be in clear plastic bags (the airports are giving those out). They cant deny a perscriprion medicine, obviously, but hair gel and toothpaste will have to be bought at your destination.
Not a big inconvience, really. Things are still running faster than at the adverage holiday times.
Posted by Cartman (Member # 256) on :
Which is why, the next time this is tried, they'll just fake the prescription label and medicine, and we can all see how stupid these kneejerk measures really are.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Er...to what end exactly? You'd need a LOT of fake insulin to make a bomb. The liquid explosives are peroxide based and dogs are being trained to search out that particular scent (of course, some moron will take a bottle of peroxide into the airport to test this and get himself arrested).
The airport measures are really secondary anyway- nothing was ever brought into the airport: the terrorists were busted before they could even take their "dry run".
I wonder why they were not allowed to do the dry-run though- it would have shocased airport weaknesses....better safe than sorry of course. I bet british agents do the exact senario just to see if the plan would have worked. In fact, it would not suprise me too much to learn that airport security agents from the US and UK stage mock security breaches all the time to better prepare for the real thing.
While driving back from the store just now, NPR had an intresting bit on how over-hyped people's insecurities towards airport safety are: they reported that (all told) the toyal number of people killed on US/UK planes since the 1970's is a close match for the number of people killed by lightening and to severe allergic reaction to peanuts. More people have been killed by earthquakes and brush fires. It reminds me of people's irrational fear of sharks.
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
quote:The terrorists would have faced challenges, like adding water and keeping the chemicals cold, Rowe said. But not much of liquid would have been needed, perhaps not more than a few ounces of each.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
A few ounces of three or more pre-seperated chemicals to make TCH. Trickier than it sounds.
All I can imagine is that the terrorists planned to sit together or stash their bottles somewhere for final mixing...the restroom maybe.
quote:"You could put them in slabs under your clothing, or you could wear a belt," he said. "Some people have money belts; you could have an explosive belt." And in a jacket, a packet of plastic explosives might look like a sandwich to a screener at an X-ray machine, he said.
Now that's a far scarier prospect...a worst case scenario woud be terrorists blowing up not the planes, but the terminals full of people with that method.
It's suprising that they have not attempted to load a Blackberry or laptop with plastic explosives...seems obvious, but with millions in use on airlines each day...
Posted by Timo (Member # 245) on :
Blowing up a terminal would require massive amounts of explosive, or then lethality-enhancing measures like shrapnel. Either would be difficult to conceal. Poison gas would be much more efficient.
Bombs in aircraft are different, because all they have to achieve is rip the hull in one place, or act as fuzes to what are already flying bombs by design.
If means of stopping the terrorists from taking explosives to planes fail, the obvious second line of defense would be to fly smaller planes, with less loss of life per explosion. Uneconomical from the sheer technological point of view, but OTOH more economical than today's methods in the sense that every flight would be fully booked (and thus need not be triple-booked).
Solving the technological problems would have to begin with adopting a new type of fuel, I guess. And that still wouldn't solve the airport congestion problem. But continental flights could eventually convert to the small-plane doctrine; transcontinental ones would be a bigger challenge.
Timo Saloniemi
Posted by Sol System (Member # 30) on :
Chertoff is one scary fucker- he's allready ramping the Fear card by suggesting that the British police "may have missed some suspects" at the same time he's calling for (suprise!) greater leeway in arresting "suspects", no warrants at all needed for "national security" concerns and all sorts of other fascist shit.
This guy is -by far- the single greatest threat to the American way of life- someone that would use terror to achieve his own powerhappy goals.
Wait! Useing terror and fear of impending attacks to cow the populace would make him....er....Republican?
Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
Republican = terrorist
--Jonah
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Just wait till the elections are called off for security needs, after all, we can not have all those people at the polls making for nice juicy terrorist targets, can we?
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Now, that's just being silly. Sure, there will be massive vote-rigging on a scale that'll make 2000 and 2004 look like. . . umm, simile fails me. And there will be a place in the overall plan for random-yet-calculated security alerts; but they'll just be to slow down the voting process in key Democratic areas, or to provide a dstraction while ballot-boxes are switched or packed or tampered with. And it'll all go unreported - just look at what happened in the elections south of the border, if you can find anything out about it at all in the mainstream media.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
You mean in Mexico? That country that disdains the U.S. for employing illeagals for substandard wages...while themselves making virtual slaves of south american illeagls. Fuck 'em.
Do the Republicans even have a candidate groomed...at all? I keep reading how most Republicans are trying desperately to distance themselves from Bush- any way possible....they see the backlash coming. We'll probably see a core of Neocons turn on their master in his final year in the White House- that way they can cclaim to be an "independant thinker" or some nonsense.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
I think the neocons' first order of business will be to try to get someone out there who will continue their agenda/do what they tell him (or her, if they do go for Condi; but I doubt they will, there are plenty of rich old white guys who'll be damned if they're gonna lose "their turn" in favour of a black woman). Has Cheney actually ruled out running? And they have two years, why not try to change the Constitution so their butt-boy can stay in office?
Only if all these gambits fail will the panic set in, but it'll be late in the game, not long before the election. And besides, if they don't do as bad as everyone thinks in the upcoming mid-terms, it could be business as usual.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
"And they have two years, why not try to change the Constitution so their butt-boy can stay in office?"
Because it took 7 to 10 years for any sort of ratification element on the ERA & that failed miserably due to time-limited ratifications, rescinding of ratifications, & partial legislature ratifications. And that was just so:
SECTION 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. "SEC. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.
You think they'll move that swiftly for a destruction of term limits in this climate? HULLZ NAW. Also, new amendments don't take immediate effect; there's usually a designated start point, as seen (again) by the ERA:
"SEC. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification." Posted by Peregrinus (Member # 504) on :
I just wonder how many people who voted for Bush would suddenly abandon him at the prospect of having him in office indefinitely.
Either way, whaddaya think -- is what's going on in American government more like what Palpatine did in Star Wars, or more like what Gaius Julius C�sar did after crossing the Rubicon...?
--Jonah
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
This thread seems more than a little paranoid.
quote:Sure, there will be massive vote-rigging on a scale that'll make 2000 and 2004 look like. . . umm, simile fails me. And there will be a place in the overall plan for random-yet-calculated security alerts; but they'll just be to slow down the voting process in key Democratic areas, or to provide a dstraction while ballot-boxes are switched or packed or tampered with. And it'll all go unreported...
The 'key Democratic areas' tend to be densely populated cities such as New York or Los Angeles, which are therefore the most likely to suffer actual terrorist attacks.
As for the media, the mainstream media hates Bush and is willing to report anything that will make him, or the Republicans look bad. Do we all remember the fraudulent Air National Gaurd letter a few years back? CBS's response was essentially 'yeah, the letter's a fake, but an old lady said it sounds like something the now-deceased commander would have said'. As for massive ballot tampering, the mainstream media went nuts over wiretapping and the tracing of international financial transactions, do you honestly think they would turn a blind eye to full-blown ballot tampering?
As for what's going on in American politics, the same thing is going on that has always gone on: the two parties fight it out to determine who will end up in temporary control of the Executive and/or Legislative branches. This tends to involve extensive mud-slinging, name-calling, and accusations. The only (somewhat) major world leader who is currently trying to become president-for-life a la Fidel Castro is Venezuela's Hugo Chavez.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Only a little, I was striving for so much more than that.
Chavez has problems with his nemesis on the loose now. I wonder if the CIA helped with that, just to keep Hugo off balance.
I have lost all respect for the president of this fair coutry, and I mean the position, never had any for the man.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
If the republicans win again, it will be for two reasons- They'll capitalize on irrational fears or/and the Democrats will campaign on a platform of "look how bad Bush is!" instead of making a plan (any plan!) for improving our country's situation and rallying behind that.
I truly think that if the Democrats were to go all year without pointing out Bushco's obvious failures (the media will report that anyway), and focused on promoting a plan for returning troops home, improving homeland security without sacrificing civil liberties (i.e. through improving imtel networks) and working on a imigration standard that actually works, they'd win by a landslide.
But it wont happpen- too many prominent Dems are in it only for themselves- at their party's (and nation's) expense.
Posted by Lee (Member # 393) on :
Ooh, we got a wingnut. To sum up: "Blah blah blah, liberal media elite, blah blah blah, Chavez."
quote:The 'key Democratic areas' tend to be densely populated cities such as New York or Los Angeles, which are therefore the most likely to suffer actual terrorist attacks.
Which makes them all the more likely places for bogus alerts to take place, disrupting the voting. After all, why waste such an opportunity? And terror alerts needn't be restricted to places where the darkies live, fear knows no boundaries, especially with you lot (one woman having panic attack on plane => plane diverted with fighter escort? For fuck's sake) - hell, I was living half a mile away from the IRA bomb in the Strand back in 1990; I slept through it. . .
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
Ah, but Lee, that wasn't real terrorism. Real terrorism began on 9/11 when God's nation was attacked by the evil Islamo-facists and the weak willed Liberal European media types that simply fail to understand this are traitors, pure and simple. VOTE REPUBLICAN, WAR IS PEACE, BUSH IS SMART.
Seriously, Islamic terrorism is a serious threat but the monumental cock-ups made by the US government in particular in dealing with it since 9/11 are almost unbelievable. Almost everything, from the rhetoric of senior Republicans to the half-arsed, ideaologically driven Iraq invasion plan that bore almost no resemblance to the likely military situation to the fact that anyone who disagrees with the 'Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld is always right and have made no mistakes' line is automatically smeared by Republicans as being 'unpatriotic' at the very least. The manifest and disgusting failure of senior government officials in the US to take reponsibility is amazing. And not in a good way.
And then we have our own Dear Leader, who appears to do everything Dubya tells him to (even down to replacing our Foreign Secretary) without considering the consequences for this country in general and our armed forces in particular. Our forces are still having to make cuts to pay for operations which are being carried out with an absolute minimum of equipment. Not to mention that much of the equipment that we do have is knackered. If we're going to do these things, at least give the forces the money and equipment to do so properly instead of concentrating on cheap political ploys like a mass pardon of deserters from teh Great War on the strength of a few (and not that many) having been 'shell shocked' and a monumentally outdated view of the British Army's performance in that war as being one of 'lions led by donkeys'. And you don't even want to get me started on the farce that is MoD procurement.
I'll calm down now.
Posted by Zefram (Member # 1568) on :
quote:Ooh, we got a wingnut. To sum up: "Blah blah blah, liberal media elite, blah blah blah, Chavez."
Yes, a wingnut and a proud member of the Vast Right-wing Conspiracy. I may even be a religous nut. It can't hurt to add at least one dissonant voice to the chorus, right?
Does the majority of the US media lean towards the left or not? There have been a variety of studies (not to mention plenty of anecdotal evidnece) that show that the vast majority of journalists and journalism majors favor the Democratic party. Ted Turner, the founder of CNN, is a self-acknowledged socialist. And the New York Times is certainly not on Bush's side. I only bring it up because the thought that a left-leaning media would look the other way in the face of a Republican plot to tamper with the election, when past actions show that they are willing to jump on anything that appears out of sorts, is pretty silly.
As for a massive Republican conspiracy to rig up terrorism alerts along with a simultaneous attempt to stuff ballot boxes, I seriously doubt the Republican party is anywhere near organized enough to even consider it. The party has been divided over issues such as immigration, the handling of the Iraq war, education, etc., and seems to be having a hard time deciding who should be running for President. Personally I would like to see Rice up for the candidacy.
Posted by TSN (Member # 31) on :
No matter what the journalists themselves think, the media are going to report the things that their advertisers will approve of. That's where the money comes from, and the news is a business. And guess which party has the majority of the people running the biggest-paying advertisers?
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Condoleeza Rice will never be president. Why? She's too fucking ugly. No joke.
Does the majority of the US media lean towards the left or not? No. It leans toward whatever serves its self-interest at the time regardless of political lines. Network was prophetic in more than one area. The days of Arthur Vandenburg & Carr Van Anda, Walter Cronkite & Edward Murrow are over.
i have for quite some time persisted with the theory that the true seat of power in this nation resides not with the president (who is infact a figurehead placeholder) but in some decentralized non-essential positions that no one really ever thinks about. Lieutenant Governor of Idaho, say, or comptroller for the State of Vermont.
Posted by Da_bang80 (Member # 528) on :
I thought it was aliens...
At least that's what Discovery channel thinks
Anyone remember when Discovery was the playboy channel for your family pet?
Posted by Chris (Member # 71) on :
But do US states have lieutenant governors, though? I thought that was the term for the queen's envoy in a province...
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
Yes, they do, a hold over from the rebellion. Since they were to have no vices calling them a vice gov'ner didn't make since.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Lieutenant governor is very important lately. Lots of governor scandals. Point in case: Connecticut's governor, John fuckass rowland, was indicted for all sorts of graft (Oh, BIG fucking srurprise, he's from Waterbury, people...!) & he finally made a wise decision & stepped down. Who took over? The lieutenant governor, Jodi Rell (nice lady, lives in Brookfield, next to where I grew up.)
Posted by Wraith (Member # 779) on :
All people from Waterbury are fuckass grafters and ladies from Brookfield are nice? Okay.
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Mmm..pretty much, yeah. Waterbury is like 75% mob-owned. Whereas my grandmother lived in Brookfield for 23 years.
Posted by Jason Abbadon (Member # 882) on :
Yeah, but it was your grandma that kept the mob out of Brookfield. She was one scary old lady.
Posted by Ritten (Member # 417) on :
So, if grandmom had lived in Waterbury, even with the mob there, it would have been okay then?
Posted by Shik (Member # 343) on :
Well, my grandfather was a little afraid of her...
She'd never have lived in Waterbury. Too "low-class." A worker's city? Forget it.
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